Dinner! 2014 (Part 1)

[Dejah]

I also messed up the pot stickers. None of them stuck to the pot, They came right off. LOL!

dcarch

Fish and potstickers look still very nice!

Did you brown the bottom before adding the liquid? You can keep browning a little more after the water and/or stock is gone and the potsticker will have some brown bits they can stuck to.

Franci: I think dcarch was kidding...

[Dejah]

These were the best baby pickerel fillets we've ever had - even frozen. They came from a fishing town, Gimli on Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba. I dusted them with flour, freshly ground salt and pepper, then fried quickly in a bit of butter.

Spaghetti squash was microwaved, pulled up with a fork, then covered with grated reduced fat Parmesan cheese and a slice of fat free mozz cheese. Put them in the oven and mistakenly turned onto broil...the "crust" looked worse than it tasted.

[Ann_T]

Dinner for two.

Grilled Porterhouse Steak

[basquecook]

I had blue fish for the first time a couple weeks ago. My husband asked me: how is that you never had blue fish? Your father eats "pesce azzurro" all the time!

In Italian with the name we mean all the oily fishes but blue fish I discovered it's pesce serra. I cooked it buried in salt and it was really very good! I liked it much more than mackerel. Tonight I cooked en papillotte...bad choice! If I tried this cooking method first time around I would have just banned blue fish from my kitchen. So, don't cook blue fish en papillotte.

image.jpg

Been love watching your Chinese Cookery!

Something I like about Blue fish is serving Blue Fish Ceviche.. I love douglas rodriguez and I have made a blue fish ceviche roughly based on this before.. But, this is a beautiful recipe..

douglas rodriguez blue fish and horseraddish

Had a catering event last night for some whiskey company.. I have several bottles leftover in my house.. We ate leftover lamb chops and salad for dinner late last night.

Edited February 5, 2014 by basquecook (log)

[robirdstx]

This has become one of our current favorites, with a changing variety of vegetables:

Spicy Pork Tenderloin Stir Fry

[Ann_T]

Robirdstk, I can see why it is a favourite. Love all the hot peppers.

[Paul Bacino]

Ann-- Very Nice nice PorterHouse

Not easy to cook them , w/o over cooking the filet sometimes. Plus you got a decent filet with that cut also.

How are you sourcing your meat?

Paul

Edited February 6, 2014 by Paul Bacino (log)

[mm84321]

Crêpe dentelles filled with mandarin sorbet, basil panna cotta

[scubadoo97]

Had a leftover lamb shank and some green plantains, so......

Lamb mofongo

[Norm Matthews]

Main course for dinner tonight was braised brisket with gravy and potatoes.

[Ann_T]

Norm, Comfort food at its finest.

[mgaretz]

Tonight was homemade pastrami sandwiches on homemade rye bread:

The pastrami just out of the smoker:

Cut:

The rye bread just out of the oven:

Sliced:

And the final sandwich:

[Ann_T]

Mgaretz, my mouth is watering for your pastrami sandwich. All that is missing is a big dill pickle.

Roasted a couple of chicken breasts for dinner. Green Peppercorn sauce, roasted potatoes and fresh asparagus.

[scubadoo97]

Mgaretz, did you corn your own brisket or used a prepared corned beef?

It all looks delicious and makes me want to fire up the smoker.

[mgaretz]

Mgaretz, my mouth is watering for your pastrami sandwich. All that is missing is a big dill pickle.

Damn! I had them in the fridge and forgot completely about them!

[mgaretz]

Mgaretz, did you corn your own brisket or used a prepared corned beef?

It all looks delicious and makes me want to fire up the smoker.

I did not corn it myself, primarily because where I live they get $6.99 a pound (or more) for brisket and I can buy it already prepared for $3.99 a pound or less if it's on sale (that particular one was $3.49/lb). It's also why I've never made brisket in my smoker. I can buy really good sirloin steaks or roast for $3.99/lb on sale and rib eyes for $6.99. Can't see spending $6.99/lb for brisket, because even if it's great after smoking, it's still brisket. (I was raised on brisket and had it at least once a week - but that when it was $.59/lb.)

[rotuts]

re pickle : consider half sours.

Ba-Tampte

http://batamptepickle.com/products.php

[scubadoo97]

I hear ya mgaretz. I do the same even though I can get a large brisket flat for $3-4/lb. As long as I soak the prepared ones enough to tame the salt it works great. Recently I've been smoking most of the way and steam finishing

[mgaretz]

I hear ya mgaretz. I do the same even though I can get a large brisket flat for $3-4/lb. As long as I soak the prepared ones enough to tame the salt it works great. Recently I've been smoking most of the way and steam finishing

I always do an overnight soak to reduce the saltiness - whether I'm just making corned beef (which now I do sous vide) or the pastrami. I use Meathead's method at amazing ribs.com which calls for applying the rub, resting two days, smoke to 203f, rest another day or two, then steam back to 203f before slicing and eating. My rub is black pepper, coriander and mustard powder.

[basquecook]

Sick wife.. Made chicken soup with a little lime in it.. Served an avocado salad with raw onions and lime juice.. Figured raw onions and chicken soup, that's got to help her, no?

A rare dinner up in the tv room..

For dessert, Miss K and I had vanilla pana cottas. Can you spot the vanilla beans? These were saved in the freezer from an event last week.. A couple hours of defrosting, they were perfect. No fancy accompaniments but, we kept a strong resolve.

Edited February 7, 2014 by basquecook (log)

[patrickamory]

Mark those homemade pastrami sandwiches are ridiculous. A nice spicy brown mustard? In any case just mouthwatering.

Tai bai chicken:

[Ann_T]

Basquecook, I know that soup would make me feel good. Hope your wife feels better.

Ann-- Very Nice nice PorterHouse

Not easy to cook them , w/o over cooking the filet sometimes. Plus you got a decent filet with that cut also.

How are you sourcing your meat?

Paul

Thanks Paul. We have a couple of good local butchers and one of our grocery stores has a meat counter and butchers on staff. They carry Sterling Silver beef which is consistently great.

Lamb Shanks tonight.

[basquecook]

Miss A is still recovering so, we did not go out tonight. Pork chops and a head of iceberg were the only things I needed from the store.

Leftover creme fraiche dressing.. Homemade creme fraiche and lemon. Added some blue and some speck.

We had leftover speck from a meat platter.. Crisping prosciutto or speck is a great way to use dried out pieces.. This was sliced a week and a half ago.

Pork chops:

Grilled the pork chops on just about high, flipping every 3 minutes. after 2 flips per side, another 1.5 minutes per side. pork was perfectly pink

we just ate two of the chops.

Roasted mushroom caps in some butter and olive oil then tossed in some tarragon.

More defrosted pana cotta (about 18 left)

Edited February 8, 2014 by basquecook (log)

[Kim Shook]

Ann – thank you! Your cocktail glass is ravishing! I so covet that! And lamb shanks – probably my very favorite meat. Yours look perfectly roasted and I’d love to have them soon!

Mark – thank you for the recommendation for the char siu seasoning. I’ll look for that. The soup looks perfect! As does that pastrami sandwich.

Robirdstx – I really like the sound of Asiago and almond meal chicken! Would you share the recipe?

Norm – lovely, comforting brisket dish! That gravy !

Basquecook – what perfectly lovely little panna cottas! What were they made in?

Still using as many short cuts as I can, so dinner last night was Stouffer's meatloaf:

Served with 4 cheese pierogies and roasted cauliflower.

[basquecook]

Thank you Kim.. Good to see you back. they were cooked in silicone molds.. The last little bit, i ended up throwing in two small soup bowls.