Lunch! What'd ya have? (2014)

[CatPoet]

Well that was the sauce I got for the pasta bonanza to be honest...  I just dont like ketchup as much as some people do.  I like my Swedish way of eating lingonjam to every meal and then some.

 

I did try it and  no ketchup and I are not friends in that amount , a little as condiment yes but not as sauce.

 

Today we hade Scottish pancakes with a twist, we added every piece of left over cheese in it and then some sliced smoked ham.  My daughter loved it  and so did I and  yes we had lingonjam to it.

[Paul Bacino]

When Pho Meets Ramen!!

 

I pressure cooked a meat  ( Chicken  ) stock with charred ginger and onion, lemon grass and lime leafs. and the basic other stuff..  to that I made this broth by adding Hoisin and Sriracha

 

My additives were-Blanched seasoned Boy choy. shitake mushroom ( marinated ), rice noodles marinated, sirloin steak , local corn, pickled banana peppers and Thai basil

 

 

 

 

 

[suzilightning]

...is, in a sense, the components of Marcella Hazan's simple tomato sauce...  ;-)

(Have you tried that sauce?)

Yes...though the ketchup has a bit more vinegar and spice in it....

 

or as Honey Boo Boo calls it "sketti sauce"

 

today made a small ramekin of mac' and cheese - inspired by the book Soul Food

dinner will be salad and the leftover garlicy sausages with peppers and onion.

 

CATPOET  love lingonberry especially with game.  Will pull out my recipe and pm it to you for the oxtail marinade.  You should be able to modify it easily for the cuts you have.

Edited July 17, 2014 by suzilightning (log)

[liuzhou]

Spaghetti with Baby Scallops, Shallots, Garlic and Olive oil. Dusted with shichimi togarashi and sea salt.

 

[Smithy]

liuzhou, how do you cook those baby scallops?

[liuzhou]

 

iuzhou, how do you cook those baby scallops?

 

They were fried in the shallot and garlic flavoured olive oil for mere seconds. Until they just turned opaque.

[CatPoet]

Suzilightning,  you might love the lingon and  reindeer pasta dish I make from time to time.

[liuzhou]

Fridge clearance lunch,

Poached chicken leg, mixed salad with lime vinaigrette.

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2014 by liuzhou (log)

[Ashen]

I am loving  nicoise salads for lunch lately.  

 

[huiray]

Couple of lunches from days past.

 

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• Shishito peppers, pan-seared w/ sea salt & a little hot oil.  Pickled scallions & Japanese cucumbers.

• Angel hair pasta tossed in the pan w/ sautéed sliced chicken breast, cut-up black-tinged maitake mushroom (some pieces were tough; those were tossed during eating), chopped smashed garlic, chopped parsley. Seasoning adjusted.  Coriander leaves garnish.

 

 

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• Leftover broiled turmeric chicken wings.

• Roma beans (sliced diagonally) pan-cooked/fried w/ the leftover turmeric chicken wings pan-deglazing-sauce plus some extra oil.

• Skinny wonton noodles (commercial).

 

Folks interested in chemistry might note that the turmeric stained the wonton noodles red where it came in contact with it.  The curcuminoids in turmeric are acid-base indicators and the red color on the noodles attests to their being still alkaline due to the use of "kan sui" (alkali water/K₂CO₃-NaHCO₃) in making them.

 

Edited July 24, 2014 by Mjx
Member-requested edit. (log)

[huiray]

Lunch today.

 

• Pacific White Shrimp [farmed; Bedrock Springs, IN] - backs slit & deveined but otherwise left all intact; marinated in Shaoxing cooking wine (about an hour); drained and the slits stuffed w/ chopped garlic^¶ & garlic oil, with garlic+oil strewn over them (in an enameled metal dish) as well.  Steamed for just a few minutes with "scallion flowers" added a minute before the shrimp were just done.  Dressed w/ a mixture of good soy sauce [Higeta Honzen] and black sesame oil, plus chopped green parts of scallions.

 

^¶Fresh Music garlic, BIG head; about a head's worth; almost-smoking vegetable oil was poured onto and over the chopped garlic in a pyrex cup, the mixture stirred and left for a short while to cool open to the air.

 

 

 

 

• Dragon Tongue beans & Yellow Wax beans, sliced diagonally; sautéed w/ "scallion oil" (chopped white parts of scallions sautéed in hot vegetable oil; the scallion parts left in and the beans added etc) & sea salt.

• White rice.

 

 

 

 

Dessert:

These were pretty big and fat ones.  :-)

[Smithy]

^¶Fresh Music garlic, BIG head; about a head's worth; almost-smoking vegetable oil was poured onto and over the chopped garlic in a pyrex cup, the mixture stirred and left for a short while to cool open to the air.

 

Your photos are beautiful, and the food looks delicious, as always! I'm interested in this garlic technique. Is it a way to lightly cook the garlic without risking its being overcooked and going bitter? If not, what advantage does it have?

[Paul Bacino]

Fresh garden stuff!!

 

Finished white eggplant dish!!

Quick skillet fried white baby eggplant in EVOO till brown, add garlic , saute, add fresh Roma tomato and sun golds,saute,finish with little red sauce,fresh rosemary, add in oregano infused Penna pasta.. topped with Thai basil and pecorino

 

 

 

 

 

[huiray]

Your photos are beautiful, and the food looks delicious, as always! I'm interested in this garlic technique. Is it a way to lightly cook the garlic without risking its being overcooked and going bitter? If not, what advantage does it have?

 

Smithy, thanks for the kind words.  I appreciate them.

 

The hot-oil garlic technique in this case was, yes, to lightly cook them - taking the "rawness" off them, as the short steaming period would not have been enough to "cook" otherwise raw garlic.  Also, it served to infuse the oil to generate "garlic oil". (I also macerated them, with the spoon, to add to the infusion into the oil) Yes, it could have been done in a pan as well.  No, "overcooking them" was not really an issue here although doing it in the pan does run that risk.  However, generating lightly colored/browned garlic by doing so and then using it in this dish is also an alternative.  The flavor profile of the garlic changes with the hot oil treatment or with a sauté in a pan, of course; what I wanted was less of the "raw" taste.

 

BTW, this technique of hot oil poured over something is also used in generating the ginger-scallion sauce I make for Hainanese Chicken, a known method.  The results are fairly different between doing so and just steeping the grated/minced ginger & scallion in cold oil for a while, which is the alternative.  I far prefer the use of the hot oil, which also produces a more "macerated"/softened ginger-scallion mix with attendant change in the flavor profile.

[Kim Shook]

I am amazed and impressed by y’all’s lunches!  This is as good as it gets for me (since I usually don’t even eat an actual lunch):

Open faced ham and salami sandwich, toasted Swiss and Dijon, and just buttered 3-cheese bread.  With some gorgeous local white peaches.

[Ann_T]

All of your lunches are better than dinners.

 

 

I roasted some roma tomatoes yesterday and Moe had them with a little salami and homemade bread for lunch.

[Blether]

It seems I instinctively like, and have to 'like' every meal you post, Ann_T.  My name is Blether and I'm an Ann_T fanboy.  There, I said it.

 

Another quiche (I put the last one in Dinner! but the clock doesn't lie and this one has to come here).  Mature cheddar and home-cured bacon, this time.

 

I've got the crust much more the way i want it now - and to think that if I go to the French bakery across town that does the best quiche (albeit adulterated with lumps of boiled spud!  Sort it out, guys), they'll charge 5 bucks per 1/6 slice.  Last time with the bought in smoked ham, I reckoned I'd spent about 11 bucks for the whole thing.  This time it'd be around 10.

 

 

 

"Coffee not included", the blurb would have to say.  Ten minutes out of the oven:

 

 

Edited July 26, 2014 by Blether (log)

[Anna N]

Blether,

I have quiche envy. My recent attempt fell well short of the mark. Am putting it back on my to-do list for next week.

[rotuts]

4 star at least that quiche.

[jvalentino]

Big dinner coming, so light lunch. Braise kale, soppressata and grilled bread.

[huiray]

Some recent lunches.

 

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• Soup.  Basil, carrots, chikuwa; in chicken stock.

• Rice congee.  Eaten dressed w/ chopped scallions & Tianjin preserved vegetable (天津冬菜)

Generous julienned ginger, vegetable oil, sliced pork belly, short-cut pork ribs, sliced chicken drimstick; a sort of preserved mustard stem (梅菜笋; Mei Cai Sun; (“Taiwanese-taste”; rinsed under the tap before adding to the pot)); another sort of preserved mustard stem (榨菜; Zha Cai; (sesame-taste; added as-is)); water, mix of basmati & jasmine rice (water:rice ~ 8:1), a bit of sea salt.  Simmer, stirring occasionally, till done; diluted w/ some water towards the end.

 

 

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• Deep-fried soft tofu blocks.  Scallion “flowers”.  Lingham’s Hot Sauce w/ rice vinegar.

• Soup.  Fuzzy squash (mou qua), snow fungus, sliced chicken breast, chopped smashed Spanish Roja garlic, chopped up chicken fat, chicken stock.

 

 

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• Pan-seared shishito peppers, sautéed chanterelle mushrooms, pan-browned sliced king oyster mushrooms.

• Zucchini sticks, broccoli florets, chopped Cherokee Purple tomato, sliced Siberian Red garlic, vegetable oil, cut-up lamb bacon.  Eaten w/ fresh spaghettini.

 

 

[Blether]

Gamberi al forno.  We don't see scampi out in the shops here more than very occasionally.  The prawns are  赤海老 aka-ebi "red prawns" from Argentina.

 

Beurre "maitresse de knocking shop", no parsley when I went shopping, so mitsuba, garlic, black pepper, lemon juice:

 

 

Ready for the oven.  I only used about a teaspoon of the butter per prawn:

 

 

And roasted:

 

 

- the golden colour of the drippings is the natural cooked colour of the prawn juices:  they're still liquid, not roasted dry, and just the right amount for the two slices of plain, fresh home-baked bread that went with them.  Butterflying prawns from the front is harder than I expected, but I'm glad I did it.  Eaten "col bacio" if I remember the Italian right.

 

Smartphone cameras are great, but I reckon the lens cover needs to be easily replaceable.  Everything I shoot now has a faint mist over it.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Blether (log)

[FauxPas]

Velvet Corn Soup - from here:

 

http://www.purewow.com/entry_detail/recipe/10977/Velvet-corn-soup.htm

 

I used chicken in place of veg stock, some diced yellow onion and the whites from green onions in place of leeks. I did use a bit of cream, bu didn't strain the soup. Next time I would strain it. I think it would be quite nice chilled, though we had it hot. 

[CatPoet]

We had spagbol  , oh no, yeah right people dont like that word.  So we had  köttfärsås och spagetti, try to pronounce that in a hurry.  

 

My daughter manage to cover her back, but left her tummy clean..  I have no clue how she did it, but she was really enjoying her food.

[Anna N]

We had spagbol  , oh no, yeah right people dont like that word.  So we had  köttfärsås och spagetti, try to pronounce that in a hurry.  

 

My daughter manage to cover her back, but left her tummy clean..  I have no clue how she did it, but she was really enjoying her food.

Spaghetti Bolognese has rarely been a huge challenge unless I've had too many cocktails.