Dinner! 2014 (Part 4)

[CatPoet]

 

 

This is NOT Swedish meatballs, well they are and they are not, they are made in Sweden by a Swede  so yes but otherwise they are apple and pork meatballs with gravy, potatoes and peas.

[Anna N]

Tiny lamb chops, buttered broccoli and baked potato topped with milk mayo flavoured with sun-dried tomatoes and concentrated tomato paste.

[Kim Shook]

I have been MIA for quite a bit, except for an occasional glance in.  Low energy this summer (for no discernable reason, really).  So I’ve sat here today and read every single dinner post since I last posted.  Lord have mercy, you folks can cook.  I am sitting here craving pork roast, a great main-course salad, bubbly crusted pizza, bierocks (I really need to make these, Shelby), gooseberry goo tarts, green beans & liver & onions & gravy & potatoes & biscuits (good God, Shelby – what a feast), smoked chicken, ribs, moussaka, salmon cakes, meatballs, etc. etc.  I am NOT craving what is cooking in my oven right now. 

 

Rotuts – I’m sorry I missed your question regarding the orange sauce that I served with the hens.  It wasn’t actually a CI recipe, even though the hens were.  I found it on about.com and here is the link to my version:http://http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/SAUCES/Orange_Sauce_for_Poultry.html

 

I have been cooking a little and taking pictures, but nothing like I should be.  Some meals since my last posting –

Spaghetti Bolognese w/ garlic bread:

I’m sure there was a salad in there somewhere!

 

Another was breakfast for dinner:

Farm egg omelet w/ cheese and asparagus, Wright’s sausage and collards.

 

This dinner started with The Salad:

 

Mr. Kim had some  chicken coated with a packaged spice mix from our Asian grocery:

It was purported to be “Spicy” and “Thai” and was not at all spicy…or good, for that matter.  Mr. “Never throw anything away” told me to toss the other packet.  My dinner was much more successful:

Just some shrimp sautéed with some garlic and ginger paste that we got at the same store.  Delicious and delicate.  I’ll be using this jar again and again!

 

Another night I did steak and sprouts:

Success:

 

Chili is a wonderful thing to have in the freezer::

Served with corn and corn muffins:

That corn is my first try with the method of cooking unhusked corn in the microwave, then cutting off the stalk end and pulling everything off husk and silk included.  It worked VERY well.  A little more work getting it all to come off than the youtube videos show, but still much, much easier than shucking and boiling.  I will still use the old method for large amounts of corn, but for just a few ears this is my new method.  We also got the first really good tomatoes we’ve had this summer at a nearby farmer’s market:

They were the first tomatoes we’ve had this summer that I considered worth the trouble of peeling!

 

Another night – Mr. Kim’s dinner:

Salad with grilled chicken.

 

Mine:

Same grilled chicken over pilaf drizzled with teriyaki.

 

The 14th was Mr. Kim’s birthday.  By request, the meal was steak, sweet potatoes, butter beans and salad.  The salad was “Lettuce with Cream”, a weird concoction of lettuce with a simple dressing made with equal parts cream, sugar and white vinegar:

I used Bibb lettuce this time.  No reason it should be as addicting as it is.  Dinner:

Mushrooms on the steaks for Mr. Kim and Jessica.  I subbed a baked potato for me.  The steaks were far and away the best I’ve ever made.  For years, I’ve coated steaks with a mixture of Montreal steak seasoning and sugar, let them sit, seared in a pan and then oven roasted until they reach temperature.  Lately, becoming convinced that the pepper and garlic in the seasoning mix were just burning and adding bitterness, I’ve been doing just the sugar.  I never grill, because I don’t trust myself to do a good job on the grill and I love the crust that develops in the iron skillet.  Since Mr. Kim, Jess and I had dinner before a bunch of folks were coming over for dessert, I needed to get the dinner mess out of the way quickly and decided to go ahead and grill the steaks.  A couple of nights before his birthday, we’d seen a show about a steak competition and people were talking about doing a dry salt brine on steaks.  I did some reading online and gave it a try.  The result was incredible.  These were ordinary grocery store steaks.  I used a crappy (not very well-maintained) gas grill.  And I cooked them about 5 degrees beyond where I meant to.  They were still astonishingly good.

 

Last night my mother brought over beef stew:

She made this from the same recipe that I use: my grandmother’s - practically the only good thing my grandmother ever cooked.  I had thawed a cheap roast to make CI’s Roast in Foil recipe.  It is in the oven now.  Beef roast, carrots, potatoes, gravy.  It just hit me looking at Momma’s stew.  Sigh  .

[Shelby]

I always jump right over here when I get an email alert that you've posted, Kim.  Really good to see you!  Now I want a good steak with some spaghetti and chili on the side........

[huiray]

http://nomnompaleo.com/post/3501678903/crispy-braised-duck-legs

More or less. Had no celery, whizzed some fading grape tomatoes in Thermomix (it's on the counter; the blender isn't).

 

Thanks, Anna N.  Bookmarked.

[ninagluck]

panzanella with grilled peaches, now I notice, they look a bit lonesome. however, they filled me up. going to spain tomorrow, so no cooking pics from vienna, but can't wait to see yours!

[mm84321]

Tomato and basil tart

 

Stuffed Calamari in an ink sauce

Lobster with lemony tomatoes

 

[Dejah]

Rushed supper after playtime with 2-year-old granddaughter:

 

Dissected a chicken and cooked the 2 breasts and one leg. The rest will be for curry coconut chicken soup in the slow cooker tomorrow.

 

Tonight: coated chicken pieces with mayo (with olive oil), seasoned panko crumbs with Emeril's Essence and a mixture of shredded Parmesan Romano Asiago. Pan fried on one side then finished off in the oven. Had fresh corn on the cob with chili lime seasoning ( from a jar). Roasted caulifloiwer completed the meal. This chicken is SO easy, tender, and juicy.

 

[Hassouni]

Another rare foray into this thread...

 

My favorite resto in the DC area is said metro area's only Lao restaurant, where one of the signature dishes of course is tam mak hoong, known in standard Thai as som tam. However, the Laos invented it and in my mind do it best.  So here's my first attempt. I used about 15 Thai chiles, though it still wasn't as hot as when I order it "Lao hot" at the restaurant. Next time I'll try 20 chiles (And also hopefully have some crab paste on hand, as that's almost a required ingredient)

 

 

Served with Lao/Isan style sticky rice, and ping gai/gai yang (Lao/Thai) - grilled spatchcocked small chicken marinated in and basted with a paste of lemongrass, garlic, chiles, fish sauce, oyster sauce, lime juice, and lots of chopped coriander (sadly not pictured)

 

 

Funnily enough both these dishes are in the Pok Pok cookbook, which I have, but I didn't follow Ricker's recipe at all, preferring to base mine off Lao cooking blogs and videos.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Hassouni (log)

[basquecook]

Dinner for 7

 

cherry pie

 

 

 

 

 

Caesar Salad:

 

 

Lasagna-

 

 

Shrimp scampi and bruschetta to start. 

[huiray]

...

 

Funnily enough both these dishes are in the Pok Pok cookbook, which I have, but I didn't follow Ricker's recipe at all, preferring to base mine off Lao cooking blogs and videos.

 

That would be my instinct too.  :-)

 

Nice dish, BTW.

[basquecook]

from the other night

 

I noticed that the seal had broken on a vacuum packed lamb roast.  So, it was time to eat it.  It was a large roast that consisted of a rack and some ribs and a portion of the belly. 

 

Started with risotto with mushroom and blueberries.. But, didn't take a photo.. 

 

Sides were from this super cheap deli by me.. Mr Coco.. A dollar worth of asparagus. 

 

 

 

 

Red peppers were 50 cents each.. roasted..

 

 

Blueberry pie with homemade matcha ice cream.

 

[Shelby]

Ohhhh, Daniel, that cherry pie looks so good.  Sour cherry pie I assume?

 

I cannot quit taking pictures of tomatoes...you guys will just have to humor me lol.

 

 

Cukes and onions with a bit of cider vinegar

 

 

Mac and cheese again

 

 

Bierocks with a few slices of my quick fridge pickles.  I named them Quickles.  Pretty sure I should patent that.....

 

[huiray]

Marinated shrimp sautéed w/ garlic, julienned green zucchini, yellow zucchini and parsley.  Eaten w/ wild rice.

The shrimp were cooked w/ the garlic in oil first, removed & reserved, then added back in at the end and stirred in to rewarm.

 

[Blether]

Another one o' them quiche's.  Leek & parmesan, with 3/4tsp of freshly & finely ground black pepper:

 

 

 

- with some romaine lettuce on the side.

[basquecook]

Thanks Shelby. It was in fact just regular cherries. I stop in chinatown everyday for fruit. I got a bag of sort of bland cherries. So I just halved them and sugar'd them. I wasn't sure how it would come out. My pie dough is awesome and I made vanilla gelato. So, it was not going to be too bad. I really liked it.

[scamhi]

last nights dinner green bean, white bean, onion, basil and good (ortiz) tuna dressed with red wine vinegar and olive oli

the wine was a 2008

[CatPoet]

Have had a meal that is just too good to take a picture of?

 

Well today, after one nibble on the  corn cob, I didnt have time to take pictures  I just needed to eat it.   It was pesticide free, organic  corn on the cob, grown in Sweden and it was just the best I ever had.  I am so going back to this stall and buying more on Saturday.  YUM.   Oh and we had chicken, gravy and potatoes with it,  we only ate the chicken.

[Toliver]

Bierocks with a few slices of my quick fridge pickles.  I named them Quickles.  Pretty sure I should patent that.....

Quickles!  Awesome name, Shelby. 

[mm84321]

Saint Pierre studded with basil in a green tomato sauce

 

[FauxPas]

Quickles!  Awesome name, Shelby. 

 

I agree! How do you make them, Shelby? 

[huiray]

• Short-cut pork spare ribs marinated with and steamed with black bean garlic sauce, fermented soybean (taucheo), oil, chopped hot long green chillies, chopped smashed garlic (Siberian Red), julienned ginger, splash of jozo mirin & "aged" soy sauce.

• White Russian kale (de-ribbed) & garlic in chicken stock w/ a bit of extra oil.

• White rice (Thai Hom Mali).

 

 

 

Marinated ribs before steaming:

[Shelby]

I agree! How do you make them, Shelby? 

I'll post the recipe this afternoon in the pickles cook-off thread

 

Chef salad again.  Twas really hot yesterday.

 

 

[CatPoet]

 

Swedish soul food,   it is oven pancake  with smoked ham and served with lingon jam.   Same batter as Swedish pancakes but way quicker and easier to do. and it should be pork in it but I had  ham leftovers.  I love it.

 

[suzilightning]

Maultaschen.  Homemade pasta and then an all pork with spinach, onions and herbs filling.  Johnnybird came back from visiting his cousins in Germany raving about the food including maultaschen.  Guess he forgot that I have been feeding him this for years - either in the broth or similar to perogies.  I hate to poach them in the broth so I poached some in salted water; some (the ones that had small holes in the skin) I sautéed in a neutral oil then finished by steaming with some more salted water.  Served in a beef broth that I had simmered with some carrots, scallions and a bay leaf. 

 

There are 2 more packages of 10 maultaschen in the freezer for later.

 

Now off to try some new recipes:  molasses blueberry cake and chicken thighs poached in a soy broth.