Dinner! 2014 (Part 4)

[patrickamory]

I will absolutely not scream and run away! My mother started off her mac and cheese with a roux and then added Velveeta!

[CatPoet]

Carbonnade ala Flamande, for dinner today . The recipe ended up being my dutch friends recipe or rather his mum's , she has been making it  for over 25 years in the restaurant she used to own. It was ok, it wasnt wow but yes good.   It was supposed to be  19 C today but we  topped at 31 C so maybe it was the wrong weather for such a dish.

 

 

It was supposed to be  gooseberry toffee pie, but my  gooseberries exploded into  liquid,  it was more soup then  the thick mass I normally get.  I am a believer in  Waste not want not  so after thicken it with  cornstarch, I had a ruby red, sweet , tart   totally gooseberry goosebumps inducing  goo.  I grabbed the nearest cookbook I had  and made The least favourite dessert of Verence II, King of Lancre,  I baked tre puff pastry  shells and when they had cooled I piped them full.   YUM!!!!!!!!

[ninagluck]

scallops with raz-el-hanout, lemony houmus, rocket. shellfish drawer of freezer empty, yeah!

[scubadoo97]

scallops with raz-el-hanout, lemony houmus, rocket. shellfish drawer of freezer empty, yeah!

Looks great. What's in your houmus?

[Paul Bacino]

Yep!!

 

Sunday Gravy and Salsiccia

 

 

[patrickamory]

Simple summer meal.

 

Salad of mixed lettuces with cinnamon basil, sage and hyssop.

 

Chicken thighs marinated for three hours in chopped habanero, shallots, garlic, Mexican oregano, salt and pepper. Sautéd in ghee, pan deglazed with vermouth and served with a squeeze of lemon and parsleyed rice.

 

 

[BonVivant]

Avoiding cooking again... I used lettuce leaves as wraps. After the first one it was clear I needed to cut the rind 'noodles' into smaller bits. My molars and incisors are no longer sharp!

 

(This series in .gif)

 

 

 

[Shelby]

Not a great picture.  I had some leftover dough from making bierocks so I did up some calzones.  They were stuffed with shiitake mushrooms, italian sausage, onions, peppers and mozz cheese.

 

[ninagluck]

scoobadoo97, I put lemon zest and more lemon juice as usual in the houmus, al the usual studd  plus some parsley. was nice with the scallops

[CatPoet]

 

Another day of promise of 16 and getting 35 C.. ugh but the  Chili was made in the morning when it was only 22 C.  I found the recipe  at a Primal cooking page,  Primal cooking is apparently cooking from scratch, avoiding sugar and dairy, legumes and grain.  

Honestly   stoneage man most likely ate does things if he found them, how else would we have learn what we could eat and if you are starving, you try everything that might look like food.  Anyway, the primal cook in me added  beans and beer in it, felt totally right and YUM  this is the best chili I ever made! Hearty, spicy, smoky and  good heat .  Husband added sambal to kick up a bit and my daughter  loved it too. We just served it with nachos and bread.

[Robenco15]

Dover Sole, new potatoes, chanterelles, Noilly Prat sauce. Amazing fish. This is a great and simple Yannick Alleno recipe.

[dcarch]

I have been running around like mad recently, just some simple cooks.

 

dcarch

 

Roasted SV pork

 

 

SV salmon on beet greens

 

 

[mgaretz]

Dcarch, that's a great crust on that pork - how did you get it?

[SobaAddict70]

Mejadra, with yogurt, cucumber and filfel chuma

[liuzhou]

Hot weather food. It has been  38ºC / 100ºF all day. Not ideal cooking weather. So minimum hear generation byu poaching a whole organic chicken in Chinese style.  The bird is Put into cold water with some aromatics (ginger, garlic, shallots and brought to a boil. As soon as the water is boiling, the flame is turned off and the chicken left to cook slowly in the residual heat.

 

Served with couscous which only really requires a kettleful of water being brought to the boil. The couscous is mixed with carrot cooked with the chicken, raisins, scallion, coriander (cilantro) and olive oil and lime dressing.

 

There was a second salad on the side - a basic green salad which I didn't bother to photograph. 

 

Edited July 29, 2014 by liuzhou (log)

[dcarch]

Dcarch, that's a great crust on that pork - how did you get it?

 

Thanks.

 

Not a big chunk of pork, so I used a chimney starter, after the pork was SVed.

 

A chimney starter is very effective and quick for small portions of meat or steak. 

 

1. Butane torch to get the chimney lit. (10 seconds)

 

2. A variable speed garden leaf blower to get the charcoal blasting like a furnace (30 seconds)

 

dcarch

[Shelby]

Liuzhou, I have never heard of that method of cooking chicken.  I bet it's really tender!  About how long did it take to finish after turning off the heat?  I assume you keep it covered with a lid?

 

EDITED to say--Sorry Liuzhou, I'm reading more about the method in the hot cooking thread.  I wrote before exploring further. 

 

 

Ohhhhhh, we had an excellent meal last night.  Made fattoush salad for the first time ever.  What a revelation.  We REALLY liked it.  I used a mix of recipes.  I'm babbling lol.

 

Pita brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with sumac and toasted

 

 

 

Dressing--isn't it a pretty color?

 

 

 

Salad--of course, this time of year with fresh garden veggies, any salad is awesome.  The cucumbers and tomatoes were SO good with this dressing.  I didn't have any mint.  I used some fresh cilantro and parsley.

 

 

 

Along side we had zucchini fritters

 

 

And fried fish

 

Edited July 29, 2014 by Shelby (log)

[Anna N]

Shelby,

Here's the western version:

http://kristinsfavoriterecipes.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/chicken-salad-a-la-danny-kaye/

[rotuts]

would brining help this type of chicken prep ?

[basquecook]

So my buddy from high school, came over with his wife last night. I always try to step up the game a little when he comes over. . We were lucky enough to get another friend's CSA box who was out of town.. Leaving in a couple of days, gotta move some vegetables..  

 

It was a successful dinner in more ways than one.. The last time we had dinner, we split a bottle of whiskey and his wife kind of got pissed.. This time, we kept it to a two bottle of wine minimum and everyone left before 10:30.. there may have been one shot of mezcal in there. 

 

Bought this big lobster in Chinatown.. It was close to 3.5 lbs.  

 

Here is the photo next to a wine glass and spoon for perspective.  Cheap prices, I think it was like 38 dollars for the thing.  

 

 

Peaches soaked in a simple syrup as they were kind of not the best.  The perked up after that treatment..Though, just coming from Georgia,  maybe that is why they needed some help.  Really nice tomatoes, buratta cheese, really sweet corn my mother gave me, balsamic oil, some basil mortared up with olive oil, some thai basil flowers.  We make this dish quiet a bit at www.biteclub.com and it is always a winner. 

 

its summer on a plate. 

 

 

With the large body, instead of making like a stock and seeing it was a female with lots of roe, i took the inside liquid mixed it with room temp butter and a bunch of saltines.. Added it to the cavity and broiled then baked.    

 

Made that fennel pasta from Friday.. It had the other half a can of sardines, the other fennel head I bought, currants, Pastis and the rest of the pistachios..  

 

Then Miss A made a fig tart with mascarpone bottom

 

Edited July 29, 2014 by basquecook (log)

[Shelby]

Figs.  Drool.

[basquecook]

5 dollars a box in Chinatown right now..  Though, this summer, i was visiting Fort Pulaski and they had this huge beautiful fig bush I guess ..  We asked the parks person if we could eat some and they were perfect and ready to go.. We were just eating fig after fig for awhile..

 

This thing was huge, i have never seen a fig arrangement like this..  But, even around where I live in Brooklyn there are tons of fig trees just growing in the most unusual spots..  I planted one in my backyard about 4 years ago and though it has fruit sometimes, nothing like this.  

 

 

[liuzhou]

Liuzhou, I have never heard of that method of cooking chicken.  I bet it's really tender!  About how long did it take to finish after turning off the heat?  I assume you keep it covered with a lid?

 

EDITED to say--Sorry Liuzhou, I'm reading more about the method in the hot cooking thread.  I wrote before exploring further. 

 

It is me who needs to apologise. I posted virtually the same thing on both threads because it seemed to fit in both places. I should have realised it would cause confusion in any follow ups.

I think all your questions are covered on the other thread except the one about covering with a lid. Yes, it is covered.

[Shelby]

5 dollars a box in Chinatown right now..  Though, this summer, i was visiting Fort Pulaski and they had this huge beautiful fig bush I guess ..  We asked the parks person if we could eat some and they were perfect and ready to go.. We were just eating fig after fig for awhile..

 

This thing was huge, i have never seen a fig arrangement like this..  But, even around where I live in Brooklyn there are tons of fig trees just growing in the most unusual spots..  I planted one in my backyard about 4 years ago and though it has fruit sometimes, nothing like this.  

 

 

You're killing me.  Gorgeous.  Absolutely gorgeous.

[gfweb]

5 dollars a box in Chinatown right now..  Though, this summer, i was visiting Fort Pulaski and they had this huge beautiful fig bush I guess ..  We asked the parks person if we could eat some and they were perfect and ready to go.. We were just eating fig after fig for awhile..

 

This thing was huge, i have never seen a fig arrangement like this..  But, even around where I live in Brooklyn there are tons of fig trees just growing in the most unusual spots..  I planted one in my backyard about 4 years ago and though it has fruit sometimes, nothing like this.  

 

 

Apparently a just-right microclimate being up against the fort. Protection from winter winds means a lot to trees at the Northern edge of their range. Magnolia grandiflora for example is a tree of the South (https://www.google.com/search?q=magnolia+grandiflora+range&client=firefox-a&hs=QKr&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&imgil=6FTi_h3wBycRfM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQmaHplFQNI9St8_bKC5M2KFXbqIQGPw6U_t-de3x-ydyY9gwGh%253B649%253B466%253BlgWgXzJhc9125M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fen.wikipedia.org%25252Fwiki%25252FMagnolia_grandiflora&source=iu&usg=__u02BnTxdr_2EfqsvvaXkmimWEJY%3D&sa=X&ei=9crXU7_vOMqHyASf6IHQDg&ved=0CDMQ9QEwAg&biw=1266&bih=864#facrc=_&imgrc=6FTi_h3wBycRfM%253A%3BlgWgXzJhc9125M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fupload.wikimedia.org%252Fwikipedia%252Fcommons%252F2%252F2f%252FMagnolia_grandiflora_map.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fen.wikipedia.org%252Fwiki%252FMagnolia_grandiflora%3B649%3B466) but in the right location they can live in Philly.