Dinner 2014 (Part 7)

[Norm Matthews]

Cassie made floutas for dinner tonight.  They were really good.  She also made some kind of Mexican rice, guacamole, salsa, black beans (I want to get her recipe for them) and also had sour cream. 

[BKEats]

made homemade fettuccine tonight. made a stock with frozen shrimp shells, monkfish skin and spine, onions, thyme, carrots, tomato sauce, spicy paprika, garlic, bay leaves, white wine and red and black pepper. blended the vegetables to a puree before adding chunks of monkfish and clams.

Added clams and monkfish.

Edited January 29, 2015 by BKEats (log)

[huiray]

Tonight's version of Kon Lo Mein.  Skinny wonton  noodles tossed w/ a sauce made by quenching chopped smashed garlic sautéeing in hot peanut oil w/ a mixture of oyster sauce, Bulldog sauce, water, fish sauce, white pepper, and chopped scallions.

 

Soup.  Crushed garlic cloves, oil, bone-in beef short ribs, water, dried scallops, sea salt, thick-ish lotus root slices, thick-ish daikon (peeled) slices.  Staggered additions, simmered till done.  Seasoning adjusted.

[Paul Bacino]

Huiray--  the lotus root I see is always white..  ?

[dcarch]

Huiray--  the lotus root I see is always white..  ?

 

Canned ones are white.

 

Uncooked ones are somewhat white.

 

Otherwise they look like Huiray's.

 

dcarch

[Kim Shook]

BonVivant – gorgeous pork belly.  I prefer them to be less fatty than I usually see and yours looks perfect!

 

Steve – genius Potatoes Anna/Shepherd’s Pie combination.

 

Dinner tonight started with salad:

 

And finished with an unintentionally orange meal:

Kielbasa & onions w/ sweet potato.  

[Ann_T]

Steve, I like what you did for the shepherds pie.  I might have to steal your idea.

 

Grilled hot dogs for dinner. 

 

 

Home-made potato chips and hot dog buns.

 

 

Last night's dinner - Diner food - Hot chicken sandwich with home-made fries.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Dinner was a simple salad of spring mix (lettuce and bitter herbs), cut up white grapefruit (did I mention I have a lot of white grapefruit?), avocado oil, garlic, salt and fresh ground pepper.  A lovely combination.  No wine.  The bitter grapefruit salad was supposed to have been the first course but it turned out it was all I wanted.  Adding an actual avocado might have been even better.

 

For dessert I am dancing with la fee verte.  I prefer my absinthe neat.  If she wants to louche, she can louche herself in my liver, not my glass.

[BonVivant]

Ann_T, on 30 Jan 2015 - 07:11 AM, said:

Home-made potato chips and hot dog buns.

 

 

Last night's dinner - Diner food - Hot chicken sandwich with home-made fries.

[BonVivant]

Kim Shook: the amount of fat on pork belly I get is different every time.

 

-------------------------------

 

Normal food for me in the early months of the year. This time I first poach the sacs, then fried in lard with lots of ginger, garlic, sherry and tamari. I also made a dipping sauce with tamari, grated ginger and a few drops of sesame oil.

 

 

[liuzhou]

 

Canned ones are white.

 

Uncooked ones are somewhat white.

 

Otherwise they look like Huiray's.

 

dcarch

Edited January 30, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[rotuts]

"""  Diner food - Hot chicken sandwich ""

 

you talked me into it it looks sooooooooooo   good

 

Ill make Tots as its easier

 

[Dejah]

Hot dogs and fries or chips...ultimate comfort food!  Lived in rural kielbasa country for many years and we loved buying chunks sold at the community summer fair - grilled over an open fire. Paired with a sweet potato would have been perfect!

 

Kids called lotus root slices "fiddle bridges". When I can get fresh (like about now with Chinese New YEar), I make soup with dried octopus...

 

We've been eating mostly chicken, fish, vegetables, low fat, and low starch, so more experiments with chicken recipes. Ariran Guisou - Honduran Chicken Stew - nice spices plus my adding fresh curry leaves, a serrano pepper and some chunks of Chinese eggplant that needed using. The eggplant was perfect for soaking up some of the liquid.

 

[ninagluck]

last weekend I made marmalade from seville oranges, today I used some to go in the marinade for the quail. served it with mash where I mixed in some preserved lemon paste. 

[scamhi]

Made a greek style roasted shrimp with tomatoes with parsley fresh bread crumbs, shallots and feta.

and plated

 

[mgaretz]

Smoked pork loin chops with smoked cauliflower.  The cauliflower was tossed with olive oil, granulated garlic and onion, salt and pepper then finished with a little butter.

 

[ninagluck]

mgaretz, how did you smoke the cauliflower? cold? and then? cooked and just finished with butter?

[mgaretz]

mgaretz, how did you smoke the cauliflower? cold? and then? cooked and just finished with butter?

 

I made a foil "tray" to hold it in the smoker.  I started by putting the cauliflower in a plastic bag and adding spices and some olive oil.  Shake well and dumped into my foil tray.  It went in the smoker with chops - which took about 1.25 hours at 225F.  The cauliflower was still a little crisp when the chops were done, so I put it in covered dish with some butter and into the microwave for about a minute and half. 

[dcarch]

I live in lotus root territory --------------

 

Can you still get fresh lotus seeds?

 

I remember when I was traveling in China, I was able to get lotus flower pots and eat delicious fresh lotus seeds.

 

dcarch

[liuzhou]

Can you still get fresh lotus seeds?

 

I remember when I was traveling in China, I was able to get lotus flower pots and eat delicious fresh lotus seeds.

 

dcarch

[dcarch]

Yes. When in season in the summer months. See here. One of my favourites.

 

Thanks.

 

Perhaps this will add to your eating enjoyment.

 

Lotus is a highly respected plant in the Chinese culture because it has great symbolic meanings. The plant can arise from muddy bottom dirt and remain pure, clean and elegantly beautiful. Not only the flowers, but the leaves as well. No dirt, not even dust, can stick on lotus leaves.

 

The purity of lotus is recognized. So you see Buddha always sitting on lotus, in a lotus position.

 

Today, the interesting dirt and water repellant property of lotus has been studied by scientists. They call this the “Lotus effect”. By duplicating the surface microstructure of the lotus leaf, they have been able to make water and dirt repellant paint and metal. Possibly making truly no chemical non-stick cookware 

 

dcarch

[Dejah]

Picked up a bag of "Magic Chili" in the Asian section of the local Superstore. Lots of CNY goodies on the shelves.

This is a deep fried chili pepper seasoned with sesame oil, seeds, and peanuts snack - very addictive. The peppers are crispy, hot but not hot.

 

I decided to do some shrimp with mixed vegetables and threw in a handful of these Magic Chilis. Loved the different textures along with the crunch vegetables, Eaten with transparent shirataki noodles - almost like fun see (mung bean noodles)

 

[huiray]

Huiray--  the lotus root I see is always white..  ?

 

dcarch basically answered the question for you. (Thanks, dcarch)

 

I've never seen fresh lotus root as WHITE white.  They are, at palest, a cream or light tan/beige color.  Sometimes darker.  (The skin is darker (a light brown usually) than the insides)  When cooked, especially with longer cooking times, they usually turn darker and do take up to an extent the color of the sauces/liquid it is cooking in, yes.  All the lotus root soups I've made have been (I think) with some sort of meat that has been browned in the oil where (typically) garlic is also being sautéed and browned somewhat.  The brownish fond w/ browned proteins/residual blood etc becomes part of the stock/broth.  I frequently also use other things like dried cuttlefish and/or peanuts and/or dried jujubes (including the very dark sort-of semi-smoked ones called "lam jou") all of which release pigments and color into the stock, all of which also gets taken up by the lotus root to an extent. Sometimes I also put in dried goji berries which certainly add more color into the soup as well.  I don't usually put in other sauces into my lotus root soups, and certainly not soy sauce which I think corrupts the taste profile of the soup.  When I have done quick stir-fries or very quick soups ("kwun tong") that include lotus root slices then the color of the lotus root doesn't change much if at all.  In this last/particular case I did use lotus root where the segments (before slicing) had been scrubbed and de-skinned the previous day when I was going to do something else with them but did not in the end so shoved them into the fridge instead after they had been laying out for a while. 

 

There is also one other thing - I like to select roots with long, "narrower" segments which (at least with the ones I get from my local stores) seem to tend to be more "crunchy" and less "powdery" when cooked, whereas the squat, fat segment ones tend to the opposite.  It doesn't always turn out that way, of course.  I suspect the structure of the cellulose cells are different and absorptivity/permeability may also be different?  But I don't know if this is true.

 

Here are two previous posts on lotus root soup I made where you can see what the lotus roots looked like before (i.e. raw) and after (i.e. sliced and cooked) after simmering for an hour or two with the other stuff described in the list of ingredients included in the posts.

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/146914-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2014/page-10#entry1974065

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/147019-eg-cook-off-65-pork-belly/page-4#entry1961767

 

Here are a few other examples of lotus root soups I made and posted on eG.

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/149809-dinner-2014-part-6/page-15#entry1997049

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/143989-lunch-whatd-ya-have-2012%E2%80%932014/page-19#entry1949060

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/148424-dinner-2014-part-3/#entry1968801

[huiray]

Some recent meals.

 

 

"Hot & Spicy Flavor Instant Vermicelli" [Guangyou brand] augmented w/ tau pok, kai-lan, chopped scallions, trimmed coriander leaves.

 

 

Linguine [Rustichella d'Abruzzo] tossed in the pan with a sauce mix made by sautéeing garlic in oil, adding trimmed semi-peeled-back Brussels sprouts, browning a bit, then chopped Kumato tomatoes, cooking down, adding sliced Weisswurst [Claus' German Sausage & Meats] w/ the casing removed, some dried thyme and cooking a bit more (seasoning adjusted) before adding the linguine.

[CatPoet]

BonVivant:  I so remember   cod roe  bake from when I was little, I loved it  but the bake we made had lemon in it and I am now allergic to it. *sigh*

 

 

Dinner today was  Ancho coco chops with Mexican rice, yeah I should call it Swedish  Mexican rice, but it worked with these chops  and store bought salsa we had left over.

 

 

It wasnt perfect but it showed promise and I will  make it again , because it had all the right moves but sadly  not the right music,  it was more a  slow waltz  to salsa music.

 

 

Caribbean Banana pudding with French waffle and cream .  I did this  as a child friendly version with out rum and  both  hubby and kid loved it.

Edited January 31, 2015 by CatPoet (log)