Dinner 2015 (Part 2)

[rotuts]

re: Fz Ducks :

 

my Chinese Emporium sell them now vac-pack  whole for 10.99. similar but severe oz variations, not weighed

 

the  one in my freezer was 9.99.

 

I weigh it in a bit

[weinoo]

 

Asparagus & dried porcini risotto.

 

Used an asparagus stock I made with the ends and peels of the asparagus (+onions, leeks, carrots, celery, herbs), and also used the soaking water from the porcini.

[Smithy]

That risotto sounds like a nice, flavorful way to use scraps, Mitch. Thanks for posting about it!

[Kim Shook]

Suzi – thank you ma’am!  I am thrilled that you appreciate a good egg plate.  It’s funny, but everyone who marvels at mine has always been a Yankee!

 

Kay – completely understand about breaking egg plates – they are hard little suckers to hold onto when soapy and most won’t fit in a dishwasher.  Here’s the recipe for the ‘soufflé’: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/SIDEDISHES/St_Pauls_Cheese_Souffl_.html

 

Dinner last night started with a not very interesting ham salad made from the last of the Easter ham:

Dinner itself was just deli fried chicken and Kraft mac and cheese.  The purchased parts of dinner were a lot better than the homemade. Sigh.  But then Jessica arrived with a HUGE bag of leftover chocolate dipped strawberries from her part time job at Godiva and the evening improved considerably  .

[kayb]

Kim, thanks for that. Looks like it'd be a good brunch dish if you were feeding a crowd. 

 

Re: Deviled ham/ham salad. I had a taste for some earlier this week, and used some Easter ham to make it. It was a bit different that my usual -- employed Dijon mustard, worcestershire, vinegar and hot sauce along with the mayo and pickle pieces. Pretty good stuff! I even deviled myself an egg to have with it on crackers for lunch recently.

 

Dinner last night was chicken alfredo, of which I have no photos because it's not photogenic, particularly when you serve it on a white plate. With some buttered bread from a loaf baked the day before. Comfort food.

[rotuts]

here is the Quacker :  2.001 KG  for me 9.90  now 10.90 :

 

 

Im not sure what Valley Forge has to do with it, and the wrapping has changed.

[gfweb]

Seems like all the Asian store ducks are grown in Shartlesville, PA. I have a different brand, but same address.

[rotuts]

this is 2.50 an lbs

 

Ill try to remember to check Market Basket next time I go

 

they same similar 'shrink-wrapped' ducks

 

not too bad for a 'treat' if you use it all up !

[mm84321]

Sauté of broccoletti and green asparagus 

[radtek]

this is 2.50 an lbs

 

Ill try to remember to check Market Basket next time I go

 

they same similar 'shrink-wrapped' ducks

 

not too bad for a 'treat' if you use it all up !

 

 

Been looking at ducks and I can't find one for less than $20. Wait till next time at the Asian Mart... IIRC they weren't really any cheaper.

[liuzhou]

I feel sorry for you guys. Here duck is cheaper than chicken. And we buy them live. Althought the market people will do the deed if you ask.

[Anna N]

Been looking at ducks and I can't find one for less than $20. Wait till next time at the Asian Mart... IIRC they weren't really any cheaper.

I do not find the ducks in the Asian market any cheaper than in the regular supermarket.

[gfweb]

We just need McDonald's to offer a Duck McMuffin for a while. Duck production will ramp-up.

[mgaretz]

Char siu chow mein.  The char siu was made from leftover roast pork loin.

 

[Kim Shook]

Brats and fried onions for dinner tonight:

 

Served with this chow chow:

And mac and cheese and salad.  Those brats were HUGE!  That is a very large dinner plate.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Kim,

 

Did you serve the brats on that very nice-looking example of a sandwich roll in your photo?

 

I would have to have some peppers fried up with it too. Vitamin C, you know. 

 

We have those every couple of months, and revel in how much cheaper per serving and better they are than the ones you get at the NC State Fair.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I had a pound of ground chuck thawed for dinner, and didn't really know what I wanted to do with it, but tacos were in mind.

 

I asked the husband if he wanted tacos, or burritos, enchiladas, egg noodles with onions, chili, or beef-a-roni. I got an enthusiastic, guttural response at the beef-a-roni. So that's the direction dinner went. I don't believe that in sixteen years that I've ever made it for him before, and he was quite pleased with this version tonight.

 

The beef had been frozen, so hamburgers were not on the agenda.

 

I made it very simply because this is comfort food. Just the beef and onions cooked together in the beef's own fat. Then I used good, sweet ripe Tuttorosso canned crushed tomatoes, after draining excess fat from the cooked beef and onions.

 

This is a good brand of "Italian style" tomato products, but it drives me crazy that they are "distributed by" Red Gold, LLC, with an address in Elwood, Indiana. ARGHHH! Why is no one required to tell us where even minimally processed food comes from anymore?

 

The crushed tomatoes have salt, citric acid, and basil. They are quite sweet enough to me without anything additional, and very thick. I had to add a little water to keep the volcano effect down even on very low heat. I finally added a lid to contain the eruptions.

 

I did add a small amount of Italian oregano and salt. I have a huge container of Badia brand Mexican oregano, and I wonder how long it'll take me to use that up. I tried to substitute it for Italian, but it is just too strong.

 

Then I cooked half a pound of medium Barilla shells to al dente, drained, and combined with my simple sauce.

 

This was served with some steamed spinach with salt, pepper and a little garlic powder (Badia). Does anyone else notice how garlic powder can be better in some dishes than fresh? I always keep at least a head of fresh garlic in the house, but sometimes when I try to substitute fresh for the powder called for, I'm very disappointed. I have several recipes where I've annotated "Don't substitute fresh garlic."

 

The husband was very pleased, and so was I. We both got dinner and lunch for tomorrow, and I froze half the meat sauce for later.

[kayb]

Thanks for the Crepes, re: garlic. I don't like the taste of fresh garlic, and I got in the habit of making garlic confit to keep in the fridge and use in any preparation that didn't involve cooking the garlic. I've gradually moved along to using it in any recipe that calls for garlic. I generally use more than called for, one because I love garlic,and two because it's less strong because of the slow poaching process. Sure is easy and a timesaver. I buy the big three-pound bags of peeled garlic cloves at Sam's, and confit the whole thing, and it'll last me 3-4 months.

[liamsaunt]

Last night's dinner.  Scallops from my fish CSA over creamy corn with a red pepper sauce.

 

[Norm Matthews]

Dinner tonight was salmon over rice, salad, asparagus and snap peas.

 

[mm84321]

Fava bean soup 

Potato gnocchi with artichokes

[huiray]

Various meals.

 

 

Ibumie "Penang White Curry Mee" (this one) augmented with tau pok, a poached egg & coriander leaves.

 

 

Fried rice, w/ Chinese chives, green & orange finger chillies, Chinese long beans, Andouille sausage, eggs, salt.

Yu Choy Sum, blanched in oiled hot water, dressed w/ oyster sauce & ground white pepper.

 

 

Chinese Spinach & Pork wontons [Prime Food] in chicken broth w/ blanched kai-lan, chopped scallions & deep-fried shallots.

 

 

Today's version of Pad Kee Mao.  A riff off this one.

 

[patrickamory]

liuzhou I am certain that living and cooking for a month in any part of China would turn my world upside-down (in a good way)

 

Kim no apology is ever needed for ham salad, especially not the one pictured

 

rotuts that is the brand I see in Asian markets here, the mascot is certainly memorable.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

kayb,

 

Confit is a good idea for taming the flavor of raw garlic.

 

I like garlic a lot, and always keep some fresh around, but don't enjoy raw garlic in anything I can think of, including hummus. I roast the garlic that goes in that.

 

I remembered the primary recipe where I discovered that fresh garlic is not always an improvement, and that is Red Lobster biscuits. I quit going to Red Lobster many years ago when the only thing worth eating in our expensive dinner was the Cheddar Bay biscuits and the salad. Years ago, I got Red Lobster's biscuit recipe right off their website, and it calls for garlic powder. I thought, well I'm a culinista, so I'm going to improve it by cooking fresh crushed garlic in the butter it calls for. It wasn't nearly as good that way.

 

The biscuit recipe disappeared quite some time ago from their website, and I just checked, and it wasn't there. If anyone wants it, let me know. These are easy (Bisquick) and good biscuits. I guess they had to pull the recipe when their quality tanked so badly that it was one of the few items people would return for. 

 

The website still has the recipe for lobster pizza, made on a tortilla, which I usually make with shrimp. This isn't bad either for a quick seafood appetizer.

 

I also copycat a recipe for Pasta Roni "Angel Hair Pasta with Herbs" with pantry ingredients and fresh Italian flat leaf parsley (instead of dehydrated) from their ingredients list from a box I saved. They call for onion powder (which I didn't stock the first time I copied it) and garlic powder. I used fresh onion and garlic, but it wasn't as good. I now keep onion powder just for this recipe.

 

Dinner tonight is hardly worth mentioning, but to stay squarely on topic, it was a terrible Harris Teeter supermarket deli (not frozen) pizza, my husband wanted, and called me from the Harris Teeter about. I reminded him how the pizza we bought at Food Lion supermarket went to the coons, and the similar pizza my brother brought us over part of that he got at Sam's Club or Costco or similar again went to the coons. He insisted it looked really good, that the sausage did not look like rabbit pellets, so I agreed to let him bring it home.

 

Well, when he got it home, I started reading the ingredient list, and was a little apprehensive about the length of it, but the sausage had pork, with the regular stuff sausage has, and no TVP. So I cooked this monstrosity up according to the instructions after adding a little thinly sliced yellow onion because the included red onion looked sparse and faded and there were no toppings near the crust. I wanted to add mushrooms because it had none, but the pizza was already so overly thick, I didn't think it prudent.

 

The racoons will eat well again after it quits raining. They don't come out to forage when it rains. Even the parts of the crust near the edge where they were actually cooked instead of pasty and doughy had no flavor. To me pizza is a bread dish with a thin crust with plenty of flavor. This was wallpaper paste, some hardened, some gluey. I can only hope that this has broken my husband of his desire for supermarket pizza.

 

I make homemade pizza, which is very good, and Trader Joe's has good Italian wood-fired-oven imported frozen pizzas, and the Alsace Tarte. I think I have to put my foot down on supermarket pizza at this point. Hopefully it will never come up again, so I won't have to. It's very sweet that he tries to give me a break from cooking although we can't eat out much, but this is not the solution.

 

So, after cleaning all the mess from trying to serve inedible dreck, I put leftover pork baby back ribs with Chinese five spice under the broiler, sliced a mango and some strawberries, and we got to eat dinner anyway. 

 

ETA: Changed the word "or" to "of".

Edited April 16, 2015 by Thanks for the Crepes (log)

[liuzhou]

After 19 years, for the first time ever, I found small new potatoes in one of my local supermarkets. Chinese potatoes aren't usually great. Of course, I bought a bag.

 

Tonight got round to using some of them. I simply boiled them, slightly crushed them and added butter. Served with pan fried, brined chicken and yellow oyster mushrooms which were cooked in the chicken fat and olive oil.

 

 

This is only half of what I ate. The potatoes were wonderful.

 

I'll be going back to buy the rest of their potato stock tomorrow. They have a nasty habit of trying things out, but never restocking when they sell out rapidly!

Edited April 16, 2015 by liuzhou (log)