Dinner 2015 (part 4)

[liamsaunt]

Dcharch and BonVivant, I need your dinners!  Seriously both look amazing.  

 

Some things from family dinner today.  Kale caesar salad.  Cliche, I know, but my niece and nephew always take seconds and my Dad loves it too, so...

 

 

Pasta fresca.  Just tomatoes ground up with garlic and basil in the food processor, then tossed with fresh mozzarella.  This is my nephew's favorite pasta dish and a good thing since I have about 5,000 cherry tomatoes in my garden that are about to be ripe.

 

 

 

Summer squash zoodles with pesto.  For my pasta averse Mom and niece

 

 

Not pictured, the grilled porterhouse steaks my sister made, and the pre-dinner porch swing cocktails (prosecco, mint, limoncello, St. Germaine)

 

[patrickamory]

Shelby, thank you. I'm embarrassed to say that my babaghanoush recipe is ordering take-out from my local Turkish place! 

[huiray]

huiray, thanks for the RX - now would you recommend powdered over fresh turmeric for this purpose - better, worse, neutral?

 

 

patrickamory, you're welcome. 

 

I myself am fairly neutral on whether one uses powdered turmeric or fresh (grated) turmeric for a dish such as this one.  Powdered is more convenient, even if fresh turmeric does give a - what else - fresher and perhaps more pronounced taste...but reasonably decent powdered turmeric is fine by me.  The texture of the dish (and the sauce) is also slightly different – I myself would not say that one is always better than the other, it just depends on which bee in one's bonnet one may have (if any) that particular day.

 

Speaking in a more general sense, dried, preserved, salted, pickled, whatever, foodstuffs have their place – and many (if not all) are ingredients in their own right with tastes that cannot be obtained by substituting the fresh equivalent for the dried stuff.  It is not the case that fresh stuff is ALWAYS better.  It simply isn't.

Edited July 20, 2015 by huiray (log)

[Ashen]

I had a craving for lamb  all week.    Grilled  a leg on the weber, also had a simple potato salad (not pictured). 

 

[FauxPas]

It was a warm evening and we didn't really want to cook much. We had some bread and cheese and dessert became the focus. Home-made cherry butter with fresh peaches and ice cream. So good! 

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

This recipe, called to my attention by a coworker:

 

http://www.thecandidadiet.com/cabbage-masala/

 

 

A great way to use up extra okra!  The dish tastes far better than it should.  Note, the original author calls for, but does not actually add the okra.  Maybe she knows something the rest of us do not?  Anyhow, I upped the spices and sautéed the okra well before adding the tomatoes.  The result was not slimy in the least.

 

I served the dish with long grain rice accompanied by Stone Ruination 2.0.

[Josh71]

Came back from traveling, enjoying all the fantastic dishes by you all. Very pretty and delicious and creative and impressive.

 

Trying to catch up with stuffs that need to get done. Too hot and too humid to cook anyway. So just quickly sliced up some raw fish, and called it a day.

 

dcarch

 

 

[ ... ]

 

 

 

 

 

Stunning and beatiful!

 

darch, what is that kind of orange tile? Himalayan salt plate?

 

And how is it lit like that?

[huiray]

Earlier...Sunday buffet at Sichuan in Carmel:

Pork meatballs & daikon soup, chillied chicken, tongue, pig maw, spiced jelly, chillied intestines, chillied glass noodles, pickled cucumbers, sesame noodles, tea-smoked duck, pickled bean sprouts, dumplings, spring rolls, bok choy, shrimp w/ dried chillies, beef brisket & daikon stew.

 

Later...

Beef stir-fried w/ lots of ginger & green onions, stir-fried kai-lan w/ garlic, oyster sauce & Bulldog sauce, white rice.

The green parts of the green onions were a little tough and were largely left behind on the plate.

 

[liuzhou]

An old standby. Spaghetti with chicken livers and ragu. The livers took seconds to cook - the ragu took hours.

 

[dcarch]

Thank you all for your kind words and "Like"s. 

 

 

Stunning and beatiful!

 

dcarch, what is that kind of orange tile? Himalayan salt plate?

 

And how is it lit like that?

 

Yes, Himalayan salt block.

 

Yes, the salt block actually lights up with built-in illumination, no wires.

I have always thought that the most important consideration about sashimi is the freshness of the fish. There is certain translucency of the meat when the fish is really of good quality.

I decided the only way to show case the color, the texture and the freshness of the fish is to shine a light through it.

Very dramatic in a dimmed room.

The salt block was cooled in the refrigerator. It can keep the fish at a nice temperature for a few hours. Of course it will give a nice salty taste to the fish.

dcarch

[Shelby]

Liuzhou---I always forget about chicken livers.  I made a bolognese a few years ago that used them and we really liked it.  Thanks for the reminder.  Your pasta looks great.

 

FauxPas--Ohhhhh fresh peaches.  YUM.

 

Patrick--LOL, nothing at ALL wrong with buying it.  

 

LiamsAunt--I am going to steal your pasta fresca and your zoodles ideas.  Looks SO good.  

 

Oh man, you guys are going to get sick of me waxing poetic about my tomatoes.  But, damn, do I love a good 'mater.

 

 

And okra.  I thought of KayB while making and eating tonight.  Fried okra and tomatoes.  I need nothing else.

 

 

I made a tuna pasta salad.  My husband really likes this.  I think it's about the only pasta salad that he ever requests.

 

Fried up some bass

 

 

And had a nice summer meal

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kwankapang]

Here is another common chicken dish in Malaysia - Chicken Korma.

 

An authentic Malaysian dish.

 

[David Ross]

Grilled Shrimp and Grits from our Shellfish Cook-off, http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151628-eg-cook-off-70-shellfish-grilled-over-an-open-flame/?hl=%2Bshellfish#entry2024632

 

[patrickamory]

Hello kwankapang, that looks delicious. And I am intrigued. How does the Malaysian version differ, if it does, from the Indian dishes called chicken korma?

[Ann_T]

Made dinner Saturday for our neighbours.  

 

Boneless chicken breasts with skin on, stuffed with mushroom duxelles.   (Two stuffed with sage dressing because someone didn't like mushrooms).

 

 

Ready for the oven.  Prepared to this point in the morning before leaving for work.

 

Served with a wine and green peppercorn sauce.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Dinner was an exaltation of my very own tomatoes and cucumber, with a particularly nice baguette.  I had thought about hamburger but that was not about to happen.

[MetsFan5]

Dinner was an exaltation of my very own tomatoes and cucumber, with a particularly nice baguette.  I had thought about hamburger but that was not about to happen.

That sounds perfect. It's way too hot to imagine grilling.

[liuzhou]

A bit beige, but tasty, methought.

 

 

Chicken with Yellow Oyster Mushrooms

 

 

With rice and my favourite Japanese style chopsticks.

Edited July 21, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[Ann_T]

Bread and Pasta.

 

 

 

My favourite pasta sauce - Italian Sausage and Rosemary.

 

[tdig]

There was a tomato tartare post on here a few weeks back that inspired me to try my own version. This is Thomas Keller's Tomato Tartare with Lindera Farms Spicebush vinegar, toasted brioche, chives, Mossimo's parmesan cream, and 4 year Husk country ham. 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

That sounds perfect. It's way too hot to imagine grilling.

 

In retrospect it was perhaps a bit too hot for baking, but then one needs baguettes.

[huiray]

Fried rice.  Peanut oil, (3 eggs, salt, white pepper, bit of water), very hot pan; "plain bubbly omelette", reserve, cut into strips. Hot pan, peanut oil, chopped smashed garlic, andouille sausage cut into rounds, Chinese green & purple long beans cut into ~2 inch lengths, 2-day-old rice, the cut-up omelette, lots of chopped scallions. Full flame throughout.

 

[Okanagancook]

pre dinner cocktail of basil infused vodka lemonade

 

summer in a glass.jpg

 

 

fish tacos

 

fish tacos.jpg

Love the idea of the wooden skewers to hold the tacos upright.  Brilliant.

We made a basil gimlet for happy hour last night.  Your vodka infusion looks very refreshing.

[Norm Matthews]

Dinner tonight is adobo chicken with grilled corn.  Rice also but not pictured.

 

[Okanagancook]

Norm, that chicken looks very moist.  We are enjoying our garden corn too.