Dinner 2015 (Part 5)

[scamhi]

 

a simple spaghetti with fresh tomato, arugula, olive oil and a little garlic. Topped with good parmesan

[scubadoo97]

Tonight it was Bavette and Pom frites.

The flap met was done SV at 135 and finished on the grill

Edited October 2, 2015 by scubadoo97 (log)

[Norm Matthews]

It is cool today, Cassie said she was getting off early so I took some left over corn from a meal Cassie made, some bacon left over from something I made plus some ham that had been in the freezer since Easter and added potatoes, onions, cheese, corn meal, and a few other things and made chowder.

 

Edited October 2, 2015 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Smithy]

It's the season for chowda now, isn't it?  That was our dinner a few evenings ago, but it didn't look as nice as yours.  

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Kim Shook,

 

We too are under the threat of the hurricane ^(insert scared icon) so I hope we all come out of it okay. Most of our state is under flood watch, and I live on a major creek.

 

Your dinners look lovely. I've been known to make creamed chipped beef too. Do you use the jarred stuff in the grocery aisle or the refrigerated Buddig brand usually found in the lunch meat section? My dad liked this dish as one of the few good meals on the navy ships he served on in the fifties and sixties, which sometimes included bread with flour weevils baked right into it.

 

Last night's dinner was homemade ham and Swiss cheese crepes based on my memories of the Stouffer's version from years ago that they no longer offer with salad.

 

We also had roast chicken and risotto with the French's onion/cream of mushroom soup green bean casserole recently.

 

Another night we had heuvos rancheros. I just love this dish. My husband isn't a great fan (where's the meat?), but I try to eat hot dogs with him, so it evens out, I reckon.

 

Also we are eating up that lovely watermelon I talked about here recently. I hope it's not the last we will see until next year, but I suspect that it is.

 

Goodbye summer, hello hurricane season.

[huiray]

A simple fried rice.

Very hot pan, sufficient hot rice bran oil, sea salt, chopped crushed garlic, cut-up Chinese long beans, three farm-fresh eggs (green-blue shelled) scrambled in situ in the center of the pan, remainder of the rice from here (largely non-red-mottled w/ char-siu juices), seasoning adjusted, chopped scallions. Cover for a minute after shutting off the heat. Serve.

[Dejah]

Picked up ground chicken breast the other night and finally got time to make some meatballs with Ann_T's Avgolemono sauce. I put some fresh thyme, ginger marmalade and a bit of fine Panko to bind the meat and to keep them moist. Reducing the amount of broth for the sauce helped make it thick and clingy - much like a warm duvet on the meat balls...  

 

 

[patrickamory]

Catching up here...

 

Tried out Kenji's fried chicken:

 

 

 

Served with red peas and parsleyed rice:

 

 

 

And southern-style green beans. I didn't have any salt pork or bacon, but I did have some pork belly, so I salted that heavily, fried it in lard, used the lard as the basis for the beans, and then re-added the crispy pork bits at the end with some more salt. It worked well.

 

 

The next day, not at all chickened out, we had a roast chicken:

 

 

And the following day, this soffrito was the basis for tagliatelle with dried porcini and sage:

 

 

[Shelby]

Smithy--If I wasn't hoarding our tomatoes to eat uncooked, I'd be trying that tomato pie.  I've got to remember that for next summer.  The potatoes are a wonderful idea.

 

Dejah--I now want meatballs.  That gravy looks lovely.

 

Patrick--WOW that pasta and fried chicken is calling my name.  Why do I look at this thread when I'm hungry?

 

 

You all have been making great meals.  I gotta get off my butt and join in.  I seem to be taking the easy way out and making things that I've frozen or sandwiches or breakfast.  

 

Yesterday I baked a loaf of white bread specifically for BLT's.  Like I said above, I'm hoarding our remaining 'maters to eat.  I wanted one last BLT.

 

I had mine spread with some avocado, so I guess mine was a BLAT.  Ronnie thinks avocado tastes like candle wax so he had his the regular way with mayo.

 

[Okanagancook]

Great meals everyone.  We have guests so my internet time is limited at the moment.

 

Yorkshire puds; CI slow roast grass fed prime rib; completed plate with mushroom, jus, creamed spinach and the pud.  And a salad to finish, not pictured.

[rotuts]

Okanagancook

 

 

Soooooo  delicious looking

 

how do you find the GrassFed  vs the GrainFed beef

 

taste wise ?

 

Ill be over next time you make this.

[gfweb]

So how was Kenji's FC, Patrick?

[Okanagancook]

 

Okanagancook

 

 

Soooooo  delicious looking

 

how do you find the GrassFed  vs the GrainFed beef

 

taste wise ?

 

Ill be over next time you make this.

 

We think the meat tastes 'richer' and sometimes it's a little more chew but the prime rib was very tender.  Not a lot of fat and supposedly a healthier mix of fatty acids from grass fed versus grain fed.  More pricey for sure but we go to the farm where they are raised and so we know we are getting a quality product.  There are plenty of leftovers and now I can reheat my yorkshire puds in the steam oven!

[rotuts]

Dinner :

 

BLT on Fresh HomeMade (machine ) bread  Not White but the Usual MultiGrain !  

 

 

he last of the YellowPotatoes for Potato Salad

 

no curry  just ChicagoSteak  from Penzey's

 

the potatoes were I.P'd and cooked Just Right

 

the Fresh Bread was of course

 

CSB'd

Edited October 2, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[Shelby]

Must be BLT week 

[rotuts]

I have two more Toimato's to go.

 

guess what's for dinner tomorrow

 

FD :  Im not a big fan of yellow potatoes.

 

but they are gone now !

[suzilightning]

No freaking clue for tonight....

Johnnybird and his brother are flying in from London. Supposedly they are getting dinner on the plane but the Cookie Monster(John's brother) is known to demand and devour food at all times of the day and night.   I roasted a chicken that was stuffed with parsley, lemon and garlic.   I also am cooking some noodles and some green beans with carrots.   First scenario is I slice the chicken and serve over the noodles with the green beans and carrots; secondly would be enough time to make a gravy with the pan drippings and mix all together with some sautéed mushrooms.  Just hoping to have some of the dark meat and veg to make a kind of cottage pie with some leftover mash and the veg.  Perfect for this cool and rainy weather

[Shelby]

No freaking clue for tonight....

Johnnybird and his brother are flying in from London. Supposedly they are getting dinner on the plane but the Cookie Monster(John's brother) is known to demand and devour food at all times of the day and night.   I roasted a chicken that was stuffed with parsley, lemon and garlic.   I also am cooking some noodles and some green beans with carrots.   First scenario is I slice the chicken and serve over the noodles with the green beans and carrots; secondly would be enough time to make a gravy with the pan drippings and mix all together with some sautéed mushrooms.  Just hoping to have some of the dark meat and veg to make a kind of cottage pie with some leftover mash and the veg.  Perfect for this cool and rainy weather

Sounds good to me.  Are the noodles buttered egg noodles?

[suzilightning]

Sounds good to me.  Are the noodles buttered egg noodles?

not exactly........homemade egg pasta, thick cut with olive oil (Johnnybird will not eat butter).

[patrickamory]

So how was Kenji's FC, Patrick?

 

So here's my take: it was excellent, and even reheated well. It's also an enormous amount of work. Was it worth it? In my mind I compare it to Laurie Colwin's fried chicken from Home Cooking, which almost set my house on fire, but was otherwise superb, and took a fraction of the time and ingredients.

 

However I have not made the Colwin recipe in a couple of years, and I suspect that the brining in buttermilk is a good thing for the meat of the chicken no matter what, so I'd like to try this again. Whether it needs everything else - the garlic powder, the whole saving the brine to rub into the flour etc. - that all needs testing.

 

Of course, I'd also prefer not to create a near disaster in my kitchen again. Covering a cast-iron chicken fryer with the little spikes at that high temperature is probably risky at the best of times.

[liuzhou]

Last night was an emergency.

 

Around 4pm I received a phone call from my beautiful, dearest friend telling me that she was on a train back to town and could I cook her dinner, not an unusual request. She has recently returned from a year in the US and had been visiting her family for the first time since coming back. There is nothing I like better than cooking for or eating with her.

 

But there was a complication. She announced that she had a severe toothache and required something 'soft' and that it must not include any soy bean products or ginger, both apparently being banned under the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) system in cases of toothache. Who knew? 

 

Anyway, I scurried around and some time later served this:

 

 

Wild prawns with spaghetti. I deliberately slightly overcooked the spaghetti to achieve the required softness. Al dente was not what she wanted. Had some asparagus which needed using up, so that went in too along with some tomatoes. Finished with a sprinkling of shichimi togarishi. It worked. And she was happy.

 

Of course, it helped that I served it with a nicely chilled bottle of bubbly, not forbidden by TCM. She was amused to see that I had also chilled the glasses, something she had never thought of.

 

 

We even had a dance after dinner! To Leonard Cohen!

 

Not a gastronomic highlight of my life but a soul-restoring evening.

[Kim Shook]

rotuts – thank you!  Mr. Kim wondered why mine is so much darker than his mom’s always was.  I’m guessing that she made a simple white sauce and I do a medium roux and that she didn’t use Worcestershire sauce!

 

Kay – re: your coq au vin – I checked my two go-to recipes (one by way of my Persian cousin-in-law and the other Michael Ruhlman’s weeknight version and neither of them call for a long marinate in the sauce, so I can’t imagine what the problem was for you.  Sorry I’m no help.

 

Thanks for the Crepes – I use a bag of chipped beef that comes in the refrigerated section – Esskay brand.

 

Thanks for the Crepes inspired me to do crepes tonight.  I found a recipe online for Chicken Cordon Bleu crepes with hollandaise.  Crepes:

Used the Alton Brown recipe.  I was very pleased with how these turned out.  Filled, but not yet rolled:

Chicken, ham and Swiss cheese.  Rolled in a baking dish:

 

Salad:

Still using up the cranberry vinaigrette.

 

Plated crepes with hollandaise and green beans:

How were they?  Meh.  Not terrible.  Just bland and boring.  So, how did I screw up?  Let me count the ways:

1.      Used supermarket Swiss instead of Gruyere.

2.     No sauce INSIDE the crepes – they were D R Y!

3.     Used thin-sliced deli ham instead of chunks.

4.     No seasoning in the filling at ALL (WTF was I thinking?).

5.     Used packaged hollandaise (so ashamed)  .

Really ‘rookie’ mistakes.  I certainly should have seen #1 and 2 coming.  Actually, I used to like that hollandaise mix, but haven’t had it in forever.  If I corrected all of these things, would they be good?  Probably.  The bad thing is, I have NINE of these suckers left  . 

 

So we are blaming this:

on that boring dinner.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Dinner was mashed potato and a quarter chicken from a local supplier almost but not quite within walking distance:  Griggstown Quail Farm.  Their website is defective but the product most assuredly is not.  Nothing fancy or organic but possibly the finest poultry that has passed my lips.  That I enjoyed a generous vessel of MR did not cloud my favorable opinion in the slightest.

 

Half the price of the leading purveyor of New Jersey poultry.  (To whom I've read they also sell.)

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggstown_Quail_Farm

[Okanagancook]

Dinner was two types of back ribs:  both cooked with the spice rub on for 10.5 hours at 200F wrapped in foil.  Then they were brushed with the sauce and broiled to add some texture (was going to BBQ them but a big storm came down the lake with big winds so "I'm not going out there to BBQ").  Served with bread, pickled beets, Convection/Steam oven chicken, and a salad.

 

 

 

 

[huiray]

Baby kai-lan.

Blanched in hot water then dressed w/ a sauce of {chopped garlic sautéed in rice bran oil then quenched w/ a mixture of oyster sauce, Bulldog sauce, sesame oil}.

 

Pasta & fish.

Brunoise of a red onion & chopped smashed garlic sweated/barely browned in oil, costata romanesco zucchini sliced into stickes, sauces & "second kingfish slice" from here (stored refrigerated), lots more ground black pepper & "aged" rice vinegar, jozo mirin, seasoning adjusted, simmered for just a bit more. Fish removed, sauce & rest of stuff stirred with and tossed w/ just-cooked fedelini in the pan on heat. Plated w/ some chunks of fish taken from the slice.

Edited October 3, 2015 by huiray (log)