Dinner 2015 (Part 5)

[gfweb]

It just up and died. About 15 yrs old and trouble free till today.

 

Time for a new one.

 

Salvaged a lot of half frozen stuff, but one section was pretty well warmed up and big stuff thawed. Lost 5 duck breasts, a couple chickens, homemade sausage.  Oy!

[Anna N]

It just up and died. About 15 yrs old and trouble free till today.

 

Time for a new one.

 

Salvaged a lot of half frozen stuff, but one section was pretty well warmed up and big stuff thawed. Lost 5 duck breasts, a couple chickens, homemade sausage.  Oy!

Ouch! I am concerned for my aging freezer and I'm trying hard to empty it before it does the same thing.

[TicTac]

Love raw arugula tossed on a pizza, post bake.

 

At the very least we always save a corner (we bake our pizzas in a baking tray - get an amazing crust that way) sans cheese to do this with.  Its my version of salad

 

Another great variation is crisp pancetta, goat cheese, wood oven smoked cherry tomatoes - arugula w evoo tossed on at the end - often folded and eaten like a sandwich (I like a TON of arugula, so much easier that way as well).

[mgaretz]

Yet another tri-tip.  This one was rubbed with Montreal Steak Rub before going into the sous vide bath for 3 hours and then seared on the flat side of GrillGrates.  Served with baked potato and salad with my raspberry vinaigrette.  

 

 

 

[huiray]

Soup.

Enoki, shimeji & shiitake mushrooms (all fresh) plus striped green zucchini in nicely gelatinous chicken broth. Generous chopped scallions scattered in.

 

Cánh gà chiên nước mắm (Fried chicken wings w/ fish sauce). This night's version.

Chicken wings sans tips marinated w/ back pepper & sesame oil & chopped garlic for a while. Pan-fried (garlic pieces removed before frying) on both sides, browning sufficiently, remove to paper towels. Reserve oil. clean pan. Some of the reserved oil plus some chicken fat (from stock that was made a day or two ago) went into the reheated pan, fresh chopped garlic, then a mixture/slurry of fish sauce [Red Boat] and turbinado sugar, plus a little sesame oil went in. Cook down w/ stirring (spatula) till caramelizing, then add the reserved chicken wings back in and toss around to coat. Bit of water plus stirring/tossing to adjust for liquidity. Serve. Sliced & chopped scallion dressing.

 

Rau muống xào tỏi (Water spinach/kangkong/ong choy fried with garlic), with some oyster sauce as well.

 

Several bowls of white rice, lightly drizzled with the caramelized sauce of the chicken wings dish (from the excess left in the pan :-) )

[hummingbirdkiss]

ok last night I did better and cooked a sort of dinner out doors .(now obviously can post photos not sure why I made that so hard )

 

YUM YUM katsu chicken fried it on the camp stove with rice, (not shown it looks like rice)  kimchi and a really nice tart plum sauce ( fish sauce and thai bird chiles into the nice tart plum jam I made from the incredible harvest this year!) I will be playing with this jam and all the plums I dried all winter long 

 

/

 

 

kitchen is gutted finally!!!! I may have it done for the holidays!  please please send me good vibes  I am so tired of living in a state disarray … this has been an excessively long journey ..yesterday ..everything off the walls..I painted the ceiling and scrubbed/prepped the cabinets for painting …this week we are pouring the countertops I am so excited! but still not sure of the color ..ok I am not sure of anything and really feeling overwhelmed and a bit screamy right now ..but whatever  ..this has been a decade and a half of living in a constant DIY remodel and moving stuff around while life happened anyway ..my kitchen is in the living room and down the hallways now and I can not find a thing so any meals I cook are are some kind of challenge now 

(I know no one cares really about this but where else but in a dinner thread can I bitch about how I cooked the meal around a disaster area that has consumed a huge chunk of our lives here ) 

 

 

there is not a single piece of chicken left in the fridge….the fridge that is now sitting in the living room ..my "kitchen" is everywhere now even under the bed  …kind of claustrophobic to be honest 

Edited September 14, 2015 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[Shelby]

Gfweb, OH NO!  Gah, that just sucks.  Especially the homemade sausage.  Upside is maybe a brand new freezer that's all nice and pretty?

 

Hummingbird, now that you have mastered posting pictures maybe you can show us your kitchen and the process??  

 

 

We seem to be on a rib kick lately.  Ribs, baked beans and scalloped 'taters

 

[kayb]

We had a lovely cool snap over the weekend -- down in the 50s overnight, high  in the low 70s Saturday, a touch warmer Sunday. Gorgeous weather, and made me want "fall food." Which wound up being a smoked sausage and lentil ragout, with oven fries. 

 

[liuzhou]

Another on-the-road meal tonight. This unappealing looking mess was actually quite tasty and is the sort of thing that can be found all over China in small hole-in-the-wall joints. 

 

茄子肉末饭 (qié zi ròu mò fàn)

 

 

茄子 is eggplant/aubergine, 肉末 is minced meat (the absence of a specified meat identity always means that it is pork) and 饭 is cooked rice.

 

Served with a side of lukewarm stir-fried cabbage and what they refer to as "soup", but is really just water that was once reluctantly allowed to glance at a piece of gristle then decorated with as little chopped scallion as possible.

 

This is a highly typical workers' or students' canteen type meal, referred to as 'sand pot rice (沙锅饭 - shā guō fàn)'. The rice is cooked in a clay pot and covered with your main of choice. I went for the eggplant as it's a dish I usually enjoy and this was no exception. It is a dish that is hard to screw up. There were 21 other choices to accompany your rice. 

 

Fine dining it isn't, but it isn't pretending to be, and at ¥11 ($1.70 US, £1.10 UK) for the rice dish + "soup" + greenery who can complain?

 

The owner kindly explained that if I come 10 times, I can have the 11th meal free. I did notice however that he wasn't handing out receipts for any of the meals he served (his wife cooked while his son played computer games in the corner instead of doing his homework), so I guess no one ever gets to prove that they are due no. 11.

 

Home tomorrow for a day or two.

Edited September 14, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[btbyrd]

Miso butter glazed corn, Benton's bacon, scallions, 63C egg. David Chang style.

 

[Anna N]

Miso butter glazed corn, Benton's bacon, scallions, 63C egg. David Chang style.

 ............

Miso butter is da bomb!

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Dinner tonight was Italian hot sausage browned, then braised in a muscadine and mustard sauce. It was very tasty, but was one of those dishes that makes me glad I don't have a camera to post photos.  

 

I also made steamed Shanghai bok choy and angel hair pasta in a creamy herb sauce which would have been quite photogenic. I added a few TJ's saffron threads to the pasta dish which gave it a lovely golden color along with the green of the parsley and basil.

 

Shelby's plate of lovely ribs with peeled homegrown tomatoes, baked beans, and scalloped potatoes made me think of my favorite meal with ribs. That's sweet corn on the cob, preferably sugar and butter, along with the smoked ribs, really good bread, and these baked beans:

 

2-15 oz cans baked beans (I use Van Camps)

1-15 oz can whole peeled roma tomatoes, undrained

9 oz sliced half inch onion rings, separated

yellow mustard to taste

ketchup to taste

4 slices bacon cut to 1" lengths

 

Stir everything together except the bacon. You can do this in the same heat-proof casserole you cook it in, just wipe the rim afterward. Place bacon pieces on top and bake a couple hours at 350 F or until bacon is browned and liquid has condensed. If you're a fat phobe, or even if you're not, and your bacon is particularly fatty, nuke the bacon a while in paper towels to shed some of the fat. I can't bring myself to make beans any other way. If you like less rustic dishes, you may wish to chop the onions and tomatoes, but you WILL be ruining it.  

[liamsaunt]

My husband and I went back to Cape Cod last weekend and were able to get another piece of toro.  I followed an idea in Fish Without a Doubt by Rick Moonen and coated it in everything bagel seasoning and just cooked it for 60 seconds.  Served on garlicky udon noodles with bok choy and scallions.  

 

[robirdstx]

Last night, we baked a couple of thick pork butt steaks at 350 F for an hour and then tossed on to a very hot grill just long enough to crisp up the edges and put the marks on.

[rotuts]

its that time of the year :  cooler, soon to be fall.

 

1 ) got the wood stove going, w the windows open to ventilate that 'cooked dust' aroma

 

2) first TurkeyMeatLoaf of the season :

 

 

from the CSB.  did a 30 min. steam-clean and wipe-down.  nice feature.  'factory-new'

 

turkey gravy :

 

 

trust me, its in there.

 

the dish :

 

 

there were canned small peas.  I forgot them on the counter.

 

the Mashed Potatoes were done in the IP.

 

the TML etc was beyond delicious.    that's Benton's bacon you see on the top..

 

one of the all time great meals, when its a little crisp in the air, and the wood-stove is humming.

 

the IP mashed potatoes are here :

 

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151807-instant-pot-multi-function-cooker/page-13#entry2030518

Edited September 15, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[hummingbirdkiss]

Gfweb, OH NO!  Gah, that just sucks.  Especially the homemade sausage.  Upside is maybe a brand new freezer that's all nice and pretty?

 

Hummingbird, now that you have mastered posting pictures maybe you can show us your kitchen and the process??  

 

 

We seem to be on a rib kick lately.  Ribs, baked beans and scalloped 'taters

 

P9130724.JPG

ok Gfweb I sure will LOL not sure how to post it but I will try to sneak some photos in …right now it is the worst it CAN look so I should start there so everything after this will be an "oohhhh ahhhh" 

 

I made some stacked enchiladas last night and baked them again on the grill ….but did not take a photo yet because they were a gross puddle ..we were too hungry to let them stand and while they tasted really good (the NM red chili I just received was really nice) they truly looked like crap 

 

I will put a fried egg on it and post it for breakfast then? 

Edited September 15, 2015 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[Shelby]

TFTC--I love the bean recipe.  Will have to try that.

 

LiamsAunt--That toro looks awesome.

 

Rotuts--Ohhhhh that plate looks so good.  I don't think it needed peas .....maybe a roll to sop some gravy up

 

I had a bag of vac. sealed shrimp that magically unsealed itself in the freezer so I made an alfredo of sorts.  Threw in a bit of pesto and dried tomatoes.

 

 

[Okanagancook]

Rotuts, your gravy!  Oh I love gravy.  What do you use as a thickening agent? Looks like arrowroot??

[rotuts]

plain old cornstarch slurry. its what I have,

 

I love gravy.  I use Minors' soup base as a starter, then tweak it up.

 

there is a lower salt turkey base and a lower salt roasted chicken base.  I also have others, esp bacon base but these are not 

 

unfortunately lower salt.  is use these in different combo's to get to the 'salt' state  therefore I like the lower ones as im guessing i get more flavor

 

they are always tweaked 

 

they very much suit me.  but now w the IP Ill make some stock if have bones around.

[huiray]

Fresh shrimp simply sautéed in oil w/ scallions & sea salt.

Fedelini w/ Fagioli Corallo al Pomodoro.

 

 

[Kim Shook]

gfweb – you have my sympathies.  We came home from vacation once to find that the freezer plug had come out of the wall and we lost tons of meat.  Summer vacation, at that.  The only good thing was that the freezer was in our shed and not in the house!

 

hummingbirdkiss – sending all good vibes for a spectacular and uneventful kitchen redo!  The crust on that chicken looks perfect!  Like Shelby, I’d love to see the progress on the kitchen.  And, I don’t think that you need to ‘sneak’ pictures in.  Lots of people have documented kitchen upgrades.  Not sure of which section would be best to put them in though.  Maybe someone else could make a suggestion?

 

Shelby – somewhere you mentioned the issues you have with black flakey salt.  I have the same issues and on the breakfast thread  Thanks for the Crepes made a great suggestion for dealing with it.  You should take a look.

 

 

Last night was leftover fries from a dinner out topped with leftover roast beef and gravy:

This roast beef has turned into the never ending meal.  There is still enough for dinner for both of us tonight!  Thank goodness it is still delicious!

[rotuts]

Shelby

 

so right you are , as always

 

the peas are nice , greenish of sorts , mushy

 

but a fresh sour-dough roll  ( crunch crust )  still warm    ......

 

my bete noir.

 

shame there is not a boulangerie  around the corner.

 

Id also take a slice of tarte su pomme for dessert.

[kayb]

Gorgeous meals, all.

 

rotuts, I am particularly enamoured of the wine-corks stuck under the handle of the saucepan lid. I have a similar set of cookware and those little lifter handles get HOT. Great idea with the wine corks, as I (ahem) seem to have accumulated a profusion of them.

 

Dinner last night was onion rings at Sonic. Good onion rings, but I want real food tonight. I'm thinking Vietnamese caramel fish.

[rotuts]

I have those wine corks on all my lids.

 

if the cork is too large, very carefully slice them down before you sample what's in the bottle

 

roll them a bit to compress them and get them in there tight.

 

they never get hot.

 

I have plenty of extras. and more coming very soon !

 

I remember seeing these when I was in France.  I was about 4.

 

I couldn't stop looking at the lids.  lots of lids.

 

here is a smaller lid :

 

 

its a bit hard to see but these two corks were sliced down bit by bit until I could jam them in there.

Edited September 15, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[Anna N]

I have those wine corks on all my lids.

 

if the cork is too large, very carefully slice them down before you sample what's in the bottle

 

roll them a bit to compress them and get them in there tight.

 

they never get hot.

 

I have plenty of extras. and more coming very soon !

 

I remember seeing these when I was in France.  I was about 4.

 

I couldn't stop looking at the lids.  lots of lids.

 

here is a smaller lid :

 

sm lid.jpg

Damn! My casks don't come with corks.