Dinner 2017 (Part 6)

[kayb]

Don't have a photo, but made a trial run at chicken adobo last night in the Instant Pot. It was OK. Not superb, but OK. With jasmine rice, and sauteed ginger/soy squash and onions.

[scubadoo97]

Wifey left for the beach for a ladies night out.  I'll join them tomorrow thru the Labor Day weekend with the husbands and hope for good weather.  But time to make things she really doesn't like to eat.   Shellfish!

 

Shrimp and scallops, a good pairing.  Started with making a stock from the shrimp shells,  then toasted a garlic studded  loaf in garlic scented olive oil.  Cooked the shrimp and scallops in garlic and shallot scented oil and butter then used the stock to finish.   The bread was my Achilles heal when sopping up the stock. A most decadent indulgence 

 

Edited September 2, 2017 by scubadoo97 (log)

[blue_dolphin]

5 hours ago, heidih said:

Blue_Dolphin- so the dressing was Melissa's? I saw the advert for that mix and it intrigued me as I cook for one and buying the various ingredients makes little sense. Looks like a crema on there. Was there also a salsa? Seems like that would have obviated need for the heavy dressing.

 

No Melissa's.  Per the cookbook, the slaw was dressed with 2 tsp lime juice, 2 T EVOO , scallions, jalapeño, S & P.   I'd dial back the EVOO and use a more neutral oil to make up the difference.

The "crema" was sour cream or Greek yogurt + lime zest, microplaned fresh garlic and salt.

The recipe does not call for salsa, although the header notes say one can use purchased salsa and raw cabbage instead of making the slaw.

I think salsa would have been a good addition but I hadn't made any ahead so I added some of Rancho Gordo's Paloma chile sauce to add some extra flavor.

[robirdstx]

Friday Night Out ~ We Have A New Favorite Burger Joint! ~ TJ Reed's Better Burgers & Shakes in Dickinson ~ The restaurant got over two feet of water from Hurricane Harvey, but they were able to get in on Wednesday to clean up and reopened yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

@shain, phenomenal-looking pizzas!

 

@Katie Meadow, That was the second reference I read today to pizza having a skirt today. I had never heard that term before. The first time was this article about Ashley Christensen (a hot Raleigh chef) on a tasting tour in Italy in preparation for opening a new Neopolitan pizza place in downtown Raleigh and there's a reference to her inspecting the skirt of a lovely margarita pizza. We need to get with it. 

 

@rotuts, Great looking burgers. I don't care much for the plastic grinders either, but all of mine are openable and refillable. I have TJ's Himilayan Pink Salt, Smoked Sea Salt and Rainbow Peppercorns. I also have a Mr. Paulson's White Peppercorns plastic one. All are designed so you can grasp the collar under the grinding mechanism and unscrew it from the plastic bottle holding your spice. Yours might be different?

 

@robirdstx, It's amazing T.J. Reed's was able to reopen so quickly. You can't keep a Texan down!  And those onion rings ... *drooling* I will be entertaining/torturing myself further shortly while I peruse their menu and the Yelp reviews and photos.

[sartoric]

Prawns and veggies in the style of "Kerala boatmen" served with rice, plus dosa with two fresh chutneys, coconut and tomato.

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Okay, I can't let @robirdstx's post go with this resilient little Texas burger joint. Oh my God! She always seems to hit on places I want so badly to go. This image from Yelp says it all. I was looking at the other photos and I thought, you know, these burger buns look perfect, fresh and homemade. Guess what? They are! And look at those Happy Hour specials that go til closing on Mondays! 

 

My dinners have been kind of boring compared to finding a great burger place in the midst of all the destruction in TX, but this is what I've been eating anyways.

 

Recently I've eaten store bought cheese ravioli with marinara sauce that was pretty good. I served this with another Greek salad and very good garlic bread. I'm going to freeze the rest of the feta in single servings for future salads after helpful advice from @ElsieD.

 

Then another night, I had vegetable spring rolls bought from the hot Asian bar at Harris Teeter, followed by shrimp fried rice with frozen shrimp and rice. It also had peas, carrots, spring onions, soy sauce and egg.

 

Tonight was tacos and refried beans with copious and untraditional cheeses. I used premade crispy taco shells, fried up my ground chuck with a Hatch chili, minced green onions, mild chili powder, salt, and black pepper. The toppings were shredded lettuce, Campari tomatoes, shredded cheddar and sour cream. I put the sour cream on the plate and garnish with more of my good mild chili powder. Tacos are messy enough, the way I overstuff them. Sour cream on top just makes for a huger mess, so I pick it up with a fork from the plate while I eat. 

 

The refried beans were La Constena brand, as usual, out of Laredo, TX. If you aren't afraid of a little pork fat and can get these things, just do it. It made me completely change the way I cook pinto beans from dried.

 

For single folks, the La Costena refried pintos come in a 20.5 oz can. I split them into three portions, freezing two of them in 8 oz. Daisy sour cream containers. I can't tell the difference when I thaw them the next time. I write "Frijoles" on the lid with a Sharpie and reuse the lids after washing in the dishwasher which takes years to wear down the Sharpie's permanent marks. 

 

On top of these beans in an individual casserole, after getting them pretty hot went hot sauce around the perimeter of the dish, a circular slice of provolone, and a few sprinkles of grated cheddar, with a little minced green onion on top of the cheeses. It was heated just enough more to melt the cheeses and served with house made tortilla chips from Esmeralda Grill restaurant that were leftover and taken home last time I ate there. Provolone is not at all traditional for frijoles refritos, but I just love the way it strings out when it's hot like a very good pizza. Eating it with the chips I had heated in the Dutch oven was an experience. I would pull up a bite of frijoles, smear it on the chip with a fork, but then have to circle the chip like ten times with the fork to finally break all the strings of cheese and wind them around both the chip, loaded with beans and cheese and the fork would have some strings of cheese wound up on it too. Good stuff!

 

 

 

 

[rotuts]

@Thanks for the Crepes 

 

I have some grinder from IKEA

 

inexpensive and work very well.    the SQSmoke from TJ's grinder never worked welll

 

you could refill the  grinder , but TJ's never sold refills.

 

that's the problem.

[Shelby]

Picked a ton of peppers off my plants.....so I made a huge vat of venison chili.

 

[scubadoo97]

Peppers look so vibrant.  With seeds a ribs, I bet there was some significant heat in your chili 

[Shelby]

Just now, scubadoo97 said:

Peppers look so vibrant.  With seeds a ribs, I bet there was some significant heat in your chili 

Yes, it is quite H O T.  Ronnie always complains that I don't make it spicy enough.  I didn't hear a complaint last night lol.

[IowaDee]

Shelby....Wow, that photo of your peppers is beautiful.  It belongs in a cookbook as a centerfold. 

[Shelby]

3 minutes ago, IowaDee said:

Shelby....Wow, that photo of your peppers is beautiful.  It belongs in a cookbook as a centerfold. 

I'm just glad they didn't eat through my cutting board.  Suckers are hot.

[liuzhou]

Tonight:

 

Salmon, rice and asparagus. Simple but hit the spot.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2017 by liuzhou (log)

[liamsaunt]

 I made a couple of seafood pizzas last night.  I'm on vacation and using a strange oven and the lighting's not so great, but it tasted good.  White clam pizza

 

 

Lobster pizza

 

[Tropicalsenior]

On 8/7/2017 at 7:51 AM, Shelby said:

LOL I tried that....it didn't work.

My husband hated stroganoff so for years I fed him beef with mushroom sauce and sour cream. He loved it.

[Shelby]

9 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

My husband hated stroganoff so for years I fed him beef with mushroom sauce and sour cream. He loved it.

Brilliant!

[Tropicalsenior]

On 8/11/2017 at 6:06 PM, Anna N said:

 It would take much more than a liberal amount of MR to persuade me to spend an hour and a quarter stirring.  Without the Instant Pot there would be no polenta in this house!   Just saying. 

I agree! The instant pot is the only way to go. I have a lot of time on my hands but I can think of a lot of ways that I'd rather spend it then stirring cornmeal for an hour and a half.

[Tropicalsenior]

On 8/13/2017 at 6:14 PM, Norm Matthews said:

 

That sounds like the same recipe. Mine had ground beef, yellow onion,  taco seasoning, cream cheese,  jumbo pasta shells,  enchilada sauce, salsa, cheddar and, mozzarella.  My recipes are almost always posted at the blog address listed at the bottom of my posts.

Thank you for letting us know about the blog address. Your food always looks great and it is good to know  that we can have the recipe. I am new to this whole Forum business but I am going to see if I can do the same.

[mgaretz]

It hit 110F here yesterday, so another dinner without heating up the kitchen.  Tuna salad sandwiches on rye with cucumber and cherry tomatoes.

 

 

[ninagluck]

I did not cook much lately due to tropical temperatures, the rain came last night and I really enjoyed cooking tonight. black cod with fennel and a boullabaisse sauce 

[shain]

Fattoush salad with leben (buttermilk), mint, garlic, olive oil, sumac (there is more sauce then visible, I didn't want to mix it too soon for the pita bread not to get soggy).

Notumuss (not hummus) with roasted bell peppers, tahini, soft feta, chili and plenty of sumac.

Edited September 2, 2017 by shain (log)

[robirdstx]

 

Meat Sauce and Rotini with Parmesan (I have my stove back! Yay!)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Last week I bought a chicken.  I think I shall die should I see much more of it.  And the fregola...I made a whole big pot.  Wonderful.  Half left.  Both good, excellent even.  But there is only so much one person can take.

 

[chromedome]

18 hours ago, Tropicalsenior said:

My husband hated stroganoff so for years I fed him beef with mushroom sauce and sour cream. He loved it.

LOL Yes, language is important. My former employer told me once he'd tried rice pudding several times and was unable to sell it. I put it on the menu as "dessert risotto" and sold a bunch. 

 

One of my favorite examples was non-culinary. Many years ago a neighbour making a purchase at Dad's bakery (okay, not totally non-culinary) during a rare dry summer asked him "I never see you watering your lawn, but it's the only one around that's still green. How do you do it?" My father, straight-faced, told him he'd "landscaped with native species that required little maintenance," since he was self-employed and had no time for yard work. 

That sounds so much more impressive than "It's all weeds, dude..."