Dinner 2017 (Part 6)

[David Ross]

We never are really sure what our wild mushroom crops will be like up here until the season arrives, but right now the chanterelle crop is very good.  The mushrooms are huge and full of flavor, and at a really reasonable price of $9.99 per pound.  A couple of smaller markets have them at $19.99 per pound which is still somewhat of a bargain for wild mushrooms picked by hand.  I usually serve them simple, like this dish of bucatini pasta, some olive oil, butter, fresh thyme and sage. 

[David Ross]

Braised Beef Guiness Pie.  I start with thick slabs of beef chuck, browned in beef tallow then braised for hours in Guiness, herbs and beef stock.  Then the next day into a casserole dish with carrots and potatoes, sometimes mushrooms or pearl onions.  I've been experimenting with a new frozen puff pastry that our local Trader Joe's is carrying and it's working pretty good.  It puffs up a little bit better than frozen Pepperidge Farms, but I think it's a little too sweet for my tastes.  I'm sure if I perfected homemade puff pastry it would be much better.  I make this pie a lot in the Fall and Winter, but was cleaning out a drawer and found the little beef cut-out so I really made the pie to test out the tiny cutter.

 

[kayb]

Yum. The crust looks luscious. Love the tiny cow. Steer. Bull. Whatever.

[mm84321]

Fall vegetable tart !

[cakewalk]

That's very pretty @mm84321, and looks like it would make a wonderful first course or side dish on Thanksgiving. Can you elaborate?

[ElsieD]

17 minutes ago, mm84321 said:

Fall vegetable tart !

 

That's a work of art! 

[robirdstx]

 

The last of the Porcupine Meatballs with Pepper Jack Cheese on a Toasted Ciabatta Bun

[Kim Shook]

Mr. Kim had a poker game Friday night, so I contributed to the clean-out-the-freezer-before-Christmas-baking project:

Frozen biscuits and Stouffer’s cream chipped beef. 

 

 

Dinner last night:

Kale, a Lidl croissant, Shake and Bake BBQ pork chop and salad!  I will probably serve this again this week, as I have another 2 chops and another envelope of Shake and Bake and I am furiously trying to help my daughter pack to move home, finish the majority of the baking that is being done for our church Holiday Market this Saturday and deal with my increasingly needy mother and grandmother. 

[HungryChris]

Baked stuffed shrimp, my way.

These are the U-15 fresh Gulf shrimp that were on sale and inspired this effort. 

 

 

These are some big boys. Normally I will use the U 16-20 size, but these gulf shrimp looked and smelled so fresh, I had to go with them.

 

When buying shrimp for stuffing, you must find raw shrimp, that are not peeled and deveined (easy peel) because the shell has been cut on those. They are fine for shrimp cocktail and most other uses, but not good for stuffing. I find that your typical steak knife does a good job cutting down into the shrimp from the leg side, being careful to stay in the middle of the shrimp and going all the way to, but not through the shrimp shell. Clean the vein out under running water.

 

As a general rule, a typical serving is 4 stuffed shrimp and I like to use 2 shrimp, cut up into pea sized pieces in the stuffing for every serving. This means that for each typical serving ,  6 shrimp are required,  4 shrimp to be stuffed and 2 that go into the stuffing.. Here are the 8 shrimp that will be stuffed and the other 4 that will become part of the stuffing tonight.

 

Normally, I use U-16 to 20 for stuffing and one sleeve of Ritz crackers is just about right, but these are U-15's and a bit bigger, so I went with one sleeve and a quarter of crackers to do the job. I crush the crackers by hand and try to leave the biggest pieces as big as a large kernel of corn. To this, I add about a half cup of grated Romano cheese and 3 chopped green onion tops. Keep in mind that a big part of the aroma and flavor of this dish comes from a  combination of the grated cheese and the dry sherry, so don't even think about using that stuff in the cardboard can from the fridge.
 

 

In a small fry pan, I combine 1 small chopped shallot, 2 cloves of finely minced garlic, 4 raw shrimp (cut into pea sized pieces) 4 TBS of butter and several dashes of smoked paprika to get a cheerful color.

 

Sautee this over medium high heat until the shrimp are fully cooked, adding a splash of dry sherry towards the end.

 

Add the contents of the fry pan to the stuffing mix and deglaze the pan with a bit more dry sherry, adding that to the mix as well.  Mix the stuffing and added pan  deglazing offerings and you should have a mixture that can be easily formed into the shrimp stuffing.

 

Having worked for years in restaurant kitchens, I find the sizzle platter, ubiquitous there, to be an essential part of my kitchen and the absolute ideal platform for this effort. I put about a quarter inch of water (or dry white wine) in the base to assure that while the stuffing bakes, the shrimp meat steams and bake in a 375 F oven for about 35 min. The shrimp are done just about the time the liquid is exhausted in the bottom of the sizzle platter.

HC

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2017 by HungryChris (log)

[liamsaunt]

arugula salad

 

 

a prosciutto and burrata salad for my niece who dislikes pasta

 

 

and everyone else had pasta puttanesca

[scubadoo97]

Wife's big birthday yesterday. Had number one son, girlfriend and my wife's brother over for dinner

 

Big meat of slow roasted tenderloin, carrots and Kenji's crispy oven roasted new potatoes where you cook them down in heavily salted waster until the water evaporates and finish in the oven.  Salad and sautéed sliced mushrooms didn't make it in the picture 

 

 

[kayb]

Oh, my, @scubadoo97. A true work of love. That tenderloin!

 

Mine wasn't nearly as attractive, but good. I had been craving ham, so I picked up an Appleton Farms spiral sliced ham at Aldi because I'd heard good things about them. Did my standard glaze, which consists of coating the ham with ballpark mustard and then packing brown sugar on top of that. Had it with potato salad, beans and rolls.

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2017 by kayb (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Quick dinner but pretty tasty:

 

 

 

Last night's sage stuffing, my own bread of course.  Previously anovaed pork chop seared on Zojirushi grill.  Blanched broccolini.  Simple gravy.  Apple sauce with nutmeg, not shown.

 

 

[HungryChris]

Kimchi bokkeumbap with sweet peppers and leftover kielbasa.

HC

 

[Anna N]

3 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Last night's sage stuffing, my own bread of course.  Previously anovaed pork chop seared on Zojirushi grill.  Blanched broccolini.  Simple gravy.  Apple sauce with nutmeg, not shown.

That pork chop looks amazing and I do envy you the broccolini. 

 

[liuzhou]

5 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Quick dinner but pretty tasty:

 

 

 

Last night's sage stuffing, my own bread of course.  Previously anovaed pork chop seared on Zojirushi grill.  Blanched broccolini.  Simple gravy.  Apple sauce with nutmeg, not shown.

 

 

Love your black plate.

[Anna N]

Lazy dinner —  thigh from a Costco rotisserie chicken and roasted buttercup squash. 

[liuzhou]

I've been away from home for just over a week. Nothing interesting to report food-wise other than I had one evening meal with a couple of young Chinese associates at a roadside grilled oyster stand. I asked the woman in charge of the place to serve me some shucked, uncooked oysters. She looked highly suspicious but complied. Unfortunately she ditched all the liquid from them, though!

 

I had been talking with my companions explaining that raw is my (and many others') preferred way of eating oysters. They didn't believe me. Most Chinese people are hugely nervous of eating anything raw. Rare beef? Forget it. Salad? Rarely.

 

Anyway, raw oysters arrived and I scoffed the first plate of 10, then ordered another, to the amazement of my companions and the vendor. When the second plate arrived, each of my two companions decided they would risk trying one, on condition that I promised they wouldn't die. I explained that I had no ability to render them immortal and that one day they will pop off, but probably not any time soon.

 

To my delight, they tried one each; proclaimed them surprisingly OK, but preferred the grilled ones (grilled with a little chilli, garlic and topped with vermicelli). Brave young women.

 

But this all just a prelude to my saying that I arrived back home this evening about 7:30 and threw together a quick store cupboard dish of linguine with duck meat slivers (from the freezer), rehydrated dried shiitake, green chilli (from my balcony plants), pimiento-stuffed olives (from a bottle), and tomato. Lots of black pepper.

 

Tomorrow, I'll go shopping and get back into cooking.

 

Edited November 7, 2017 by liuzhou
To rectify a shameful incompetence in my native language. (log)

[Shelby]

I'm in another food rut.  

 

Our usual Sunday chicken meal except I was craving Stove Top stuffing so I made some of that.  Green beans are the ones I pressure canned this summer.  I am going to have to plant more beans.  We love these things.

 

 

Ronnie smoked a domestic turkey breast for a bit and then I SV'd it.  So, turkey sandwiches and tots.  

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

5 hours ago, Anna N said:

That pork chop looks amazing and I do envy you the broccolini. 

 

 

That broccolini came from amazon...I should frame it and put it on the wall.

 

Why, Jeff, why??

 

[Toliver]

2 hours ago, Shelby said:

I'm in another food rut.  

@Shelby You could always play cookbook roulette.

Gather some cookbooks, favorites or new-to-you, and just open the books and randomly pick a page. Done. 

Strict adherence to the game rules would have you make that recipe, come hell or high water.

Looser adherence to the rules would have you pick 3 to 5 recipes randomly and then choose from those which one you will make.

Either way, it puts you on a new cooking path and gets you out of your rut.

Though I must say I've been enjoying seeing pictures of your "rut" meals. 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

5 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

Love your black plate.

 

Thank you.  The pattern is Iron Mountain Stoneware Blue Ridge:

http://ironmountainstoneware.blogspot.com/p/roan-mountain.html

 

As the name implies, not black but two shades of very dark blue.  Iron Mountain had another pattern that was actually black.  My set is what I chose as my wedding pattern in 1971.  In recent years I have supplemented it with a few pieces from replacements.com.

 

[gfweb]

12 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Thank you.  The pattern is Iron Mountain Stoneware Blue Ridge:

http://ironmountainstoneware.blogspot.com/p/roan-mountain.html

 

As the name implies, not black but two shades of very dark blue.  Iron Mountain had another pattern that was actually black.  My set is what I chose as my wedding pattern in 1971.  In recent years I have supplemented it with a few pieces from replacements.com.

 

 

You had good taste in your youth.

[liuzhou]

11 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Thank you.  The pattern is Iron Mountain Stoneware Blue Ridge:

http://ironmountainstoneware.blogspot.com/p/roan-mountain.html

 

As the name implies, not black but two shades of very dark blue.  Iron Mountain had another pattern that was actually black.  My set is what I chose as my wedding pattern in 1971.  In recent years I have supplemented it with a few pieces from replacements.com.

 

 

As I was typing "black", I was thinking "It might be dark blue".  Thanks for the info.

[ninagluck]

Fall is game season, I went through my older books and found a recipe: hare with banana, I had a hare loin and I had a banana, easy decision.  I made some potato dumplings to go with ans as one can not only make 3, I have some more in the freezer now :-(