Dinner 2018

[Anna N]

There has been far too much  discussion of gravy lately and a gal can only resist so long. 

 

 

 

 I had two sausages left over from making sausage rolls this morning and this recipe in my mailbox. 

 

Not much could be any easier or make fewer dirty dishes. I deviated from the recipe in terms of quantities. After all there is only me. And I bought myself some insurance against lumpy gravy by using a stick blender to bring the gravy components together before adding them to the baking dish. 

 

Edited March 12, 2018 by Anna N (log)

[weinoo]

3 hours ago, TicTac said:

Looks good!

 

Cooked celery is totally underrated!

 

 

Indeed - cooked celery is great...I actually took the time to de-string this batch.

 

And Chinese, or Asian celery, is something I've been cooking with a bit as well...great for stir frying and soups.

 

[scubadoo97]

6 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Steak, Mexican Tomato Rice, Mexican Black Beans topped with crumbly/salty cheese and salsa verde.

I just pan seared the porterhouse steak.  It was so good.

As much as I like meat, I'm a sucker for starched.   The Mexican rice and salsa looks fab

[Okanagancook]

Thanks.  It's brown rice cooked in chicken stock and tomato puree.  The peas and carrots were cooked in the microwave and stirred in.  It was one of the better rice dishes we've had. I do like brown rice.  Salsa verde and black beans were from Rick Bayless.

I added some mint to the leftover rice which we will have with tonight's lamb chops.

[Norm Matthews]

We had a Mexican themed dinner too. We had Mexican stuffed shells and a sweet corn cake (Pan de Elote)

[robirdstx]

 

Apricot-Ginger Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Roasted Asparagus and Jasmine Rice (sprinkled with Nanami Togarashi)

[ElsieD]

Rib steak cooked sous vide at 133F, and the roast potatoes referred to by @Mmmpomps and @Shelby above.  I thought I had baking potatoes but didn't so used Yukon Golds.  They were yummy.

Edited March 13, 2018 by ElsieD (log)

[Okanagancook]

Pan seared lamb chops, snow peas in chive flower butter, Mexican rice and some yogurt/salt and garlic sauce.  I quite liked the yogurt because it cut the richness of the lamb

 

.

[Mmmpomps]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

Rib steak cooked sous vide at 133F, and the roast potatoes referred to by @Mmmpomps and @Shelby above.  I thought I had baking potatoes but didn't so used Yukon Golds.  They were yummy.

 

 

Fabulous looking dinner! Hope you have one or two left to have cold in the morning

[ElsieD]

1 hour ago, Mmmpomps said:

 

Fabulous looking dinner! Hope you have one or two left to have cold in the morning

 

Sadly, they are all gone.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Schnitzel the last two nights:

 

 

 

And yes, I made it twice.

 

 

[CantCookStillTry]

I picked up a packet of premade honey and mint Koftas the other day, I know I'll hand back my card soon.

Reasons were multiple, one -I have lost my motivation, two I adore lamb and three who isn't a sucker for a meat lollipop. Ahem.

Fourth reasoning was that at 7.50 AUD for 450g (when lamb mince retails at about $13 per kg (in the big town at least) with all the 'hard' work done, it seemed like a good deal.  

 

Yeah so. They were welded to the packet perfectly so that the sticks ripped straight out of half of them and the other half, those that were painstakingly  removed whole, had the sticks poking out at all kinds of angles. 

 

So I had to remake them all anyway. 

And the final insult was that the sticks had no kind of water treatment so, there were spot fires.

 

You might think I would at least go to the effort of prettying up my store bought cheaters. You would be wrong. 

 

Kofta

 

 

Looking exactly how I feel about them. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2018 by CantCookStillTry (log)

[HungryChris]

Had this thing about making Shepard's pie. Yesterday, I finally did it with a small Greek salad.  At the last minute, I chose to use shaved potatoes instead of mashed, so shoot me. It turned out pretty good and Deb liked it, so it was a win.

HC

[Nicolai]

In view of my alleged meat gorging. My loving wife enforced Salads for dinner last week.

 

Ahhhhl. The things you do for love  

 

 

- Greek 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Pumpkin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Ceasar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Beans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Calamari

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The life elixirs were saved from her wrath......or should we say willfully forgotten  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HungryChris]

6 minutes ago, Nicolai said:

Ahhhhl. The things you do for love  

Looks like a small sacrifice. Just saying.

[Norm Matthews]

@HungryChris I like the idea of thin whole potatoes on the top of Shepard's Pie.

[HungryChris]

17 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

This was a porterhouse from our grass fed beef.  The fillet which is on the side away from the camera, was enormous and you are right it was almost the same size as the strip.  Both very tender.  I have three more in the freezer 

 

That is a very unusual looking steak. The only ones I have ever seen with that kind of size have been in Italy and come from the Chinana breed. It is not unusual for the strip portion to fill the plate on its own and the fillet portion to be just about as big. The meat also has little apparent marbling, yet is quite tender. I wonder what breed of cattle your steak is from.

HC

[liuzhou]

After a delicious but unusual lunch (the venue, not the food), I was at a bit of loss as what to cook. Then a  strange thought popped into my head from nowhere.

My utterly favourite meal as a kid some 50 years ago was my mother's stovies. I haven't eaten them for about 40 years or thought about them for 35. What a fool!

 

They are real evidence that leftovers can be transformed into something sublime. Even my culinary challenged French mother could make them delicious.

 

I didn't have the appropriate leftovers, but any idiot can make leftovers! I had some minced beef in the fridge. I had a leek. I had carrots. I had potatoes. Robert is your father's brother (or in my case mother's brother).  I did also have onions, the more traditional allium, but the leek was needing to be used.

 

I was sorely tempted to Sinify the dish, but bravely resisted.

 

 

Seconds were had and there are enough leftover leftovers for breakfast tomorrow with a poached egg!

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

My utterly favourite meal as a kid some 50 years ago was my mother's stovies. I haven't eaten them for about 40 years or thought about them for 35. What a fool!

 So I will admit upfront that though the word stovie sounded familiar I had to look up the meaning.  That led me down the rabbit hole.  Many of the photos of the recipes I found  make the dish look rather revolting. Yours, on the other hand, looks quite edible.  I might even say tasty. What is your secret?  I am particularly interested in any liquid you might have used. 

Edited March 13, 2018 by Anna N (log)

[Tropicalsenior]

11 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Many of the photos of the recipes I found  make the dish look rather revolting.

If dear Google brought up the same recipes for you that it showed me, revolting is an understatement. @liuzhou do you have any ideas as to the origin of the name?

Edited March 13, 2018 by Tropicalsenior (log)

[liuzhou]

2 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Yours, on the other hand, looks quite edible.  I might even say tasty. What is your secret?

 

Well thank you! My secret? Pure genius. As the the eighteenth-century English poet Thomas Gray almost said, "ignorance is bliss."  I don't know. I just winged it as usual.  I think the key is that too much fat is just enough.

 

5 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I am particularly interested in any liquid you might have used. 

 

Traditionally the liquid would be beef stock, but I didn't have that so used some shiitake dried mushroom soaking water that I had frozen. In case you didn't know, 'shiitake' is Gaelic for mushroom, so I preserved the Scottish/Celtic tradition.

My mother would turn in her grave if she happened to be dead. She isn't,  so would have eaten it heartily and demanded more.
 

[liuzhou]

2 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

If dear Google brought up the same recipes for you that it showed me, revolting is an understatement.

 

I did look at Google before I set out and totally agree.

And as for the idiots who suggest using canned corned beef....

[Okanagancook]

2 hours ago, HungryChris said:

That is a very unusual looking steak. The only ones I have ever seen with that kind of size have been in Italy and come from the Chinana breed. It is not unusual for the strip portion to fill the plate on its own and the fillet portion to be just about as big. The meat also has little apparent marbling, yet is quite tender. I wonder what breed of cattle your steak is from.

HC

You're right, the meat was very lean and tender for grass fed.  

Here is what Vale Farms say about their cows:

 

Our Cows

Our cows and young calves go up on range in the summer months and graze on the delicious mix of alpine grasses, while the yearlings stay on the farm, grazing our diverse pasture land. In the fall when the snow starts creeping down the mountains, the cows return home to the farm, where they spend the winter.

The calves are born in February. Straw beds keep the calves dry and  allow us to collect compost for our fields. When spring arrives, the calves have grown enough to keep up with their mothers on range. The cattle are a mix of breeds, predominantly Angus, mixed with some Hereford or Jersey.  In 2014 we added a small herd of Speckle Park cows.  They are know to be the “grazing champions”. 

 

Vale Farms has just purchased a new small herd of beef cows called “Speckle Park”.  This is a Canadian Beef Breed (established only in 1995) developed out of British Shorthorn, British White and Aberdeen Angus. They are known for their quiet disposition, their good marbling,  size consistency and for their excellent feed efficiency, especially as a grazer (grass-eater).

In order to efficiently pull the nutrients out of grass, a cow needs a very efficient rumen, hosting a combination of specific healthy gut bacteria.

As soon as grains are fed, this community of rumen bacteria changes. As a result we lower Omega 3,CLA,  Vitamins, Beta- Carotine etc. and loose some of the healthy essential fatty acids in the fat.

For maximum health benefits, the beef animal should eat grass and grass products all of it’s life and goes to slaughter only at a time,  when it is still grazing growing grass.  That is the “kicker”!!!

We felt very lucky, when the opportunity presented itself to obtain this little herd of grazing experts. We are anticipating that they will provide us with some very tasty meals.

[rotuts]

@Okanagancook

 

thanks for that.

 

should you ever get the time , a pi of the SP's would be nice

 

I found some pics here ;

 

http://specklepark.org

[Shelby]

Turkey sandwiches, fries and deviled egg salad....which was just like the macaroni salad I've always seen...I guess someone renamed it to make it more enticing.....