As I said on the breakfast and lunch threads I am SO behind in posting my meals. I’ve been busy with other stuff and I was trying to get the mini blogs about our anniversary trip and Jessica’s belated birthday trip posted and things got a bit out of hand. Unfortunately, that means this post will be much too long and I apologize for that. I’ll try to stay caught up as much as possible from now on. Another thing is how restaurant heavy the past few weeks have been. I really have no idea why that would be. But, as we were required to buy a new car (Mr. Kim wrecked his car – he was fine, car was not) recently, that should change.
@C. sapidus – I’m a little late to the party, but I’ve been using the same red cabbage recipe for about 30 years and I’ve never found a reason to change. It’s from The New Basics Cookbook (remember that one?) and includes onions, red wine, apples, raisins, caraway, and thyme.
@Dejah – could you please help me with understanding something? Your chow mein looks delicious. Growing up that and a egg roll were my grandmother’s only choice at the Chinese restaurants we frequented in the Washington DC suburbs. At that time (1960s) that meant crunchy fried noodles and white meat chicken in a gloppy, glutenous sauce with some onion, celery, and maybe a few bean sprouts – not dissimilar to the La Choy canned version. My mother and I didn’t like it at all and preferred to get other, more interesting (to us – more weird to my grandmother 😉) dishes. In later years, what I’ve read – not to mention what you showed a picture of – indicates that that is NOT proper Chow Mein. I’ve heard that the crisp noodles are: wrong; alternately that they are right, but shouldn’t be really crisp. I’ve heard that flat egg noodles are right. I’ve heard that the noodles should be stir-fried – NO! they should be steamed. What is correct? Or has it been taken so far from the origins that there is no “right” way? Thank you, ma’am!
@Shelby – I really need to try to make that gyro meat. It looks so great.
@mgaretz – good luck with the house. Don’t forget St. Joseph goes upside down 😄!
Back a bit dinner was iconic (😄). We happen to be among those who share a shameful love of the McRib. I actually missed getting one on its recent so-called “farewell tour” (Mr. Kim, the bastard, had one without me). So, I bought a package of frozen “rib” patties in BBQ sauce and made my own. In all its nekkid glory:
(They are thin, so you have to pile them up for the correct effect). Dressed with dill pickles and red onions and served with broccoli:
Also, salads, slaw (homemade this time) and pickles:
Another night was drumstick Shake and Bake with Mambo sauce:
The sauce is a Washington DC tradition – a sweet/tangy tomato-based wing sauce that is great on most meats and even fish and shrimp. Everyone thinks that Buffalo invented wings, but poor folks (including lots of African-Americans) have been eating the wings, backs, and necks forever. I don’t remember the first time I tasted Mambo sauce, but I’m betting it was at a late night joint in a neighborhood my parents wouldn’t have approved of on pre-Buffalo wings. I also remember it being on the table at little seafood places near the Wharf (when it was just an area near the river and not a billion dollar destination) to dip fried goodies in. I also served Jessica’s mac & cheese, slaw, raw veg, loaded fries, and quick garlic toast made with garlic powder and Penzey’s Green Goddess dressing mix:
One night was takeout pizza and salad from a place we frequent because it is close and pretty good. The last few times the pizza was really subpar:
Pretty ordinary.
I did make a few meals – this was a big salad with roasted shrimp and some leftover crabmeat:
I had a bottle of Penzeys’ Green Goddess salad dressing mix that I’d never used and made it to go on the salad. It was great – I’m glad I finally tried it:
One night dinner was pretty random. No one ate at the same time, so we all got our own. I was in the mood for sardines, grilled cheese, and soup. Boneless, skinless w. crackers:
Grilled American and mozzarella cheeses with Dijon mustard:
Plain old Campbell’s chicken and rice:
This was the day that we bought the new car. We were exhausted after being at the dealership for HOURS (they had ONE new car of that model available and it still took forever). So, we relaxed and celebrated at one of our favorite Chinese places. Pupu platter:
This is one of Jessica’s and my favorites (the owner at our regular place calls us his “Pupu Ladies”) and this place, Tiki-tiki, has better than usual offerings. Jessica decided to make a meal of appetizers. Crab Rangoon:
With the sauce that tastes inexplicably of whiskey. Made with real crabmeat, this is one of the better versions of this dish. She also chose their delicious ribs:
Sticky, sweet, and meaty – perfect ribs to me.
I had the shrimp fried rice:
Mr. Kim had orange chicken:
We have a bit of a debate about Chinese restaurants in our family. Jessica prefers everything at Tiki. Mike prefers almost everything at our regular place (Yen Ching). For me, it depends on what I’m ordering. By and large the appetizers are better at Tiki. The soups are better at Yen Ching. The mains that we’ve had are slightly better at Yen Ching, but there are things that Tiki has (Chow Fun and Orange chicken) that Yen Ching doesn’t have. So, it’s a bit of a toss-up!
Jessica requested a hot dog meal with all fixings and the proper sides. The dogs:
The four on the right at mine because I like a bit of char. My plate:
A Carolina dog (chili, mustard, and slaw), fixed up baked beans, kraut, my grandma’s cheater pickles, and some fruit (including a couple pieces of forbidden banana – SO dern good).
I had a fun night and dinner combo a week or so ago. For my last birthday (July 9th), Mr. Kim gave me a gift certificate to a cooking class. I was finally able to find a class that worked for my schedule and that I was interested in. This one was tapas and was a lot of fun. He had us separate into groups and work on all the dishes. My group did chorizo and shrimp empanadas – before going in the oven:
Baked:
These were delicious and I wanted to eat a LOT of them. They were a bit too spicy for me and the shrimp got a bit lost. When I make them (and I really want to), I will probably halve the chorizo and double the shrimp. And I’ll use mild chorizo.
There was also arancini:
This was delicious but sat so long that the cheese got firm again. Still tasted wonderful.
This was Watermelon-Cucumber Gazpacho with ginger and lime and topped with a mixture of brunoised watermelon, tomato, cucumbers, red bell pepper, cilantro, scallion, and hot pepper:
Needless to say, I had it without the topping and it was SO good. I think it would make a great cocktail.
The other tapas was a grilled ratatouille with whipped ricotta. It was never going to be my favorite with eggplant, zucchini, and bell peppers, but I gave it a try. Grilling the onions:
This is actually a George Foreman standing grill. The chef told a story about how years ago his girlfriend made sandwiches on one of these and he was so impressed with the quality and speed that he put one in the kitchen he was working in and he’s had one in every kitchen since. It certainly did a great, quick job on the red onions. Assembly:
Plates:
The finished dish included a topping of tomatoes, olives, anchovies, garlic, basil, oil, and vinegar and a quenelle of ricotta. This was delicious. I tried it all – the eggplant and zucchini were inoffensive – kind of bland. The bell pepper was terrible, but since it was all cooked separately, they didn’t pollute everything else. I could have eaten the topping and the onion with a spoon.
I overlooked the announced dessert. I’m such a savory loving person that a flourless cake with strawberries and whipped cream just didn’t sound terribly interesting. I was SO wrong. The Tarta de Santiago, Galician almond cake:
This was amazingly delicious. Incredibly tender and so flavorful. As much as I loved most of what we had, this was the thing I came home and talked about most.
Last week I did a sheet pan dinner with chicken sausages, apples, and shallots:
This was good but needs a bit of adjustment. The apples are supposed to go in at the same time as the onions and this didn’t work. The onions were perfect at the end of the cooking time, but the apples were almost nonexistent. I also used the wrong sausage. I’ve made this with both Italian sausage and brats and both were very good. This time I used chicken sausage with feta and spinach. If I’d used the chicken and apple sausage, it would have been fine, but the feta was just wrong.
I had some frozen pirogues and tried baking them in the CSO. I’d always boiled then fried them, but noticed on the packaging it said you could bake them. So much easier and I gave it a try. It worked great:
Plated with the pirogues, slaw, and kraut:
Our Mother’s Day dinner was disappointing. Mr. Kim and Jessica spirited me away for a picnic lunch and a drive to Fredericksburg (about an hour away). Dinner was at the Alpine Chef (formerly the second location of our beloved Bavarian Chef in Madison VA). We’ve been there many times in the past when it was still part of the Bavarian Chef family. It was purchased by the chef and his wife that had been running it for the family. This wasn’t recent, and we’d heard good things about it from people who should know, but we hadn’t been ourselves since before the pandemic. Everyone is wonderfully friendly and ready to help. It is a lovely place. And the menu SOUNDS very good. But every single table that was not occupied (including outside tables) was covered with dirty dishes that needed busing. They were only removed when they needed to seat someone at the table. The servings are large, and we had stuff we wanted to take home and were subjected to one of my pet peeves: “nice” restaurants that bring a bunch of take out containers and dump them on the table for you to deal with instead of taking the dishes away and doing it for you. We were all dressed nicely and our table was covered with dirty dishes. We ended up trying to carefully fill the containers and stacking the spent dishes on a nearby table. I hate when restaurants do this. So ungracious.
We started out with what they call Swiss raclette:
Three cheese fondue, potatoes, walnuts, apples. This tasted pretty good but suffered from an overabundance of apples and a big, practically impenetrable, blob of cheese on top.
Jessica had the tenderloin filets with peppercorn sauce:
This was oddly butchered or else it wasn’t really from the tenderloin. It was cooked to the proper temperature and tasted fine but was much tougher than it should have been. It was also not very hot. Her sides were very good. The little potato pancakes were the best thing on the table and the glazed carrots, while not hot, tasted good.
I had the sauerbraten with a Burgundy wine sauce and red cabbage and creamed corn:
My sides were truly excellent. Maybe I just haven’t had enough different versions of sauerbraten to judge, but I’ve never had a sauce this intense and red and I found the fall apart texture of the meat more like pot roast than any sauerbraten I’ve eaten or cooked.
Mr. Kim’s was the prettiest plate on the table – and probably the best tasting:
(For some reason I can't seem to upload this photo to eG - I'll try in the next post)
Bratwurst, bauernwurst and weisswurst with sauerkraut and German potato salad.
The sausages were delicious, but all three were room temperature, at best. However, everything really did taste very, very good.
I know that it seems stupid that we didn’t send things back. And we should have, but it was just about EVERYTHING on the table. And it was not just a matter of food temperature. I think we just realized that sending stuff back wouldn’t really improve Jessica’s or my meals. And that after a long drive and with another one getting home, we just weren’t up to figuring out what else we could try. And would a different dish really be any better? Obviously, there was no one in the kitchen who either knew or cared what was being sent out. And we all felt so bad that these lovely people were having to serve such sub-par food. I’ve looked at their Yelp page and it offers some hope that we perhaps caught them on an exceptionally bad day. They have overwhelmingly GOOD reviews and 4- and 5-star ratings. We MAY be persuaded to try it again, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
