Dinner 2023

[Smithy]

12 hours ago, Dejah said:

 

A pic of some of the baos my friends made, and a tart. Tea went well with both!

                                                                                       

 

 

The food looks great, but I especially want to call attention to that gorgeous plate! Please tell more about it: where it's from, who made it, how long have you had it?  It looks like it should be a family heirloom.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

4 hours ago, liuzhou said:

China’s northern Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (内蒙古 - nèi měng gǔ) takes up most of the border with the Republic of Mongolia as well as part of that with Russia. It is mostly grassland and barren mountains. When I moved to China, I flew London to Beijing. I woke up shortly before we reached Beijing and all I could see from the window was what looked like the surface of Mars. Uninhabited, red tinged mountains for miles.

 

Unsurprisingly, the local food is very different from that down here in the tropics. Yet, Mongolian grub is popular throughout China. The region is known for being meat and dairy heavy. It is also one of the few parts of China which makes cheeses. But perhaps most famous are its hotpots and kebabs. Mutton is the main meat, unlike the rest of China which overwhelmingly prefers pork.

 

So tonight I went there via my food ordering app. I have been there bodily in the past. I ordered two 红柳羊肉串 (hóng liǔ yáng ròu chuàn), red mutton skewers; two 深海大八爪鱼须串 (shēn hǎi dà bā zhuǎ yú xū chuàn), deep sea octopus skewers; and two 炭烤白皮镆 (tàn kǎo bái pí mò), charcoal toasted bread buns*. These are all cooked over charcoal and generously sprinkled with cumin and chili powder.

 

 

 

I also toyed with the idea of ordering some 碳烤东北蝉蛹 (tàn kǎo dōng běi chán yǒng), charcoal roasted north-eastern cicada pupae, but decided I had enough as I also had some egg fried rice from lunch.

 

 

Despite everything being seasoned / spiced identically, the inherent flavour of each shone through.

 

* The are the same buns which, untoasted, I use for rou jia mo (qv).

 

 

I would not have associated octopus with Mongolia?

 

[liuzhou]

42 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I would not have associated octopus with Mongolia?

 

It's Inner Mongolian; not Mongolian. True, it is land-locked and most of its aquatic food is fresh water fish from the Yellow River which flows through the region, but it's not far from Beijing and the sea. There is a large fresh fish market in Hohhot, the capital. So mabe not so traditional to have octopus, but they certainly have them. I ate it at a wedding banquet in Inner Mongolia in 2001.

 

Free to use image

Edited August 16, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[Duvel]

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I would not have associated octopus with Mongolia?

 

Sure … some people even say that Genghis Khan brought it from Inner Mongolia to the Mediterranean 😉

[Dejah]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

The food looks great, but I especially want to call attention to that gorgeous plate! Please tell more about it: where it's from, who made it, how long have you had it?  It looks like it should be a family heirloom.

Ah...sorry to disappoint, but the plate is not a family heirloom. I love dishes and often check out the local Winners for their selection. . Might be the same as Marshalls in the states? I was only able to find two of these lunch plates.  It is quite lovely. Winners is where I also picked up all the blue dishes I usually use for my food pictures. We do use them regularly. It took me a couple of years to find 24 dinner plates, several lunch plates, mugs, etc for that set.  They are great when we have big family dinners. 

 

                              

Edited August 16, 2023 by Dejah (log)

[OlyveOyl]

Linguinette pasta with uncooked tomato sauce two ways.

The first was peeled tomato chunks, mozzarella and basil.

The second, a medley of mini tomatoes, mozzarella and basil..

Both were marinated in a small amount of vinaigrette for several hours, the peeled tomatoes, as expected, giving off a lot more tomato liquid than the minis.

Both were good, the minis having a very pleasant crunch.

The warm pasta was mixed with the room temperature tomatoes and mozzarella, warm enough to melt some of the mozzarella cubes.

 

Dessert was a plum raspberry topped cake. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by OlyveOyl (log)

[Norm Matthews]

We had tacos

[MaryIsobel]

49 minutes ago, Norm Matthews said:

We had tacos

Can't go wrong with tacos!

 

[Ann_T]

Smoked two small chickens, started early this morning.  

Moe had two legs for lunch and for dinner we had thinly sliced smoked

chicken breast on homemade rye.  (no pics)

[MaryIsobel]

Trying to cook with as little heat as possible so hauled out the electric skillet. Sauteed some onion, zuchini and summer squash til browned, added some super cherry tomatoes and cooked til burst and jammy then stirred in some al dente ricotta/prosciutto tortellini, pesto from a jar and a bit of pasta water. Everyone was happy and there was enough for lunches tomorrow.

Edited August 17, 2023 by MaryIsobel (log)

[liuzhou]

生汁花甲螺 (shēng zhī huā jiǎ luó) spicy oyster sauce clams with green and red chillies, garlic, ginger and yellow garlic chives. Served with rice. Those red chillies were 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶.

 

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[Duvel]

Bought a huuuge freshly smoked mackerel on impulse … 

 

Mixed grain toast, kewpie, shredded smoked mackerel and Maldon salt 🤗

 

 

Looks like - well - but ohh so good !

[OlyveOyl]

Cold pork roast with a cobbled together sauce.

Baby Yukon gold potato salad, chives, tarragon and parsley.

Tomatoes with St. Agur

Peach raspberry cake with almonds.

[Kim Shook]

As I said in the breakfast and lunch threads, most of you all know that I was in the hospital for a week back in June and I’ve been recovering my strength and energy ever since.  Very little cooking has been done, but I’ve been reading all of these posts and planning my meals for when my appetite recovered.  It has now recovered and I’m STARVING 😁!  I cannot go back and comment on all the wonderful food that y’all have been posting.  But, as always, I’m impressed and inspired.  I’m sorry that there are SO many meals in this post – feel free to skim – but it will catch me up and then I hope I’ll keep up!  Many of the meals are either restaurant meals or short cuts, but that’s what needed to happen in July. 

 

This was prior to going into the hospital.  The three of us were starting to feel blah – it turned out that we all had upper respiratory infections and were in bed for the following week.  This was supposed to be the start of a fairly substantial dinner:

Found this frozen ramen at our local Asian market.  I was a bit disorganized, and we were out later in the day than I had planned so I didn’t have anything to top the soup with:

It tasted pretty good but would have benefitted from some tender pork and a soft boiled egg, at least.  Mr. Kim and Jessica put some hot sauce on it.  I also served Trader Joe’s green onion pancakes and a dipping sauce of black vinegar and soy sauce:

This all ended up being pretty much all the dinner we got.  Mr. Kim had a couple of errands he needed to run and we didn’t get back to the house until 9:30pm.  I threw together a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and gave him some leftover salad.  I had an apple. 

 

I had been out of the hospital just over a week when my birthday happened.  We went to Waypoint Seafood in Williamsburg for dinner.  My starter:

Crab and shrimp fritters on a ginger-lobster cream sauce with grilled pineapple pico.  This was fabulous.  One of the best dishes I’ve ever had.  I could have ordered a second one and been done for the night.  I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  My main course:

A shrimp and lobster po’ boy.  This was very good, but nowhere near my starter.  It suffered from the wrong bread – too dense and crusty for the delicate seafood.  I ended up eating the insides and leaving most of the (very good – just wrong) bread.

 

Dessert – we shared this:

Absolutely perfect and delicious chocolate mousse.  Just dark enough without any bitterness. 

 

I somehow missed getting pictures of Mr. Kim and Jessica’s meals.  July was my fuzzy headed month 🙄. 

 

Sloppy Joe, tomatoes, and corn:

 

For months there was a taco food truck near us that we kept saying we needed to try.  One day it was gone.  Jessica managed to track it down and found that they had opened up a restaurant not far from us.  It’s called Lalo’s Pinches Tacos.  Mr. Kim and Jessica went one time for a daddy/daughter night. They brought me some leftovers – even lukewarm the food was amazing.  So, one night in July the three of us finally went for dinner.  Excellent guacamole:

I had the 3 taco assortment (you got to choose which 3 you wanted):

Pastor, Birria, and Carnitas.  Easily the best tacos I’ve ever eaten.  The onions on the side were amazing – I was eating them like they were a side dish. 

 

Jessica had the birria tacos that had some kind of cheese on them:

The consommé was incredible.  I could have eaten it as a soup course. 

 

Mr. Kim had an assortment of tacos:

I’m a little fuzzy, but I think one was steak, one was chicken, and the last was maybe chorizo?  We shared excellent churros for dessert:

 

Dinner and dumpling fixings:

 

This dinner was not a notable success.  The orange chicken was from Lidl and was flabby and over breaded and the sauce was just sweet and sticky without any orange flavor.  The rice was supposedly bulgogi rice from Trader Joe’s:

There were maybe 5 pieces of beef in the entire bag and no discernable kimchi at all (which was fine with me as I don’t care for it).  The dumplings were TJ’s soup dumplings.  They had a good flavor and were nice and “brothy”, but the skins were tough and chewy. 

 

One night I fried a ham slice:

 

Topped with some orange marmalade and served with Kraft mac and cheese, tomato slices, and some wonderful pickled cherries that Mr. Kim made.  They went perfectly with the ham:

 

Jessica requested roast Brussels sprouts one night:

❤️❤️❤️

Served with corn, rice, and some not good frozen Chicken Kiev (different brand than I normally get):

Since the sprouts are on my “avoid” list, I just had a couple.

 

I got a bit inspired by the produce stand.  Fried green tomatoes:

 

BLTs:

 

 

Served with corn and mac and cheese (purchased).  I even made some remoulade to go on the tomatoes!

 

We found some bun-sized Polish sausages at Costco.  They were very good with Gulden’s mustard and cheap, mouth puckering kraut (our favorite).  Served with frozen pierogies and Poppaw’s green beans (just canned whole beans with Italian dressing):

These are the green beans that I used to think were Italian because they were made by my Italian great-grandfather and he used ITALIAN dressing.  Obviously. 😁

 

Jessica made some of those ham and Swiss on ET seasoned Hawaiian rolls and one night they were dinner with a salad:

 

Mr. Kim’s brother was in town for a few days.  And since my house was not fit for company, we suggested we meet him and their mother for dinner at one of our two very local pizza places.  Bad call.  We’ve had uneven experiences there recently and that was a really down night.  It was actually embarrassing to have recommended the place.  Fried mushrooms for the table:

I think these were probably fine (I don’t eat mushrooms) – everybody gobbled them up and Jessica didn’t mention anything negative.  MIL got her own small pizza and Jessica got a couple of slices.  MIL’s pizza with mushrooms, green pepper, and onions:

 

The rest of us shared a Margherita:

I don’t know about MIL’s, but the other pizzas were not hot at all.  The cheese on ours was weird and rubbery - not like fresh mozz at ALL.  We really should have sent them back, but Mr. Kim’s whole family is weird about that, so we suffered in silence.  The Caesar salad that Jessica and I shared was very good, though.    

 

Mr. Kim, Jessica and I stopped next door at Brecotea Baking Studio for dessert.  I got the chocolate mousse cake:

 

Jessica got the caramel cheesecake and a Mango Yogurt drink with mango boba:

 

Everything was really good, though neither of us cared for the jelly layer that was on top of both of the desserts. 

 

Went to a new-to-us restaurant one night - Little Szechuan.  Mr. Kim had the Hot & Sour soup:

Very good, but very different to anything we’ve tried before – it had a sweetness that we’ve not tasted anywhere else. 

 

I got to cross off another egg roll recommendation from my list.  Their chicken egg roll was good, but not the egg roll of my youth:

 

I had the Mu Shu pork and it was one of the best I’ve ever had:

My only quibble was that the pancakes were too thick – almost like flour tortillas rather than the usual Asian pancakes.  Mr. Kim had the Hot & Spicy Szechuan Beef:

And it was actually spicy.  I couldn’t do more than a taste.  He was happy.

 

The following night dinner was basically a repurposing of our leftovers from Little Szechuan.  I added some snow peas, green onions, and bean sprouts to the rice and made fried rice:

 

Jessica stir fried some sugar snaps that she had:

These were delicious.  Sweet and savory all at once.

 

Jessica and I shared the Mu Shu pork and Mr. Kim had the rest of his beef:

There was STILL leftover pork after this meal! 

 

Costco had Rana brand beef and short rib lasagna for a really great price.  I hadn’t ever tried it before and so we had it for dinner:

 

We really liked it.  We love lasagna, but I am a lazy cook and almost never make my own.  We’ve been a Stouffer’s family up to now, but that will certainly change now.  Really meaty and saucy, this made six meals for us.  Served with frozen garlic bread and salad:

This was a nostalgia bomb for me.  Momma’s go-to for garlic bread was to buy an “Italian” loaf from the Safeway bakery – I remember it came in a red, white, and green wax paper bag.  She would slice it not quite all the way through and slather the slices with butter and raw garlic, wrap in foil and bake.  Crusty edges and gooey, dripping butter-soaked slices of bread.  Heaven.  This wasn’t quite that, but it was pretty loaded with something butter adjacent! 

 

Romaine, feta, green and kalamata olives, and a made in the salad vinaigrette. 

 

Next night’s dinner was lasagna leftovers and salads.  Mr. Kim’s with all the nasty stuff 😄:

Kale, beets, hot peppers, and celery (I actually like celery, just not on salads). 

 

Mine was a repeat of the night before with the addition of an egg leftover from breakfast (I inadvertently took the picture pre-feta):

 

The 14^th was Mr. Kim’s BD.  His mom came over for dinner.  The menu was all requests from Mr. Kim.  Brined, SV’d and then fried chicken:

Served with gravy, honey, and Hot Honey.  This was excellent, if I do say so myself!  This was NOT:

The flavor was good – nothing but russets, butter, and half & half, so, of COURSE they tasted good.  It was the texture that was wrong.  For one thing, a couple of the potato chunks were undercooked and I didn’t realize until I’d mashed them with the rest of the potatoes – they felt fork-tender, but there were hard little bits in the finished potatoes.  And they just weren’t soft and creamy – hard to describe, but they spooned up almost in chunks rather than soft, billowy mounds.  I wish I knew what I’d done wrong. 

 

I don’t have a “pretty” picture of the gravy – it was served in a pottery pitcher.  I made it a couple of days ahead of time and froze it.  Finished gravy:

It came together amazingly fast and tasted great. 

 

Corn and tomatoes from a farm stand:

 

 

Cream Biscuits:

These are those amazingly easy and good 2 ingredient biscuits – self rising flour and heavy cream.  You just mix them up and scoop them with a disher onto a baking sheet and bake.  I even did them an hour or so ahead of time and stashed them in the fridge until the last minute – so easy.  They are not a biscuit you can make a sandwich with – they aren’t layered – but they are soft and fluffy and hold plenty of butter and honey. 

 

No picture of the relish tray, but there were Jessica’s quick refrigerator pickles, my marinated cucumbers, Jessica’s deviled eggs, Mr. Kim’s pickled cherries, and Mr. Kim’s step grandmother’s sweet tomato pickles that Jessica made with MIL. 

 

The salad was Lettuce in Cream:

This is one of my favorite salads - and I've posted it before, I know.  It's a funny combination - looks and sounds like nothing at all, but is deceptively delicious.  It's composed of iceberg, light cream, white vinegar, and sugar. That's it.  

 

Plates:

 

 

Dessert was raisin pie with vanilla bean ice cream:

 

Dinner last night was mostly leftovers from Mr. Kim’s BD dinner.  Fried chicken, corn, tomatoes and pickly stuff.  I made another batch of the Lettuce in Cream salad and in the spirit of lemons into lemonade, I made potato pancakes out of the failed mashed potatoes – MUCH better!  Mr.Kim’s plate with chicken legs:

 

I decided on a hot chicken sandwich with gravy and some deviled eggs:

 

Thank you to the folks who are still with me and 📣 WAKE UP to the others! 

 

[Norm Matthews]

Quick & easy tenderloin on the grill, corn pudding and peaches from the farm stand.

[heidih]

@Kim Shook Thanks for the detail. Too much to comment on indivdually but a tasty array. Couple things - don't beat yourself up on the potatoes - we have disussed here before sometime the journey of the spuds from field to eventual store can have bumps that cause issues. Nice you found a new lasagna. I've only had the Rana fresh pesto and its the only one I will buy. And Jessica did a lovely job getting color on those snap peas - wok hei!

[MaryIsobel]

1 hour ago, Kim Shook said:

As I said in the breakfast and lunch threads, most of you all know that I was in the hospital for a week back in June and I’ve been recovering my strength and energy ever since.  Very little cooking has been done, but I’ve been reading all of these posts and planning my meals for when my appetite recovered.  It has now recovered and I’m STARVING 😁!  I cannot go back and comment on all the wonderful food that y’all have been posting.  But, as always, I’m impressed and inspired.  I’m sorry that there are SO many meals in this post – feel free to skim – but it will catch me up and then I hope I’ll keep up!  Many of the meals are either restaurant meals or short cuts, but that’s what needed to happen in July. 

 

This was prior to going into the hospital.  The three of us were starting to feel blah – it turned out that we all had upper respiratory infections and were in bed for the following week.  This was supposed to be the start of a fairly substantial dinner:

Found this frozen ramen at our local Asian market.  I was a bit disorganized, and we were out later in the day than I had planned so I didn’t have anything to top the soup with:

It tasted pretty good but would have benefitted from some tender pork and a soft boiled egg, at least.  Mr. Kim and Jessica put some hot sauce on it.  I also served Trader Joe’s green onion pancakes and a dipping sauce of black vinegar and soy sauce:

This all ended up being pretty much all the dinner we got.  Mr. Kim had a couple of errands he needed to run and we didn’t get back to the house until 9:30pm.  I threw together a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and gave him some leftover salad.  I had an apple. 

 

I had been out of the hospital just over a week when my birthday happened.  We went to Waypoint Seafood in Williamsburg for dinner.  My starter:

Crab and shrimp fritters on a ginger-lobster cream sauce with grilled pineapple pico.  This was fabulous.  One of the best dishes I’ve ever had.  I could have ordered a second one and been done for the night.  I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  My main course:

A shrimp and lobster po’ boy.  This was very good, but nowhere near my starter.  It suffered from the wrong bread – too dense and crusty for the delicate seafood.  I ended up eating the insides and leaving most of the (very good – just wrong) bread.

 

Dessert – we shared this:

Absolutely perfect and delicious chocolate mousse.  Just dark enough without any bitterness. 

 

I somehow missed getting pictures of Mr. Kim and Jessica’s meals.  July was my fuzzy headed month 🙄. 

 

Sloppy Joe, tomatoes, and corn:

 

For months there was a taco food truck near us that we kept saying we needed to try.  One day it was gone.  Jessica managed to track it down and found that they had opened up a restaurant not far from us.  It’s called Lalo’s Pinches Tacos.  Mr. Kim and Jessica went one time for a daddy/daughter night. They brought me some leftovers – even lukewarm the food was amazing.  So, one night in July the three of us finally went for dinner.  Excellent guacamole:

I had the 3 taco assortment (you got to choose which 3 you wanted):

Pastor, Birria, and Carnitas.  Easily the best tacos I’ve ever eaten.  The onions on the side were amazing – I was eating them like they were a side dish. 

 

Jessica had the birria tacos that had some kind of cheese on them:

The consommé was incredible.  I could have eaten it as a soup course. 

 

Mr. Kim had an assortment of tacos:

I’m a little fuzzy, but I think one was steak, one was chicken, and the last was maybe chorizo?  We shared excellent churros for dessert:

 

Dinner and dumpling fixings:

 

This dinner was not a notable success.  The orange chicken was from Lidl and was flabby and over breaded and the sauce was just sweet and sticky without any orange flavor.  The rice was supposedly bulgogi rice from Trader Joe’s:

There were maybe 5 pieces of beef in the entire bag and no discernable kimchi at all (which was fine with me as I don’t care for it).  The dumplings were TJ’s soup dumplings.  They had a good flavor and were nice and “brothy”, but the skins were tough and chewy. 

 

One night I fried a ham slice:

 

Topped with some orange marmalade and served with Kraft mac and cheese, tomato slices, and some wonderful pickled cherries that Mr. Kim made.  They went perfectly with the ham:

 

Jessica requested roast Brussels sprouts one night:

❤️❤️❤️

Served with corn, rice, and some not good frozen Chicken Kiev (different brand than I normally get):

Since the sprouts are on my “avoid” list, I just had a couple.

 

I got a bit inspired by the produce stand.  Fried green tomatoes:

 

BLTs:

 

 

Served with corn and mac and cheese (purchased).  I even made some remoulade to go on the tomatoes!

 

We found some bun-sized Polish sausages at Costco.  They were very good with Gulden’s mustard and cheap, mouth puckering kraut (our favorite).  Served with frozen pierogies and Poppaw’s green beans (just canned whole beans with Italian dressing):

These are the green beans that I used to think were Italian because they were made by my Italian great-grandfather and he used ITALIAN dressing.  Obviously. 😁

 

Jessica made some of those ham and Swiss on ET seasoned Hawaiian rolls and one night they were dinner with a salad:

 

Mr. Kim’s brother was in town for a few days.  And since my house was not fit for company, we suggested we meet him and their mother for dinner at one of our two very local pizza places.  Bad call.  We’ve had uneven experiences there recently and that was a really down night.  It was actually embarrassing to have recommended the place.  Fried mushrooms for the table:

I think these were probably fine (I don’t eat mushrooms) – everybody gobbled them up and Jessica didn’t mention anything negative.  MIL got her own small pizza and Jessica got a couple of slices.  MIL’s pizza with mushrooms, green pepper, and onions:

 

The rest of us shared a Margherita:

I don’t know about MIL’s, but the other pizzas were not hot at all.  The cheese on ours was weird and rubbery - not like fresh mozz at ALL.  We really should have sent them back, but Mr. Kim’s whole family is weird about that, so we suffered in silence.  The Caesar salad that Jessica and I shared was very good, though.    

 

Mr. Kim, Jessica and I stopped next door at Brecotea Baking Studio for dessert.  I got the chocolate mousse cake:

 

Jessica got the caramel cheesecake and a Mango Yogurt drink with mango boba:

 

Everything was really good, though neither of us cared for the jelly layer that was on top of both of the desserts. 

 

Went to a new-to-us restaurant one night - Little Szechuan.  Mr. Kim had the Hot & Sour soup:

Very good, but very different to anything we’ve tried before – it had a sweetness that we’ve not tasted anywhere else. 

 

I got to cross off another egg roll recommendation from my list.  Their chicken egg roll was good, but not the egg roll of my youth:

 

I had the Mu Shu pork and it was one of the best I’ve ever had:

My only quibble was that the pancakes were too thick – almost like flour tortillas rather than the usual Asian pancakes.  Mr. Kim had the Hot & Spicy Szechuan Beef:

And it was actually spicy.  I couldn’t do more than a taste.  He was happy.

 

The following night dinner was basically a repurposing of our leftovers from Little Szechuan.  I added some snow peas, green onions, and bean sprouts to the rice and made fried rice:

 

Jessica stir fried some sugar snaps that she had:

These were delicious.  Sweet and savory all at once.

 

Jessica and I shared the Mu Shu pork and Mr. Kim had the rest of his beef:

There was STILL leftover pork after this meal! 

 

Costco had Rana brand beef and short rib lasagna for a really great price.  I hadn’t ever tried it before and so we had it for dinner:

 

We really liked it.  We love lasagna, but I am a lazy cook and almost never make my own.  We’ve been a Stouffer’s family up to now, but that will certainly change now.  Really meaty and saucy, this made six meals for us.  Served with frozen garlic bread and salad:

This was a nostalgia bomb for me.  Momma’s go-to for garlic bread was to buy an “Italian” loaf from the Safeway bakery – I remember it came in a red, white, and green wax paper bag.  She would slice it not quite all the way through and slather the slices with butter and raw garlic, wrap in foil and bake.  Crusty edges and gooey, dripping butter-soaked slices of bread.  Heaven.  This wasn’t quite that, but it was pretty loaded with something butter adjacent! 

 

Romaine, feta, green and kalamata olives, and a made in the salad vinaigrette. 

 

Next night’s dinner was lasagna leftovers and salads.  Mr. Kim’s with all the nasty stuff 😄:

Kale, beets, hot peppers, and celery (I actually like celery, just not on salads). 

 

Mine was a repeat of the night before with the addition of an egg leftover from breakfast (I inadvertently took the picture pre-feta):

 

The 14^th was Mr. Kim’s BD.  His mom came over for dinner.  The menu was all requests from Mr. Kim.  Brined, SV’d and then fried chicken:

Served with gravy, honey, and Hot Honey.  This was excellent, if I do say so myself!  This was NOT:

The flavor was good – nothing but russets, butter, and half & half, so, of COURSE they tasted good.  It was the texture that was wrong.  For one thing, a couple of the potato chunks were undercooked and I didn’t realize until I’d mashed them with the rest of the potatoes – they felt fork-tender, but there were hard little bits in the finished potatoes.  And they just weren’t soft and creamy – hard to describe, but they spooned up almost in chunks rather than soft, billowy mounds.  I wish I knew what I’d done wrong. 

 

I don’t have a “pretty” picture of the gravy – it was served in a pottery pitcher.  I made it a couple of days ahead of time and froze it.  Finished gravy:

It came together amazingly fast and tasted great. 

 

Corn and tomatoes from a farm stand:

 

 

Cream Biscuits:

These are those amazingly easy and good 2 ingredient biscuits – self rising flour and heavy cream.  You just mix them up and scoop them with a disher onto a baking sheet and bake.  I even did them an hour or so ahead of time and stashed them in the fridge until the last minute – so easy.  They are not a biscuit you can make a sandwich with – they aren’t layered – but they are soft and fluffy and hold plenty of butter and honey. 

 

No picture of the relish tray, but there were Jessica’s quick refrigerator pickles, my marinated cucumbers, Jessica’s deviled eggs, Mr. Kim’s pickled cherries, and Mr. Kim’s step grandmother’s sweet tomato pickles that Jessica made with MIL. 

 

The salad was Lettuce in Cream:

This is one of my favorite salads - and I've posted it before, I know.  It's a funny combination - looks and sounds like nothing at all, but is deceptively delicious.  It's composed of iceberg, light cream, white vinegar, and sugar. That's it.  

 

Plates:

 

 

Dessert was raisin pie with vanilla bean ice cream:

 

Dinner last night was mostly leftovers from Mr. Kim’s BD dinner.  Fried chicken, corn, tomatoes and pickly stuff.  I made another batch of the Lettuce in Cream salad and in the spirit of lemons into lemonade, I made potato pancakes out of the failed mashed potatoes – MUCH better!  Mr.Kim’s plate with chicken legs:

 

I decided on a hot chicken sandwich with gravy and some deviled eggs:

 

Thank you to the folks who are still with me and 📣 WAKE UP to the others! 

 

So many cravable meals!

[KennethT]

Barramundi with mango dabu dabu.

[MaryIsobel]

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

Barramundi with mango dabu dabu.

Love the look of the mango dabu dabu! Looks very "eat it by the spoonful-able."

[Ann_T]

@KennethT, what a beautiful fish dish. 

 

I got out of work late and didn't get home until 5:40.

I had a presalted 17oz Sterling Silver NY Strip ready to go on the new grill.

Turned the grill on to heat.

Got the potatoes peeled and cut into wedges, cut a sweet potato using a potato crinkle cutter,

broke the stem end off of fresh local green beans, and cut up a red pepper.

Tossed the vegetables with fresh garlic and olive oil, salt and pepper.

Got the potatoes going on the grill along with the sweet potatoes.

The green beans and the peppers went into the preheated vegetable grill pan which I moved to the upper rack. Moved the sweet potatoes

to the grill pan. 

This rack folds out to add a lot more square inches of cooking space

and also folds back and drops down to rest against the back of the grill if it isn't needed.

When the vegetables were just about done, the steak went on and was grilled over the sear zone.

We were eating by 6:20. Shared platter for two.

I think I like the new Weber.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Ann_T (log)

[heidih]

1 minute ago, Ann_T said:

@KennethT, what a beautiful fish dish. 

 

I got out of work late and didn't get home until 5:40.

I had a presalted 17oz Sterling Silver NY Strip ready to go on the new grill.

Turned the grill on to heat.

Got the potatoes peeled and cut into wedges, cut a sweet potato using a potato crinkle cutter,

broke the stem end off of fresh local green beans, and cut up a red pepper.

Tossed the vegetables with fresh garlic and olive oil, salt and pepper.

Got the potatoes going on the grill along with the sweet potatoes.

The green beans and the peppers went into the preheated vegetable grill pan which I moved to the upper rack.

This rack folds out to add a lot more square inches of cooking space

and also folds back and drops down to rest against the back of the grill if it isn't needed.

When the vegetables were just about done, the steak went on and was grilled over the sear zone.

We were eating by 6:20. Shared platter for two.

I think I like the new Weber.

I think your cooking skills have a lot to do wth the outcome

[Deephaven]

2 hours ago, KennethT said:

Barramundi with mango dabu dabu.

I had to google dabu dabu and I've been to Sarawak 4 times and eaten it...although it was too far before my food explorations have gotten me that far in the kitchen.  Looks great.  Would love to know what was in yours.

[liuzhou]

Tonight’s dinner is a simple one, but its name isn’t. And you may have one of its prime ingredients, but not in the kitchen. Instead you may find it in your bathroom.

 

That ingredient is known in English as luffa, loofah, angled luffa, Chinese okra, dish cloth gourd, ridged gourd, sponge gourd, towel gourd, vegetable gourd, strainer vine, ribbed loofah, silky gourd, ridged gourd, or silk gourd. In Latin terms it is Luffa acutangula or Luffa aegyptiaca, two closely related species. In Mandarin Chinese, it is 丝瓜 (sī guā); in Cantonese si1 gwaa1). It is a vine gourd and is related to the cucumber. The name loofah, however you spell it, is taken from the Egyptian-Arabic name لوف (lūf).

 

 

Loofah is the thing you may use in the shower as a sponge or exfoliant but these are the dried husks of mature specimens. When they are young, they are a popular vegetable in China, Japan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and in Vietnam where it is known as mướp hương. In Japan, it is へちま (hechima).

 

They are mild flavoured and used in soups or stir-fried with pork as in my dinner, 丝瓜炒肉片 (sī guā chǎo ròu piàn), stir fried loofah with sliced pork. It is not recommended that you eat it in the shower.

 

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[chromedome]

I planted those in my garden this year, but sadly none of them survived the erratic spring weather. I'll probably try again next year.

[weinoo]

Failure to take a picture before we start digging in means...

 

 

The table looks a bit like a crime scene, though I've cropped out the really bad part...oh, what the heck...

 

 

Marcella beans, reheated in the oven with Parmigiano and bread crumbs.  Criminal green beans and wax beans "marinara."
Gambas al ajillo.