Dinner 2023

[Honkman]

Cod poached with tomatoes, thyme and garlic in broth and white wine over polenta (cooked in broth made with garlic, rosemary and thyme)

[Duvel]

33 minutes ago, Honkman said:

Cod poached with tomatoes, thyme and garlic in broth and white wine over polenta (cooked in broth made with garlic, rosemary and thyme)

Lovely @Honkman - a fish dish like this would make Mrs. Duvel (and me as well) very happy any day 🤗

[liamsaunt]

Pineapple fried rice and spicy cucumber salad.

 

[Kim Shook]

9 hours ago, Duvel said:

I literally do not know any man who doesn’t like Leberkäse. Maybe you sell it to him as bologna 🤗

Actually, that's the issue.  He's not a bologna fan.  But he loves pate!  😄

[TicTac]

On 2/15/2023 at 12:43 AM, Honkman said:

Spaghetti Carbonara - pancetta, eggs, egg yolk, parmesan, very small amount of milk, chives

If I may humbly offer two suggestions (as one who has made dozens if not hundreds of bowls of Carb...)

 

1, cool the pasta off a bit further before adding the egg/cheese mixture, it will avoid cooking the egg and create a smoother/creamier dish.

2, Crisp the pancetta and reserve it aside, add it as a topping to maintain a crisp texture (hard to tell if that was done here, you could have and then mixed it all together)

 

I am sure it tasted great, regardless of my unsolicited feedback 😛

[Okanagancook]

@TicTac, the egg does look a bit ‘cooked’.  You have an easy fix.

[Duvel]

Recently, I like to turn the bits and pieces inside my fridges veggie compartment (cabbage, carrot, celery, alliums, …) into shepherd’s pie. This time half of the mashed potato topping was actually mashed celeriac, which the family liked as well …

 

 

 

No complaints 🤗
 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Duvel (log)

[heidih]

25 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Recently, I like to turn the bits and pieces inside my fridges veggie compartment (cabbage, carrot, celery, alliums, …) into shepherd’s pie. This time half of the mashed potato topping was actually mashed celeriac, which the family liked as well …

 

No complaints 🤗
 

 

 

Seriously -do you EVER get complaints?!

[Duvel]

2 minutes ago, heidih said:

Seriously -do you EVER get complaints?!

Hahaha … rarely. But in the context of food “no complaints” is meant as a compliment from my family - we have a German proverb saying “Nicht geschimpft ist genug gelobt” (or “their silence is praise enough”) 🤗

[TdeV]

5 minutes ago, heidih said:

Seriously -do you EVER get complaints?!

 

Not if I was invited to dins!

[MaryIsobel]

3 hours ago, Duvel said:

Recently, I like to turn the bits and pieces inside my fridges veggie compartment (cabbage, carrot, celery, alliums, …) into shepherd’s pie. This time half of the mashed potato topping was actually mashed celeriac, which the family liked as well …

 

 

 

No complaints 🤗
 

 

 

A cottage pie (because I wil make it with beef) has been on my radar for a while. Thanks for the nudge.

 

[MaryIsobel]

On 2/15/2023 at 2:03 PM, Kim Shook said:

Crap.  I’m ready to un-alive myself (as they say on the Instagram 😄).  I am SO incredibly far behind on this thread due to health and other issues and in the last couple of days, I got within FIVE PAGES of being all caught up.  I took a break last night to cook dinner and have a nice evening with my Valentine and woke up this morning to find that my *&**&& computer closed down WORD on me.  It auto-saved my notes, but not up to the point I quit.  Oddly, it saved them only up to day before yesterday.  Grrrrr.  Being so far behind and having such a LONG recitation of meals, I won’t comment on much, but please know I’ve loved perusing all of y’all’s wonderful meals. 

 

@Shelby – I will have to look for that boudin brand at Walmart – less spicy sounds really good to me.  And brava on those roast potatoes.  They look absolutely perfect!

 

@Raamo – sorry to hear about that second infection just as you’re exiting COVID!  Hope you are now completely better.    

 

@RWood – those baby blooming onions!  Wow.  I love cippolini onions and those look amazing.

 

@Dejah – your SIL sounds like me some years ago – I only wanted the crispy stuff.  Now I love it all – rice noodle crepes are a favorite. 

 

Going WAY back – January 27^th was Jessica’s Birthday.  We were supposed to have a big shrimp themed dinner that night with her closest cousin and then go up to Washington for a food and museum weekend.  I ended up not being able to walk due to cartilage problems in one knee and I also was starting a terrible head cold or upper respiratory something.  They wouldn’t go without me, so we are postponing the dinner and the trip until I’m better.  We still needed a somewhat celebratory dinner and Jessica chose pho at a new favorite place.  Pork wontons:

 

Shrimp spring rolls:

 

Banh Khot:

 

My seafood fried rice:

 

Jessica’s seafood pho:

 

Mr. Kim’s pho tai chin (steak and brisket):

 

I was still feeling awful at the end of January, but I was trying to put something decent on the table.  I pulled some stuff out that I’d stocked in the freezer to try out.  It was a mixed bag.  Lidl orange chicken:

The chicken was ok, but the orange sauce was tasteless.  Also from Lidl, fried rice:

This was actually pretty good and very easy to make – just tossed in a sauté pan frozen and cooked until hot.  I added some soy and white pepper and some leftover protein wouldn’t have gone amiss.  I will buy more of this to have on hand. 

 

Bibigo frozen mandu:

 

Trader Joe’s green onion pancakes and some shrimp spring rolls that Mr. Kim picked up on his way home:

 

Plate:

 

A few nights later was breakfast for dinner:

Buckwheat pancakes, mandarin oranges, mini quiche (frozen), and sage sausage. 

 

Jessica made dinner a couple of nights.  This one was soup:

Corn chowder w/ paprika oil, garlic toast, and crudité.  The soup was wonderful.

 

One of my efforts:

Salad, grilled cheese, and leftover rice mix. 

 

Another one of Jessica’s meals.  She made the entire thing and did a great job.  Hoisin glazed pork loin:

This was amazingly tender.  She actually made this last night, but it ended up being so late that we decided to put this dinner off until tonight.  This was cooked to 140F last night and reheated at 250F for about 45 minutes until it reached 120F.  This is a Cook’s Illustrated method that I found for reheating whole roasts and it worked amazingly well.  She also served Blistered Soy Miso Sugar Snaps:

They look a little floppy in the picture but were actually nicely crisp and a bit charred. 

 

Brussel sprout and broccoli slaw:

Slaw is a bit of a misnomer – this was more of a stir fry with a soy-based sauce. 

 

Honey Garlic potatoes:

These are a work-in-progress.  She got the recipe from some youtuber she follows.  They are supposed to be crisp with a sticky glaze, but they were just swimming in liquid, as you can see.  They tasted very good, though so she’s going to make some adjustments and try again. 

 

Napa salad topped with toasted almonds and ramen noodles and dressed with a garlic vinaigrette:

Everything was very, very good.  The meal was a little soy heavy, though.  Almost every dish had the same flavor elements of soy, garlic, honey.  And, of course, you ended up with a bit of a salt overload.  But the bottom line is that each dish was pretty much successful. 

 

 

A few nights ago (I’m definitely much better):

 

Honey-mustard chicken, rice, and miso sugar snaps. With a pita:

The chicken was really good cut up and stuffed into the pita!

 

On Sunday dinner was Super Bowl goodies.  Sweet Piggies:

Little pigs in a blanket cooked in a brown sugar and honey butter sauce.  Jessica’s pork and shrimp egg rolls:

She did an amazing job – especially considering these were her first try at them.  She used the leftover Brussels sprout and broccoli “slaw” from the other night.

 

Crudité and green onion dip:

 

A very wet, but very tasty Buffalo chicken dip:

 

Jessica’s Crab Rangoon dip/casserole with egg roll wrapper chips:

 

Plate:

 

There were also slow cooker meatballs which I forgot until we were too full to eat any!  @racheld says that with any major meal there is always one “forgotten thing”.  This time it was the meatballs. 

 

Valentine’s dinner was SV filet mignon w/ a pan sauce and béarnaise, chili-glazed shrimp(made with sweet chili sauce), roasted cauliflower, baked potatoes, crusty bread, and salad.  There was also a purchased crème brûlée cheesecake, but we were too full to even think about that.  Steaks were SV at 130.5 for 2 hours.  Out of the water bath: 

 

Seared:

Perfect doneness for us.  Plate:

 

Salad and bread:

 

 

I discovered a new (to me) market and went yesterday to shop for Mr. Kim’s Valentine’s day gifts.  It’s called Europa Market & Deli and it stocks lots of German and eastern European goods.  Fully stocked deli, flown-in NY bagels and delicious sounding sandwiches and soups.  They also had leberkase which @Duvel has me obsessed with.  For Mr. Kim, I got D’Amour salami (heart shaped!!), cocktail pork sticks, cook cheese (from what I could discover it’s just a cheese sauce that you can dip things in), eucalyptus candy, and some ginger-strawberry tea:

The leberkase is most likely just for me – unless I can convince Mr. Kim its pate 😄. 

 

Kim, I envy the choices you have for eating out. In our town there is very bad Chinese, quite a few pizza places and a few Indian places, of which one is okay. We do have a falafel/shwarma place nearby which is always my choice but only for take out, as there are just a few plastic tables and chairs so not a lot of ambience. The food is quite good though not my husband's first choice. It's where I order from on the odd occaision that I am on my own.

https://holyfalafel.ca/

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by MaryIsobel (log)

[Dejah]

Was down and out, on the couch for a couple of days with a really painful kink in the neck, which came about because I fell asleep sitting up on the couch!

So for 2 suppers, it was take-out pizza...

Had planned to make Sweet & Sour Chicken Balls for a friend, but they were away, so I made "Chicken Marsala" with chicken legs.

 

                                                                    

 

Local Co-op had Strip Loin Bundles on sale @$6.99 / lb. Cut the whole into a small roast, some steaks, and used the "trimmings"for Curry Beef and Bell Peppers. Enjoying the new spices I got from Silk Road Spice Merchants, and this was the yellow curry powder. It was fragrant with a bite.

 

                                                                     

 

Temperatures went down to -double digits Celcius again, so I put the oven to work. Had marinaded pork side ribs with Hoisin sauce. Roasted in the oven. Followed by a small chicken rubbed with Turkish Baharat spice blend, again from Silk Road. It smelled lovely, and we enjoyed the change-up from roast chicken. The radish sprouts are from a new little local store. Added a crisp biye.

 

                                                                   

 

[Paul Bacino]

pho

[Paul Bacino]

 

 

and 9"

 

 

[liamsaunt]

Another use up the fridge ramen bowl.  This one had zucchini and summer squash zoodles mixed in with the noodles, miso roasted cabbage, daikon roasted with sambal oleok (the daikon I had turned purple when roasted, which was interesting), and a soy sauce egg.  Another cabbage down!  Of course, my CSA delivered me two more yesterday afternoon, so the battle continues...

 

Edited February 17, 2023 by liamsaunt (log)

[TicTac]

2 hours ago, Paul Bacino said:

 

 

and 9"

 

 

I tend to find it goes the other way around....9"....calls for PHO! 😛

 

Love soup after a good snowfall.  Yours looks good!

 

 

[TdeV]

On 2/17/2023 at 7:02 AM, liamsaunt said:

Another use up the fridge ramen bowl.  This one had zucchini and summer squash zoodles mixed in with the noodles, miso roasted cabbage, daikon roasted with sambal oleok (the daikon I had turned purple when roasted, which was interesting), and a soy sauce egg.  Another cabbage down!  Of course, my CSA delivered me two more yesterday afternoon, so the battle continues...

 

 

Liamsaunt, this looks sooo delicious. (And very clever too!) Pardon my ignorance but I haven't eaten ramen for years. Do you start with any ol' packet of ramen? Do you use the included spice packet or mix your own?

 

I too have 4 cabbages in the fridge. 😂

[gulfporter]

Moroccan shrimp and Israeli couscous.  Recipe, here, https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/quick-moroccan-shrimp-skillet/  I cooked a tad longer until toothsome.  Had cold grilled shrimp leftovers, added that after cooking, during resting time.  I added fresh garlic to the onions and then sautéed the spice mix.  I hardly every follow any recipe completely 😎  Made my own version of Ras el Hanout, pretty close to this one, https://silkroadrecipes.com/wprm_print/1100  

 

Very happy with results, will make again. 

 

 

[Norm Matthews]

I saw a recipe on Facebook that said "Traditional Irish Beef Stew"  I googled that to see if that was really a thing.  The impression I got that Traditional Irish Stew is made with mutton but if it isn't, they tell you what kind of meat is used instead... Sorta like Brandy is always made with grape wine- unless it isn't -and then you have to put the fruit it was made with in front of the word brandy... peach brandy, cherry brandy, etc. I saw a recipe that looked good and decided to make it.  I got the stuff I needed at the store yesterday but only had time to get it ready to go in the slow cooker this morning. The recipe said to only use one cup of beef broth but that didn't come close to covering all the other stuff so I added more. It may have come out more like soup that stew.  While I was doing that , Charlie went to a near-by Mexican grocery store that has a place where you can get ready made food and marinated meat you can take home to cook.  It is always mentioned as a place that has good traditional tacos.  He got some refried beans, fried rice, some sauces, tortillas, some tacos and somechicken legs that I grilled.  We had that yesterday and the stew today. I made some bread to go with it.

sorry for the double post.  I thought this one didn't post.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Norm Matthews (log)

[MaryIsobel]

36 minutes ago, Norm Matthews said:

I saw a recipe for 'Traditional Irish Beef Stew'  I googled that to see if it was a real thing.  I gathered that 'Traditional Irish Stew' is made with mutton and if it isn't, they tell you what meat is used instead in the 'traditional' recipe.  Sort of like brandy is always made from grape wine- unless it isn't- then they have to qualify that it is made with some other fruit instead.  Brandy is distilled from grapes, anything else is prefaced with the kind of fruit.. Like peach brandy, etc.  While I was looking at the recipes, I saw one that looked good and decided to try it but by the time i got home, I realized that  I wouldn't be able to do it for dinner that night. I put together everything to dump into a slow cooker today.  Meantime, Charlie went to a near-by Mexican grocery that also had ready made hot food and marinated meat for you to take home to cook.  They are frequently mentioned as one of the good places to go for tacos. He got some fried rice, refried beans, tortillas, sauces, tacos and some chicken legs that i grilled.  We had the Mexican food yesterday and the stew today.

Both meals look great. We we venture down to Bellingam, WA (we're about 10k from the Canada/US border) I always eye the marinated al pastor in the Mexican markets but we are not permitted to bring raw meat across the border. Your stew looks delicious. If you did use mutton, I will have to withdraw my comment but I do know that that is the authentic meat to use.

[Honkman]

On 2/16/2023 at 7:57 AM, TicTac said:

If I may humbly offer two suggestions (as one who has made dozens if not hundreds of bowls of Carb...)

 

1, cool the pasta off a bit further before adding the egg/cheese mixture, it will avoid cooking the egg and create a smoother/creamier dish.

2, Crisp the pancetta and reserve it aside, add it as a topping to maintain a crisp texture (hard to tell if that was done here, you could have and then mixed it all together)

 

I am sure it tasted great, regardless of my unsolicited feedback 😛

 

It looks like the eggs curdled (and the pasta was nearly too cold when mixed) but the “curdled eggs” are actually clumped parmesan. Not sure what happened this time and you didn’t have “hard” pieces of parmesan when eating but it looked not as expected. 

We played around with different crispiness of pancetta over the years, and I know many people like carbonara with quite crispy pancetta (for some texture) but we actually don’t like it too crispy and prefer a very light “chew”

(I can also never understand when people cook bacon that it is really crispy - I don’t like that texture and flavor - it often tastes a bit off)

Edited February 19, 2023 by Honkman (log)

[liuzhou]

 

 

Shrimp, cilantro and culantro, fried hand-pulled noodles with garlic, ginger and chillies.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liamsaunt]

20 hours ago, TdeV said:

 

Liamsaunt, this looks sooo delicious. (And very clever too!) Pardon my ignorance but I haven't eaten ramen for years. Do you start with any ol' packet of ramen? Do you use the included spice packet or mix your own?

 

I too have 4 cabbages in the fridge. 😂

 

I use Sun Ramen brand, which I find in my grocer's freezer case.  It does not come with a seasoning packet (they make a type that does, but I buy the plain ones and make my own broth).  I am sure whatever kind you have will work fine.  I am glad I am not alone with the cabbage glut!  I don't know why we are getting so many this year.  Last year the CSA gave us endless potatoes at this time of year, this year it is endless cabbage!

 

Last night we had eggplant pizza with lots of basil.

 

[weinoo]

 

Escarole and bean (Jacob's Cattle) soup, with a bit of garlic sausage thrown in.