Dinner 2024

[weinoo]

 

A not beautiful looking, yet delicious tasting, Pa amb tomàquet.

 

 

Paella.

 

 

Con socarrat!

[Duvel]

Beautiful, @weinoo 👍

 

16 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Paella.

 

 

Con socarrat!

And 100% legit 🥳

[Shelby]

8 hours ago, Dejah said:

Our daughter went into labour today at noon. Tomorrow was her due date!
She delivered an 8 lb 4 oz baby boy dragon (2024 Year of the Dragon) at 5:35 pm! ❤️ 
I was over the moon and couldn't settle down to cook supper OR make more conserve.
So it was Domino's pizza delivery, our old stand-by: Meatz Feast and Veggie Feast!

                                                            

 

Congratulations!

[OlyveOyl]

Corn,tomato cheddar tart.  Two ears of corn , assorted fresh herbs, couple of sautéed shallots were layered with grated Cabot’s cheddar. Topped with delicious local tomatoes and a final sprinkling of cheddar about five minutes prior to removal from the oven.  We had this with an endive salad.

Dessert was a Ricotta Raspberry Jam Cake.

[TicTac]

16 hours ago, Shelby said:

That looks exactly like Nirvana corn.  If it is, it's the best IMO.

I have no idea what it is but I will certainly defer to your expertise.... but I cannot recall ever having corn so sweet.  Granted it was picked that morning and the sugars had yet to start to really convert to starch, but still.... 😍

Edited August 11 by TicTac (log)

[KennethT]

54 minutes ago, TicTac said:

I have no idea what it is but I will certainly defer to your expertise.... but I cannot recall ever having corn so sweet.  Granted it was picked that morning and the sugars had yet to start to really convert to starch, but still.... 😍

When I was a kid, my father had a garden.  Back then, mostly the available seeds were Burpee hybrids like Early Girl, etc.  but the corn he grew was incredible - basically, we picked it a half hour before dinner time - I'd shuck it on the back patio and it would go immediately into some simmering salted water.  There were a few times we'd pick it in the morning and let it sit until dinner time and it was not nearly as sweet.  Those sugars converted to starch really fast!  I basically can't eat corn nowadays - the memory spoiled it for me! 

[Tempest63]

We had our Curryfest yesterday with six friends.

Food went down well from their perspective but it became a bit of a rush with other things going on in the background so a few errors crept in.

We decided on starters from the Dishoom cookbook so we planned kebabs and samosas. Disaster 1. I cooked the filling for the samosas but forgot to get the pastry wrappers out of the freezer so we now have samosa filling in the freezer for another day.

We did serve paneer, chicken and lamb kebabs. Disaster 2. I didn’t have time to make the chapatis so used frozen ones cooked straight out of the freezer. OK but not as good as homemade.

Main courses

Dishoom Chicken Ruby. All prepped the day before so I heated the butter sauce, dropped in the pre prepared tikkas. A success.

Cafe Spice Dhansak. This was prepped a few weeks ago and had sat in the freezer. One of the guests was vegetarian so I put the koftas in the sauce with the mutton rather than combine it with the rice. Disaster 3. I forgot to prepare the crispy onions and the mint in the garden was not at its best, so the rice missed some essential garnishes.

Meera Sodha Pig Cheek Vindaloo. Prepped earlier in the week so it just needed warming through, the hit of the meal.

Anjum Anand Bangladeshi Fish Curry. Again, I had prepped the sauce the day before so as it was warming through I quickly fried the sea bream cutlets, a minute each side before placing in the sauce for a couple of minutes and then serving.

 

Side dishes were

Oven Roasted Aloo Gobi by Mallika Basu. Prepped early in the morning so it went into a 180C oven for 40 minutes. Easy win.

Anjum Anand Edgy Peas. A very quick and simple side dish that I cooked as the wife was taking the other dishes to the table on the patio.

Afghan Salad. Mrs T63 made that particular dish so I can’t claim any credit there.

A selection of shop bought chutneys and pickles .

 

Mrs T63 made the dessert. It was an Anjum Anand take on a Scottish (by origin) Cranachan. We had the dogs out very early yesterday morning to pick the blackberries for the dish, as a result my forearms are still stinging from being stung by nettles, then scratched and punctured by thorns. Mrs T63 was quite specific, big plump shiny blackberries, they are apparently the first fruits of the season and are the sweetest, they are also buggers to retrieve as all the low lying fruit had been picked by others. The smaller blackberries that ripen afterwards are “not as good”. That told me.

 

Apart from trying the tikkas/kebabs for starters I couldn’t eat anything else. I believe it is called Christmas Dinner Syndrome. When you have cooked and tasted so much that you lose your appetite.

 

Biggest Disaster. I was shattered and failed to take a single photo.

 

Edit: Almost forgot, we served up two types of Dhal. The black house dhal from Dishoom and Mrs Balbir Singh’s Kabuli Channa. Both were well received from vegetarians and carnivores alike.

Edited August 11 by Tempest63 (log)

[Tempest63]

Simple dinner tonight following yesterday efforts for the Curryfest.

I used a dry rub that I had first made a batch of for steak and smothered it over a couple of fat pork chops, bought fresh from the butcher on Friday.

As the dry rub sat on the pork I boiled some new potatoes and gently fried off some garlic, sage and spring onions (scallions, U.S.) in a cast iron skillet.  After draining I mixed the potatoes in with the aromatics and dropped them into a 180C oven for 40 minutes, turning half way through.

I steamed some fresh peas picked from the allotment earlier today, along with some carrot from the supermarket. Took about an hour from start to plating up.

 

 

 

[Tempest63]

14 hours ago, Dejah said:

Our daughter went into labour today at noon. Tomorrow was her due date!
She delivered an 8 lb 4 oz baby boy dragon (2024 Year of the Dragon) at 5:35 pm! ❤️ 
I was over the moon and couldn't settle down to cook supper OR make more conserve.
So it was Domino's pizza delivery, our old stand-by: Meatz Feast and Veggie Feast!

                                                            

 

Many congratulations. Now you will have the joy in due course of cooking with the grandchildren. My eldest grandson, Jack, is coming up 13 now and often pops round “to help” when I am cooking for the family.

[Shelby]

6 hours ago, TicTac said:

I have no idea what it is but I will certainly defer to your expertise.... but I cannot recall ever having corn so sweet.  Granted it was picked that morning and the sugars had yet to start to really convert to starch, but still.... 😍

It's the bicolored kernels that look just like Nirvana....but I'm no expert lol.  But it is the sweetest most delicious corn I've ever had.

[TicTac]

7 hours ago, KennethT said:

When I was a kid, my father had a garden.  Back then, mostly the available seeds were Burpee hybrids like Early Girl, etc.  but the corn he grew was incredible - basically, we picked it a half hour before dinner time - I'd shuck it on the back patio and it would go immediately into some simmering salted water.  There were a few times we'd pick it in the morning and let it sit until dinner time and it was not nearly as sweet.  Those sugars converted to starch really fast!  I basically can't eat corn nowadays - the memory spoiled it for me! 

A great memory no doubt!  It's amazing how the concept of hand to mouth holds true.  Same thing with sugar snap peas. 

 

Crazy enough, the farm stand was selling at $9/dozen, which is bonkers compared to the $.25/head available in stores.  Guess regardless of their saved logistic costs, they know folks are willing to pay for the good stuff.

[Dejah]

Supper tonight was Fish 'n'Chips made with pickerel. Love curry gravy for the chips and malt vinegar for the fish.

                                                                                   

 

Dessert was vanilla ice cream with some conserve!

             

                                                                                   

 

This batch is still fairly chunky. Will need to bring to boil and cook for another 15 minutes tomorrow morning before putting into hot sterilized jars.

[haresfur]

Oven-cooked Santa Maria tri-tip. My beef guy insisted I buy the rump cap/picanha end which had good marbling. He was right.  More or less followed Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home. Changes included using Kashmiri Chiles instead of piment d'Espelette, added some smoked paprika and rosemary to the rub. Chiles are definitely past their due date . Served with parsley chimichurri from another recipe. The Chimichurri acidity really made the dish. 

 

 

[Neely]

I’m away from home atm . I’m at a somewhat tropical place on the East Coast of Australia, where one of my sons and his wife are sailing in a regatta week and I’ve been taken along as the Nanny for my youngest grand child. ( 6 months old ). It is enjoyable but hard work.

Dinner out at an Italian restaurant saw me having

Oysters

 

 

 

Veal scallopini with a red wine sauce, mash and brocollini

 

 

For dessert I had tiramisu

 

It was all delicious and I am quite full up as I don’t usually have 3 courses. 

 

I though you might like to see the area so below

is a view of where we are staying. There are lots of islands off shore, you can just make out a couple on the horizon

 

[YvetteMT]

Taco salads

[Maison Rustique]

A friend dropped off some wonderful chili lime chicken skewers while I was visiting my husband. I popped them into the oven for a quick roast before it got too hot. Froze some for later and ate some tonight with arugula, sliced tomato, avocado lime dressing and buttered baguette.

 

And as long as I had the oven on, put in the shriveling cherry tomatoes I had and a huge green pepper to roast for freezing to use in whatever.

 

[weinoo]

After reading all about the trials and tribulations that @MaryIsobel suffered while working with orecchiette, I put the box of orecchiette I had pulled out of the pantry back inside.  And instead went with one of my more recently favored short tubular pastas that I like for the same purpose.

 

 

Mezzi rigatoni with sausage and broccoli.

 

 

FWIW, any time I'm thinking of making a pasta salad (i.e.: cold pasta), I go for a thinner, faster cooking variety.  Elbows, for example, cook quickly, and I think have a better mouth feel when cold, vs. orecchiette or any of the thicker pastas.

[gulfporter]

I made dinner for the first time since my eyelid surgery last Wednesday.  I had blurred vision for a day or two, some pain.  Worst  part is I cannot wear my contact lenses and I HATE wearing glasses.  My contact lenses are prescribed for Monovision, meaning I have 1 lens for distance, and 1 lens for reading.  The brain adjusts to them and I can drive and read without 'readers.'  I normally wear my glasses two hours a day, with my morning coffee, and watching an hour or so of TV after getting ready for bed.  They are for distance only.   Cooking is a challenge in them, reading thermometers, dials, etc. 

 

I grilled salmon and made a couscous salad with toasted pecans and dried cranberries in a lemon-mustard vinaigrette.  Picture isn't great as focusing the camera was a guess on my part. 

 

 

[weinoo]

Might as well go with the flow...

 

 

Heirloom Caprese salad, with dashes of balsamico.  Baguette.

[weinoo]

 

Pork scallopini (or piccata, whichever you prefer; there are 3 or 4 thin slices of pork under the lemon, butter, white wine, capers, and garlic sauce).  Roasted baby potatoes and cabbage wedges.  A pretty tasty, quick and easy dinner.

[liuzhou]

Chicken, marinated with garlic, ginger, chilli and Shaoxing wine. Stir fried with fennel root, apple, culantro, coriander leaf and Chinese chives.

 

 

 

[Maison Rustique]

Made up a soup with some of the chicken from the skewers I roasted the other day. Used a packaged cilantro lime rice, some chopped tomato, chicken stock and a dollop of jalapeno something from Trader Joe's that's been lurking in the fridge for a long time.

 

I have to admit that I am really getting hungry for "real" food, i.e., meat to eat with a knife/fork, veggies and a nice glass of wine. My dear friend who always brings me food texted me yesterday and asked me what I'd like to cheer me up and he'd make it for me. I politely declined. I was afraid it would be chicken drumsticks. LOL.

Edited August 14 by Maison Rustique
typo (log)

[Shel_B]

12 minutes ago, Maison Rustique said:

Made up a soup with some of the chicken from the skewers I roasted the other day. Used a packaged cilantro lime rice, some chopped tomato, chicken stock and a dollop of jalapeno something from Trader Joe's that's been lurking in the fridge for a long time.

 

 @Maison Rustique  Can you provide details about the rice.... sounds interesting and it might be nice to have in the pantry.

[Maison Rustique]

@Shel_B, just realized the brand isn't showing in the photo. It is Ritika's.

 

Edited August 14 by Maison Rustique
Add photos (log)

[YvetteMT]

Last night teriyaki flavors with veg and shrimp (konjac noodles for me).

Another night- BLOT (o=onion) and corn.