Dinner 2025

[Ann_T]

Quick and easy work night dinner.

I bought three racks of pork (loins) recently and cut a couple of chops off one of them.

Got home from work about 5:15 tonight and we were eating at 5:55.

Put a pot of water on to boil for my rice. I cook rice the same way I cook pasta.

Big pot of boiling water. When al dente, the rice is drained and put back into the pot covered with paper towels and lid and left to steam from its own heat.

The chops were seasoned with fresh garlic, oregano, pepper, olive oil and fresh lemon juice, and left on the counter, while the rice cooked and the grill was heating.

While all that was going on , I made the Greek Salad.

 

When the rice was cooked, the chops went on the grill and didn't take very long on high heat to reach 140°F.

Let rest for five minutes and dinner was ready to serve.

 

[gulfporter]

Bangers and Mash....and Ash. 

 

Grilled a banger and served with leftovers of mashed potatoes, green beans and bacon, and chile ash sauce (from a MXN take-away meal).  

 

 

[Smithy]

2 hours ago, gulfporter said:

Bangers and Mash....and Ash. 

 

Grilled a banger and served with leftovers of mashed potatoes, green beans and bacon, and chile ash sauce (from a MXN take-away meal).  

 

 

 

Are you joking about a poorly executed sauce from the takeaway joint, or is chile ash sauce a thing? If the latter, please tell more!

[Tropicalsenior]

That intrigued me too so I Googled it and found this recipe.

[gulfporter]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

Are you joking about a poorly executed sauce from the takeaway joint, or is chile ash sauce a thing? If the latter, please tell more!

 

Chile ash cream sauce is divine!  They mix the charred remains of toasted chiles into the sauce.  I could (and do) drink down the last drops!

 

Here is menu we ordered from; it's a special the chef makes about once a month. 

 

 

[Tropicalsenior]

Great menu. I wish I could find something like that in Costa Rica. Mexico has amazing food. People don't think of anything but the typical Mexican food but there is a lot of International food. My favorite place to stay in Mexico City is the Zona Roja. There are restaurants there from all over the world and they do it well.

[rotuts]

@gulfporter

 

Id love to try Chili Ash sauce 

 

You bet !

[gulfporter]

1 hour ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Great menu. I wish I could find something like that in Costa Rica. Mexico has amazing food. People don't think of anything but the typical Mexican food but there is a lot of International food. My favorite place to stay in Mexico City is the Zona Roja. There are restaurants there from all over the world and they do it well.

 

We live in a little village on the shores of Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest lake.  We are less than an hour from the Guadalajara Metro area with a population of 6.5+ million.  

 

When we first visited here in 2007 Guadalajara did not have much of a restaurant scene; it now rivals CDMX for inventive eateries.  At the Lake in 2007, there were a few gringo-owned places serving American foods, one or two decent Italian restaurants, a couple of Argentine steak places. but mostly it was local fare.  

 

Mexico's middle class has exploded in the past 15 years.  And similar to the US in the 1970s and 1980s, they have disposable incomes that allow them to sample different foods in restaurants; this demand has caused an explosion of a variety of international eateries, both in Guadalajara and here at the Lake.  

 

Tapatíos (as residents of Guadalajara proudly call themselves) have always come to the Lake on weekends; some day trippers, some upper class families that have owned homes on its shores for generations.  Without their business, most of the better restaurants here would not survive.  

 

More and more properties in my village (Ajijic) are being sold to Mexicans, reversing the decades long trend of sales to expats from US and Canada.   

 

 

[Tropicalsenior]

16 minutes ago, gulfporter said:

We are less than an hour from the Guadalajara Metro area

I love Guadalajara. The last time we were there was about 2012. It was probably just starting to develop more. I got hooked on the pork tortas. I don't remember what they were called but I love them. I could spend days and days in Tonalà and Tlaquepaque.

[liamsaunt]

This week's dinners.  Sunday we had truffled mac and cheese and roasted broccolini

 

 

Monday was spaghetti and meatballs 

 

 

Tuesday we had miso noodle bowls with jammy eggs

 

 

Wednesday was freezing so we had soup again, this time a lemony greek potato, spinach, and dill one with feta cheese

 

 

Last night nephew braved the frigid temps and grilled some peri peri chicken.  He also made the tomato rice.  I contributed the flatbread and chopped salad

 

[Tropicalsenior]

Everything you make always looks great but I get a special twang of envy when I see your flatbread. Try as I might, even with your recipe I can't get it to look like that. Do you use much grease on your griddle? Do you use oil or butter or what?

[gulfporter]

2 hours ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I love Guadalajara. The last time we were there was about 2012. It was probably just starting to develop more. I got hooked on the pork tortas. I don't remember what they were called but I love them. I could spend days and days in Tonalà and Tlaquepaque.

Tortas Ahogadas (drowned sandwich) is THE dish of Guadalajara and nearby communities including ours.  There are at least 7 torta stands within a 20 minute walk of my home.  A few make them with shrimp during Cuaresma (Lent).  

[Margaret Pilgrim]

On 1/7/2025 at 2:41 PM, gulfporter said:

https://littlesunnykitchen.com/instant-pot-oxtail/

 

I've used this recipe a few times.  My changes are:

I use 8 to 10 carrots, cut in 1 to 2 inch chunks

I use a really large onion, large size chop (not diced)

I use 4-5 garlic cloves, halved

I use 1 cup hearty red wine (whatever I have on hand, usually Tempranillo, Carmenere, Red Zin)

I use 1 1/2 cups beef broth or chicken broth 

I use much more cracked black pepper than called for, to our taste

I set the Instant Pot for 55 minutes; let it depressurize naturally (allow at least 35-40 minutes)

When I open the Instant Pot, I either:

Remove the oxtails and veg then set the Instant Pot on High Sauté until liquid is reduced quite a bit, almost by half.  

Or, drain off the liquid from the Instant Pot into a saucepan and boil it down stovetop to about half.    

 

My one gripe about Instant Pot is the amount of liquid I'm left with, but my pot has Warning!! do not underfill with liquid.  So that's why I end up reducing the liquid afterward. 

My method, actually a dumbed down version of French Laundry, is similar to  yours but Iet the meat marinate overnight in the wine and veg combo.   As you say, outstanding!

[Smithy]

On 1/2/2025 at 9:02 AM, Smithy said:

With apologies to the fine dinners already populating this new topic, I'll give everyone a laugh. I hope.

 

I mentioned here that a neighbor had shot a bear and given me a packet of the ground meat, and I had asked advice here about how to cook it. @YvetteMT was good enough to note here that it's probably quite mild in flavor unless it's been living on fish, and suggested a delicate hand in seasoning it. I looked at the eG Cook-Off #75: Meatballs topic and got some ideas for the panade. I also ran across this comment that northern US bear meat must be thoroughly cooked due to the presence of Trichinella. Hmm. Meatballs or hamburger? I really wanted to taste the bear itself. I really wanted to make sure it was cooked thoroughly. I got out my instant-read thermometer. Flat battery! Got out the other. Readied myself.

 

What you see below is the sole record of last night's experiment. I made a few meatballs with a simple panade of bread I'm trying to use up and 1% milk left over from a baking project. I made a simple burger. I washed everything thoroughly, pondering the fact that we don't worry about trichinosis in this country from pork any more, and here I was fussing over it from wild game!

 

 

I kept poking my Thermoworks into the meatballs and burger patty. Was 150F going to be enough? USDA doesn't specify bear meat, but for other forms of game they went with 160F. It isn't as though it's all going to be held at temp for a long time, as in the sous vide discussion I linked to before. 160F it is, at the interior.

 

It was a little more appetizing looking when browned, but I can't say I enjoyed it. No particular flavor that I could tell. A bit on the dry side, as you might imagine when it's been cooked to that temperature. The leftovers, and the uncooked meat, are all going into a pasta sauce.

 

And you know what? If this is the worst dinner I produce in 2025, I'll have gotten the kitchen failures out of the way early!

 

 

 

Per the idea in this older post, I decided to use the rest of a package of ground bear meat in a pasta sauce. I've had a jar of Vodka Sauce loafing around the cupboard, and decided that it should grace the bear meat after a little sweating of chopped onion and garlic.

 

I like Classico brand sauces, I really do. This was their version of Vodka sauce. But it seemed insipid. Was it the bear meat, which really does seem bland?

 

 

Or the jarred sauce itself?

 

I dunno. It's palatable enough, especially with generous amounts of garlic salt and shredded parmesan sprinkled atop the serving.

 

 

 

But when I've finished this stuff, I won't go out of my way to find it again. Insipid. I refer both to the pasta sauce and the bear meat.

 

[Honkman]

Pimento Cheeseburgers with homemade pimento cheese made with shredded cheddar, cream cheese, pimentos, mustard powder and cayenne pepper. The cheese was used as a filling and as a topping

[KennethT]

On 1/8/2025 at 6:57 PM, C. sapidus said:

Thai eggplant curry is one of my favorite things in the universe, but some dislike the texture. Or just cross-hatch a halved eggplant, stuff the cuts with fresh rosemary, garlic, and copious olive oil, and broil it under high heat. Delish.

When in Thailand, I was always a big fan of curries which frequently contained the Thai apple eggplants - but they should really be called golf ball eggplants as they're closer in size to one of those or maybe a raquetball than an apple.  I can find them in NYC once in a great while if I keep my eyes peeled.

[Maison Rustique]

I also got caught up in Googling Chili ash sauce. I found many recipes and know I'd never make it. If weather ever gets better, I'll try visiting a Mexican market and see if I can find a jarred version.

[KennethT]

16 hours ago, liamsaunt said:

This week's dinners.  Sunday we had truffled mac and cheese and roasted broccolini

 

 

 

What do you use to truffle your m&c?

[Maison Rustique]

23 hours ago, gulfporter said:

 

Chile ash cream sauce is divine!  They mix the charred remains of toasted chiles into the sauce.  I could (and do) drink down the last drops!

 

Here is menu we ordered from; it's a special the chef makes about once a month. 

 

 

 

 

@gulfporter What would be the Spanish name for the ash sauce? I'm trying to find it here and my sis has volunteered to visit some of their many authentic Mexican markets to see if she can track it down for me.

[liuzhou]

3 hours ago, KennethT said:

When in Thailand, I was always a big fan of curries which frequently contained the Thai apple eggplants - but they should really be called golf ball eggplants as they're closer in size to one of those or maybe a raquetball than an apple.  I can find them in NYC once in a great while if I keep my eyes peeled.

 

By apple eggplant, do you mean the first one in this post? They can be eaten raw, just like apples.

[YvetteMT]

In a Neverending quest to find gf buns suitable for burgers-

Tater tots, burgers (mayo, mustard, onion and dill sauerkraut).  Quest continues. 

[liamsaunt]

20 hours ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Everything you make always looks great but I get a special twang of envy when I see your flatbread. Try as I might, even with your recipe I can't get it to look like that. Do you use much grease on your griddle? Do you use oil or butter or what?

 

I do not use any oil on the griddle.  I cook the bread in a dry cast iron skillet, and then run butter over it when it comes off.  

 

4 hours ago, KennethT said:

What do you use to truffle your m&c?

 

In this case, I used some canned Urbani truffle cream sauce that my sister gave me in my Christmas stocking.  I think she bought it at Eataly.  The mushrooms on top are just roasted blue oyster mushrooms with truffle salt on them.

 

Last night, we had coconut fish curry with cod (and broccoli that I added to veg it up a bit), and rice with dill. lemon, and butter.  Both the curry and rice recipes are from Meera Sodha's Made in India cookbook.

 

[KennethT]

1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

 

By apple eggplant, do you mean the first one in this post? They can be eaten raw, just like apples.

Yes, the first ones.  They also had the middle ones but like you, I wasn't a huge fan since they can be bitter - but I think that's what they like about them - especially when a curry has some palm sugar in it like most do.

[liuzhou]

4 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Yes, the first ones.  They also had the middle ones but like you, I wasn't a huge fan since they can be bitter - but I think that's what they like about them - especially when a curry has some palm sugar in it like most do.

 

Yes. I do sometimes use the small bitter ones to counteract sweet stuff. But generally I do have a relatively high bitterness tolerance.