Dinner 2025

[Neely]

Belly pork and crackling with brussel sprouts

 

 

[C. sapidus]

A friend came to dinner last night, and these are the leftovers:

 

Thai beef salad (yam nuea): Marinate strip steak with garlic, black pepper, and soy sauce. Grill steaks over charcoal until still mooing, and then slice thinly. Saute garlic and then add lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, black pepper, roasted rice powder, and the sliced beef. Served as make-your-own salad with butter lettuce, sliced cucumber, tomato, mint, cilantro, scallions, sliced shallots, and sliced long red chiles.

 

Mrs. C made another batch of muhammara (roasted red bell pepper dip) and this one was even better - more heat, and plenty of sumac. Served with toasted, buttered naan.

 

Edited July 17 by C. sapidus
Tomato, roasted rice powder (log)

[C. sapidus]

Camarones al mojo de ajo (garlic shrimp): Marinate shrimp in a paste of garlic (lots of garlic), black pepper, rice vinegar, and salt. Saute with butter and olive oil, and finish with lime juice. Served over last night's leftover salad.

 

Finished off the last of the muhammara with toasted naan, but there is a picture above.

 

Edited July 17 by C. sapidus
Muhammara (log)

[blue_dolphin]

Seared scallops with curried onions and lime from Mezcla by Ixta Belfrage served on polenta with a slaw dressed with lime vinaigrette. 

I made the curried onions, basically finely chopped, slow caramelized onions with the addition of curry powder for another dish so this was quick and easy.

[TicTac]

Some meals from the cottage…

 

 

 

 

delicious local’ish winery.  Highly recommended! 

[KennethT]

11 hours ago, TicTac said:

Some meals from the cottage…

 

 

 

 

delicious local’ish winery.  Highly recommended! 

Nice campfire grill!!!  Also, where did you get the anti-gravity grill for the chicken?  I didn't know they were invented yet. Do they work any better than standard grills?

[Ann_T]

 

Easy dinner last night.

 

Grilled steaks and served with frites, a wine sauce and salad

[Norm Matthews]

Charlie has been painting the living room and dining area so the table is covered with a tarp, rollers, buckets, etc., so we have been eating wherever we find the space. I have  done nearly nothing with the smoker this summer. I feel like I need to experiment with different foods and recipes.  I did a chicken today and got some ideas for where to go next.  I just seasoned it with a rub and sprayed it with a fat for the last hour to help crisp the skin. it took two hours.

[TicTac]

On 7/18/2025 at 8:08 AM, KennethT said:

Nice campfire grill!!!  Also, where did you get the anti-gravity grill for the chicken?  I didn't know they were invented yet. Do they work any better than standard grills?

Thanks - 'borrowed' from my MIL's BBQ - she got cast iron and stainless steel grates...did not even bother with the cast iron.

 

Time moves far slower at the cottage, my guess is it has something to do with that.....and the jugs of sangria!

[Neely]

Dinners over the last few nights 

Fish Friday was battered flat head fillets and salad

Below

 

Lamb loin chops brussel sprouts, potato and salad below

 

 

Rotisserie chicken and potatoes with salad and a dollop of blue cheese below

 

 

 

[gulfporter]

Splurged on wild-caught lump crab meat from Costco...highly recommend.  It's $33 a tub, but we get 6 good sized servings out of one.  

 

I bought this tartar sauce at Safeway (grocery chain here in AZ) and must say it's quite good!

 

The croissants are so buttery they charred quickly in the toaster, but tasted fine. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 20 by gulfporter
added pic (log)

[Duvel]

Family requested karaage … and I am more than happy to augment the fried chicken to make it a full Japanese dinner:

 

 

Some pork loins turned into tonkatsu …

 

 

And plated: Tonkatsu with sweet onion, tsuyu and egg (the classic Katsudon topping), fresh peas intheir pods (a seasonal substitute for edamame), (commercial) gyoza, and the karaage …

 

 

Tuna tataki with yuzu ponzu …

 

Homemade sides:

 

Silken tofu with spicy meat topping, agedashi masu (fried eggplant in dashi), salt-pickled cucumber with kombu, soy sauce-pickled radish, menma, grated radish with yuzu ponzu, (commercial) Calbee potato sticks.

 

 

Some sake from the mancave …

 

And - to conclude the meal - a matcha flavored crema catalana … 

 

No complaints 🤗

 

[KennethT]

@Duvel Your ability to put out so many dishes plus side dishes and not spend 4 days making it all never ceases to impress me.  I'd love to see video of you working in the kitchen - must be like watching ballet...

[RWood]

Falafel bowl. My mom has been wanting falafel, so finally got around to making them. Also made the hummus and tzatziki, pickled red onions and turmeric basmati.

[Duvel]

13 hours ago, KennethT said:

@Duvel Your ability to put out so many dishes plus side dishes and not spend 4 days making it all never ceases to impress me.  I'd love to see video of you working in the kitchen - must be like watching ballet...

Thanks - it’s actually a rather calm affair (and a lot less coordinated or graceful than a ballet 🤭). The cold dished were prepared over the course of the weekend, whenever I felt like it. The hot stuff plus the plating happened in half an hour, so when DW left & returned from picking up little one from his playdate everything was ready …

 

 

Edited July 21 by Duvel (log)

[gulfporter]

Duck breast with arugula salad with pearl couscous.  I'm really in love with pearl couscous.  Years ago I tried it (back then it was more commonly called Israeli couscous).   I had mixed results as it was cooked like rice, measuring water so it would be absorbed.  Now I boil in a lot of water (unmeasured), wait for it to get tender, then drain.  Lots of chefs now doing the same with rice.  

 

 

 

 

[Duvel]

Hurra (hooray) for leftovers 🥳

 

[Norm Matthews]

When I started teaching, I became friends with a teacher who became sort of a mentor in non school things.   He made wine, smoked meats and threw great parties.  One annual party was his birthday party and he smoked a whole pig for that occasion.  About as often as not I was the bartender. At one party, I overheard two other teachers tell him that their years long quest was to find the restaurant that made the best Country Fried Steak. I can't describe what I thought about that but Don Quixote and Sanjo Panza who set out on a quests with little chance of reward  came to mind.  Now decades later my son has started that same search for the Chicken Fried Steak they had at the high school cafeteria and I am old enough to understand why people crave food  they had while growing up. I found a reciipe that had the right taste but still something was not just right.  Charlie found a school cafeteria cookbook with Country Fried Steak in it. The revelation was that instead of using a cheap, tough but tenderized piece of meat, they used seasoned ground beef pressed out on sheet pans and baked, then cut into individual sizes.  It was seasoned with salt, pepper, dehydrated onions and some flour.

 

I am baking hamburger paddies and then treating them like the  recipe below.  Probably the last thing to do is find the right thickness for the meat.  So far it has been too thick for his liking, but otherwise it seemsllike we are on the right track.

 

Chicken Fried Steak recipe from Threadgills - 

    

              Recipe By : Threadgill's - The Cookbook ISBN 1-56352-277-2 

 

Threadgill's meat seasoning mix 

  1/2 cup kosher salt 

    4 tablespoons black pepper 

    2 tablespoons white pepper 

    1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper 

    2 tablespoons granulated onion 

    1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin 

    4 tablespoons granulated garlic 

    2 tablespoons paprika 

 

    Mix ingredients well. Store in a glass jar or plastic container. Keep tightly

    sealed. Shake before each use to prevent settling. 

 

    8 6 ounce tenderized beef cutlets -- at room temperature 

    2 eggs 

    2 cups milk -- at room temperature 

    3 cups flour 

    2 teaspoons Threadgill's Meat Seasoning 

    2 cups frying oil -- preferably canola 

 

    Whisk eggs and milk together in a bowl and set this egg wash aside. Combine

    the flour and meat seasoning in another bowl and set aside. Heat the oil in a

    heavy 14-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat to 350 degrees F. Use a 550

    degree thermometer to check temperature. The oil should pop loudly when a

    drop of egg wash is dropped in. 

 

    Dip each of the first 4 cutlets in the egg wash mixture. Dredge them in the flour,

    then dip them back into the egg wash, and very gently place them in the hot oil.

    As you carry them one at a time from the egg wash to the skillet, hold a plate

    under them to catch the dripping egg wash. There'll be a regular explosion of

    noisy oil a-popping. 

 

    Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until breading is set and golden brown. Gently turn

    them with a long-handled meat fork or long metal tongs. Be careful. Cook

    another 3 minutes. 

 

    Carefully remove them from the skillet and drain on a platter lined with paper

    towels. Let oil reheat and repeat process for other 4 cutlets. 

 

    Serve with White Cream Gravy and Mashed Potatoes. 

 

 

 

Edited July 21 by Norm Matthews (log)

[gulfporter]

Simple pasta with bacon, shallots, peas topped with parm. 

 

 

[liuzhou]

Dinner tonight was taken in a local Xi’an restaurant. First up a 青椒受肉夹馍 (qīng jiāo shòu ròu jiā mó ), green chilli pepper and lean pork sandwich. I usually make these myself, but using beef the way I was taught in Xi’an, a city with a large non-pork-eating population of Muslims. However, these were perfectly acceptable.

 

 

Then some 凉皮 (liáng pí, literally ‘cold skin’). Liangpi is both the name of the dish and the noodles used. These are made by taking wheat four and making a simple dough with water. This is then washed several times, but the washing water isn’t discarded. It is carefully collected and left to sit overnight. Next day the starch washed out of the wheat has sunk to the bottom and is extracted, then remade into new dough. This is steamed in thin pancakes and sliced into noodles.

 

Liangpi

 

An important ingredient in the dish is wheat gluten which is steamed and served over the noodles with chilli oil, black vinegar, coriander leaf, bean sprouts and cucumber.

 

Gluten

 

The dish is always served cold, even in Xi’an’s often bitter winters.

 

 

[Shelby]

22 hours ago, gulfporter said:

Duck breast with arugula salad with pearl couscous.  I'm really in love with pearl couscous.  Years ago I tried it (back then it was more commonly called Israeli couscous).   I had mixed results as it was cooked like rice, measuring water so it would be absorbed.  Now I boil in a lot of water (unmeasured), wait for it to get tender, then drain.  Lots of chefs now doing the same with rice.  

 

 

 

 

I don't remember how old I was--probably around 12???  Anyway I made white rice after school one day for a snack.  I did it just like I'd do pasta--I boiled unmeasured water and dumped rice it.  It worked fine.  I later learned that's the wrong way to do it.  I've always wondered why when it worked just fine lol.

[Shelby]

We went to Sam's the other day.  They had shrimp and some really good pork chops and steaks on sale so we loaded up.  Had to make fried shrimp for dinner

 

 

Pork chops, Alfredo-ish zoodles and the always present cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden.

 

 

 

The tomatoes are SO good.  Did a major splurge.  Made bread--HAVE to have BLT's with real bread.  Along with  fries.  Homemade strawberry sauce and strawberry  ice cream for dessert.  

 

 

 

 

Big salad night to atone for BLT night.  I had leftover bacon so I stuffed some mushrooms too.

 

 

 

Really good lamb chops last night.  Cauliflower "potato" salad again to go with.  That's a keeper recipe.  Also collards from the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rotuts]

@Shelby  , et. al . :  Rice

 

cooking the rice by boiling no doubt works.

 

if cooking w measured water method ,  might be less rice flavor lost to the abundant water via the boil method.

 

ie making rice soup .

 

maybe ?

[Shelby]

1 minute ago, rotuts said:

@Shelby  , et. al . :  Rice

 

cooking the rice by boiling no doubt works.

 

if cooking w measured water method ,  might be less rice flavor lost to the abundant water via the boil method.

 

ie making rice soup .

 

maybe ?

You could be very right.  I'm just excited that after all these years, I'm not alone in my rice cooking method LOL.

[KennethT]

@Shelby That method for rice works great for basmati - really helps with the lengthening of the grains.  Jasmine rice can get mushy when done that way - it prefers to be steamed rather than boiled once hydrated otherwise it gets gummy and also loses its aroma.