Dinner 2025

[Neely]

Dinner was a faux moussaka meaning there was lamb, eggplant and a touch of cinnamon in the stew but without the refinements to make it a real moussaka. 
 

[Honkman]

Rice Noodle and Vegetables Bowl with Pork - slightly warm rice noodles are topped with diced pork cutlets (marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, honey and toasted sesame oil and quickly pan-fried), carrots and celeriac (quickly marinated with rice vinegar, salt and sugar), shredded iceberg lettuce, scallions and mint. Finished with a vinaigrette made from fish sauce, lime juice and zest, chili crunch and ginger

[C. sapidus]

Hot buttered lobster roll with coleslaw and New England clam chowdah (not pictured)

 

[Ddanno]

9 minutes ago, C. sapidus said:

Hot buttered lobster roll with coleslaw and New England clam chowdah (not pictured)

 

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2-bbYH_akHg&pp=ygUQY2hvd2RhaCBzaW1wc29ucw%3D%3D

[Dante]

Kumpir (toppings of avocado, shredded carrot, quick pickled purple cabbage, and green olives), side of steamed edamame with nutritional yeast, butter, and paprika.

[weinoo]

Since I'm not fortunate enough (nor do I have enough room) to cook with a countertop indoor smoker, I have to resort to old school means.

 

 

Such as my Japanese gin donabe.  This week I experimented with two types of salmon; wild Alaskan king and wild Alaskan sockeye (both fresh).  I happen to like the sockeye moreso than the king; it's just more to my taste.  But these both came out nice and lightly smoked. Served with rice and some sautéed vegetables.

[MaryIsobel]

2 hours ago, weinoo said:

Since I'm not fortunate enough (nor do I have enough room) to cook with a countertop indoor smoker, I have to resort to old school means.

 

 

Such as my Japanese gin donabe.  This week I experimented with two types of salmon; wild Alaskan king and wild Alaskan sockeye (both fresh).  I happen to like the sockeye moreso than the king; it's just more to my taste.  But these both came out nice and lightly smoked. Served with rice and some sautéed vegetables.

Fresh sockeye has spoiled me for any other type of salmon.

[KennethT]

3 hours ago, weinoo said:

Since I'm not fortunate enough (nor do I have enough room) to cook with a countertop indoor smoker, I have to resort to old school means.

 

 

Such as my Japanese gin donabe.  This week I experimented with two types of salmon; wild Alaskan king and wild Alaskan sockeye (both fresh).  I happen to like the sockeye moreso than the king; it's just more to my taste.  But these both came out nice and lightly smoked. Served with rice and some sautéed vegetables.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of either of those salmon - at least when I used to get them from Wild Alaska...  I found them too lean.  I LOVE the akaroa king salmon from New Zealand - it's almost buttery and so tender.  I actually get it regularly for sashimi at the Wegmans near me.  Best salmon sashimi ever.

 

What do you use to make the smoke in your donabe?  Have you ever seen coconut husk charcoal available near us?

[gulfporter]

Fettucine with charred grape tomatoes, bacon, shallot and arugula.  Topped with parm on the plates. 

 

 

[weinoo]

2 hours ago, KennethT said:

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of either of those salmon - at least when I used to get them from Wild Alaska...  I found them too lean.  I LOVE the akaroa king salmon from New Zealand - it's almost buttery and so tender.  I actually get it regularly for sashimi at the Wegmans near me.  Best salmon sashimi ever.

 

What do you use to make the smoke in your donabe?  Have you ever seen coconut husk charcoal available near us?

 

At home for cooking, I never buy any farmed fish - though I may partake of some - when at a sushi bar, for instance (or if I shop at Russ & Daughters for varieties of smoked salmon).  As I mentioned, both salmon varieties I cooked were delivered fresh, as opposed to how we get them from Wild Alaska or Great Alaska Seafood.

 

For this smoke, I used Japanese (Sakura) cherry blossom wood chips.

[Norm Matthews]

The Korean grocery store has beef and pork already cut up and ready to  take home and marinate but they also have beef short ribs not only cut up but in a marinade ready to take home and grill.  We had not tired them before today and they were good.  The little BBQ was going to be too small and converting the smoker is a chore. the clean-up is too. I got a cheap charcoal grill at Walmart yesterday and set it up for today. In a couple of weeks, Charlie is having a couple over for some of my smoked meat and wants to include some Korean food, so I knew that I'd need a separate grill then, because I can't use my smoker for smoking and grilling at the same time.

[BeeZee]

Did a bunch of grilled veg (I had salmon fillet brushed with hoisin, DH had a strip steak). Corn salad for tomorrow’s dinner, leftovers of the grilled eggplant/zucchini/red bell pepper/red onion warm salad that I make a lot over the summer.

[Neely]

Husband made a beef stew which we had with broccolini and mashed potato. He makes the stew with loads of onions cooked even longer than the beef till they have melted down to form the ‘gravy’. 
 

 

I made an old fashioned apple pie. 
 

 

 

[Honkman]

Vegetarian Wellington Filet with Red Cabbage Salad - the puff pastry was filled with a duxelles/farce made from cremini mushrooms, onions, garlic, walnuts, hazelnuts, parmesan, mustard and thyme and topped with portobello mushroom caps. Served with a simple salad of red cabbage, parsley, olive oil and verjus

[Smithy]

I had dinner guests last night and spent most of the day playing in the kitchen. I don't have pictures of the entire spread (appetizers, slow-cooked pork ribs, green salad, and wine are all out of the photo collection) but I do have photos of the Two Grand Experiments. Yes, I experiment to some degree with company, especially these particular friends.

 

I've been wanting to cook a Washington Post recipe for Roasted Tomato Pie with Cheddar-Parmesan Crust. I had some lovely-looked heirloom tomatoes to commit to the recipe. My gift articles from the Post don't usually seem to work here, but here's the link anyway: click. For good measure, here's a PDF of the document. Roasted Tomato Pie With Cheddar-Parmesan Crust Recipe - The Washington Post.PDF

 

This was a lot of work, but delicious. Next time (and I do think there'll be a next time) I'll either use a smaller pie plate or double the filling. (Edited to add: now as I empty the dishwasher, I see I used a larger pie plate than the recipe specifies. My bad.)

 

 

I'll also be sure not to reach into the food processor bowl with my bare hands to check the dough consistency. I'm not used to using a food processor for pie dough, and my thoughtless action slowed me down. 

 

The other experiment involved making a peach pie using pie filling I'd made and frozen a couple of years ago, when the peaches were particularly good. I suspect I got the idea here someplace. Now I have to find my notes on what, exactly, I put in there: peach chunks, sugar, no doubt some lemon, and either flour or cornstarch. After I made the crust using my mother's standard recipe, not the cheese recipe from the pie above, I put the barely-thawed pie filling into the shell, rolled out the top dough and put it atop everything. I remembered to cut vents but forgot to use liquid to seal the bottom and top crusts. I also didn't think to put an egg wash on the top layer, though maybe it didn't matter. I think it's been at least a decade since I've made this style of pie!

 

 

You can see in the photo that some of the juices leaked out through the unsealed edges, but nobody complained. There was plenty of good flavor in that pie!

 

Edited Monday at 02:54 PM by Smithy
Corrected comment about the pie plate. The Post specified 9" and I accidentally used a 10". My fault, not theirs. (log)

[TdeV]

@Smithy, I usually experiment on my dinner guests too!

(I would like to have been invited to that dinner 😋 )

[gulfporter]

Grilled blackened salmon.  Jarred imported (Spain) white beans tossed with chopped arugula, big dash of smoked paprika and a little balsamic cranberry-chipotle dipping sauce.

 

 

 

 

[Honkman]

Shio Koji-Marinated Flank Steak with Grilled Brussels Sprouts with Honey-Lemon Vinaigrette (both recipes from CI) - flank steak gets marinated with some shio koji for 7 hours (to get a flavor similar to an aged steak), heated in the oven and finished with a quick pan-sear.

Brussels sprouts get nearly quartered (too enlarge surface area) and wet-brined. Steamed on the grill in an aluminum foil pouch and subsequently directly grilled to brown. Served with some not-homemade roasted potatoes with pesto

[Norm Matthews]

Steak, Salad and Sourdough and Taylor Swift

 

The grocery had these little steaks. They callled them patio steaks. I don't know what that is so I marinated them just to hedge against them not being tasty. They were good. They each were under $3.00. Taylor Swift lives part time in Kansas City now so she appears in the newspaper occasionally.  Sometime around her engagement announcement, it was mentione that she was really into baking with sourdough. A few days later, there was an interview with a guy who teaches sourdough classes.  I have been making sourdough French bread for 40 years and haven't been much interested in experimenting with different recipes, like cinnamon rolls.  Anyway, the guy said baking bread in a Dutch oven was important.  I looked into it and found that putting it in a preheated Dutch oven will seal it in so the moisture is trapped around the bread and the steam will enhance the rise.  Another article had a recipe that was very much like mine except it used a little more water  and used diastic malt powder. Malt powder is also supposed to help the yeast and gives a nice golden brown to the crust. I tried it with my Dutch oven and it was a little too small.  The top of the bread rose to touch the top of the oven and it got too brown. There was very little rise outside the oven and there wasn't much today when I tried again with a new Dutch oven.  I am guessing something happened to the yeast when our refrigerator stopped working and we had go get new one. By the way, when I ordered the diastic malt powder, spell check changed it to diabetic. This time the bread turned out well.  Charlie even had seconds.

[Kerala]

Shepherd's pie.

[Honkman]

Spaghetti Grape-Carbonara with Basil from an essen & trinken recipe - really nice summer take on spaghetti carbonara. The carbonara is done in a classical way with pancetta, shallots, pasta water, eggs and egg yolks and parmesan. It is served with halved red grapes which are sautéed in butter and finished with verjus until dry (which gives a nice fruity, yet slightly sour component) and marinated basil (mixture of basil, olive oil, honey and verjus)

[Maison Rustique]

@Honkman, does this sound at all like what you made? It is from the Google AI response when I looked for a recipe.

 

This recipe is a modern, fruity twist on classic spaghetti carbonara, replacing the standard pepper with fresh basil and incorporating the sweetness of roasted grapes. The traditional creamy, egg-and-cheese sauce is preserved, but the result is a lighter, brighter flavor profile. The key is to add the egg-and-cheese mixture off the heat to create a silky sauce without scrambling the eggs. 

 

Ingredients

• 1 pound spaghetti
• 8 ounces guanciale or pancetta, diced
• 2 cups seedless red grapes, halved
• 1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese, plus extra for garnish
• 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 3 large egg yolks, plus 1 whole egg
• 1 large handful fresh basil, torn or roughly chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
• Salt, to taste 

Instructions

1. Prepare the grapes: Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C). Place the halved grapes on a parchment-lined baking sheet and drizzle with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast for 15–20 minutes, or until the grapes have softened and started to blister.
2. Cook the pork: In a large, cold skillet, add the diced guanciale or pancetta. Cook over medium heat until the fat has rendered and the pork is crispy. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the crispy pork to a plate, leaving the rendered fat in the pan. Turn off the heat under the skillet.
3. Whisk the eggs and cheese: In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and whole egg with the grated Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeses. Season with the freshly ground black pepper.
4. Cook the pasta: Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil and cook the spaghetti until al dente. Before draining, reserve about 1 cup of the starchy pasta water.
5. Combine the sauce: Drain the pasta and immediately add it to the skillet with the rendered pork fat. Toss to coat. Slowly pour the egg-and-cheese mixture over the hot pasta, tossing vigorously to combine. If the sauce seems too thick, add a splash of the reserved pasta water to loosen it until it reaches a silky, creamy consistency.
6. Add the final ingredients: Gently fold in the roasted grapes, crispy pork, and most of the fresh basil. Toss just to combine, being careful not to crush the grapes.
7. Serve: Divide the pasta into bowls and top with the remaining basil, extra grated cheese, and a final sprinkle of black pepper. Serve immediately. [1, 2, 9, 12, 13]

 

 

 

[Paul Bacino]

Eggplant Bolognese w/ tomato beans

 

[rotuts]

@Norm Matthews

 

is there a tough tendon running down the middle of those streaks ?

 

if so , they are cut from the blade meat , thus blade steaks 

 

the blade is under the scapula , and can be best seen in a 7-bone steak :

 

 

look on the L side  ;  its this cut 

 

 

you can see the bone ( scapula ) is shaped like a 7 .

 

the meat is very tender and very flavorful .   the problem is that tendon in the middle that separates the two muscles under the scapula,

 

just cut it out after cooking is an easy way to deal with it.

 

 

[Norm Matthews]

@rotuts  Thanks for the info.  I do not remember if it looked like that and can't tell from the pictures but it was very tender except for one area so they probably were blade steaks. It can be hard for me to tell which steaks cut from the chuck can be good or tough and even harder when the butcher gives them some fanciful name.