Dinner 2025

[Norm Matthews]

I have been cooking Christmas cookies all day and part of yesterday too. Dinner was a humble Southern comfort food that mom used to make whenever we had a leftover ham bone. Instead of Navy beans, though, I used Mayocoba beans.  I had not seen them on shelves for quite a while but remembered how good they are and decided to use them with the ham bone i had in the freezer.  The cookies were some brownies made in a skillet, some spicy oatmeal cookies that nearly everyone would not know they were oatmeal cookies and some eggnog flavored cookies.

Edited December 20, 2025 by Norm Matthews (log)

[sartoric]

4 minutes ago, Norm Matthews said:

I have been cooking Christmas cookies all day and part of yesterday too. Dinner was a humble Southern comfort food that mom used to make whenever we had a leftover ham bone. Instead of Navy beans, though, I used Mayocoba beans.  I had not seen them on shelves for quite a while but remembered how good they are and decided to use them with the ham bone i had in the freezer.  The cookies were some brownies made in a skillet, some spicy oatmeal cookies that nearly everyone would not know they were oatmeal cookies and some eggnog flavored cookies.

Gee those ham and beans look delicious 🤤 

[sartoric]

It was Saturday night with the Carolines. Here is some Gorgonzola with pear, vintage cheddar, pickles and a spicy garlic jalapeno dip. With a Moscow mule to wash it all down.

[C. sapidus]

Dinner from 'Cradle of Flavor'

 

Malaccan beef and vegetable stew (Semur daging lembu): Basically a European stew with Malaysian flavors like shallot paste, star anise, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick, black soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Red onion, carrots, sliced green beans (sub for peas), and potatoes cooked separately and added just before serving. Jasmine rice to go with. Very popular, no leftovers

 

Sweet-sour cucumber and carrot pickle with turmeric (Acar kuning): Salt matchsticks of cucumber and carrot with sliced shallots and red Fresno peppers and let sit for a couple of hours. Meanwhile make a flavoring paste of shallots, garlic, macadamia nuts (sub for candlenuts), ginger, dried red chiles, and turmeric. Saute the paste and simmer with rice vinegar and sugar. Rinse and dry the quick-pickled vegetables and mix with the sauce. First time making this but it won't be the last.

 

Javanese sambal (sambal bajak / ulek): Shallots, garlic, red Fresno peppers, palm sugar, and a fried disc of dried shrimp paste, all blended "to the consistency of cooked oatmeal." Fry until reduced, darkened, and the oil begins to separate. Good stuff, will make again.

 

I owe Fresno peppers an apology. International market usually carries red Holland chiles, and I was very disappointed to find them out of stock. I reluctantly substituted Fresno chiles, which are often bland. Not this batch!

 

Edited December 21, 2025 by C. sapidus
Clarity (log)

[KennethT]

6 minutes ago, C. sapidus said:

Dinner from 'Cradle of Flavor'

 

Malaccan beef and vegetable stew (Semur daging lembu): Basically a European stew with Malaysian flavors like shallot paste, star anise, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick, black soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Jasmine rice to go with. Very popular, no leftovers

 

Sweet-sour cucumber and carrot pickle with turmeric (Acar kuning): Salt matchsticks of cucumber and carrot with sliced shallots and red Fresno peppers and let sit for a couple of hours. Meanwhile make a flavoring paste of shallots, garlic, macadamia nuts (sub for candlenuts), ginger, dried red chiles, and turmeric. Saute the paste and simmer with rice vinegar and sugar. Rinse and dry the quick-pickled vegetables and mix with the sauce. First time making this but it won't be the last.

 

Javanese sambal (sambal bajak / ulek): Blend shallots, garlic, red Fresno peppers, and palm sugar with a fried disc of dried shrimp paste "to the consistency of cooked oatmeal." Fry until reduced, darkened, and the oil begins to separate. Good stuff, will make again.

 

I owe Fresno peppers an apology. International market usually carries red Holland chiles, and I was very disappointed to find them out of stock. I reluctantly substituted Fresno chiles, which are often bland. Not this batch!

 

Interesting - most of the recipes/videos I've seen of people in Indonesia making sambal ulek (aka ulekan aka cobekan), the chilli paste is made in the Indonesian mortar (cobek) and rather than being a fried sambal, it's typically spread in a thin layer across the cobek (which is almost flat, rather than deep like a Thai mortar) and smoking hot oil is poured over the paste and then mixed through thoroughly.  I just made a batch a couple weeks ago using some of my home grown cabe keriting (curly chillies) and cabe rawit (often translated as Thai chillies, but they're actually different - more plump with a fruitier flavor, but just as spicy).  I used a lot more rawit than normal and jeez that stuff is spicy!  But really tasty.  Keeps really well in the freezer and when defrosted is just about impossible to tell the difference.  Most recipes/videos I've seen use only the rawit - I added the keriting to make it less spicy and it was crazy hot even still.  So maybe using those Fresno chillies rather than the Holland spur chillies wasn't so far off! 

 

But everything looks great! I find it funny that the book calls the pickles "acar kuning" - (kuning meaning yellow).  I've only seen it called acar without any other descriptor - it's always got turmeric in it!

[C. sapidus]

13 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Interesting - most of the recipes/videos I've seen of people in Indonesia making sambal ulek (aka ulekan aka cobekan), the chilli paste is made in the Indonesian mortar (cobek) and rather than being a fried sambal, it's typically spread in a thin layer across the cobek (which is almost flat, rather than deep like a Thai mortar) and smoking hot oil is poured over the paste and then mixed through thoroughly. 

 

 

That is interesting, using the cobek (which I do not have) and hot oil to "fry" the sauce. Lucky you, having home-grown chiles. I miss our vegetable garden, which is now buried underneath the new sun room.

 

I was happy with the flavor and heat level, but I'll use Holland chiles next time if they are available.

 

13 minutes ago, KennethT said:

 

But everything looks great! I find it funny that the book calls the pickles "acar kuning" - (kuning meaning yellow).  I've only seen it called acar without any other descriptor - it's always got turmeric in it!

 

Thank you, I was hoping to get your perspective on the meal. And now I know that kuning means yellow.

[KennethT]

24 minutes ago, C. sapidus said:

 

That is interesting, using the cobek (which I do not have) and hot oil to "fry" the sauce. Lucky you, having home-grown chiles. I miss our vegetable garden, which is now buried underneath the new sun room.

Do you have space indoors?  Growing chillies indoors is really easy and contrary to what a lot of people on the internet say, you don't need hot weather to grow chillies - what dictates their heat level is genetics and ample light.  I use a couple LED grow lights and my chillies taste just like I was there.  I actually just cut down my rawit plant today as we're planning to go away in a few days and it was getting unwieldly large.  I have probably harvested at least a full gallon ziplock bag full of those little pieces of plump, juicy dynamite, now happily IQF'd in my freezer.  If you have the space and desire, let me know - I'd be happy to send you a few seeds of the rawit and/or the keriting chillies - send me a PM if interested.  They are the most commonly used in Indonesia/Malaysia.

 

Quite a few sambals are "fried" like that.  Dabu dabu from North Sulawesi and sambal matah from Bali are both made that way.  What's interesting is that a common Javanese sambal - sambal terasi (means shrimp paste) - the ingredients are pretty much exactly the same as the sambal ulek (I dont' think it uses palm sugar though, just a bit of white sugar to balance), except it is a fried sambal and it is ground very fine (like in a blender or really worked over by hand in the cobek). 

 

[Maison Rustique]

I rescued some BBQ Rancho Gordo beans (Varieties unknown at this point) from the freezer and heated them up with a couple of my ribs from the other day. Tasty enough that I think I need to make some more beans soon. I've still got ribs.

 

[patti]

Grilled filet and air fryer green beans a couple of nights ago.

 

 

 

Leftover filet turned into beef & broccoli last night.

 

 

And a little salad.

 

[Smithy]

I indulged myself recently and had ButcherBox send me a package that included a Sirloin Cap. 1.5 pounds. Looked irresistible. Yesterday I thawed and cooked it. They noted in the online instructions that it's a lean cut of meat so DON'T OVERCOOK IT. I coated it lovingly with a blend of chopped garlic mashed with rosemary, oregano, parsley, salt and olive oil, then browned it in a preheated cast iron pan. In the same pan I cooked it at 375F, uncovered, until it registered 120F. I pulled it out and let it rest while the potatoes finished cooking. The idea of pulling it such a low temperature was (a) not to overcook it and (b) knowing that the temperature would keep rising for a while as the heat redistributed and the meat continued to cook.

 

 

Looks pretty good, doesn't it? I learned that the internal temperature of a 1.5 pound piece of meat won't rise nearly as much during resting as it would for a 5- or 10- pound roast. (I know. duh.) So it was really still quite rare, a bit rarer than I prefer.

 

 

Good, though: and individual slices will lend themselves well to a quick sear in the pan. Years ago I had prime rib served that way: very high heat to develop an outer crust of delicious brownness, then a quick pan sear to get the slices done to order.

[KennethT]

4 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I indulged myself recently and had ButcherBox send me a package that included a Sirloin Cap. 1.5 pounds. Looked irresistible. Yesterday I thawed and cooked it. They noted in the online instructions that it's a lean cut of meat so DON'T OVERCOOK IT. I coated it lovingly with a blend of chopped garlic mashed with rosemary, oregano, parsley, salt and olive oil, then browned it in a preheated cast iron pan. In the same pan I cooked it at 375F, uncovered, until it registered 120F. I pulled it out and let it rest while the potatoes finished cooking. The idea of pulling it such a low temperature was (a) not to overcook it and (b) knowing that the temperature would keep rising for a while as the heat redistributed and the meat continued to cook.

 

 

Looks pretty good, doesn't it? I learned that the internal temperature of a 1.5 pound piece of meat won't rise nearly as much during resting as it would for a 5- or 10- pound roast. (I know. duh.) So it was really still quite rare, a bit rarer than I prefer.

 

 

Good, though: and individual slices will lend themselves well to a quick sear in the pan. Years ago I had prime rib served that way: very high heat to develop an outer crust of delicious brownness, then a quick pan sear to get the slices done to order.

To me, that level of rare is just perfect.  Beautiful.

[rotuts]

@Smithy

 

I think that beef looks perfect.

 

the roast looks so good , I can imagine the aroma.

 

Id consider slicing some of the remainder thinly forroast beef sandwiches.

[KennethT]

17 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@Smithy

 

I think that beef looks perfect.

 

the roast looks so good , I can imagine the aroma.

 

Id consider slicing some of the remainder thinly forroast beef sandwiches.

I had a thought recently about making beef for roast beef sandwiches.  My local Wegmans supermarket commonly has shaved beef slices - I guess to use for stir fry or for Korean BBQ?  I was thinking - you could put a bunch of slices in a ziplcok bag and SV at like 120F and have easy, thin sliced roast beef for sandwiches - but they just wouldn't have the maillarded edge.  Thoughts?

[FeChef]

40 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I indulged myself recently and had ButcherBox send me a package that included a Sirloin Cap. 1.5 pounds. Looked irresistible. Yesterday I thawed and cooked it. They noted in the online instructions that it's a lean cut of meat so DON'T OVERCOOK IT. I coated it lovingly with a blend of chopped garlic mashed with rosemary, oregano, parsley, salt and olive oil, then browned it in a preheated cast iron pan. In the same pan I cooked it at 375F, uncovered, until it registered 120F. I pulled it out and let it rest while the potatoes finished cooking. The idea of pulling it such a low temperature was (a) not to overcook it and (b) knowing that the temperature would keep rising for a while as the heat redistributed and the meat continued to cook.

 

 

Looks pretty good, doesn't it? I learned that the internal temperature of a 1.5 pound piece of meat won't rise nearly as much during resting as it would for a 5- or 10- pound roast. (I know. duh.) So it was really still quite rare, a bit rarer than I prefer.

 

 

Good, though: and individual slices will lend themselves well to a quick sear in the pan. Years ago I had prime rib served that way: very high heat to develop an outer crust of delicious brownness, then a quick pan sear to get the slices done to order.

Looks like a perfect medium rare to me. Anymore then that i would consider medium.

[Smithy]

7 minutes ago, KennethT said:

I had a thought recently about making beef for roast beef sandwiches.  My local Wegmans supermarket commonly has shaved beef slices - I guess to use for stir fry or for Korean BBQ?  I was thinking - you could put a bunch of slices in a ziplcok bag and SV at like 120F and have easy, thin sliced roast beef for sandwiches - but they just wouldn't have the maillarded edge.  Thoughts?

 

Seems worth a try. I'm not sure the deli roast beef I buy sometimes for sandwiches has much of a Maillarded edge to it, though now that I think of it that may explain why it sometimes tastes "flat" to me.

[rotuts]

@KennethT

 

interesting idea.

 

beef flavor would depend on which cuts of beef were shaved .

 

they probably shave cheaper cuts , and sometimes those cuts have more beef flavor .

 

re :  maillard flavor :  make some beef stock , and call that sandwich a French dip.

[FeChef]

13 minutes ago, KennethT said:

I had a thought recently about making beef for roast beef sandwiches.  My local Wegmans supermarket commonly has shaved beef slices - I guess to use for stir fry or for Korean BBQ?  I was thinking - you could put a bunch of slices in a ziplcok bag and SV at like 120F and have easy, thin sliced roast beef for sandwiches - but they just wouldn't have the maillarded edge.  Thoughts?

I have took a boneless well trimmed ribeye roast, dry brined it for 2 days, froze it, deep fried it, rubbed it with a butter and herb paste, then low and slow cooked it till it reached 120F. It had the best crust on a rib roast i have ever done. But it was a lot of work, lol.

[sartoric]

Dumpling lasagna with minced turkey, wombok and spring onion. Easy and tasty.

[C. sapidus]

Dinner from ‘My Bombay Kitchen’

 

Mulligatawny: Toast white poppy seeds, coriander seed, cumin seed, cinnamon stick, cloves, turmeric, and uncooked basmati rice, then blend with cilantro, jalapeños, almonds, garlic, and ginger. Brown-fry onions, add the masala, and then simmer with Mrs. C’s chicken stock and cubed chicken thighs. Finish with coconut milk and serve over basmati rice. Optional lemon wedges for squeezing.

 

Butternut squash with curry leaves: Toss butternut squash cubes with garlic, olive oil, and snipped dried red chiles. Strew with curry leaves and roast in the oven. Always surprisingly good for how simple it is.

 

Mrs. C made a particularly good loaf of sourdough bread, which was wonderful with the soup.

 

[Dante]

sporki makaruli

[Honkman]

Lamb Stew with Chanterelles and Carrots - simple prepared stew from the Larzac region with lamb leg, chanterelles, carrots, white onion, garlic, plenty of thyme and bay leaves just braised in water and white wine. Served over boiled potatoes 

[patti]

Shrimp and (not) grits. Actually, just cheesy mashed cauliflower, but it worked.

 

 

[sartoric]

Soy garlic chicken with Korean potato bites and warm green salad.

 

[Shelby]

8 hours ago, patti said:

Shrimp and (not) grits. Actually, just cheesy mashed cauliflower, but it worked.

 

 

Patti--I seem to be picking on you lately--🤣.  I just am loving all the low carb meals you're making.  Is that bacon sprinkled on the shrimp or?

[patti]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

Patti--I seem to be picking on you lately--🤣.  I just am loving all the low carb meals you're making.  Is that bacon sprinkled on the shrimp or?

Yes, I forgot to mention the bacon! I have a bag of bacon crumbles from Costco and zapped a handful in the microwave to crisp them up. It did not suck as an addition. Some green onion would’ve also been nice.