homemade banana bread with butter
warm potato salad with bacon and green onions
asparagus
corn on the cob w/butter and black pepper
porterhouse steak <--overcooked

The meal was great, except for my getting distracted and letting the steak cook too long. The banana-pecan bread I made earlier today came out really well.

Cioppino with monkfish, scallops, shrimp, mussels and crabmeat
Butter lettuce and mache salad with lemon vinaigrette
Apricot tart

2005 La Pepiere Cuvee Eden Muscadet

Ah, dinner tonite is pretty much 100% off the grill.

- Baba Ghannouj with grilled pita points (made with grilled eggplant, natch)
- grilled (homemade) lamb merguez sausage
- grilled hangar steak
- grilled plantains
- grilled corn on the cob
- grilled garlic fingerling potatoes

And lots of Molson Canadian to wash it all down....

But was the Molson brewed on a grill? How about the BG? Your story doesn't hold water!

-Blistered Serrano tacos with tequila-lime flank steak
-Homemade Serrano salsa
-Serrano-Cilantro sour cream

(I bought too many Serranos)

I made the leftovers into a really good "taco pot pie." Layer of meat, onions, and Serranos, then a layer of the salsa, then the cream, then some cheese, then I covered the whole thing with a tortilla and baked. Delish.

I only wish I had some of my award-winning homemade guacamole, but we had a hankering for tacos and the grocery story did not have a hankering for stocking ripe avocados.

lettuce is bolting so.....

Arugula Gazpacho, topped w/ diced roasted red pepper (surprisingly good and not as bitter as I would have thought although there was loads of non argugula veggies in there!!)
Arugula, Radichio, Feta, Medjoool date salad, w Lemon dressing

no jokes about arugula ice cream!!

First:
Mozzarella di bufala with tomato and basil

Main:
Crab cakes
Remoulade made with homemade mayo
Roasted garlic mashed potatoes
Oven roasted asparagus

2006 Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc

Dessert:
Homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie

I would like to move in with you I have to ask how to you have time to cook like this everynight? I admire and envy you. We only get around to doing on really good Sunday Supper, and we eat the leftovers and other quick items during the week.

Potato Skins with jack cheese, bacon, green onions, and sour cream
Soft chicken tacos
Drunken Beans
Indian curd rice

Kind of a mixed meal, mostly of leftovers . I had saved two not completely eaten halves of baked potatoes the night before. They still had some potato left, and I didn't want to throw them out. They made really good potato skins. I can't quite grasp the concept of setting out to make potato skins from whole potatoes, but it's a good use of that kind of leftover.

I don't do elaborate meals every night. And this one took just under an hour to prep, cook and serve. I had made the pie on Sunday night, so that was "leftovers." The homemade mayo takes about five minutes to make in the blender. Some of it went into the crabmeat and then I chopped some cornichons, capers, shallot and herbs to make some into remoulade--with a bit of horseradish and some lemon zest. Meanwhile the potatoes were in the microwave. Roasted garlic I always have on hand in my fridge. Peel the cooked potatoes, squeeze in the roasted garlic, mash with hot milk, creme fraiche, butter and salt. Drizzle the asparagus with EVO and pop it in a hot oven. The mozzarella had been in the fridge and was approaching the pull date--that's a slice, plate, chop some fresh basil no-brainer. Shape the crab mix into patties, roll in crumbs, saute.

It's really not that difficult, if you are organized and know technique. I have a well-stocked pantry and lots of condiments in my refrigerator. I make roasted garlic every couple of weeks, so it's always there for seasoning sauces, vinaigrettes and miscellaneous dishes. I always have a variety of fresh herbs (and some growing in my garden now), lemons, limes and a good zester close at hand.

Dinner is an important time for me. It's the one time of the day when we are all together, facing and talking to each other. My daughter and husband would otherwise just snack in front of separate television sets. I can make sure that for at least one meal a day, everyone is eating healthy food and getting some protein and fresh vegetables. And it's an opportunity for me to benefit my family with my cooking skills and creativity-- a way for me to give of myself to people I love. I think that's true for most people who love to cook.

Bone-in, center-cut loin pork chops from Eco-Friendly in a mushroom-Marsala-fresh sage pan reduction sauce
French lentils
Veggie-teen's main was a roasted, spiced portobello stuffed with lentils, sun-dried tomato and mozzarella di bufala
Braised kale
Sauteed potato patties, made from leftover roasted garlic mashed potatoes
The last of the strawberry-rhubarb pie

2005 Domaine Georges Viornery Cote de Brouilly

Last night was penne with bolognese sauce. I had made the basic sauce several days ago and reheated and added to it yesterday. The long cooking (with intermediate sitting time) really added a depth to the flavor.

Tuna salad. Let me 'splain: the first lettuces of the season from my garden, dressed with a bit of extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, a coddled egg, some barely crispy bacon, and topped with tuna.

Tonight was faux fajitas, for lack of a better description.

It featured grilled marinated tri tip, mushrooms, onions, garlic, green onions, and bell peppers, topped with cilantro and sour cream.

I was out of tortillas, so thawed some homemade pita rounds. Halved and lightly toasted, they made a nice bread-y base for the fajitas.

We had leftover rice and beans to accompany. It turned out quite well.

That sounds really good.

Chilled fresh pea soup with mint

Charcoal-roasted, herb-brined Sunnyside Organics chicken
(Charcoal-grilled spiced portobello for Veggie-teen)
Favas and asparagus with Meyer lemon olive oil and roasted garlic
Creamy cheese grits

2006 Turkey Flat Rose

Huge green salad, with sliced tomato and cucumber, chilled shrimp, sliced avocado, and basil chiffonade. Basil oil vinaigrette.
Corn on the cob
Humboldt Fog and aged cheddar
Baguette
Some rose or another, from the mixed case I picked up at Ace this week

Strawberry shortcake for dessert

Our big meal today was lunch: mushroom-bacon cheeseburgers with lettuce and tomato on homemade buns.

Dinner is a big salad of green and red lettuce, cucumber, tomato, avocado, olives, and whatever else I find

plus baked chicken wings with celery and ranch

oops. I forgot why I was replying to this: humboldt fog and multigrain baguette as well.

Backyard grillin':

Hamburgers flavored with Tony Chachere's cajun spice and Worcestershire sauce
Thai flavored turkey burgers
Asian inspired slaw
Roasted vegetable orzo salad with feta
Vanilla cupcakes with bittersweet chocolate frosting

And more backyard grillin'.

Cheese and meat plate
Smoked and grilled baby back ribs
Maple and cumin glazed grilled salmon
Beer can chicken
Potato salad
Baked beans
Crab salad
Corn on the cob
7-Up cake

I become more and more convinced that beer can chicken is the ONLY way to grill an entire bird. Wondering if I could do a smaller bird (e.g. cornish hen) with a small Red Bull can....or a larger bird (e.g. capon) with one of those large Rock Star energy drink cans.

More fajitas last night. It turned out I had some tortillas in the freezer after all.

For the beef, I used the remaining hunk of sirloin I had from making the burgers. I seared it on the stove and finished it in the oven. It came out perfectly medium rare and tender. For the most part, I really learned to cook when I was vegetarian, and getting cooking times consistently right for meat remains a challenge.

Hickory-smoked BBQ chicken
Succotash with fresh favas and corn
Mixed greens--turnip, beet and chard
Leftover cheese grits

2005 Bex Riesling (dry)

One of the wonderful things about beer is its versatile packaging. There should be no need for you to fill an empty Rock Star can with beer when you can easliy find some tall boys, a 24 ouncer, or even a Foster's "oil can."

SOS over toasted homemade hamburger buns, made with dried beef, shallots, and minced country turkey bacon.

Apricot and avocado salad with humboldt fog and vinaigrette. (It sounds weird but it's good .)

Sautéed shrimp and mushrooms wrapped in whole-wheat crepes topped with a Mornay sauce
String beans sautéed w/ garlic, onions and mushrooms

Seagram's VO and Noilly Prat

[Leave me alone: I am so having fun! ]

Spring Green Gazpacho with Ligurian broad bean purée
Served chilled in deep matte ebony elliptical bowls—foils for the soup's pale verdant effulgence.

Turbinado-flecked Shortcake w Local Strawberries and Soft Peaks of Vanilla-Scented Cream
N.B. Organic buttermilk in biscuits courtesy of Trickling Springs whose cows graze not far from the fields of Spring Valley Farm, West Virginia where the berries grow.

Filtered (Alice) Waters on tap

Ooh, verdant effulgence! What goes into a spring green gazpacho? I always find myself this time of year sort of hankering for gazpacho but waiting a couple of months until the tomatoes start to come in.

And the broad-bean purée: Is that stirred or dribbled or dolloped into the gazpacho, or served on the side with bread? And thanks for calling them broad beans. I wonder how many Americans know that that's the perfectly good English name for fava beans?

Just needed something very light to justify indulging in what I consider my favorite dessert during consumption. Shortcake w tender biscuits just out of the oven, perfectly ripe berries, macerated, some slightly crushed....

Started out w a cold cucumber soup in mind, but didn't feel like using the usual mint or dill. First whirrr in blender resulted in thin, watery consistency, so I retrieved a jar of maro (scroll down; second recipe) from the fridge and added that. Still too thin. Turned on the oven, opened the freezer and ended up spreading butter on the crusts I sawed off a reheated end of a baguette to snack on. Tossed shredded bread bits into the blender along with another spring onion, Jalepeno, champagne vinegar and a little more EVOO. Diced cucumber, scallion rings and little red flecks of another type of fresh chili into the bowl. Would have been better without dairy products, but the raw favas (blanched just to pop the beans out) are something I'd turn to again for a cold soup.

Bravo! Bravo!
Cool Whip, right?

I love maro. A year or two ago I very successfully stuffed ravioli with it, served with a very light tomato sauce, really a broth, with basil.

After a long weekend of cooking (and eating) multi-course meals, Monday's dinner was a bbq chicken salad (topped with Trader Joe's flax seed tortilla chips).



Tonight's dinner was a beet and goat cheese salad (not pictured) and roasted chicken (with Stubb's bbq sauce - my favorite!) and collard greens. We shared a bottle of Yalumba Wild Ferment Chardonnay.

Great idea! Bet it would be good with melted butter and grated pecorino, too.

Eco-Friendly pork sirloin steak braised with crimson turnips, carrots, leek, green garlic, lemon and rosemary
Mushroom risotto (oyster, king oyster, shiitake and porcini)
Oven roasted local asparagus
Fresh borlotti (cranberry) beans braised with aromatic vegetables
Fennel slaw

2005 Castle Rock Monterey Pinot Noir

beef hotdogs (Coleman Natural) on whole wheat buns
banana peppers and pickled cabbage as relishes
baked beans

I'd never tried the Coleman hot dogs before and thought they were quite good. I had bought some pickled cabbage at Tortilla Cafe when I stopped in there to buy some bacon (some of the Canales deli meats are being sold from there while Eastern Market is rebuilt). I love their pickled cabbage. It turns out to be a good hotdog condiment. I also put some yellow mustard on my hotdog. Sometimes yellow mustard is just the right thing (this was Heinz, not my usual French's).

I tried Coleman hot dogs recently and liked them. They've got a lot of garlic in them and a nice snap.

It’s salad season!

Hanover* black beans tossed with summer crisp corn, petit diced tomatoes, red onions and cilantro
With a Zesty Southwestern Dressing (olive oil, chipotle, lime juice and cumin)
Garnished with a dollop of avocado-cream

Raspberry-Lime Zazz

*These were, surprisingly, in abundance at the local Giant.

cornmeal fried catfish, butter lettuce, thick slices of tomato, salt & pepper, and lemon mayonnaise on Whole Foods white bread
big cold glass of milk
strawberries and ice cream

Inspired by finding a spice I'd never heard of, kala jeera , at Penzey's, tonight I cooked an Indian meal for the first time in years.

G'vine gin and tonic
lamb rogan josh [onion, garlic, ginger, almonds, yogurt, tomato, many different spices]
coconut rice with carrots and raisins [cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom]
carrots and peas [with ginger, cilantro and many different spices, including kala jeera]
masoor dal [ginger, cilantro, lemon, hot peppers, and of course many different spices, and kala jeera]
homemade strawberry ice cream

I wasn't sure what to do with the lamb ribs I brought home from the picnic. The course I settled on proved quite successful.

I sauteed carrots, celery, onion, and garlic in a dutch oven. Added some white wine and cooked it down. Put in the ribs and then covered with chicken broth. Simmered on the stove for a while, then put into the oven to simmer for a couple of hours. Even covered, the liquid cooked down quite a bit, leaving ribs with extremely tender meat and a nice vegetable gravy.

Lamb and gravy were served with fresh buttered English peas and mint. The accompanying salad was roasted beets and nectarines over watercress with chives, shaved goat gouda and balsamic vinaigrette.

The beets were yellow but had been roasted a couple of days ago with red beets. Sitting in beet juice in the refrigerator turned the yellow beets a nice scarlet color, but when cut, beautiful yellow rings emerged. The red and yellow complemented the colors of the (mostly unpeeled) nectarines perfectly. It was a gorgeous salad.

I had several large packages of mushrooms from my trip to H Mart, that were crowding my refrig, so I made mixed mushroom duxelles--oyster, king oyster, shiitake, crimini and a little porcini powder. I used the duxelles and homemade ricotta to stuff large ravioli, made with small round dimsum wrappers, sandwiched together with eggwash*. Served in a chunky marinara that I'd made a few days ago, that was also taking up a lot of room in the refrig. With that, J and I had spicy Italian sausage from Eco-Friendly, and Veggie-teen had marinated borlotti beans, also leftover from a few days ago. With fresh basil chiffonade and Reggiano.

Baby lettuce salad with cold, roasted asparagus, tomato, cucumber and lemon vinaigrette

2003 Borgo di Colloredo Aglianico Terre Degli Osci


*I'd seen ravioli made like this several times on t.v. cooking shows, but had never done it myself. I was really pleased with how they came out. Very simple to put together. I let them dry for twenty minutes on a towel-covered tray before cooking. Amazingly, nothing leaked into the cooking water, and they were tender yet al dente. Not quite as sublime as homemade pasta, but better than any frozen or commercially made ravioli I've had.

Last night was brined pork chops with a szechuan peppercorn crust, cooked on the grill. Just 40 minutes of brining had a great effect on the chops - they ended up incredible juicy though the meat was cooked a little better than medium.

I made a spice paste using the mortar and pestle with garlic, crushed szechuan peppercorns, crushed coriander seed, crushed cumin seed, salt, sesame oil, olive oil, soya sauce, and lime juice. The chops were well coated with the paste before going on the grill, about 4 mins per side. Mmmmmm.....I love the tingly/numbing feeling of the peppercorns. My wife said they were the best pork chops she's ever had (she might have just wanted out of doing the dishes, though).

Served corn on the cob and grilled potatoes on the side. Still waiting for decent corn to come into the markets.

Quesidilla w mozzarella
The last of last week's mozzarella with unfiltered olive oil and mini pearl tomatoes from Trader Joe's (inexpensive, but improved vastly halved, oven-roasted, slow)
An entire Middle-Eastern cucumber, sliced
A bowl of the strawberries I grumped about, much better sliced w a little sugar
Edy's tangerine fruit bar (addicted to this product)

The first dinner in the new kitchen, which consists of a fridge, two gas burners, and a grill/broiler. I made "taki-awase," or an assortment of simmered foods. The assortment included shrimp, shiitake, tofu, butterbur, and wakame (a type of seaweed). All were simmered in dashi stock supplemented with with some combination of mirin, soy sauce, sake, and sugar or salt. The whole dish was quite tasty, though Azami and I concurred that the tofu was especially awesome. We had chocolate Pocky for dessert.

I did a salad last night of King Crab (the whole legs are available at my local Unsafeway, and are quite good), avocado, and basil, flavored with minced red onion and a vinaigrette made with reduced carrot juice, shallot, and champagne vinegar. I took some with me for lunch today.

breakfast for dinner last night: fresh filipino longaniza (from the phil-am in jersey city), white rice, fried egg (over easy).

Pocky! I love pocky. I bet it's better there.

This weekend, we enjoyed the bounties of the farmers market. Dinner was a mix of winter/ summer. Kale and chorizo soup was comforting on a cool rainy day. Strawberry and rhubarb cobbler reflected the glories of late spring and summer.
Rhubarb.....where have you been all my life??

Simple Roast w/:
Carrots
Broccoli
Red & yellow onions
Chicken breast
Italian sausage
Tons of cremini mushrooms

Toss w/ salt, pepper, and olive oil

On top, layer some sliced lemons, garlic heads, and whole fresh thyme and rosemary

Bake @ 400 for 45 minutes

It takes five minutes to make but smells amazing, lasts for days, is unbelievably full of flavor, is very cheap, and has a bajillion variations

After it comes out of the oven, I drain away all of the juices that have rendered out of the meat and vegetables, then I reduce it to only about a quarter cup. I have tons of frozen cubes of "concentrated flavor" in my freezer that make great additions/thickeners for sauces, soups, stews, BBQ, etc.

Another iteration of the Coleman hot dogs tonight. Just as good as before.

I also reheated in the oven some banana jalapeno fritters (recipe via egullet) I made several days ago. I concocted a sweetish pineapple-avocado-jalapeno dipping sauce to go with them that turned out fabulous.

Those sound very interesting. Can you give us a link to the recipe?

They're quite good. This post has the link, as well as comments on changes made to the recipe.

Following from that, when I made them, I used 1 large jalapeno w/some seeds; 1 tsp+ minced ginger; 2 tsp kosher salt; 1 heaping tsp. baking powder added to flour; a generous 1/8 c water. I also made them larger than the recipe called for--serving tablespoon size dollops of batter. At that size, they made a nice meal accompaniment, as opposed to being an hors d'oeuvre.