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Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog


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Last night:

Romaine salad with radish and cucumber slices, heirloom cherry tomatoes, and nicoise olives; poppy dressing

Sauteed Swiss chard and chard stems with onion, bacon, garlic, red pepper flakes, Tabasco, navy beans, and cottage cheese

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We've been alternating between pasta with a barely-cooked tomato, basil, and various cheeses sauce, and tomato paella. Breakfast has been scrambled eggs with tomatoes and feta, or arepas with cheese and tomatoes. Another two weeks and I'll wish never to see another tomato. Then by November, I'll be thinking, wouldn't it be nice...

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I made a quick dinner of "green" (unripe, but the inside starting to turn yellow) mango salad with cilantro, shallots, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, and some of the pointier slightly longer extra hot Thai birds-eye chillies that show up in the summer sometimes (maybe prik-ee-nu suan in Thai?). They are little fire crackers packed with great flavor and an exciting endorphin rush for the eater. A crispy Thai "omelet" (kai jiew), raw vegetables and lots of jasmine rice help to tame the wonderful fire.

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We were going to cook out today but the weather seemed too ominous. (Of course, after raining and thundering a bit, it all flaked out once I'd changed course :mellow: ). I rearranged things I'd been planning to make, moving one thing up and converting another (salad Caprese) to be a bulkier dish to accompany the other.

Chilled calamari salad with lemon and parsley

Pasta Caprese (cavatappi, buffalo mozzarella, basil, tomato; evoo, white balsamic vinegar, black pepper, Parmigiano Reggiano)

Graham cracker crust chocolate flourless cake with sweetened whipped cream, blackberries, and Ben and Jerry's chocolate ice cream

The calamari salad was excellent. I found it on a blog and it worked out great. I would totally make it again and again. The only thing I changed was to add a couple of glugs of extra virgin olive oil because the dressing was otherwise only lemon juice and red wine vinegar. it seemed a little too tart.

The cake was also from a blog, and I could have been happier with it. It was for my husband's belated birthday and he liked it, so I'm not complaining. It was essentially a chocolate mousse cake but made with some almond meal. It didn't set enough in the time given, but by the time it seemed cooked through, it had developed a cracked brownie-type crust on top and then fell a bit. I actually thought it could have been a bit sweeter (odd from someone who doesn't like very sweet foods), but serving it with the cream, berries, and ice cream seemed to balance everything out. My husband liked it, anyway.

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Neither of us had much appetite last night, so we cooked some rice in chicken stock and topped it with our own preferred stuff. Azami had natto on his, and I scrambled a couple of eggs with a healthy dollop of tobanjan (spicy bean paste). Really good.

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Grilled sirloin steak (just marinated briefly in Worcestershire and then crusted with kosher salt)

Roasted corn with manchego and lime (from this month's lovely Bon Appetit)

Rosemary dinner roll

Roasted banana pudding for dessert...I've never made it before, can't wait to taste the results!

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We were foiled again in our attempts to grill out, so I made dinner in the kitchen.

Leftover chilled calamari salad with lemon and parsley

Broiled Steak

Baked potatoes

Corn on the cob

I really love the calamari recipe. It's from this website. Adding the bit of evoo I did skews the nutritional info, but I really felt like it really needed something to cut the acidity.

The rest of the meal was total comfort food for me. I broiled the steak--a T-bone from Whole Foods--and managed to get it exactly perfect. I was very proud of myself :unsure:. It was about 1 1/2lbs. and my husband and I split it. He ate more than I did, but we finished the whole thing :mellow:.

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- rib steaks ("bone-in ribeyes") grilled and sliced with fresh chimichurri sauce

- BBQ shrimp with a hoisin/orange marmalade sauce

- heirloom tomato red onion salad w/ fresh basil, sea salt, evoo, capers

- smashed baked sweet potatoes with honey and cinnamon

- fresh farmers market berries with homemade whipped vanilla cream

- simple beaujolais we bought on sale at WF served with cheeses, a 2009 Goldwater New Zealand Sauv Blanc, and a 2005 Vistalba Corte A we took home from Buenos Aires several years ago (big hit w/ the ribeyes)

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- bone-in ribeyes grilled and sliced with fresh chimichurri sauce

- BBQ shrimp with a hoisin/orange marmalade sauce

- heirloom tomato red onion salad w/ fresh basil, sea salt, evoo, capers

- smashed baked sweet potatoes with honey and cinnamon

- fresh farmers market berries with homemade whipped vanilla cream

- simple beaujolais we bought on sale at WF served with cheeses, a 2009 Goldwater New Zealand Sauv Blanc, and a 2005 Vistalba Corte A we took home from Buenos Aires several years ago (big hit w/ the ribeyes)

Sounds like a delicious feast. My inner pedant starts to itch when I see "bone-in ribeye"-- the ribeye is the meat portion without the bone. If it has a bone, it is a rib steak. The ribeye is by definition boneless. There. Itch relieved. :mellow:
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Yesterday's was a "what can I make with what's in the house?" kind of dinner.

gazpacho made with whole grain pita for the bread, half of a roasted red pepper and half a jalapeño for the pepper, and the rest was what is supposed to be in gazpacho. tasty.

a shlurpy, stew-y pasta dish made with fresh tomatoes, sliced fennel, Niman Ranch sausage coins, the other half of the roasted red pepper, white wine, the usual aromatic suspects, and for the pasta I cooked broken lasagna noodles and mixed them in. J has told me recently that he likes spaghetti, but doesn't like penne, butterflies, fettucine or linguini. as it happened, all I had in the house was penne...and 1/3 of a box of lasagna noodles, which weren't on the do not like list. well, predictably, he asked me why I hadn't used spaghetti. easy--didn't have any in the house. It was the kind of dish that wants a pasta shape like penne, but was great with the ragged wide lasagna noodles. And he liked it, said it was good--other than the fennel, which he picked out and left in the bottom of the bowl. <sigh>

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Chicken with holy basil and eggplant (gai pad grapao sai makeua), corn fritters (tod mun khao put), and green mango salad (yum mamuang, this time with roasted peanuts, toasted coconut, and shredded kaffir lime leaves, cilantro, fish sauce, lime juice, shallots and chillies), and lots of rice.

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Monday night:

Coulter's strip steak (medium-rare, utterly delicious) with rosemary mushrooms

steamed broccoli with bernaise (Coulter's eggs)

leftover baked potatoes and yams

Last night: a perfectly med-rare (recommended) Hell Burger with diablo sauce and Vermont cheddar. :mellow:

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Salad (red butter lettuce, red onion, cucumber, radish, tomato, bacon; poppy dressing)

Leftover mediterranean chicken salad

Chilaquile casserole

There wasn't much of the chicken salad left, so I decided to throw it into the mix. I should have seeded the jalapeno in the dressing. It was a tad overly hot.

The chilaquile casserole is a Mollie Katzen recipe I got from a magazine many years ago. It's one of my favorite go-to recipes. I happened to have both blue and yellow corn tortillas, so I mixed them in the casserole. It came out particularly well this time.

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Bacon cheeseburgers on potato buns

Grilled portobellos (marinated in oil and vinegar salad dressing)

Sweet and spicy barbecue beans

Hot Italian turkey sausages

Corn on the cob

I did the corn and beans in the kitchen. Everything else was done on the grill (plus some chicken for tomorrow). My husband did a great job with the grilling. The burgers (about 1/3 lb. each) were cooked perfectly. I added a portobello to my burger. Really good.

We ended up stuffed, with food leftover (plus the food we intended to be extra). Soooooo good.

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Last night:

Stacked chicken enchiladas (using both blue and yellow corn tortillas)

Texas green chile posole with sour cream

I finally used the last of my frozen roasted NM chiles from 2008, mostly in the posole and then a few--rounded out with newly-roasted poblanos--in the enchiladas. They're really hot so I measured a little lightly to get the 2 cups the recipe called for. Even with a scant 2 cups, the result packed a lot of heat. I served it with sour cream to cut through the heat some. Aside from being a bit blistering, it was quite good :mellow: . I used pork shoulder for the meat and substituted Rancho Gordo dried posole for canned hominy. I was tired when I went to soak the posole and didn't feel like calculating how much I needed, so I soaked and then cooked a whole 1 lb. package, which was way too much. I used about half and froze the rest. Now I'll see how well it freezes.

The recipe is from Robb Walsh's Texas Eats blog.

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Tomato stuffed with tarragon potato salad and bacon bits

Leftover grilled chicken with jarred barbecue sauce

Mushrooms sauteed with vinegar

Leftover steamed broccoli

The mushroom recipe was good but left an excess of sherry vinegar, so I spooned some of the vinegar over the broccoli and also added some red pepper flakes to the broccoli. The potato salad made a good stuffing for the very oversized tomato.

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Yesterdays's WaPo had articles on tomatoes, and one of the authors mentioned stirring roasted cherry tomatoes into risotto. I made risotto for one tonight as a test run for dinner for two, and, wow. I used a falanghina, mushroom stock, pecorino romano, and yellow pear, sun gold, and mystery volunteer red cherry tomatoes. I dished some into a bowl, ate that, then ate it straight out of the pot, and I am now about to make myself sick going back and having another bite every few minutes. It tastes like concentrated summer on a plate. Perhaps the best dish I've had this summer.

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Came home at 6 PM to what I thought was a full fridge. After throwing away almost 3/4 of the contents lost to mold, and mourning the loss of probably $150 of food, I was at a loss for dinner ideas. Pasta to the rescue. I'm lucky the kids will eat it seven days a week. So:

rigatoni

meat sauce from the freezer

grated parm

cucumber salad (cucumber purchased yesterday, and the only veg not in the trash)

skim milk - two huge glasses for the boy!

coffee ice cream

I am starting to go through milk in unbelievable amounts.

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Yesterdays's WaPo had articles on tomatoes, and one of the authors mentioned stirring roasted cherry tomatoes into risotto. I made risotto for one tonight as a test run for dinner for two, and, wow. I used a falanghina, mushroom stock, pecorino romano, and yellow pear, sun gold, and mystery volunteer red cherry tomatoes. I dished some into a bowl, ate that, then ate it straight out of the pot, and I am now about to make myself sick going back and having another bite every few minutes. It tastes like concentrated summer on a plate. Perhaps the best dish I've had this summer.

If you want another risotto that tastes like summer, this is it:

http://joanneweir.com/recipes/mains/farmers-market-risotto-zucchini-their-blossoms.html

The blossoms are lovely, but don't add a whole lot to this dish. It's just another fabulous way to use zucchini.

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Jungle Curry (Gaeng ba, or Gaeng pa, or แกงป่า) with shallots, garlic, galanga, grachai, lots of fresh hot chillies, lemongrass, fish sauce, chicken, pea eggplants, long eggplant, green beans, holy basil, green peppercorns, and kaffir lime leaves. Green mango salad. Lots of jasmine rice and beer (Two Hearted Ale).

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It's tomato night in the hillvalley household:

Heirlooms, buratta, truffle oil

Eggs, herbs, and Dante cheese baked in heirloom tomatoes

Slow roasted red and yellow mini roma tomatoes and basil ice cream

I had planned on using the rest of the tomatillo bloody marys I made earlier yesterday but they didn't last until today.

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Seared chicken breast with balsamic-shallot-blackberry reduction

Smashed fried potatoes with lemon and herbs

Roasted garlic green and wax beans.

The potatoes were supposed to be boiled until tender, then smashed but retaining their roundness. Mine ended up more ... smushed, really. They still tasted great!

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It's tomato night in the hillvalley household:

Heirlooms, buratta, truffle oil

Eggs, herbs, and Dante cheese baked in heirloom tomatoes

Slow roasted red and yellow mini roma tomatoes and basil ice cream

I had planned on using the rest of the tomatillo bloody marys I made earlier yesterday but they didn't last until today.

Have you ever made tomato jam? There's a recipe a colleague prepared, including ginger, cloves, etc.; she left sugar to a minimum. The stuff was terrific on top of ricotta and toast and even better mixed w rice to stuff small, tender eggplant.

***********

Last week was eggplant week, accompanied by an organic merlot from Bordeaux, Chateau Babbo, non,

sadly: Auguste. Mostly, inspired by Apulian-born Franci's wonderful recipe for eggplant stuffed w ground bison (instead of beef) and cooked in a very thin tomato sauce (prepared w organic seconds), generously sprinkled w capers before baking. Accompaniment: Pugliese bread and various salads before or after. Also, Marcella Hazan's spaghetti w eggplant and ricotta.

This week, plans are Spanish, in part, using a lovely little poulet rouge and beautiful, tapered frying peppers from Farm at Sunnyside which could use a rain dance or two. If you can get your hands on Claudia Roden's new cookbook, do. I've seen more interesting array of dishes, but the research and narrative bits contribute a lot, photos are wonderful and as always, the (now) British author is particularly good w vegetables. Egyptian-born, Roden has Sephardic roots conveyed by clear personal investment in her topic.

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The garden doesn't seem to know to be panicked right now, and it is cranking out late summer vegetables at a pretty high rate. Last night we had crookneck yellow squash pancakes with feta and steamed Grandma's Mushroom Beans with butter and salt. The bean seeds were a Mr. lperry impulse buy on one of his trips, and I have to say, the name was not exactly appealing. Fortunately, they turned out to be a flavorful pole bean.

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Deviled eggs with smoked paprika and capers

Tomato stuffed with deviled egg filling

Cauliflower gratin with bacon, mushroom, and onion

Riccioli pasta with pesto

The pasta was a kind I found at Wegman's that I'd never heard of. It's tightly curled when dry but turns into a long, stretchy sort of curly strand when cooked. It was great with homemade pesto.

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Woohooo! Our electricity lasted long enough to make a proper dinner. Especially considering I made a potato gratin with aged pecorino and Parm (takes 90 minutes in oven). We also had Truck Patch pork loin and blackberry gastrique (unknown vendor at Old Town) and rapini.

Chocolate covered salt water taffy.

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charcoal roasted eggplant salad, middle eastern style, with caramelized onions, lentils, roasted red pepper, roasted and raw garlic, harrissa, ginger, sumac, tamarind, lemon, parsley

basmati rice

tzatziki

leftover grill-smoked chicken wings with "my bbq sauce"

bocconcini with sungold tomatoes and olives

pita chips

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Totally winged it tonight and made what I am now terming California BLT Chicken Burgers: ground chicken with chives and prosciutto (would be better with pancetta), some garlic, dash of Worcestershire, s&p; French roll buns smeared with avocado, all topped with lettuce, tomato, and onion.

FRAK were these good. As in, "Did I really just throw this together OMG I WANT MORE NOW" good.

n0m.

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