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Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog


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I made a mix of Middle Eastern salads, add some oven roasted chicken breast, a little toasted pita...dinner is served.

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Clockwise from 12 o'clock

Chickpea Salad

Taboulleh

Cous Cous

Roast Chicken

Pita

Hummus (top middle)

Baba Gannoush (bottom middle)

Edited by Tweaked
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Grilled ham steaks with a molasses dijon glaze, and disappointingly tasteless corn (from a stand in Anne Arundel county) and tomatoes (from the Sterling farmers market).

1 out of 3 would be great for Cristian Guzman, but not for a dinner in the middle of the summer.

But they are nice to look at.

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Edited by bilrus
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No pictures, but I did cook last night for the first time in a while: pounded floured chicken breasts in a lemon caper pan sauce. Served with braised fennel from the freezer and some sauted zucchini.

Tried a new trick of salting the cubed zukes and leaving them in a colander to drain, weighted with a bowl. Worked out great. Zuke browned up nicely in olive oil, and with a little lemon to round it out, tasted just right.

(Note: if you salt it before cooking don't salt it during or after. At least that's what my cookbook warned.)

Jael

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No pictures, but I did cook last night for the first time in a while: pounded floured chicken breasts in a lemon caper pan sauce. Served with braised fennel from the freezer and some sauted zucchini.

Tried a new trick of salting the cubed zukes and leaving them in a colander to drain, weighted with a bowl. Worked out great. Zuke browned up nicely in olive oil, and with a little lemon to round it out, tasted just right.

(Note: if you salt it before cooking don't salt it during or after. At least that's what my cookbook warned.)

Jael

I find the same technique works wonders for eggplant. A totally different creature if you force out some of the water.

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Summer salad with the last of the Saturday market green beans and tomatoes, baby yukon gold potatoes, olives, lettuces, Vidalia onion,herbs from my planter garden and a dijon vinaigrette. Erases the guilt from last night's dinner indulgence.

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Edited by crackers
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I made a Vidalia Onion Soup--a neighbor sent me the recipe--with one of my favorite salads: Endive with bacon, blue cheese and lemon.

I pureed the soup in the Cuisinart, but will run the leftovers through the blender before straining it. I'm planning on cooking some shell fish in it on Friday.

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Trying to eat light to counteract the effects of recent dinner indulgences. (Obsession with Dino? What obsession with Dino?)

So, oven-grilled pork chops with a vaguely Mexican dry rub, peach/red onion salsa, and a really tasty cold black bean salad with yellow, red, and jalapeno peppers. Not much cooking, a whole lot of chopping.

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Purchased a Costco membership this past weekend. Nothing like bulk shopping to put you in touch with your own mortality. You think to yourself "hmm, I wonder if I'll finish this 55 gallon drum of anchovy paste before I die".

Anyway, bought a 6 lb boneless rib roast. Rubbed it with s&p, ground coriander and mustard seeds, and seared it on the grill. Finished it with indirect heat. Came out freakin perfect.

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I'm trying to make my kitchen DC restaurant hip (this is to counterbalance the Voltron lunchbox) and made a really delicious beet salad last night:

Chiogga beets

Sungold tomatoes

Boucheron cheese

Mesclun salad

Dressing:

2/3 extra virgin olive oil

1/3 champagne vinegar

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon capers, minced

1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes

All the ingredients were either from Cinda Sebastian, the Eastern Market cheese guy, or Prego across the street from the market. The salad came out fantastic; the sweetness of the beets and the tanginess of the cheese were great in combination. Beets are my official food discovery of the summer. They are the bomb.

Edited by Kanishka
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Well, sheepishly enough I didn't make it, but my girlfriend made an excellent and refreshing panzanella last night. Very simple to make as well. Pan-frying the baguette might have been the most complicated step for her.

It was on par with the fresh sweet corn and tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad she made on Sunday evening.

We went on a Southern Maryland roadtrip on Sunday to try out a bbq shack (quite literally a shack) and stopped at a farmer's market around Hughsville on the way back. We picked up a couple of grocery bags, a weeks worth I'm sure, full of tomatoes, sweet corn, cukes, zukes, various onions and whatnot for less than $8! Now we have to use them all before they expire on us.

Which reminds me, it's now my turn to man the kitchen. Does anyone know here of a good recipe requiring fresh cayenne peppers? I picked them up at the farmers market, more as a novelty than anything else, but so far have failed to find a suitable recipe requiring them in the books at home or on epicurious.com.

And if you like chiles (as I do) that farmer's market had a surprisingly nice selection, ranging in Scovilles from cubanelles to Jamaican Hots.

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Cooked dinner for a friend a few nights ago to celebrate a couple of special occasions.

Broiled goat cheese stuffed squash blossoms

Prosciutto and melon

Cold tangerine heirloom tomato soup with creme fresche and basil-parsley oil

Marinated lamb chops on a bed of roasted crimini and shitake mushrooms

"Oven Fried" zucchini pecorino chips

Brownie topped with berries

Last night was my weekly roma tomato, basil and garlic over spaghetti

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Giant salad night here at Chez Dente.

photo would be here if I could figure out how to post the damn thing :P

Some lupini beans in harissa sauce, haricot vert with evoo and sea salt, baby plum tomatoes with evoo and balsamic, crunchy sprouts, olives, emmenthaler, another cheese the name of which I forget, mache with orange bell peppers, onions, and a tahini dressing.

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For the kids: Bean burritos! whole wheat tortillas, refried beans with green chilies, tomatoes from the garden, nice crunchy iceberg lettuce, sour cream , salsa, and shredded monterey jack. One of their favorite meals.

For mom: Tanqueray & tonic with lemon.

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Today I made dinner for my m-i-l, probably the 4th time in 30 years (she thought I couldn't cook and would never let me :P ). She's been very ill, so I expected her to take a few bites of some of the items I cooked. In fact, she tried every dish, and went back for seconds, and made sure I tucked containers of leftovers into her fridge before we left. :wub:

Our menu was:

Shrimp cocktail

Crab Imperial (recipe from O'Donnells, which used to be in Bethesda--I think it's gone now)

Pan fried chicken (combo of John Shields recipe and my favorite from Wolftrap Picnic cookbook)

Mashed potato salad

Corn pudding

Green Beans with Smithfield ham & peanuts

ScotteeM

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Chilled tomato and bread soup-(from Mario's Molto Italiano)

I gladly took some over-ripe tomatoes from a friend who had way to many... :P This makes a pretty presentation, and is verry easy to make. Over-ripe tomatoes, Fresh Basil, Fresh Thyme, EVOO, day old bread, S&P. Garnished with fresh parsley (instead of scallions)

Fresh Corn-I grabbed a few ears on sale at Sniders--not fantastic, but still good. I knew it couldn't hold a candle to some of the corn I've had this season from the farm stands.

Pan seared Mahi-Mahi (from Upstream Seafood Market!)

with parsley-lime-butter sauce

Too stuffed for a real dessert, I grabbed a snicker-doodle that I bought on impulse from WFM.

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Herb crusted pork tenderloin

Some nice bicolor corn that I picked up on sale at Whole Paycheck roasted in husk on the grill.

Steamed broccoli

2003 Chateau de Nages Costieres de Nimes (better than some of the 2003s I've tried recently, but nothing to write home about)

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On one hand, you've got to work with what you've got.

On the other, there's probably a law about using jarred roasted peppers and sun-dried tomatoes to make a pasta at the very apex of tomato season...

Made with my very favourite dried pasta: the seven-colored 'Creste de Gallo', good olive oil, and plenty of Solitude Farm's garlic. I guess it has that going, even if I have a lot of other bad seasonality-karma to work off this weekend!

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Grilled tuna steak.

Sauteed peppers with a splash of balsamic.

Tomato salad (from my back porch! :P ) with just a splash of olive oil and lime

2003 Chateau de la Grand Cassagne Costieres de Nimes -- best 2003 Rhone that I've had so far for under $10.

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Anyone have (good) experiences cooking or grilling chuck eye steak?  Giant has a sale on them, USDA Choice, for $1.99 a pound this week.  Wondering if I should take a chance.

Here is some info from the cook's thesaurus.

chuck eye steak = chuck fillet steak = chuck filet steak = beauty steak = chuck tender steak = fish steak Notes: This steak isn't bad, considering it's a chuck steak. In fact, it's tender enough to grill or broil, provided that you marinate it overnight first. Substitutes: top blade steak OR eye of round steak OR top sirloin OR round tip steak

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Early dinner today. So I marinated the chuck eye steak in lime juice, garlic and jalapeno slices, and cumin. Grilled 4 minutes on the Foreman, and put the meat on some romaine with pears, pecans, and an onion vinaigrette.

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Certainly not the best steak, but pretty damn satisfying for $1.99/pound.

Edited by silentbob
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An attempt to recreate a dish at Lebanese Taverna called Salmon Meshwi - Salmon with sweet sauteed onions, pine nuts and cliantro with Lebanese rice pilaf - it was good on its own but not too much like the one at the restaurant. And tomatoes drizzled with a pomegranite and lemon dressing.

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great dinner last night w/ some friends

NINE cheeses incl Rochetta, La Tur, Pecorino Chianti, St Augur, Fromage D'Affinois, Manchego, Bayley Hazen Blue, a goats milk brie, and a nice x-sharp English cheddar

Tomato, basil and mozzarella salad (tomato and basil from our garden)

Homemade Crabcakes

Teriyaki Salmon w/ grilled eggplant (again from our garden) and zucchini

Triple yum! Wish I had taken some pics

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