Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog

[Pat]

Last night:

Turkey-mushroom soup

Grilled cheese with turkey and bacon on onion-dill-rye bread; mustard; homemade tart cranberry sauce

Utz potato chips

[porcupine]

There are many types of battuti. The combination of celery, onion and carrot is one such type (and very northern Italian I might add).... If garlic is used, it's typically crushed or bruised slightly to release the juices, then sautéed gently in oil until the clove becomes a pale gold after which it's discarded.

I have been doing this for about as long as I have been cooking (since I was 11 or 12 years old).  Never gave it much thought; it's just "how you do it."  So many things I make without a recipe start this way (with almost infinite variations, of course).  Thanks for posting about it.  Must be something I picked up from my mom and grandmother without ever realizing it.

[ktmoomau]

Last night: nachos made with leftover chicken taco filling, jalapeno flavored (accidental buy) black olives, greek yogurt and salsa.  

[zoramargolis]

last night:

bourbon manhattan

chopped duck liver with hardboiled (hen)egg, onion sauteed in duck schmaltz and duck gribenes on marble rye

charcoal grilled, applewood smoked, herb-brined eco-friendly pork chops with ZQ sauce

slow-cooked Russian kale with bacon

stone ground grits

2012 Cameron Hughes lot 395 pinot noir

[ktmoomau]

Last night: foraged on gluten free biscuits from Willow with some ham, cheese and an apple.

[zoramargolis]

pan-seared duck breast with brandied cherry sauce

new potatoes

slow-braised kale with bacon (leftover)

T-day stuffing (leftover, obviously)

2010 Roche de Bellene Bourgogne

[dcandohio]

Ribbons of zucchini "noodles" with a sauce of hot italian sausage, pureed roasted tomatoes (frozen during the summer), onion, garlic and red wine, simmered till thick.

Kale caesar salad

[Pat]

Turkey-mushroom soup, hot and sour style

Onion-dill-rye toasts with roasted garlic hummus and dukkah

Leftover crab cakes 

Steamed green beans with soy spread

 

I had planned to make curry with the last of the turkey but decided my congested head and scratchy throat preferred soup.  I soaked some dried chanterelles that had been in the pantry a long time and added them and the soaking liquid to the soup.  The base was onion-carrot-celery-garlic-ginger and a quart of boxed turkey stock, along with the remnants of dark and white turkey meat.  I couldn't decide on seasoning otherwise and couldn't taste much anyway to tell what it needed, so I added some star anise, hot pepper flakes, hot pepper sesame oil, and rice vinegar to go for a hot and sour-type profile. My husband thought it was fairly spicy but liked it.  It certainly worked for me...

[zoramargolis]

Welcome home dinner for K., returning from Ramallah between semesters at Birzeit University, and our niece Sarah.

manchego and homemade dulce de membrillo

chaource

spicy olives

perfect manhattans

chicken with arak, clementines, fennel and artichokes (adapted from Ottolenghi's recipe)

farro pilaf

2010 Dufeu Bourgeuil

almond tangerine shortbread tart with vanilla mascarpone

homemade chocolate sea salt caramels

espresso

[Pat]

Chili tacos--filled with chili meat, rice, and pinto beans; topped with tomato-lime-cilantro salsa, sliced radishes, avocado chunks, shredded cheddar, and sour cream

The original chili recipe I made did not turn out well, but the salvaged meat has been good in other dishes.  I used corn tortillas from Canales in Eastern Market, which are good but very delicate.  They crack and/or shred up into layers very easily.  Of necessity, I double tortilla-ed all the tacos.  (I usually prefer just a single one.)

[Xochitl10]

Meatball soup with carrots, potatoes, and cabbage, like my Mexican grandmother used to make

Azami-made flour tortillas

[TrelayneNYC]

Chioggia beets, with tangerine, ginger and scallion




Pasta e lenticchie

[dcandohio]

Potato, kale and bacon soup

Crudite

[Pat]

Olive flatbread

Red and green "artisan" lettuces with Campari tomatoes, cucumber, radishes, and avocado; fig and white balsamic vinaigrette

Spinach and cheese ravioli in tomato sauce

 

This was pretty much a Costco meal.  The flatbread was in the freezer from a previous purchase.  The lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, extra virgin olive oil, and ravioli (plus garlic in the sauce) were also from Costco.

[lperry]

Before the first, hard freeze last month I brought in the tomatoes I thought had a chance of ripening alongside some bananas, and I managed to eke out one more paella.  I almost didn't post the photo because it looks really weird with Green Zebra and Great White tomatoes.  The other was a Black Krim.  Roasted broccoli with romano cheese on the side.

[zoramargolis]

grilled romanesco cauliflower, roasted red pepper, yellow cherry tomatoes, butter lettuce, basil, and caper lemon vinaigrette

osso buco with gremolata

risotto milanese

almond tangerine shortbread tart with vanilla mascarpone

2006 cerro anon rioja

[Pat]

Rerun of Saturday's salad

Brisket with pan juices and melted onions

Leftover cauliflower in cheese sauce

[lperry]

A soup inspired by this one, but altered to use what I had in the house.  Leeks dug out of the snow, carrots, celery, and apple, deglazed with Bold Rock cider, simmered with yellow split peas, and puréed with some roasted sweet potatoes.  Perfect for the weather, and good enough that I wrote it down to make again. 

[Ilaine]

Tried an experiment.  Bought two identical chuck roasts at Whole Foods.  Made two identical pot roasts in two identical large Rival Smart Pots.  Only variation, browned one roast in bacon fat.

Cooked on high for six hours.  Results almost identical, the meat was basically the same but the browned meat contributed a richer flavor to the broth.  Conclusion, if one has the time, browning is better, but not necessary.

Next time I will try cooking the aromatics, onions, celery and garlic, first, for the trial pot, and not, for the control pot.  In other words, to sofrito or not to sofrito, that is the question.

[ktmoomau]

Last night I made turkey noodle soup with our T-day turkey leftovers, and the last of the celery.  I added a Parmesan heel to the stock, then carrots and celery to the soup.  Turned out well.  We ate it with thawed and re-heated yeast rolls I had made.  Also a slice of leftover pumpkin pie.

We have various tidbits of leftovers I am trying to use up as we will be gone a lot over the end of December.

[zoramargolis]

Tried an experiment.  Bought two identical chuck roasts at Whole Foods.  Made two identical pot roasts in two identical large Rival Smart Pots.  Only variation, browned one roast in bacon fat.

Cooked on high for six hours.  Results almost identical, the meat was basically the same but the browned meat contributed a richer flavor to the broth.  Conclusion, if one has the time, browning is better, but not necessary.

Next time I will try cooking the aromatics, onions, celery and garlic, first, for the trial pot, and not, for the control pot.  In other words, to sofrito or not to sofrito, that is the question.

I can tell you how it will turn out, so you don't need to bother making a control pot: THE ONE WITH AROMATICS WILL TASTE BETTER. Many hundreds of generations of cooks have already invented this wheel.

[TrelayneNYC]

Potage Crécy




Lamb liverwurst (lamb liver, Pinot Grigio, pine nuts, sea salt, black pepper), heirloom potato home fries

[The Hersch]

2006 cerro anon rioja

WTSO?

[Pat]

Tonight:

Baked macaroni and cheese with pork meatballs and marinara sauce

Steamed broccoli with lemon

[The Hersch]

Baked macaroni and cheese with pork meatballs and marinara sauce

My, that sounds good. Was this one dish or two?

[zoramargolis]

WTSO?

yup.

fabada with eco-friendly chorizo, mushrooms, woodstove roasted eggplant, fabes gigantes, farro

2010 Can Blau

[TrelayneNYC]

Warm cauliflower salad, with sweet peppers, olives and preserved lemon




Mushrooms on toast -- buttery brioche toast, champignon mushroom ragout, poached egg

I was going to make ricotta gnocchi but didn't get around to it; I seriously underestimated how rich the mushrooms turned out to be.  The gnocchi will have to wait until tomorrow (Wednesday) night's dinner.

[Pat]

My, that sounds good. Was this one dish or two?

It started out as two, but I combined them into one.  The mac and cheese marinara is a recipe I saw on a blog a while back and had been planning to make but kept putting off.  I decided I was definitely making it on Tuesday. Over the weekend I had found a tube of sausage meat that had been in the freezer for who knows how long (Jimmy Dean pork-sage sausage...a pretty long time, I'm guessing) and put it in the fridge to thaw.  It thawed much faster than I thought it would.  So I almost put off the mac and cheese again so I could make the sausage last night.  Instead, I decided to make little meatballs from the sausage and serve them on the side with the mac and cheese.

As I was assembling the casserole, I looked at the meatballs, which I'd just cooked, and thought, "Why not?" and added a layer of them to the casserole.  It worked well, but I think I would put even more in if I did it again.  I used half of the 24 meatballs I made.  The rest are in the fridge with the rest of the marinara sauce awaiting another use.

The bottom layer of the casserole is a cup of marinara sauce. Cooked noodles and cheese sauce go on top, followed by panko and dots of butter.  It was quite good.  My husband loved it, but I thought there wasn't enough cheese sauce to noodles--less a problem of too little sauce than of too many noodles.  Part of this might be because I used elbow macaroni and she seems to have (based on photo evidence) used some kind of corkscrew pasta.   With 16 oz. of larger pasta, the proportions might be better.  As you scoop a spoonful out of the casserole, you get the tomato sauce along with the noodles and cheese (and occasional meatball, in this case).

And the recipe never says what to do with the last 1/4 cup of Parmesan.  I sprinkled it on top of the casserole with the panko.

[The Hersch]

It started out as two, but I combined them into one.  The mac and cheese marinara is a recipe I saw on a blog a while back and had been planning to make but kept putting off.

I feel a reminiscence coming on. When I was a teenager, my surrogate Jewish mother (whom I believe I've mentioned somewhere here before) used to make the most wonderful mac and cheese. Like your recipe, it had tomato sauce in it, although I think it was mixed up with the noodles and cheese and not a layer at the bottom. She also baked whole, small onions in it. It was marvelous. I was 16 on July 20, 1969, and at a "grown-up" party with a couple of my friends and their parents, as well as some adults that I didn't know. Rhoda, my surrogate Jewish mother, brought a pan of her wonderful mac and cheese, which I helped myself liberally to, along with quite a lot of bourbon. It was at the very moment that Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon that I threw up the mac and cheese all over the carpet in front of the television. I've hardly touched bourbon since.

[zoramargolis]

Thank you, Hersch, for that vivid visual--NOT! My British brother-in-law always makes "mac-cheese" as he calls it, as the night before Thanksgiving meal, when the family gathers in NYC. It involves large quantities of cheddar cheese, some garlic, and canned diced tomatoes. One year, one of our young nieces (not the BIL's child) who had spent her childhood overseas not celebrating American holidays, was present for the family gathering. After the holiday weekend, she reported to her colleagues at work that she had celebrated her first traditional American Thanksgiving holiday, including the traditional American night-before-Thanksgiving mac and cheese. She was mystified by her colleague's laughter.

[lperry]

Roasted heirloom tomato risotto (tomatoes from freezer), finished with a bit of goat's cheese for extra creaminess

Chiffonade of Brussels sprouts, finished with Bold Rock cider

Key lime bars

[Pat]

I feel a reminiscence coming on. When I was a teenager, my surrogate Jewish mother (whom I believe I've mentioned somewhere here before) used to make the most wonderful mac and cheese. Like your recipe, it had tomato sauce in it, although I think it was mixed up with the noodles and cheese and not a layer at the bottom. She also baked whole, small onions in it. It was marvelous. I was 16 on July 20, 1969, and at a "grown-up" party with a couple of my friends and their parents, as well as some adults that I didn't know. Rhoda, my surrogate Jewish mother, brought a pan of her wonderful mac and cheese, which I helped myself liberally to, along with quite a lot of bourbon. It was at the very moment that Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon that I threw up the mac and cheese all over the carpet in front of the television. I've hardly touched bourbon since.

Did you ever have the macaroni and cheese again?     I remember where I was that night too (and what I did earlier in the day:  my mother and I went to the see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the movies).  Don't recall what food we had that night, but I know I didn't have any bourbon!

Last night:

Whole wheat sourdough bread with soy spread

Buttered flounder over a warm brussels sprouts salad

Roasted acorn squash stuffed with a mix of brown, white, wild, and red rice, Craisins, and toasted pecans; drizzled with apple cider

Curried* mushrooms

*I'm running low on curry powder so used garam masala.  My husband thought they were fine, but I really prefer the curry version.

[TrelayneNYC]

Roasted heirloom carrots and champignon mushrooms









Ricotta gnocchi with Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce

[zoramargolis]

oven roasted polpetti (leftover risotto milanese incorporated) with tomato sauce

cauliflower puree

salted caramel pecan ice cream (Turkey Hill brand)

2011 Hand Crafted petite sirah

[lperry]

Roasted acorn squash stuffed with leeks, mushrooms, and roasted pumpkin seeds in a red wine reduction.  The pumpkin seeds sound weird, but I wanted some texture, and it came out quite well, perhaps due to the dousing in wine.

Thank you to Pat for the stuffed squash inspiration.

[zoramargolis]

oven-roasted, herb-brined Eberly chicken

mujaddara (basmati rice, lentils and caramelized onions) with minted goatmilk labneh

roasted butternut squash

spiced wine poached seckel pears with vanilla mascarpone

2007 Cote du Py morgon

[TrelayneNYC]

Homemade hummus and pita chips

Didn't really feel like cooking much

[porcupine]

Leftover beef shank from making broth still had some flavor in it, so became something like a picadillo with assorted spices (cumin, cinnamon, coriander, anise, oregano, ancho powder, a few other things), a paste made from anchos and gualjillos, some tomato sauce, a handful of rasins, a few serranos... you get the idea.  Grated the last of a hunk of cheddar cheese and made some corn tortillas and ate it as tacos.  Not bad.  Tasty for a frugal "use what's on hand" meal.

[Pat]

Grapefruit-feta-arugula salad with cucumber and avocado; roasted garlic sherry vinaigrette

Chicken cacciatore

Egg noodles

The chicken was Marcella Hazan's recipe for Chicken Fricassee with Peppers and Onions.  I used to make this with some frequency but hadn't in a long time.  I had forgotten how wonderfully flavorful it is.  And it makes good comfort food, to boot.

[bettyjoan]

Saturday night -

Beef tagine with butternut squash

Brown rice

Spinach salad with tomatoes, cucumber, and roasted beets

[zoramargolis]

Blue Ridge beef shank stewed in red chile*-tomato sauce with onion, leek, carrot, celery and kohlrabi

frijoles en olla

basmati rice with lentils and caramelized onions (leftover mujaddara)

*guajillo and ancho

2011 Perlita malbec-syrah

[Pat]

Green and red leaf lettuce with cucumber, tomato, avocado, feta, and toasted pecans; jalapeno buttermilk ranch

Chicken - vegetable stew

Whole wheat sourdough toast with soy spread

Leftover mac and cheese marinara with meatballs

[dcandohio]

Brined, pan-seared pork loin chops

Onion gravy

Sausage dressing with apple, celery, onions

Salad greens from a bag with red wine viniagrette

[bettyjoan]

Pan seared pork chops (great minds think alike, dcandohio)

Mustard/shallot pan sauce

Roasted parsnips and carrots

Spinach salad with radishes and roasted beets

[TrelayneNYC]

Pasta with cauliflower, anchovy and chickpeas

[ktmoomau]

Last night was a stuffed pepper with rice and beef, and some sauteed green beans and kale.

Tonight who knows... the fridge is getting a little sparse, but I like to get creative.

[Tweaked]

I've become addicted to Patricia Wells' Spicy Tomato, Fennel and Orange Sauce from her The Provence Cookbook.

Delightful drapped over some creamy polenta topped with some saute mushrooms.

[zoramargolis]

panko-crusted salmon croquettes made with canned Alaskan wild sockeye salmon from Costco

remoulade sauce

braised savoy cabbage

garlic mashed potatoes

spiced wine-poached seckel pears (again)

2011 Les Petits Roucas sauvignon blanc

[Pat]

Cremini mushroom and Humboldt Fog bruschetta

Leftover chicken-vegetable stew

Merguez goat sausages

Roasted garlic mashed potatoes

Swiss chard gratin

[lperry]

Left to my own devices, penne (pantry) with a roasted cherry tomato (freezer), red wine (freezer) sauce, topped with a little pecorino romano cheese.

Bodega Quo Gastiago Garnacha 2010 (Thanks to the tastings we had, one of my favorite grapes now.)