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Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog


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Thursday night;

Cauliflower and blue cheese soup with thyme and sriracha sauce
Baby arugula and radicchio, cucumber, radishes, mushrooms, and tomato; miso-ginger vinaigrette
Rotini with hot Italian turkey sausage ragu, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and three cheddar blend
 
Last night:
Baby arugula and radicchio, cucumber, radishes, mushrooms, and tomato; miso-ginger vinaigrette
Pork bratwurst, baked beans, and quinoa
Steamed broccoli
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Baby arugula, baby spinach, watercress, butter lettuce, cucumber, radishes, tomato, hard-boiled eggs, and sunflower seeds; miso-ginger vinaigrette

Quinoa, broccoli, and gigande bean salad

Rotini with hot Italian turkey sausage ragu, (shredded from frozen) fresh mozzarella, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and three cheddar blend

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Baguette with peppered* extra virgin olive oil

Grilled chipotle-gouda turkey burgers

Grilled chicken drumsticks

Grilled tofu over sauteed greens (watercress and spinach) with Asian marinade/dressing and peanuts

Corn on the cob

 

*coarsely ground black pepper + habanero pepper flakes

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We had a bbq by the pool yesterday over in Southern Maryland at my Mom's "friend's" house.  We made bbq chicken, burgers and hot dogs.  We had grilled squash and cantaloupe and tomatoes.  It was a lovely meal.  I had a couple parties to go to all weekend so I made fresh peach salsa I took here and to a friend's house, also made some guac.  

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Crostini

Grill-roasted poblanos stuffed with white and red quinoa, grilled tofu, sautéed mushrooms, sautéed baby spinach, and cheddar

Leftover grilled turkey burgers with extra sautéed spinach and sautéed mushrooms

Leftover grilled chicken drumsticks

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eco-friendly spicy Italian sausage and peppers+ (ripe frying peppers, a N.M. Hatch chile*, tomato, onion, garlic, and a smoked eggplant), grated parmesan/romano, chopped basil/Italian parsley

whole grain garlic toast

cantaloupe

2010 Castaí±o Hecula

*on sale at my neighborhood Safeway for 99 cents a pound

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Salad of baby arugula, baby spinach, frisee, mache, radishes, tomato, cucumber and avocado; miso-ginger vinaigrette

Pork and veal meatballs with tomato sauce

Polenta with sauteed shiitake and button mushrooms

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Cauliflower blue cheese soup with sriracha sauce

Crab cakes with sheep's milk yogurt tartar sauce

Blistered shisito peppers (also with the yogurt sauce for dipping)

Braised string beans with bacon and cherry tomatoes

 

I'm not sure what variety of beens the string beans were.  The vendor at the market had three types:  the more conventional ones; ones that looked like romano beans on steroids; and these, flecked with maroon like scarlet runner beans and between the other two types in size.  She said that all of them were string beans and should be eaten in the pod.  I cooked these using a variation of Russ Parsons' recipe for braised romano beans with cherry tomatoes, and they turned out excellent.

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I'm not sure what variety of beens the string beans were.  The vendor at the market had three types:  the more conventional ones; ones that looked like romano beans on steroids; and these, flecked with maroon like scarlet runner beans and between the other two types in size.  She said that all of them were string beans and should be eaten in the pod.  I cooked these using a variation of Russ Parsons' recipe for braised romano beans with cherry tomatoes, and they turned out excellent.

Interesting.  I wonder if they were young cranberry beans?

We had very little time tonight, so I made a quick chickpea, goat's milk feta, and Sungold tomato salad in a tarragon vinaigrette.

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Interesting.  I wonder if they were young cranberry beans?

Could be.  Thanks. When I googled lots of images for cranberry beans, most of the pods were white, but I did find one that had the dark green background color like what I had bought.

Last night was

Bruschetta with tomato and basil

Baby arugula, baby spinach, frisee, butter lettuce, and mache with bacon, radishes, tomato, cucumber and avocado; miso-ginger vinaigrette
Roasted half chicken
Rice pilaf
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Dinners this week have mostly been take out because I am swamped at work.  But last night I made two organic rib eyes with sauteed shallot, green beans and assorted peppers.  Boudin sourdough.  Matt made us some cocktails, not sure what he started with, but it was a little off on balance so we threw in some passion fruit juice and yum.  

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Frisee and butter lettuce salad with tomatoes, bacon, cucumber, and radishes; topped with reheated grilled tofu and peanuts; shiitake-sesame vinaigrette

Pot roast with red potatoes, carrots, onions, string beans, and tomatoes

 

I added the last of the leftover braised string (possibly cranberry :) ) beans and cherry tomatoes right at the end of the cooking time.  That went really well with the rest of this.  I used a boneless beef blade roast, with dark beer (stout) and boxed beef stock for liquid, and it cooked up amazingly tender.  We could basically just pull it apart with our forks.

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tacos al carbon, made with charcoal-grilled tri-tip

corn tortillas

pico de gallo

calabacita con rajas y maiz*

frijoles borrachos

DB Vienna lager

*a mother of invention saga: I started by roasting chiles for the rajas, 4 green and 1 ripe red poblano, and 4 Hatch chiles, which were peeled and cut into thin strips, long sauteed with a pile of sliced white onion, garlic, and finished with some lime juice and heavy cream. They were so spicy, that I could not imagine us eating them untamed somehow. I had an unusual bulbous green squash, called an avocado squash, that I had bought at last Sunday's Dupont market from Next Step produce. It was the size of a mini-melon, had a nice buttery texture and almost no flavor. I sliced it thin and sauteed it with some garlic, and stirred in a couple of spoonfuls of the rajas, so that it was about 3/4 squash and 1/4 rajas. I had found an abandoned ear of corn in the fridge and grilled it with the tri-tip, cut the kernels off and mixed them in with the other veg. The resulting melange was delicious, but still caused the occasional bout of coughing when a particularly Scoville-laden morsel of chile was encountered.

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Salad of mache, butter lettuce, and mint with scallions, tomatoes, and avocado; white balsamic vinaigrette

Grilled butterflied leg of lamb

Grilled portobello mushrooms

Corn on the cob, buttered

 

I marinated the lamb in olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, lemon, and mint with some scallions.  The mushrooms got a soak in the dregs of a shiitake-sesame bottled dressing combined with the dregs of a bottle of Worcestershire.  Both the lamb and the salad were riffs off a Tyler Florence recipe combination I found online.  I already had the mache and wanted to use mint in the lamb marinade (his called for fresh oregano in the marinade instead of mint), so I picked up spearmint on my trip to the market and got going.

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Dinner party Friday eve:

Eggplant, fried ripe tomato and portobello mushroom casserole (left over from previous day -- served as app)

Turkey under a brick*

Turkey broth gravy made with bones and trimmings

Okra, rough sliced and sauteed naked in butter

Tomato salad with blue cheese

Corn on the cob

Mashed sweet potatoes

Blueberry crumble

Two rounds of Bloody Caesars (Canada's national cocktail, made with Clamato juice); Castelvetrano olives from Costco

Ch. Ducru-Beaucaillau '89

Chestnut Farms Straight Bourbon

*turkey half, partially deboned, marinated overnight in olive oil, lemon juice, granulated garlic, smoked paprika, and other stuff I've forgotten, then iron skillet sauteed in olive oil and clarified butter until brown/black on both sides, weighted with another skillet and a brick, and convection roasted for about an hour.  Crisp and juicy.  Now I have to figure out what to do with the other half of the turkey.

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Now I have to figure out what to do with the other half of the turkey.

Wow, let me count the ways (other than the obvious sliced turkey sandwiches): turkey tacos or enchiladas; re-heated in bbq sauce and served on buns, with cole slaw; in a bean and vegetable soup based on stock from the bones; in a chopped salad; hash; in an Asian-style rice noodle soup.

Sounds like a delicious meal, by the way.

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Wow, let me count the ways (other than the obvious sliced turkey sandwiches): turkey tacos or enchiladas; re-heated in bbq sauce and served on buns, with cole slaw; in a bean and vegetable soup based on stock from the bones; in a chopped salad; hash; in an Asian-style rice noodle soup.

Sounds like a delicious meal, by the way.

Zora -- Thanks for the compliment and the ideas, but as usual I wasn't being clear.  The other half of said turkey is still in the fridge, raw, so what I'm actually pondering is how to cook it.  Compounding my dilemma is that I will be a bachelor for the next 10 days or so.

I have some tasty left-over stock from a batch of green beans, so that might figure into the solution, as it were.  Between that and the surfeit of tomatoes in the house there could be some sort of turkey/tomato stew in my near-term future.

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Inspired by a couple of posts earlier this summer about  Vongerichten's roasted corn with Manchego, I made it this evening using local corn and jalapenos.  Wow, is that some delicious corn. It evoked the calabacitas (zucchini with corn and chile) that my Mexican grandmother used to make, minus the zucchini and with Manchego/jalapeno instead of colby/green chile. So good, especially with a Tanqueray Gimlet and some German sausages from WF.

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Zora -- Thanks for the compliment and the ideas, but as usual I wasn't being clear.  The other half of said turkey is still in the fridge, raw, so what I'm actually pondering is how to cook it.  Compounding my dilemma is that I will be a bachelor for the next 10 days or so.

I have some tasty left-over stock from a batch of green beans, so that might figure into the solution, as it were.  Between that and the surfeit of tomatoes in the house there could be some sort of turkey/tomato stew in my near-term future.

Interesting choice, to cook half the turkey. I usually cook it all at once, even if I only need half, figuring the time spent cooking is essentially the same and then I can indulge my true lazy slugness and serve leftovers for a meal or three. However, you might take the opportunity of your (gluten-free, as I recall) wife not being around, to enjoy some forms of grain that you aren't ordinarily able to serve. ie. brine and then roast the turkey and slice it for sandwiches on real bread. Make stock with the bones and use that to make mushroom barley soup and the leftover meat in turkey tetrazzini. Squirrel away the extra soup and noodle casserole in the freezer for those times when you two aren't sharing the same meal.

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Interesting choice, to cook half the turkey. I usually cook it all at once, even if I only need half, figuring the time spent cooking is essentially the same and then I can indulge my true lazy slugness and serve leftovers for a meal or three. However, you might take the opportunity of your (gluten-free, as I recall) wife not being around, to enjoy some forms of grain that you aren't ordinarily able to serve. ie. brine and then roast the turkey and slice it for sandwiches on real bread. Make stock with the bones and use that to make mushroom barley soup and the leftover meat in turkey tetrazzini. Squirrel away the extra soup and noodle casserole in the freezer for those times when you two aren't sharing the same meal.

Good points.  Cooking only half the turkey devolved from the cooking method.  I've made chicken-under-a-brick many times; my method is, after spatchcocking, to saute the whole thing both sides in an iron skillet, then weight it down with a second iron skillet and put the whole assembly in the oven.  I did the same thing with the turkey, but only half could ever fit into a 12" skillet.  I could have done two complete skillets full, but that wouldn't have fit into the oven as a practical matter, and there was no reason to cook so much.  And anyway this whole thing was something of an experiment, with guests as guinea pigs.  But it worked out fine.

For my "dinner" tonight, the first night of my temporary bachelorhood, I just now had a lovely turkey salad sandwich topped with, what else, a very thick slice of tomato, which will shortly be followed by another tomato slice topped with anchovies and balsamic.  The dogs will be having some de-boned turkey bits from broth-making added to their kibble.

For the remainder of the turkey, for part I'm still leaning to some type of turkey/tomato stew (cacciatore?), and for another part perhaps either some Chinese stir fry or something Indian.  Your turkey tetrazinni idea also sounds good; I wonder if I could work in some tomatoes.

Did I mention I have lots of tomatoes?

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wild salmon burgers* flavored with lemon grass, ginger, scallion, and cilantro

on sesame buns with wasabi-ginger mayo, lettuce and Cherokee purple tomato

*cooked in a steel pan on the stovetop because of the rainstorm at dinner time

potato chips

vanilla ice cream with dulce de leche

2013 Muga rosé

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Sliced red and yellow heirloom tomatoes* 

Leftover pot roast

Mashed sweet potatoes with butter and a drizzling of maple syrup

Leftover braised Swiss chard and bacon

 

 

*with blue cheese buttermilk dressing for me and feta and white balsamic vinaigrette for my husband

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Last night was duck with port wine Stachowski sausage on soft polenta with sauteed peppers, onions and spinach.  I have to say there were a couple large bits of grissle in my sausage, which were really unpleasant.  I hope I don't encounter any in my keilbasa I got at the same time.  I have never gotten his sausages before and was really excited.  The flavors were good, but that really wasn't great.

The night before was frozen Italian Store capellini boiled and then added to a saute of leeks, carrots and peas with bacon with a some butter and Parmesan.

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Homemade salsa with Tostitos scoops

Leftover veal-pork meatballs with polenta

Steamed string beans

 

I don't like Tostitos scoops much (the concept or the actual chip), so I don't know why I bought them.  I think they were the most appealing of the ones I saw on my last trip to Costco.  It turns out that they are good for use with a very liquid-y salsa.  When I've tried them before, I've found them really awkward to eat.  Now I know that they're a good device for consuming certain foods.  Oddly, they also seem less salty to me than regular Tostitos, which I had stopped buying because I found them too salty tasting.  I doubt there is an actual difference in the amount of sodium (and, indeed, the regular ones taste salty to me out of proportion to the amount of sodium listed per serving), so this is probably a wholly subjective thing.

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dinner with the next-door neighbors:

nibbles: smoked eggplant hummus/baba ghanoush hybrid with pita chips; sungold tomatoes; spiced olives

2013 Muga rosé

lamb, tomato, and eggplant tagine (adapted from Paula Wolfert's recipe)

maftoul (Palestinian cous-cous)

green beans, roasted red pepper, garlic, and lemon

2011 La Montesa rioja

peach and blueberry crisp

sweetened vanilla creme fraiche

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Leftover minestrone with quinoa

Frisee and baby arugula with red and yellow heirloom tomatoes, and peaches; white balsamic vinaigrette

Leftover grilled lamb in whole wheat pita with Cava serrano hummus and sour cream

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Mache, baby arugula, and baby spinach, red and green heirloom tomatoes, bacon, and cucumber; shiitake-sesame vinaigrette

Homemade Jello with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries, plus pomegranate juice

Leftover grilled hot Italian turkey sausages and Santa Fe chicken sausages (Whole Foods)

Heinz baked beans

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