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Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog


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Marinated roasted red peppers

Balsamic-glazed roasted cippolini onions

Marinated fresh borlotti beans

Roasted eggplant tapenade

Roasted beets with orange oil and lemon juice

Cherokee Purple tomatoes, cucumbers

Young Pecorino Romano and Humboldt Fog

Leftover lavender-brined charcoal roasted chicken

2004 Obvio Malbec

Gingered plum crumble

Vanilla ice cream

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Grilled sesame-ginger chicken breasts

Near East rice pilaf

Steamed garden green beans

Minute Maid limeade

After my braised short ribs/pumpkin orzo cooking marathon yesterday, sometimes it's nice to knock out dinner in 25 minutes. Plus, my little boys liked this one better :)

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steak salad with feta and cucumbers

cream of roasted tomato soup with fennel and carrot--the Shoebox Oven Pao de Queijos make excellent croutons for soup! I had a few of these left from yesterday and heated them up and used in place of the croutons recommended for the soup

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Poulet Basquaise, from Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. Well-flavored Cibola chicken and a sauce made with peppers. onions, white wine, and homemade stock. The stock gave the sauce some body - I would not use a boullion cube as suggested - but on the whole I found the finished dish lacking in depth*.

Served over rice with garlicky beet greens.

Sancerre

Strawberry gelato for dessert.

*I am not loving the Les Halles cookbook. The profanity is mildly entertaining, but every recipe appears in a better version in another of my cookbooks.

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Forgive my apparant arrogance but any recipe calling for a "bouillion cube" is a recipe in a book that I will ignore. I have spent far too much time-and money-nurturing stocks.
It was a little suprising. The recipe calls for chicken stock, but suggests that it could "handle" a boullion cube, presumably because it's strongly flavored, and so that novices don't put the book down and give up because they don't have a freezer full of stock. The percentage of non-cooks buying this book is probably high.

I'd be willing to be that boullion appears in the professional kitchen more often than we would care to think about.

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leftover baby cabbage cole slaw

pattypan squash stuffed with a mixture of bread cubes, onion, apples, turkey bacon, and squash

balsamic glazed pork chops [a recipe I think I grabbed from here a while back--great with the squash!]

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Grilled knockwurst with shaved onions and dijon mustard on toasted ficelle. The knockwurst was from from Balducci's - I don't remember the brand but it was garlicky with a good snappy casing.

Really delicious green beans from some vendor at Penn Quarter.

Bombay gin & tonic for dessert.

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Smoked sable is one of my new favorite things-- absolutely delicious. It's on sale this week at Calvert-Woodley (though still damn expensive at $11 a half pound). Served with a citrus salad (an idea from the Babbo cookbook).

sablefo9.jpg

And then some Pasta Lo-Carbonara from M. Richard's new cookbook.

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Braised sauerkraut with riesling vinegar*, juniper berries and caraway seeds, Eco-Friendly pork chops, bacon and frankfurters

Quince and Vidalia onion compote

Roasted beets

Roasted garlic mashed potatoes

2005 Sherwood Estate NZ Pinot Noir

*the braising liquid also included dry vermouth and chicken stock

This meal was an improvisation. I pulled out the package of pork chops and realized it was too small a portion for two, so I started thinking about how to enhance it. I had a can of German sauerkraut from Rodman's, and put it together with franks and bacon I had on hand, leftover beets and mashed potatoes from two nights ago. I thought--"pork, cabbage, potatoes, gotta have apples." Except I can't eat apples, but I had gotten some quinces at Balducci's today. I would have had a bottle of riesling with this, except I didn't think about what wine to drink until it was too late to chill some in the fridge. The NZ pinot was delicious, and a really good QPR at $15--recommended by Ben Giliberti a couple of months ago in the Post, and it paired really well with the pork and everything else. Funny how a last minute, off the cuff meal can sometimes be tastier and more satisfying than a carefully planned and executed one.

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Prosecco Vino Frizzante Martellozzo

cambzola cheese

Cuvee Emile Willm Vin D'Alsace Pinot Gris Reserve 2000

Seared Scallops with truffle extra virgin olive oil, gray salt, parsley

Estate Raffale 2002 Diamant

Broiled shrimp cocktail, with homemade cocktail sauce

1989 Chateau La Laguane Haut Medoc

Roasted Strip Loin with Blue Castello crumbles

Twice baked potato with 16 month old cheddar

Madeira infused sauté mushrooms with cream

Tomato basil salad

Roasted asparagus with truffle oil

Corn bread stuffing savory stuffed gala apples

Cheese Plate with Rocchetta, Gorgonzola Dolce, and a Italian hard cheese

Grand Marnier bittersweet Chocolate Soufflé

Grand Marnier

15 year old single malt

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Prosecco Vino Frizzante Martellozzo

cambzola cheese

Cuvee Emile Willm Vin D'Alsace Pinot Gris Reserve 2000

Seared Scallops with extra virgin olive oil, gray salt, parsley

Estate Raffale 2002 Diamant

Broiled shrimp cocktail, with homemade cocktail sauce

1989 Chateau La Laguane Haut Medoc

Roasted Strip Loin with Blue Castello crumbles

Twice baked potato with 16 month old cheddar

Madeira infused sauté mushrooms with cream

Tomato basil salad

Corn bread stuffing savory stuffed gala apples

Cheese Plate with Rocchetta, Gorgonzola Dolce, and a Italian hard cheese

Grand Marnier bittersweet Chocolate Soufflé

Grand Marnier

15 year old single malt

Yeah, I thought about doing that too but I get tired of the same old, same old :)

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Last night was a layered plate of ravioli: homemade ovendried tomatoes on the bottom, topped with buffalo mozzarella slices and a scattering of basil leaves. The hot pasta was arranged over the top, then finished with a drizzling of olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes and grated garlic gouda. It looked really pretty.

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Just finished an experiment: kabocha squash soup. Halved the squash, scooped out the seeds, coated lightly in olive oil and roasted until very tender and lightly browned. Scooped the flesh into a pot in which I had been slowly cooking minced shallots in butter; added chicken stock and apple cider and cooked half an hour or so to be sure the squash was tender after all. Blended this, returned to pot, seasoned with salt, pepper, a bit of thyme, a bit of ginger, and a tiny dusting of cinnamon. Added heavy cream 'til it tasted right. Might add a dash of sherry right before serving. Oh, and minced chives.

To be served with La Tur on toasted baguette slices and a green salad. And probably an Allagash White.

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A good night to use the oven.

whole wild Alaskan coho salmon ($5.49 a pound at Costco), en papillote*

roasted fennel

baked russet potatoes

bartlett pear crisp

2005 Turkey Flat rose'

No filets for sale, but they had whole fresh fish on ice, gutted, scaled and with the head off. At that price, how could I resist? I've gotten so used to the flavor/texture of grilled salmon, that this was a wonderfully pleasant change of pace. The fish was packaged in heavy duty foil with fresh thyme and Italian parsley, chopped shallots, slices of lemon, olive oil, S&P and a splash of dry vermouth. When it came out of the oven, the meat was succulent and tender and tasting of the sea. The skin was too flabby for us to eat, but the dog told me it was superb, mixed with her kibble.

Jonathan liked the pear crisp better than any of the other baked fruit desserts I've made lately. I put ginger and cardamom in with the pears, which were so sweet, they didn't need any extra sugar.

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We just finished a very satisfying, fairly basic, meal:

Pan-seared filet mignon, medium rare, with mushroom-shallot sauce (using vermouth; I didn't have an open bottle of red wine)

Whole (enormous) farm fresh green beans with toasted slivered almonds

Red potatoes with butter, parsley and parmesan

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Had some of Azami's last batch of posole and homemade tortillas. Does anyone have a good strategy for keeping dough round as you roll it out? The tortillas were quite tasty, but looked more like maps of Ohio than tortillas.

Were these flour or corn tortillas? I have a tortilla press for corn tortillas--roll a small ball of masa about the size of a walnut, put it between sheets of heavy-duty plastic (from a cut-open zip-lock freezer bag) and then into the press. If the ball of masa was round, the tortilla will be round.

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Tonight - Grilled pork tenderloins with applewood-smoked bacon wraps and Granny Smith apple-pork stuffing accompanied by apple cider riesling sauce

Roasted red potatoes

Steamed broccoli with fresh lime juice

Last night - Mussels and chorizo in tomato-basil sauce over linguini with fresh crusty ciabatta to mop up

Tomorrow - let the belt out a notch

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Tonight is chicken fricassee, according to a Marcella Hazan recipe. I've made this many times, but tonight I didn't have enough chicken so I'm rounding things out with some chicken-basil-sun-dried tomato sausages.

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Started our Marcella Hazan evening with a Tanqueray Rangpur on the rocks (thanks, Sthitch!). Dinner was risotto with sausages and mixed greens with olive oil and vinegar, followed by Marcella's pear tart.

zoramargolis: Thanks for the tortilla press hint. Tortillas at issue were flour, so if the press would work for them as well, I may invest once we have more space.

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Sunday:

Roast Lamb Loin Chops, Roasted Redskin Potato Wedges, Roasted Cippolini Onions, Pan Sauted Brussel Sproats (in butter and lamb drippings), Creamy Polenta with Smoked Fontina Cheese.

post-44-1160510778_thumb.jpg

Monday:

Left over lamb, potatoes, brussel sproats mixed with salad greens, olives, fontina cheese, and a vinaigrette

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Last night:

Pan roasted duck breast with fig-plum chutney

Puree of roasted kuri squash

Yellow wax beans

Tomato-cucumber-avocado salad

2004 Castle Rock Carneros Pinot Noir

Tonight:

Salmon croquettes made with leftover wild coho en papillotte, remoulade sauce

Baked potato

Steamed broccoli

2004 Feudi di San Gregorio Falanghina

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Lamb korma, carrots and peas with ginger and cilantro, and rice; from An Invitation to Indian Cooking.

It's been ages since I've cooked Indian food, and I've re-discovered what I love and hate about it. The love was from making my own garam masala fresh from whole spices. What an incredible aroma! The hate comes from cleaning up. What a freakin' mess. Leftovers will make a good lunch, though.

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Bombay and Rangpur "martinis"

Olives, marcona almonds, cornichons

Duck rillettes

Gougeres

Radishes with bread and butter

Asparagus and cauliflower, aioli

Boeuf Bourguinon

Polenta

Potato gratin with goat cheese and thyme

Green salad with heirloom tomatoes

Cheeses, including Epoisses

Chocolate fleur de sel cake, creme anglaise, raspberries

Port

Fifteen people. Waaaaaaay too much wine. Few leftovers.

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Hosted a small contingent of Azami's Japanese model railroading club for an "invent a drink for the name" party. Apps for the tasting: smoked salmon pate, mixed olives, iburigakko, crackers/toasts, and cheeses (Pont L'Eveque, aged Irish cheddar, Maytag blue, Comte). Dinner was short ribs braised in stout, polenta, and zucchini sauteed with garlic.

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tomato salad

braised long eggplant stuffed with garlic

rice

erbaluce de caluso, la rustia, orsolani

deborah madison's recipe (from "local flavors") calls for eight to 12 small, thin eggplants, around 8 inches in length, fresh from the farmer's market, although any eggplant will work. i prefer this approach to broiling: cut several slits in the eggplants and insert slices of garlic. two fat cloves of garlic are called for, i used three. warm two tablespoons of olive oil in a pan (i used three), add the eggplants and some salt and saute for about five minutes until they are beginning to color. add one cup of water, cover and cook until soft, about 20 to 30 minutes, adding water if it's needed. i used high medium heat and turned it down towards the end. when the eggplant is soft, remove the lid and saute until they are golden. at this point, you have to turn them gently. add pepper, chopped parsley and a few drops of aged vinegar.

all around, this was the best-tasting eggplant we have had all summer.

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