Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog

[deangold]

5 hours ago, saf said:

But what did Spot have?

Spot had cross words at us for not feeding him more. Then he threw up. It was Kay's turn to clean up his gift. 

[deangold]

Brisket from the freezer. This was local brisket, slow braised in red wine, onions, garlic & herbs. The braising liquid was pureed into a thick sauce. 

Japanese Soy Pickles. 

Kay had a perfect try Manhattan: Old Overholt, Cocchi americano & rosa, Bitterman's Orange cream citrate bitters, The Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas bitters

I had a Gibson: Plymouth gin. Dolin Dry 4 to 3, cocktail onions, Peychaud's aromatic bitters, Bitter Truth lemon & olive bitters

Spot had complaints. Not enough Pizza. Not enough cat chow. He also won't fininsh his pizza if we don't scrape the leftover bit down to the center after his first dive into the bowl. He no longer is willing lick the bowl clean as it is undignified. He finds our waiting on him paw and paw is more dignified. 

[Pat]

After reliving Thanksgiving 2016 on Tuesday, last night harkened back to Christmas of last year. We had, essentially, cheesesteaks made from frozen thin-sliced prime rib, slices of Swiss cheese, and caramelized onions. Mine was on a homemade sandwich roll (part-whole wheat) with French's yellow mustard. My husband had two (no mustard) on toasted ciabatta sandwich rolls from Costco. Accompanying were fried potatoes and red bell peppers and a simple salad of iceberg lettuce with radishes, grape tomatoes, toasted walnuts, and vinaigrette.

The beef came through its freezer time very well, despite the fact the vacuum seal failed and ice formed inside the package. Delicious sandwiches.

[saf]

14 hours ago, deangold said:

He also won't fininsh his pizza if we don't scrape the leftover bit down to the center after his first dive into the bowl. He no longer is willing lick the bowl clean as it is undignified. He finds our waiting on him paw and paw is more dignified. 

Here if anyone leaves gooshy food for any length of time, Margo comes and takes care of that. Bowls are very clean after Margo runs the scratchy tongue cycle on them.

[Pat]

Tonight was a roasted chicken, surrounded in the pan by red onion halves and parsnips. I love onions roasted this way. I did the chicken on the convection setting and nailed the timing. Really juicy and delicious chicken.

We also had simmered asparagus, dotted with a little butter, salt and pepper, and kale slaw with a vinaigrette (rice vinegar, evoo, soy sauce).

[deangold]

Had some truffle cheese that we acidentally let dry out a bit, so I shredded it, blended it with butter & olive oil, toasted it on Atwater walnut raising bread. 

Pasta: Opera gemelli w/turnip greens, onion, garlic, rosemary, smith meadows rosemary lamb sausage, lots of parm.

Last of the chocolate gelato

We had a bottle of 1978 Stag's leap cabernet with a low fill and we tried it to see if it had any life left. It did not. Second attempt was Valplicella I Progni Ripasso Le Salette 2001 which was spot on {well spot did not have any but he said it looked good to him. 

Spot enjoyed his pizza, chow and water. He also actually moved 6 or 8 inches to eat some TJs cat treats. He managed to not bite Kay or I eating his cat treats. He is working on his aim.

He is on his third day of chewing on an old sock with catnip in it. His aim at picking up the cat treats is pretty bad the past couple of days. And he has been attacking the air and the carpet. 

[Katya4me]

I've been defrosting some salmon fillets but after a long work day, I didn't feel like making the planned recipe for dinner. 

We're out of bread flour currently, so I found a couple of bread machine recipes that use all purpose flour and made an herbed French bread yesterday that turned out really well.  My husband made some tuna fish salad and we had delicious sandwiches for dinner. 

[Pat]

^^^You got your fish anyway.

Tonight was more chicken

Chicken adobo
Rice pilaf
Black beans
Garlic sesame spinach
Corn on the cob

My husband spotted the corn when he was at Costco the other day. It wasn't summer corn, but it was good with the meal. We still have 5 more ears to use for something. Maybe a corn and black bean salsa?

[dcandohio]

11 hours ago, Pat said:

^^^You got your fish anyway.

Tonight was more chicken

Chicken adobo
Rice pilaf
Black beans
Garlic sesame spinach
Corn on the cob

My husband spotted the corn when he was at Costco the other day. It wasn't summer corn, but it was good with the meal. We still have 5 more ears to use for something. Maybe a corn and black bean salsa?

Maque choux!!!!

[deangold]

Spot here. Cat Dad seems to think it important to say what he eats for dinner on a daily basis. Well I want to say what I eat every day! NOT ENOUGH!!! Please send help. Pizza much appreciated but given my sad lack of opposable thumbs, please send them as well. Now back to Cat-Dad who will say blah blah blah. He is not very bright but I keep working with him. Cat mom is slightly better. What a disappointment they are.  😺😸🤎😹😻💞🙀🤎😿😾

We had duck cannelloni w/fra diavolo sauce and parm. A large mixed plates of veggies featuring grilled asparagus {Linda Vista Farms, Spring Valley} & garlic scapes {Linda Vista}, roasted radish, hakurei turnip {Linda Vista;} kohlrabi, fennel {Barajas Produce;} Celery hearts and carrots {TJ's and quite disappointing as compared to local.} For the roasting/grilling I used Grotto spice rub, salt & olive oil. For serving, we used Sakura Shoyu, Iwashi Whiskey Barrel Fish Sauce and homemade garlic & roasemary oil.

Blended Mandarin Daiquiri: Cotton & Reed dry spiced rum, mandrine juice, key lime, ice, blended. 

Wine: Valpolicella I Progni 2001 Ripasso by Le Salette. Black plum & prune flavors, spicy, good shape for a 19.5 year old ripasso. 

 

[curiouskitkatt]

 

I sometimes cook.

[Katya4me]

Tonight, I made the salmon recipe I didn't make last night.  We had some extra bok choy in the fridge and this was a good way to use it up. The glaze was a little saltier than I'd like but the meal was very good.

[deangold]

Mul Naeng Myun: Korean bone broth, homemade water kimchi & juice, Asian snow pear, buckwheat noodles

Cheese & crackers: Shepherd's Manor Maryland feta and Bailey Hazen Blue on triscuit

Spot has pizza. For no more than 5 minutes before he puked. The poor guy spent almost the rest of the night except to go finish his pizza. He woke up at 5am loudly asking me to watch him eat his cat chow.

He posted a review to Meow: "Why can't they follow me from the poopateria to where I eat. 2 claws for cleanliness and small portion size. The service is friendly but slow. They do not offer seconds, thirds, or fourths! Maybe change that to 1 claw."

[Pat]

On 5/23/2020 at 8:32 AM, dcandohio said:

Maque choux!!!!

Hmm. Well, I have peppers. Thanks for the suggestion!

Last night was salad, fried chicken and biscuit sandwiches, and steamed broccoli. I won't even begin to tell the story of how many different ways I messed up the chicken and biscuits recipe, but they still turned out wonderfully. Unbelievable.

[deangold]

We got some stray peas in our markt haul today. I cooked them on a couple of romaine leaves with some mint leaves and a bit of water. I added a couple of tablespoons of garlic scape butter. The peas weer  no that sweet to begin with, but it was good. 3 pint baskets of shelling peas is not a lot of peas!

Then some steamed octopus in ponzu w/wasabi and Indian cukes from Good Fortune. THey look like persian cukes but not as perfectly formed. They have more flavor. 

Last, fluke w/ponzu and wasabi. The fluke was outstanding but whoever fileted them did a poor job on the fin meat which is the best part.

Rice. 

More Onikoroshi

Strawberry Sorbet. 

Spot is feeling pooky and is not eating with gusto. We are watching with concern. He is drinking his water and pooping, so there is that. He might just be out of sorts. He got kicked out of the bedroom a couple of times this weekend. He might be pissed off. We told him Kay and I were playing poker and cats don't play poker. He proved me wrong when he filled an inside straight later on. 

[Katya4me]

Tonight was grilled steaks. I pulled them out of the freezer a couple days ago and after they came up to room temperature this evening, I seasoned with some Worcestershire sauce and Penzeys Northwoods Fire seasoning.  We had a couple of parsnips in the fridge, so I made oven roasted parsnips.  Those got olive oil with turmeric, cumin, paprika, cayenne and black pepper before going in the oven.  Those roasted while the steaks cooked.  Once those were done, it was a delicious meal. 

[Pat]

Today I pulled a jar of pesto out of the freezer. There's no date on it, so I don't know when I made it. It smelled great when it had thawed enough that I could scoop some out. I added a thin layer of oil and refroze the jar. It was perfect for the chicken pasta dish I had in mind. I chopped the remaining white meat from the roasted chicken into chunks and warmed it while I boiled water for some cavatappi. I added some extra grated Parmesan after I mixed the pasta, pesto, and chicken together. The pesto really held up.

We had buttered lemony asparagus (juice and zest) as a side and split a buttermilk biscuit leftover from the fried chicken sandwich meal a couple nights ago. We also split what was was left of some salad in the fridge (iceberg, radishes, grape tomatoes, red bell pepper), plus some sliced avocado.

[dcandohio]

Shrimp maque choux. There was some really fresh corn in the grocery store, along with beautiful red bell peppers and nice toma tomatoes. At hime I had onion, celery, and jalapeño. 
I threw the shrimp in at the last minute, which were frozen Argentinian red shrimp from Trader Joe’s, which are quite good. Aside from cutting the corn off of the cob, this is a really fast and pretty meal… Summer on a plate. 

[Katya4me]

My brother, an Army vet, said to have a burger on him yesterday, so that's what we did.  I was feeling lazy, so just did pre-packaged burgers on buns, but we did slice up potatoes for oven fries to go w/ the burgers.  My husband had a frozen coconut fruit bar for dessert and I had chocolate chip mochi ice cream.  

[deangold]

Stir fry of snap peas from Barajas. Garlic, ginger & reg spring onion, finely minced & sauteed, snap peas and a touch of water then put a cover on it. Seasoned with dark soy, black vinegar and Shaoxing wine. Then a slurry of potato starch & water. Served at room temp.

Took 2 spring red onions, sliced them in half lengthwise, oiled and salted them and grilled them on the yakiniku grill. Let them get close to burnt and soft. Sprinkled them with a bit more salt and rosemary garlic oil. Really wonderful. I have a lot of spring onion, so I see this helping us power thru the abundance. 

Took our last package of chicken thigh and marinated it in shiokoji and spice rub. Cooked them slowly on the yakiniku grill. They were wonderful! We need to go get more Amish chicken from Huntsman and refill the freezer and make stock. I made a spiced scallion oil using green sichuan peppercorns, garlic, ginger, star anise, clove, black cumin & aleppo pepper. Also did a dip of Iwashi Barrel aged fish sauce & key lime; and a second one of sakura shoyu and bottles yuzu juice. 

3.5x Vanilla gelato which is really one of our best gelatos yet.

Le Salette "I Progni" valpolicella ripasso 2001. Stunningly good on the fourth day after twice hitting up the bottle for glasses using the coravin. 

Spot was getting used to his new food system. He was a minute early for his reservation but we did have his place ready. He got an entire pizza for dinner, with no chow for an hour before or after. He ate half of the pizza and then went for a nap. I replated his pizza and actually took it into the bedroom and waved it under his nose and he lay there until I was by his dish area. Then he shot over and got in my way to the point of almost tripping me. He still left some and asked for it to be boxed to go home, but we told him no boxes. He was not amused.  I again took the last of the leftovers to his bed {which used to be ours} and waved it under his nose. Again, he got there before me. I had to dance to avoid stepping on him. He approved of the entertainment. Finally we presented him the bill and he turned his butt end towards us and raised his tail. We think he said "eff you cat mom and cat dad! It is a pleasure for you to wait on and feed me." or maybe that is just his way of saying "thanks." Or, "Cat dad., please check to see if I have worms coming out my butt."  Hard to say. He is a cat of few words. Lots of loud meowing, but few words.  His dessert was the remaining daily ration of his chow. 

[deangold]

 

Spot is back to his greedy butt self.... I mean he seems to have recovered his spunkiness. He ate almost his entire ration of dry food by the 5.30 cutoff and he even ate all his pizza without a request for a togo box. He seems to be bored with our stories. He found new places to hide and get in the way, as well as chased his sparkly red ball with more speed than we have ever seen. I think he is getting friskier as he loses weight. And more supercilious. 

Dinner was our first BLT of the season with G taking the place of B. G is for guanciale from Sogno Toscano. This dates back to the Grotto so it is a well aged piece of guanciale. I have 2 more. They are in fine shape. I used a serrated knife to slice 3/16" slices. The guanciale is skin on. I put them on a baking pan and popped them into the toaster over. 30 minutes at 3.25 followed by a flip and 10 more at 300. This left us with crispy pork reminiscent of chcharomes as well as a bonus of half a cup of guanciale fat which is going to help us saute some spinach and maybe some asparagus. 

The bread is Atwater's whole wheat sourdough, sliced thin and toasted to medium. Next is homemade roasted garlic mayo slathered on thickly using a soup spoon. Then we sliced some tomatoes from Spring Valley {Hot house variety} that rally had some good flavor. I salted the tomato, piled it on the bread, topped with the crispy guanciale and two large outer leaf's of Barajas romaine. This is our second usage of these outer layers and the head is still huge!. The top slice, also coated in mayo and then a diagonal cut. SOmehow I managed to reduce my sandwich to a messy pile somewhere between a salad and a sandwich. So good! 

Champion Missile IPA followed by Sun's Out, Hop's Out IPA from Solace. Surprisingly filling meal. 

[Pat]

Tonight was a very basic salad (iceberg, grape tomatoes, avocado, and chevre) with vinaigrette; broccoli and rice made with leftover rice pilaf; and bbq chicken drumsticks (+ one wing) and biscuits. I slathered bottled bbq sauce on the remaining drumsticks from the chicken adobo and one + 1 wing from the roasted whole chicken and reheated in the oven, along with a couple of the buttermilk biscuits from Saturday night. It made for a satisfactory repurposing.

[Deborah Lee]

Earlier this month, simple and delicious dinner of Foraged Morels and Ramps, Fresh Garlic Clove, Path Valley Farm Butter and EVOO atop Opera Bucatini. Immediately plated with Earth N Eats Baby Greens and Lemon Zest for the win.

[saf]

Didn't wanna cook tonight - tamales out of the freezer. Got to free up some freezer space and use the end of last week's pineapple salsa.

Tomorrow I am going to make pizza with garlic scape pesto. Need to find that pesto recipe!

[Pat]

Cole slaw, leftover fried chicken and biscuits, and TJ's frozen french fries last night. We had a green vegetable with lunch

I made a huge amount of cole slaw. We're going to be eating it for a long time. I needed to open up more freezer space so I cooked the remainder of the bag of fries. It was taking up a fair amount of space.

[ktmoomau]

I have been trying to use up all the small things in our fridge because it died last Friday (I think?), we got a new one on Monday, but it was dented, so a new, new one is coming this weekend.  So it was my mission to use up small containers of things.  

We had: chorizo tacos with spring onion, salsa, and a yogurt sauce with cilantro, chile, and cucumber juice.  Composed cheese plate with salami, cheese, gherkins, apple, crackers.  Steak, pasta salad, big pot of greens, homemade bread.  Bagels with lox and cress.  And a whole bunch of other things. Steak, Zoe's copycat slaw, pasta salad. Etc.

Between work being crazy, the fridge dying, and just all the craziness on TV, I feel like my energy and excitement over making dinner was zapped for a bit.  But I finally made my no-knead bread recipe, and have a bunch of spring onions I need to use, and am picking up meat this weekend, so I should get back into it. 

[Mark Dedrick]

My energy and excitement over cooking dinner every night has definitely taken a bit of a hit. Early on during stay at home I found myself getting into a bit of a rut with my cooking. This led me to turning to looking at, and cooking from recipes, which is not something I really do normally. But it took me in different directions, and got me more excited. But the past week or two that excitement has waned a bit again. I think going nine weeks where I cooked every dinner I ate and most of the lunches was likely responsible. We're going to try to mix in delivery a bit more going forward so I don't get burned out. 

[dwt]

Burnout was a problem for me well before the current stay-at-home situation. I would often get in a rut cooking things that were simple/easy after leaving work and, often, stopping by the gym on the way home. I've had to change things up when my SO protested that "this is the third week in a row we've had X". Dining out at least once a week was an absolute necessity. I'm jealous of Pat, Dean, and others for the amazing variety of dishes they prepare. Maybe I just need to retire so I have more time . I have so many cookbooks from which I've prepared only 1 or 2 dishes (apologies to the late, great Judy Rodgers).

Last night was pan-seared boneless pork loin chops with a simple sauce of white wine, chicken stock, garlic, and rosemary from the garden. Sides were steamed fresh broccoli and leftover fresh linguine (La Pasta) with mushroom sauce.

Tonight will be spaghetti alla carbonara. I don't have my preferred guanciale but will make do with some speck.

[Pat]

On 5/26/2020 at 7:37 AM, dcandohio said:

Shrimp maque choux

I took your suggestion and made maque choux to use some corn. I served it alongside baked salmon topped with pesto. This was an excellent combination, and I've got to remember to make these together again.

We also had cream of asparagus soup.

[deangold]

Wednesday

Heated some of the last of the frozen duck bolognese lasagne from the Grotto stash. It was amazing.Pour some local heirloom tomato sauce, also Grotto vintage from the freezer, and practically smothered it in grated parm. Restaurant has a fine commercial parm for under $10 a pound, but it comes in 10# 1/8th wheels. I don't know if international gourmet sells retail, but they have 2 and 3 year parm in 3# and 2# packs respectively/ It comes from a really high quality parm supplier. 

We opened a 2001 Dolcetto Vigna Tecc from Luigi Einaudi. This is a dogliani Dolcetto, home to the origins of Dolcetto production {although the oldest producing dolcetto vines are Marcarini's Boschi di Berri vineyard in Alba which is grown on its own rootstock {they use copper sulfate to keep the phyloxera away.} This bottle has no reason to still be good: dolcetto is supposed to be a drink young wine and EVERYBODY know the aging wine from Piemonte is Nebiolo. Whel everybody is wrong and the shibboleth of bif wines last longer is again destroyed. What makes for a wine aging is acidity and acidity alone. Tannins can help control oxidation, but if the wine does not have acid backbone young, it will die in the bottle. I learned this from Paul Draper, Dave benion, Forrest Tancer, Louis Martini and Joe Heitz in the 1970's and it is how I have bought wine ever since. And all my Italian wine producer friends and acquaintances say the same. Any my drinking of wines that should be over the hill by wine expert standards that are actually wonderful while big name shit like Gaja is bilgewater. 30 and 40 year old German whites can be astounding and Chenin Blanc is as ageable or more so then white burgundy/

In any case, this wine was addictive: Big lush round feel, loads of spicy, ripe and juicy  berry flavors and not a single sign of its 19.5 years of age. We decided to open the bottle instead of coravin it thinkin that at its advanced age it might not be worth the argon expense and we were wrong but right. We polished off this fantastic bottle watching Manon Lescaut on the Met Opera stream which was entirely appropriate. The 50 year old Renata Scotto had no business trying to portray a 15 year old virgin about the enter a convent, who instead chooses a life of sensuality that winds up with her being deported to America for prostitution. She dies of thirst in the desert around New Orleans. Scotto was amazing, even more so than a young Domingo back when he was dashing and skinny {I never was dashing but I was skinnier!} Of course, DesGrieus sexually harrasses Manon into going to Paris with him and living in sin, so maybe it was type casting. Who says opera isn't uplifting and educational. Everything I know about New Orleans, prostitution, Japan and China come from Puccini operas. And let's not forget my learning about the Alaska gold rush from watching Fanciulla. 

I have another bottle of the Einaudi Vigna Tecc 2001, and a 1997. Plus a 2001 I Filari. I cant wait to open these!

Spot had pizza. He eats about 1/3 of the can and retreats to his bedroom. I have to take the bowl, scrape down the pizza into a pleasant looking mound, take it to his bedroom and wave it under his nose and then take it back to his dish spot and he comes and eats more. One more repetition and he is finished. The bowl had to be a metal bowl identical to the one he eats his chow from. And he complains loudly if we are slow getting the pizza out of the can or fluffing his leftovers. And immediately after finishing his pizza, he demands his leftover chow even if he did not leave any over,  

And get this, he does not tip us, or kick in for the rent. But he does let us sleep in his bed because it makes it easier for him to meow loudly in our faces at 4 am. And I  think we are up to a consistent 2 claws in his reviews. 

And spot loves opera. He sits in bed and stares at the computer screen the entire time we watch. He has even been known to break out in his favorite arias and sing aloud. He does need to work on his enunciation because his Italian sounds a lot like his French. At least he loves the cheap seats and does not demand premium Orchestra seating. 

Spot preparing to sing Nessun Dorma. He prefers the newer Franco Zeffirelli production to the original. 

[saf]

On 5/27/2020 at 9:45 PM, saf said:

Tomorrow I am going to make pizza with garlic scape pesto. Need to find that pesto recipe!

Man, that was tasty.

[deangold]

Tonight we had the fresh shrimp from ProFish order. Baked in local heirloom tomato sauce with sauteed garlic, spring onion, oregano. Topped with homemade breadcrumb and some oil. Good dish.

We also has a roasted & grilled veggie pasta. I chopped up the still abundant grilled veggies: turnip, carrot, garlic scape, kohlrabi, radish, fennel, asparagus all from the Westover Farmer's market. I sauteed garlic & spring onion with spices in olive oil then dumped in the roughly chopped veggies and let cook while the water heated. I used Mancini spaghetti which is very good pasta. When the pasta was almost ready, I dumped a cup of pasta into the veggies and cranked the flame all the way. I let the pasta cook in the veggies and water for a minute or two until al dente. A splash of oil, fresh ground pepper, lots of fresh grated parm finished the dish.

The wine was Marco Carpineti Moro, an organic greco bianco from Lazio, not to be confused with Basilicata greco, Sicilian greco, or Greco di Tufo in Campagnia. The old saying is Germany is the land of one grape and ten thousand wines {not true as Germanay has a handful of grapes, not one} and Italy is the land of 10,000 grapes. In any case, it was rich and round, with a nice implied sweetness. The wine is not fruit driven, but textural, earthy & minerally. Delightful. We still have some for tomorrow and the scallops. 

Spot has pizza. He ate it all with relatively little fuss. He left a dainty amount of chow so he even has nibbles for late night snacking. Cat morem and I have strawberries and strawberry sorbetto for our late night snacking. Which is now. 

[Pat]

Tonight I made a dal with mung beans, served over brown rice. And we finished the last of the fried chicken.

[dwt]

Tonight was arctic char marinated in soy sauce, mirin, grated fresh ginger, and olive oil then grilled. Sides were simple, as usual: buttered cavatelli and steamed fresh haricot vert.

[deangold]

We had scallops two ways.

First round was pan seared, deglazed the pan w/white wine & mounted it with homemade garlic scape butter. Decadent, perfect glazing & browning on the scallops, garlicy punch from the scapes. Second round was grilled on the yaki niku grill w/lemon juice, tamari, wasabi. Even better as the pure flavor of the scallops came thru even more. Profish did well with the scallops. The rest of out pound of scallops is marinating overnight in lime juice, olive oil & red sichuan peppercorns for ceviche with the remianing shrimp.

Veggies were grilled spring onion, grilled asparagus. Again, dunked in the scallop butter sauce or in the shoyu, lemon, wassabi combo

We had a bag of key limes that needed finishing off: so after squeezing half for the ceviche, the rest went into our daiquiris. Clement Pure Canne rum, Martinique pot still distilled pure cane rum, the key lime juice and rich brown sugar simple, well shaken and double strained. Unreal.

Last of the Marco Carpinetti Moro. 

Last of the 3.5x vanilla gelato. The alcohol {1 TBSP 2x vanilla and 2 Tbsp rum} made the gelato soft and creamy so we had to scoop out small servings, so two were had. Don't side eye me, they were small.Enjoying another oz of the Pure canne Clement. Like drinking rum from an ashtray of all you smoked were perfect cigars. 

[Pat]

Local butter lettuce, radishes, Campari tomatoes; vinaigrette
Hot buttermilk biscuits
Pappardelle with mixed mushrooms and duck rillettes
Blanched asparagus

I got an order from D'Artagnan this week while they were having a sale. Once shipping was paid for, I only saved like $3, but hey, it effectively made shipping free. Mostly I got sausages, but I also bought a pound of trumpet mushrooms and a small container of duck rillettes. About half the trumpets and a pound of creminis I already had went into the pasta. I de-vegetarianized the recipe by adding some of the rillettes (also chicken broth instead of vegetable).

Since I didn't want to use all of the rillettes in this, I used a little more half the 7 oz. container. That added an accent to the dish without going overboard. I'm not quite sure why I ordered duck rillettes, but I have been lamenting the passage of Montmartre, where it was something I used to love to order. In more recent years, I think they only had pate and not the rillettes, but that was one of my favorite old indulgences.

In any case, the recipe (from Lidia Bastianich via the Post) is excellent...and vegetarian as conceived.

The recipe calls for the pasta to be pulled out of the pot with tongs and dropped into the sauce. Once I did that, I tossed a bunch of local asparagus of varying sizes, none super thick, into the boiling water for a few minutes. I nailed the timing. It came out perfectly and was a nice foil to the pasta and mushrooms.

[deangold]

We finished off the Profish order with ceviche. Scallops and the fresh shrimp marinated in Key lime juice, olive oil, spring onion & Sichuan peppercorn. Served on local red butter lettuce with the last of our Indian cukes. . Quite light and yummy. I will say the shrimp did not knock me over, but the scallops and crab claw were stellar. Not cheap but really good.

We also finished off the Asian Pear and cucumber salad we made last night. The overnight in the marinade did wonders and turned it into a super salad. We scored a bug bag of cukes from Spring Valley and have the other half of the Asian Pear {a white variety not the usual russet skin type} so a repeat performance is on the way.

Atwater rosemary Italian. Very good white bread. Their sourdoughs are better, but this was nice for a change.

The last of the Sake Onikoroshi. As is often the case with the 1.8 liter bottles, the third day's drink is better than the second or first. In this case, it was 4th day I believe but it was smoother than on first opening. 3 dinner's worth of drinking for $46.00 from H Mart and it is even cheaper at Good Fortune.{$42 or $43}

A bunch of bananas. We had some Manzanos and Thai bananas that looked scary but were really delicious. We really love these varieties, but they are not really good until the are mostly black to even slightly shriveled. 

Spot ate pizza and Chateau Alexandria. He also slept a lot. he has learned to jump on Kay's chair and we fear soon he will be posting himself. And the days of keeping his greenies on the desk are numbered. A cat with a big green fairy on his back. Sad! 

 

Spot eating a greenie, or my fingers. Either that or Bruce from Jaws!

 

[Pat]

Last night we had pork rib chops Milanese (from the D'Artagnan order) with homemade applesauce; homemade cole slaw; steamed broccoli; and, corn on the cob. It felt like a real summer meal, for some reason. I guess it's after Memorial Day, so it's summer, but it doesn't feel like it this year. This is going to be quite a summer .

[Katya4me]

Last night was clean out the fridge fried rice.  Some brown jasmine rice, Italian sausage, 1/2 an onion, some baby carrots, 1 bell pepper, garlic, ginger, 2 eggs scrambled w/ Sriracha, and a spicy soy sauce.  Definitely a nice simple meal to end the weekend. 

[Pat]

Another salad of butter lettuce tonight, tomatoes and avocado, with vinaigrette. We also had baked chicken thighs with herbes de provence, leftover pappardelle with mushrooms, and steamed petite peas. I baked a couple quick loaves of French bread today and we had a few slices of that as well. I spread some of the duck rillettes on mine. I think I'm going to freeze the rest of the rillettes. That's not exactly an everyday food, and I think I've consumed enough for now.

[deangold]

We actually had some last of the Grotto vintage top butt sirloin steaks in the freezer. The last time they came out a little tough so this time, I cooked them in a 250 oven until they registered 115 and then took them out and let them cool. When  we were ready for them, I heated a black steel pan til hot and seared them, lowered the heat  and let them cook to 120 or so. Deglazed the pan as the steaks rested with some of our red, mounted it with butter and added a drop of lime juice to balance. The beef was super and none of the toughness showed with the modified reverse sear. The pan sauce was addictive. Kay and I wiped the bowl with our bread. We have two more pieces partially cooked for a meal tomorrow or Wednesday. 

Started with a salad of local red butter lettuce, lemon & Sichuan scallion oilve oil.

Made a shio koji pickle yesterday from radish greens and some outside leaves of Chinese cabbage, all from Linda Vista farms. Then today, I put the pickle in a bowl and hit it with Tamari and lemon juice. and let it marinate 5 minutes, squeezed the liquid out and served it. Talk about making a tasty dish from what is usually trash. 

Used up last weeks Spinach from Barajas. Sauteed garlic and dumped in the damp spinach. Kept tossing it until some of the leaves were starting to brown. Put in juice of half a lemon and kept turning. When the pan was dry, I added rendered guanciale fat left over from our BLT lunch the other day.

Some Atwater Cheddar. Good not the greatest cheddar but addictive.

Bee's Knee cocktail was an experiment not worth repeating. Kay then made a couple of corpse Reviver #2 with the traditional absinthe. I have taught her well: they were perfect.

With the steak, we enjoyed a bottle of Illuminati Riparosso Montepulciano d'Abrizzo. In my first restaurant job in LA many years ago, the first Italian winemaker I ever met was Dino Illuminati. Last year, his son and grandson came into the Grotto and were amazed that I had met their dad on his first and only trip to the US. The grandson was born in the 90's and I met the grandfather in 1984 or 85, before the kid was born. The bottle was defective. It emptied out faster than we drank it.

 

[Mark Dedrick]

Grilled soft shells and asparagus last night. It was delicious. 

 

[NolaCaine]

I am making Red Beans and Rice. I have three pork products in there so hoping for the best. 

[deangold]

7 minutes ago, NolaCaine said:

I am making Red Beans and Rice. I have three pork products in there so hoping for the best. 

Just three? Hocks, bacon, pork meat & lard would be 4. Tasso 5. Andouille 6. Looks like you are going for the healthy version!

[NolaCaine]

2 hours ago, deangold said:

Just three? Hocks, bacon, pork meat & lard would be 4. Tasso 5. Andouille 6. Looks like you are going for the healthy version!

YOu are so right. THey are bland. bacon; hocks, andouille. Not enough. Needed more ham. Trying family tricks now. WIsh me luck.

[NolaCaine]

3 hours ago, NolaCaine said:

YOu are so right. THey are bland. bacon; hocks, andouille. Not enough. Needed more ham. Trying family tricks now. WIsh me luck.

Good; not great. Still depressed.

[Katya4me]

Dinner tonight was chicken bulgogi with buttery corn over rice.  I really enjoyed the flavors and am looking forward to the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

[deangold]

7 hours ago, Mark Dedrick said:

Grilled soft shells and asparagus last night. It was delicious. 

 

Where did you get them? 

[Mark Dedrick]

2 hours ago, deangold said:

Where did you get them? 

District Fishwife. Second time this Spring I've gotten them from her. 

[dcandohio]

I made a kind of Chinese style dish with ground pork and green beans. In the wok, I cooked some onion and ground pork, then added sesame oil, hot chili oil, garlic, ginger, hot chili paste and five spice powder. When the pork was almost done I threw in a bunch of green beans (frozen from Trader Joe’s). I finished it with a couple of grinds of ma la peppercorns. I served it over brown rice.