Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog

[Pat]

I made a nice salad plate last night -- the last two orange tomatoes I had from the farmers market, each stuffed with salad made from the leftover broiled salmon. I topped each with an olive and plated on a bed of gorgeous huge lettuce leaves from new lettuce from the same market. I scattered some cooked potato cubes that I'd dunked in a little ranch dressing around the leaves. We had this with toasted sourdough and a sausage ravioli casserole.

[Pat]

Last night we had chicken noodle vegetable soup I'd made recently along with turkey Swiss burgers topped with avocado. I mixed some jarred Calabrian chilies and fresh chopped basil into the turkey mixture.

The night before was this recipe from the Dinner: A Love Story blog. I used beet greens and butternut squash. The only hazelnuts I had were part of a TJ's Nuts about Rosemary mix, so I fished enough of them out to toast and then also added some dried rosemary to the squash when roasting it. It came out quite well.

[dcandohio]

We had a little bit of the early effects of hurricane Nicole last night, so my neighbors came over for dinner. Fortunately, my area did not take a direct hit. 
Portuguese sardine pate served with crudites and crackers. 
Baked tilapia topped with artichoke (mashed with lots of garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, breadcrumbs, basil, psrsley, good Parmesan cheese).

Tillamook Coffee almond fudge ice cream. By the way, for the price, Tillamook ice cream is a very nice product. 

[Pat]

Seeking to use a bag of Asian greens I bought at the farmers market, I made this Food Network recipe for Udon with Tofu and Asian Greens last night. I only had about 6 1/2 oz. of those greens, so I added in about 4 oz. of baby kales I'd also gotten at the same stand. It was excellent.

We had this with the remaining few lamb rib chops from a rack of lamb. I made a small amount of yogurt/lemon/feta sauce for the chops. This kind of undermined the vegan aspect of the meal, but the small amount of lamb made a nice companion to tofu, greens, and noodles.

[Pat]

Air fryer Chicken Parmesan with leftover sausage ravioli casserole, steamed broccoli, and sourdough bread.

[Pat]

Last night was a improvised leftoverish meal, plus baguette slices with butter and/or hummus. I cooked up some expired wild rice mix before it got too aged. I cooked it in some beef "Better than Bouillon" and threw in sauteed button mushrooms, leftover fried tofu cubes, leftover scrambled eggs and chopped scallions and green tops. I also squeezed in a good amount of sriracha. Quite good for what it was.

[dcandohio]

Taco Tuesday! I had chicken birria in the freezer, and I cooked up a batch of “gringo style” ground beef taco meat. Served both on hard shells (guest request) accompanied by quick pickled vegetables, curtido, and the usual accompaniments: cilantro, cheese, sour cream, jalapeños, lettuce. 

[dcandohio]

I finally got around to making post Thanksgiving turkey noodle soup out of the leftover turkey, gravy, meat and stock. It was pretty simple, with carrots and celery, and Dutch egg noodles (Kluski brand). The stock was already highly seasoned, so it only required a little more sage and thyme, salt, and some Tabasco.  It is still really too hot here to be appropriate for soup, but it was very enjoyable. 

[Pat]

Tonight was leftover ravioli, salt bagel, air fryer bbq salmon and broccoli.

Last night was Balsamic fig roasted brussels sprouts, toasted sourdough, and Stachowski's chicken, apple, and wine brats over frizzled radicchio.

[Pat]

Last night was the last of the beans, greens, and wings from Thanksgiving, with the last couple slices of pork tenderloin from the same meal. It was accompanied by noodles and cheese, my version of the kugel-ish casserole my Armenian MIL made the whole time my husband and his sister were growing up.

Tonight I am making meatballs (pork & beef) that we will have with the last bit of the leftover ravioli and some of the leftover noodles and cheese. I wanted to make spaghetti for the meatballs,  but that seemed extremely redundant. I feel like I should also make a salad but don't have the energy, so probably not.

[Pat]

Last night was St. Louis spare ribs with cheese grits and a roasted romanesco with pesto. I love the white grits TJ's used to have. They have been discontinued, and I have very little of my stash left.

The night before was Instantpot beef stew from flanken ribs and a bunch of root vegetables (white sweet potato, red potato, onion, yellow and orange carrots, parsnips, and turnips); sourdough bread, and shrimp with cocktail sauce.

[Pat]

Last night I made a recipe I found a few years ago via Joy the Baker, for a pasta dish with braised chicken and mushrooms. It's quite good but takes a long time to make. There are too many detailed steps, and at some point a while back I was trying to find a way to streamline the process. It just doesn't seem like it needs to be as complicated as it is, but it's delicious. (I buy the Pipe Rigate pasta at Whole Foods. Cool shape.) We had it with a strange but good salad of marinated gigande beans over celery leaves, and we also had whole wheat sourdough bread.

Tonight I am making pork again because I bought apple butter at the farmer's market last week before it closes for the season and had seen this recipe. We will have leftover cheese grits with it and fig walnut bread.

[dcandohio]

After a spell of very little cooking, and even less entertaining, friends came over after a theater matinee last night for an indoor picnic: Bloody Mary deviled eggs, Caprese skewers, curry chicken salad with slider rolls, lentil and artichoke salad, assorted Macarons from Trader Joe’s. I prepared everything in advance, so that when we arrived home from the theater, I just set out all of the platters, and everyone helped themselves.
 

[Katya4me]

Coming back from 3 weeks of vacation, the fridge was pretty empty.  On Friday, hubby made a batch of Spicy Garlic Udon Noodles and while the tofu didn't crisp up, it was very good.  Yesterday, for future meals, we made Mushroom & Butternut Squash Fettuccine Alfredo, most of the squash squashed when stirred, but very tasty.  For dinner last night, we went with a reliable stand-by, Sushi Bake and it was very good. 

[Pat]

Tonight is low effort. Salad. Pre-cooked shrimp to use the last of the cocktail sauce. Beef burgundy from the freezer over buttered pappardelle with chopped parsley. Roasted romanesco with the last of the pesto from the last romanesco I made.

[Katya4me]

We had some leftover produce in the fridge, so I made Butternut Squash Chili for dinner last night.  Topped it off with cubed avocado and crushed plantain chips for a nice easy meal. 

[Pat]

Last night was Caesar salad, sourdough bread, broiled cod loin (w/seasoned lemon butter & various cracker crumbs), and...frozen mixed vegetables, the last of a package I keep around for soup. Kind of fell down at the finish line there. Cod from District Fishwife was, as could be expected, excellent quality.

[Katya4me]

Last night was Salt and Pepper Tofu over white rice.  I'd been craving carryout and this was the perfect substitute.  

[Pat]

Christmas Eve menu:
Where’s Linus Rosé 2021
Jasper Hill Farm Conundrum Cheese
Atwater Rye Crackers
Rice-Stuffed Grape Leaves
Bacon-Wrapped Filet Mignon
    ~ Quince Mustard
    ~ Sautéed Mushrooms & Shallots
Rice Pilaf
Christmas Cookies & Meringues

The wine was from DCanter. We had it at Thanksgiving and they kindly ordered me some more because they no longer had any in stock when I went back to resupply. I had originally stumbled upon it when I was in there and asked if they had anything they'd recommend as a Fall rosé. Being most definitely not an oenophile, I had no idea if such a thing existed. They pointed to a few and I picked this one because I liked the name (), label   (), and price point (about $25). It hits a perfect spot as a lighter-bodied red wine. It does not look like a rosé and is not sweet.

My husband's family traditionally has the grape leaves at holidays, but I haven't made any in quite some time. I picked these up at Wine & Butter, and they are a worthwhile substitute. The family also always has to have pilaf for holidays. I made a very large batch and added pine nuts as well as the noodles. I usually just add noodles, but it's Christmas!

The beef was from Harvey's at Union Market and was excellent. I brushed some of the mustard (from the same order from Jasper Hill as the cheese) around the center of the tenderloin roast and used that to adhere the bacon to the meat. That more or less worked but adding a toothpick or two would have been a good idea.

[Pat]

Christmas dinner reprised the wine, cheese, and crackers/bread. We also had roasted eggplant soup from a recipe I've made several times this year. The meat was an Instant Pot lamb shoulder (with anchovies in the mix) and more of the rice pilaf. More cookies for dessert.

I'd planned a salad but got behind (even though it's a quick prep), so that got moved to last night, along with the last of the wine and cheese. The main was leftover broiled cod with mixed vegetables and rice pilaf. The salad was Endive Spears with White Bean Radicchio Salad, from Sunset Magazine. It makes a lot more filling than I had large endive leaves, so we'll be eating it for a while, but it was quick and delicious. Finding the endive and radicchio in a store was the hardest part.

[saf]

Where have you been Sarah? Well, cooking, but also dealing with so much crazy! 

So let's just hop back in with Christmas dinner! We had pork tenderloin marinated in soy sauce, bourbon, and brown sugar, with a mustard and egg cream sauce, mini twice baked potatoes, broccoli/cauliflower salad, moroccan carrots, and parker hose rolls.

Apps were cheese, pate, sausage, gougeres, spiced nuts, and other small snacky things.

Dessert was a yule log, eggnog ice cream, candy cane ice cream. Second dessert was cookies and eggnog.

10 people, and so much fun!

Tonight was black bean and smoked sausage soup from the freezer, with corn muffins, and of course, salad. Later there will be leftover Christmas cookies and ice cream for dessert. (One of our Christmas guests is still here - so much fun to have her here. But it means I have to up my dinner game a bit!)

[Pat]

I made quesadillas with most of the leftover Christmas lamb for dinner last night. Cheeses were chevre, feta, and mozzarella. I seasoned the mixture with some Calabrian chili oil and gochujang and added sliced radishes as well. We had this with more of the leftover Belgian endive salad. The quesadillas came out great.

Emptying the dishwasher before dinner, I set one of my favorite Corning casseroles (from a set-- in the 80s, I think?) on what turned out to be an unstable surface😖. Now I have to decide if it's worth buying a replacement used at a steep price. The lid crashed to the floor too and is perfectly fine, so I don't have to buy one with a lid. Have too much kitchen stuff. But that's such a useful little casserole...

[dcandohio]

Last night my neighbors and I made Lithuanian farmers cheese from unpasteurized milk. It is a long process, but not extremely effortful. The curds have to drain for a while by hanging from a string, and then the cheese has to be weighted for about 10 hours. We used caraway seeds because that’s what my friend remembered from his childhood. It came out like a mild farmers cheese, with a consistency like goat cheese. 

[Pat]

For New Year's Eve:
Cornbread
Endive Spears with White Bean Radicchio Salad
Instant Pot Braised Turkey Thighs
Rice Pilaf

New Year's Day Dinner:
Cornbread
Collards with Black-Eyed Peas and Salt Pork
Macaroni and Cheese

I used some cornbread crumbs to top the mac and cheese. The cheeses were Vault No. 5 Cheddar from Jasper Hill Farm, the last of a piece of Port Salut, and a few oz. of Monterey Jack left from making nachos a few days ago. It was a really good, melty combination. The Port Salut stood out just enough to give it a distinctive flavor. I will have to remember that one.

Did the collards and peas in the InstantPot. I used 2 bunches of collards and probably should have only used 1-to- 1  1/2.

I made the turkey thighs for NYE that I couldn't find for Thanksgiving. Whole Foods now has a bountiful supply. Go figure 🤷‍♀️. This was the recipe. The sauce was too good to discard and there's quite a bit left, so I'm going to use it over some spaghetti squash later in the week, I think.

[dcandohio]

The neighbors came for dinner last night after we had gone on an excursion to the outer suburbs to go to the Asian grocery store. I made a soup out of chicken stock, which I simmered with ginger and garlic, and then added five spice powder, white pepper, ponzu and soy sauce. Then I threw in bunches of bok choy, and mini chicken cilantro dumplings from Trader Joe’s.

I also made chicken Larb, served on a salad of romaine and cabbage. I had made the toasted rice powder a couple of days ahead of time, and once you have that on hand, throwing larb together is really simple. 

[Pat]

Last night:
Spaghetti squash casserole with turkey meatballs & leftover sauce from braised turkey thighs; grated Parmesan
Leftover mac and cheese

 

[Pat]

Last night we had leftover pot roast, a meal I apparently didn't note here when I first made it a few days ago. It  was a 4 lb. piece of chuck from Costco that had been in the freezer for a while cooked in the InstantPot with yellow carrots and various aging potatoes. (Basically this recipe, adjusted for the size of the roast.) The broth was really good. I reheated it with some peas and riso pasta added.

We had this with whole wheat sourdough bread from Le Pain Quotidien and salted Kerrygold butter, as well as a salad (iceberg, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, plum tomatoes, red onion, and Marcona almonds) with TJ's fig balsamic vinaigrette.

[Katya4me]

Last night was Shepherd pie, vegan style.  Added a couple of tablespoons of harissa to the veggies and it was perfect for us. Perfect winter comfort food and definitely a keeper.

[Pat]

Last night was salad (iceberg lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, plum tomatoes, and red onion), whole wheat sourdough and Kerrygold butter, and a sausage and kale soup with gnocchi.

[saf]

Been a week of things from the freezer again. But potato pancakes tonight! With breakfast sausage, applesauce, sour cream. And of course, salad to start. So tasty!

[Katya4me]

Tonight was cleaning out the fridge. We had some rice cakes in there, along with some bacon, bell peppers, 2 kinds of mushrooms, onions, green onions, shredded carrots and half a pack of extra firm tofu. Hubby chopped everything up and made a stir fry while I put together a sauce, using up other ingredients in the fridge.  Ended up tasty quite good for a somewhat random meal.

[Pat]

12 hours ago, Katya4me said:

Ended up tasty quite good for a somewhat random meal.

I love putting together meals like that. And it feels virtuous making sure nothing gets wasted.

Last night I made a recipe from the Dinner: A Love Story blog. For some reason I had stopped reading it in recent years, but I've always found solid recipes there.

This Chicken and Vinegar was delicious. I made about half a recipe (which was 4 thighs). I only used one onion but kept the other sauce ingredients the same, except for using only 4 Tbsp. vinegar. Instead of making a kale salad, I chopped up half a bunch of kale I had and tossed that into the pan right at the end for a few minutes, along with a generous splash of chicken broth. I had the broth out to prepare the brown rice that accompanied the chicken, and it upped the amount of liquid in the dish by just the right amount. We also had sourdough whole wheat bread.

[saf]

Cauliflower soup (from the freezer) tonight, with some leftover baguette. Also, salad.

[Katya4me]

Tonight was refried beans quesadillas, baked in the oven. I had a bit of bbq sauce to use up, so mixed it with the beans and then used up the last of a bottle of salsa for dipping. Yum.

[Pat]

We had stuffed portobellos tonight, roughly based on this recipe. The filling was ground turkey, seasonings (garlic, cumin, dried oregano, cayenne, chili powder, ancho chile powder, and sweet paprika), and Trader Joe's Autentica Salsa.

The original recipe called for 14 oz. of crushed tomatoes. I only had a larger can and didn't want to open it, so went to the salsa, which matched the flavor profile of the seasonings. It was in the refrigerator and mostly full (probably 10 - 11 oz.) I added a couple of ounces of water to the jar to clean it out and get closer to the right amount of liquid. Stuffed mushrooms were served with leftover brown rice and garnished with minced celery leaves. This was spicy--very good and definitely spicy.

The rest of the meal was chickpea salad, pita from Yellow, and caramelized onion hummus from Little Sesame. Two totally different cuisines but it made for a great meal.

[dcandohio]

We are having a fairly severe cold snap for this part of the world, so I used the opportunity to make a pot of 15 bean soup. I had cut chunks of ham from a beautiful baked Christmas ham and had them in the freezer. The ham went into the beans with shallots, garlic, celery, thyme, parsley, basil and chicken stock. Perfect on a cold day.

[Pat]

Years ago (like close to 40), I used to make a version of Fettuccine Alfredo with sour cream that I saw a recipe for somewhere. Then I began adding some vegetables to it for a hybrid Alfredo primavera. I had not thought of it or made it in many years and recently got the urge to make it. Apparently I never saved a copy because I could not find the recipe anywhere in my files. So I browsed some recipes online and relied on my memory for the rest.

It came out really well! I used peas, two colors of carrots, and broccoli. I had heavy cream so used that in a 1:2 ratio with the sour cream. I tried to go as light as I could on the super heavy fats and managed to get the right amount and consistency of sauce. I garnished it with parsley and toasted sliced almonds. (I always used the almonds for the primavera.)

We had this with a baguette and butter and a big green salad.

[Pat]

Leftovers tonight (salad, curried spinach and tofu, more baguette) plus newly cooked brown rice. My husband also had some Costco lobster bisque.

[Katya4me]

Dinner tonight was Shepherd Pie, from a Serious Eats recipe that has disappeared from their site.  Ground beef and potatoes, but you cook the frozen peas with diced jalapenos for a nice little kick in the middle layer.

[Pat]

I made a version of this Coconut Curry Salmon last night. I omitted the garlic butter sauce, which seemed like gilding the lily (and a lot of extra fat), but I added some garlic into the sauce with the ginger. The Costco fillet I had was 1 3/4 lbs, so I coated and broiled the whole thing for 5 minutes and then cut half of it and put in the sauce. Will do something else with the mostly cooked other half (or maybe finish it in the remaining sauce, which I kept).

I scaled back the sauce ingredients (largely due to the enormous amount of sodium) but went a little too hot on that. It was still good, but the consistency was wrong. That was probably because I used lite coconut milk instead of the full fat called for.

While I like the concept of the recipe, and it mostly came out well, it wasn't a raging success. Some of this is obviously because I deviated from the recipe. It was very pretty on a platter, garnished with cilantro.

We had this with yet more baguette, leftover brown rice, and baked sweet potato.

 

[Pat]

Tonight was leftover fettuccine, herb focaccia from the Ravenhook stand at Eastern Market, and a salad (green leaf lettuce, grape and pear tomatoes, sliced red onion, cucumber, radishes, Marcona almonds, and croutons made from the last of the baguette).

[Katya4me]

Didn't have rice last night, but made these bowls anyway with some some thread noodles.  Ate half last night and other half will be leftovers for lunch tomorrow. 

[Pat]

I made the Chicken and Vinegar again last night, same as last time except for going to the full 6 Tbsp. vinegar. It was a bit too much. I'll be sticking with 4 Tbsp. in the future, but this recipe is a keeper.

We had it with leftover brown rice, Pain de Campagne from Ravenhook, and cornbread stuffed mushrooms.

I'm not even really sure what I did with the mushrooms--a little of this, a little of that. I was trying to use the rest of some bacon cornbread that had been in the fridge for some time, most recently just as crumbs I was adding to things. That wasn't using enough, so I decided it would make a good mushroom stuffing, just large white mushrooms from Costco. The most daring addition was pickled jalapenos. They didn't come through as a distinct flavor and blended with everything else, so I guess I used the right amount.

[Pat]

It took a lot longer to make a taco spread for dinner than I counted on. So much for planning an easy meal out of leftovers   It didn't even use all the leftovers 🤷‍♀️. And I made a ton of guacamole for some reason. I hope it keeps a few days.

Chicken Tacos
Salmon Tacos
Cilantro, radishes, Frontera tomatillo salsa, chopped tomato, chopped scallions, guacamole, sour cream, and flour tortillas
Brown Rice
Pinto Beans

[Pat]

Last night was guacamole and tortilla chips, salad (green leaf lettuce, cucumber, grape tomatoes, red onion, radishes, and Marcona almonds), leftover stuffed mushrooms, and stuffed focaccia.

I sliced the last of the herb focaccia horizontally and topped the inner halves with sauteed button mushrooms, salami, fresh basil, and goat cheese and drizzled with evoo. Then I put them back together. Pressed the bread down panini-style with a bacon press, wrapped tightly in foil, and heated in a 425 oven for 20 minutes. It came out pretty well, except cutting through it was complicated a bit by the salami slices. Maybe a pizza cutter would have been better than a knife. It was a reasonably successful experiment.

[Pat]

There was still some of the coconut curry salmon left. The fish itself has been excellent, despite the sauce not being quite what I hoped. I reheated the remainder of it in a new sauce, which my husband loved.

I did an impromptu take on my favorite vegetable dish from the late Red Sea in Adams Morgan, collards with spiced cottage cheese, more an homage than anything faithful.  (I can never remember the name of the dish, but I'm seeing it called Ayib Be Gomen, so I guess that's what it is.) 

I made it with spinach, which I simmered in the last of the coconut milk I had open, with the (mostly drained) cottage cheese, and a couple splashes of heavy cream. I seasoned it with berbere and a pinch of hot pepper flakes. Once that was well along, I put the remaining salmon into the saute pan, curry powder side down, so the curry also seasoned the sauce. It all simmered together for a while. The timing was basically that I wanted to make sure I lifted it out before the fish fell apart, and I managed it. There was a little too much liquid (again, but probably due to the lite coconut milk being thin), but it was delicious.

I made myself a salmon patty with the excess pieces of salmon I'd previously broken into chunks to use in tacos. That was also excellent. Curry powder on salmon is really good. I would probably never have come up with that myself.

We had this with toasted Pain de Campagne and green beans amandine

[saf]

13 hours ago, Pat said:

Last night was guacamole

Guacamole is the best. I love taquitos. The boy likes them (never had them before me), but does admit he sees them as an excuse for a guacamole pig-feast. (The only way he will eat avocados, and he will eat ALL the guacamole if you are not fast.)

I tried a new recipe today - ginger tofu. Nope. Like all the flavors in it, but too much of all of them, and the tofu texture was weird. The salad was good?

Made some fun pizza earlier this week. That's always good. Also, salad.

[Katya4me]

Made skillet noodles tonight.  We didn't hold hard to keeping them vegan and ended up doubling the recipe. Came together as easily as promised and looking forward to eating it more for lunch tomorrow.  

[dcandohio]

I found turkey breasts in the organic market that were halved. The price was right, so I bought two, and used butter and a liberal amount of one of the Trader Joe’s seasonings before I roasted them. I think I let them go a bit too long because they were kind of dry, but it was a nice meal with spinach and roasted potatoes.
However, the curried turkey salad the next day was delicious! So note to self, when they are cheap, buy them, roast them, and make turkey salad. 

[Pat]

I made eggplant involtini last night. It came out really well. I put a couple skinless boneless chicken breasts into the marinara sauce in the casserole dish and cooked them along with the eggplant. It made a great one pan meal. We had this with leftover green beans, more salad, and sourdough bread