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Baby back ribs: Made a dry rub of brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and ginger. Seasoned the ribs and rubbed them this morning. Covered tightly with foil and put them in the oven; will baste with sauce towards the end. (I'm a city-dweller with no grill; much as it shames my father's grilling honor that his daughter doesn't have a grill, these come out darn good from the oven.)

Mustard-vinegar slaw: shredded red and green cabbage, carrots, broccoli stems, and red bell pepper, chopped scallion, tossed with a vinaigrette of Dijon mustard and white balsamic.

Warm ciabatta and extra BBQ sauce (not homemade; I ran out of time)

Too bad the plus-one won't be home for another hour...it smells goooood in here.

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Blue corn muffins

Fried pork chops

Roasted fingerling potatoes with coarse sea salt

Green beans and carrots with bacon

Ah, the muffins :huh:. I recently mail-ordered blue cornmeal from Barry Farm as part of an order focused on Israeli couscous, which the Old Town Whole Foods no longer carries. Someone just returned from a trip to NM gifted me with a bag of roasted green Hatch chilies today. Since they were on the hot side, I peeled, seeded, and chopped two small ones and added to half of the muffins. Whoa, good. One of the two test muffins was hotter than the other, but that seems par for the variable course with chile heat.

I was very happy with my customer service experience with Barry Farm. They didn't have one of the things I ordered and called right away to try to work on a solution. I recommend them highly, even though the only product I've used thus far is the blue cornmeal :rolleyes: (Oh, and they told me my order would be delayed by a couple of days because they were waiting for the cornmeal to come from the mill.)

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Coho salmon steak on bed of sorrel sauce

Potato and heirloom tomato gratin

Haricots verts w lemon

Fat Bastard Merlot from the fridge

Raspberries w mascarpone forever

Leleboo, I used your method instead of poaching and was glad I did. Forgot I had a little sorrel left. Good combination. As for the gratin, the first time I made it, a friend and I gasped at how good it was. First tastes of really good dishes are like that. However, it is rare that repeats aren't disappointing; you're remembering how great you thought it was, and now that the surprise is gone, you're just not as impressed. This gratin remains one of the best things I have ever eaten.

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Leleboo, I used your method instead of poaching and was glad I did. Forgot I had a little sorrel left. Good combination. As for the gratin, the first time I made it, a friend and I gasped at how good it was. First tastes of really good dishes are like that. However, it is rare that repeats aren't disappointing; you're remembering how great you thought it was, and now that the surprise is gone, you're just not as impressed. This gratin remains one of the best things I have ever eaten.

I'm glad it worked for you! And I want to try that gratin now. (Well, not right now, as I'm so stuffed with ribs, but you know what I mean...)

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Blue corn muffins

Fried pork chops

Roasted fingerling potatoes with coarse sea salt

Green beans and carrots with bacon

Grilled chorizo from the Fairfax farmer's market on freshly baked crusty rolls

Chimichurri

Mixed salad, also with chimichurri

Baby back ribs: Made a dry rub of brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and ginger. Seasoned the ribs and rubbed them this morning. Covered tightly with foil and put them in the oven; will baste with sauce towards the end. (I'm a city-dweller with no grill; much as it shames my father's grilling honor that his daughter doesn't have a grill, these come out darn good from the oven.)

Mustard-vinegar slaw: shredded red and green cabbage, carrots, broccoli stems, and red bell pepper, chopped scallion, tossed with a vinaigrette of Dijon mustard and white balsamic.

Warm ciabatta and extra BBQ sauce (not homemade; I ran out of time)

Pan-roasted pork tenderloin with tamarind pear chutney

Sauteed kale with garlic

Homer: Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. Lisa honey, are you

saying you're *never* going to eat any animal again? What about

bacon?

Lisa: No.

Homer: Ham?

Lisa: No.

Homer: Pork chops?

Lisa: Dad! Those all come from the same animal!

Homer: [Chuckles] Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Magical indeed! :rolleyes:

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After a bit of gnashing of teeth and angst, we decided to introduce meat and fish into BLToddler's diet. (Although technically he snatched a hunk of prosciutto off my plate at Dino a few weeks ago.)

Dinner the last two nights was spiral pasta, salmon and artichoke hearts with lemon and as much parmesan as his little heart desired and could shake out of the huge container we have from Costco.

He announced as I was putting dinner together that he liked salmon but not artichoke hears. He actually looked for salmon chunks in the dish to grab and eat. And he had a few tastes of the artichoke too..

He liked it so much that he asked for it for breakfast this morning.

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Seared sea scallops

Sautéed green and wax beans with shallots, pancetta, and diced tomato

Pearled couscous with garlic, parsley, and oregano

Unoaked chardonnay for me, beer for the boys...

Vesper

The first time Mr. M made a Vesper, he and his friend ended up on the floor. :rolleyes: Amazingly, he wasn't put off them completely, and managed to go through the whole bottle of Lillet Blanc in record time (under four months, I think).

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today my daughter, who is home from college for the weekend, asked me to teach her how to cook fish. she has been living off-campus, and has been doing a fair amount of cooking for herself and her friends. she has mostly been making vegetarian dishes, although she has been eating meat again, because many of her friends are vegetarians. but she says she wants to learn how to cook some meat dishes, and wanted to start with fish. her current "sort-of" boyfriend works in a fish market, and can get good product for her.

so, we did a "smorgasbord" of fish/shellfish for dinner, using different techniques: slow-roasted salmon, trout en papillote, pan sauteed fluke/flounder and moules marinieres. all very simple techniques and she was very happy with the results. I also showed her how to make polenta with fresh corn, but we ended up deciding to save that for tomorrow--to have as polenta cakes. so we had the fish and mussels with a simple mesclun salad and some bread.

and a 2008 Montes sauvignon blanc.

<kvell>

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Chicken chile soup with blue potatoes

Tortilla chips and sour cream

Blue corn muffins

The soup was pretty much a tortilla soup, except with potatoes. I used more of the new Hatch chilies and managed to get the heat right. (It took 6 to be just hot enough but not too much.)

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cooked dinner with my daughter, who is now eager to have me teach her! :)*

this followed a trip to Sur La Table in the afternoon, where I bought her a 12" Lodge cast iron skillet--her first serious piece of cooking equipment. and I bought her a couple of good whisks (see below).

homemade ricotta on crostini with fresh tomato--then lightly browned in the oven

Eco-Friendly spicy Italian sausages with fennel, onions and roasted lipstick peppers, Reggiano and fresh basil

fresh corn polenta

plum upside down cake with creme chantilly

2005 Flavium crianza

*a story she told me yesterday, to illustrate how serious she is about cooking now: she had a recipe and had gathered all of the ingredients to make tiramisu at a friend's house. there was neither electric mixer nor whisk in the house. so she beat egg whites to stiff peaks, and whipped heavy cream WITH A FORK. this is a kid who didn't lift a finger in the kitchen, except to stick a frozen tamale in the microwave, for the first eighteen years of her life. how amazing is that?! :rolleyes::huh:

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Roasted organic chicken (made a compound butter with rosemary, sage, parsley, lemon zest, garlic, s&p) and baby potatoes (also tossed with the butter)

Steamed asparagus with lemon

a fairly nice, cheap Côtes du Rhône

more chocolates from Maison du Chocolate. My aunt sends us boxes for Jewish New Year (don't ask about the logic here; there is none, other than chocolate is at least nominally "sweet") and we're still working our way through them.

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...this is a kid who didn't lift a finger in the kitchen, except to stick a frozen tamale in the microwave, for the first eighteen years of her life. how amazing is that?! :rolleyes::huh:

Wonderful!

In contrast, I've been on my own for dinner the past two nights, so I've been indulging in French butter pears and goats' milk brie. The pears are remarkably good for something that I bought on a whim at Harris Teeter just because I liked the name. (How can "French butter" anything be bad?) The cheese was from the Pentagon City Costco. I usually drive farther to Springfield to avoid the stressed-out crowds at Pentagon City, but I do think they have a better assortment of cheese and wine at that location.

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cooked dinner with my daughter, who is now eager to have me teach her! :)*

*a story she told me yesterday, to illustrate how serious she is about cooking now: she had a recipe and had gathered all of the ingredients to make tiramisu at a friend's house. there was neither electric mixer nor whisk in the house. so she beat egg whites to stiff peaks, and whipped heavy cream WITH A FORK. this is a kid who didn't lift a finger in the kitchen, except to stick a frozen tamale in the microwave, for the first eighteen years of her life. how amazing is that?! :rolleyes::huh:

That has to be very gratifying for you! Everything you modelled all those years clearly made an impact and is now manifesting. My children are all in their 20s now and I have come to realize that how they were as kids has very little relation to who they are now. I'm constantly astonished by their grown-up attitudes and tastes. My daughter, whose teenage bedroom looked like a bomb went off, now complains to me about her roommates, who she considers to be slobs! My son, who wouldn't eat a vegetable as a kid, now eats salads every day!

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Mr. MV and I enjoyed a lovely week in the OBX last week. I cooked a couple meals that would stretch throughout our stay. I made a batch of chili and roasted lemon and rosemary chicken. This was my first "Smart Chicken", bought from Harris Teeter. Even though I erred on the side of caution and cooked it a bit longer than I normally would (strange oven/no thermometer) it came out juicy and delicious. I am a fan of this chicken.

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With no roasting rack (plus I didn't feel like buying carrots, celery on onions to rest the chicken on), I used a few wooden crab hammers that were in a drawer. It worked ok!

The chicken was first served with broccoli rabe with lemon, and sauteed 'shrooms.

The leftovers made for a soul-satisfying blue plate special open-faced sandwich.

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I used a jar of Boston Market chicken gravy along with the pan juices after allowing the fat to solidify and removing. For the pan juices, I didn't have chicken stock, but happened to bring along mushroom boullion (Star ai funghi porcini) which I combined with hot water to used for basting-oooo-mommy!

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With no roasting rack (plus I didn't feel like buying carrots, celery on onions to rest the chicken on), I used a few wooden crab hammers that were in a drawer. It worked ok!

I love kitchenovations. :rolleyes:

Pan seared mahi-mahi with southeast Asian-style pan sauce and heirloom cherry tomatoes

Spicy broccoli with garlic and brown butter (shaved stem pieces, too!)

Wild rice with yet more garlic

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With no roasting rack (plus I didn't feel like buying carrots, celery on onions to rest the chicken on), I used a few wooden crab hammers that were in a drawer. It worked ok!

Another no-rack-no-veg roasting trick is to set the chicken on a slab of ciabatta or similar rustic bread. The bread soaks up the juices and can be cut up and portioned out to the diners or just be the cook's treat.
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Started with cheddar corn chowder with pea pesto crostini (oh hell, I toasted slices of an old baguette from the freezer). I brought back about 10 ears of white corn from a Harris Teeter in Outer Banks. Ears were .25 cents a piece, and so damn sweet that I thought to buy a bunch to make chowder that will last over the winter. Costco flank steak with lemon broccoli and herb salad. Lots of chunky blue cheese was sprinkled on the steak and the salad.

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(oh hell, I toasted slices of an old baguette from the freezer).

I do that all the time! I won't tell if you won't. :rolleyes:

(And it all looked fantastic. More blue cheese please?

For me: Comfort food night.

Stuffed mushrooms (wih ground turkey); braised brussels sprouts (shallots, white wine, veg stock). Cotes du Ventoux.

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Corn Cob Melee Soup (corn cob stock, CSA yellow squash and zucchini, sauteed onion, a punch of apple cider vinegar, dried oregano, sweet CSA basil, Penzey's adobo seasoning for some smokiness, salt, pepper, all immersion blended hence the melee)

Garlic and Dill Bay Scallops (thank you lemon for your elevating brightness)

Roasted Sweet Potato (CSA)

Saffron Rice (simple basmati cooked in chicken broth and Spanish saffron in the fuzzy logic love machine)

Honey Fried Apples (CSA honey, candied ginger, Divine Desserts fennel pollen, three varieties of CSA apples)

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Asparagus and mushroom paella

2008 Pikes White Mullet

I really like Bittman's oven method for vegetable paellas. Everything gets nice and roasty with concentrated flavor. This was the third paella I've made using this method, and it's the first time I got the rice really crusty on the bottom. You have to put it back on the stove for a few minutes, but it's well worth the effort.

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first Carpano Antica Formula/Woodford Reserve Manhattans of the season

baby romaine salad with cuke, avocado, tomato and buttermilk blue cheese dressing

Eco-Friendly chicken herb brined for 24 hours, dried in the fridge for 48 hours, then spatchcocked, rubbed with EVO and spice blend and grill-roasted over charcoal with hickory smoke chips. chicken just doesn't get any better than this.

W. VA cranberry beans stewed with aromatics and Jamie Stachowski's smoked duck sausage--unbelievably good

creamed corn

pear crisp with B&J's vanilla ice cream

2006 Dom. DuPeuble Pere et Fils Beaujolais

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Lamb bruschetta

Leftover salmon

White rice and steamed zucchini

The bruschetta came about because I realized I had a few tiny chops left from a rack of lamb. It had been cooked a little longer than I planned originally, and I didn't just want to reheat as is because it would have been way overdone. I was going to use the almost stale baguette for garlic bread but decided to try a bruschetta instead. Searching online did not yield much in the way of recipes, so I swung for the fences.

I heated minced lamb cut off the chops with chopped roasted garlic, chopped red onion, s + p, minced parsley and the last of some cojito cheese, crumbled. I figured the best way to heat this without overcooking and/or drying it out was a brief burst in the microwave. I toasted bagette slices in the oven, rubbed with cut garlic, and drizzled with evoo. Then I mounded with the lamb mixture. Very good.

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After a totally crazy week, I finally get to cook again tonight.

Red-wine braised short ribs, served with gremolata

Roasted garlic mashed (er, more like smashed -- I like them lumpy) baby red potatoes

Roasted brussels sprouts and shallots

Cabernet sauvignon

Thank goodness for fall and Fridays.

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After a totally crazy week, I finally get to cook again tonight.

Red-wine braised short ribs, served with gremolata

Roasted garlic mashed (er, more like smashed -- I like them lumpy) baby red potatoes

Roasted brussels sprouts and shallots

Cabernet sauvignon

Thank goodness for fall and Fridays.

ETA: Wow that large version -- at least for me -- is huge. Like. blur-tastic huge. Sorry. iPhone photography and all...I need to bring the Nikon 6006 back into play.

Edited by leleboo
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dinner for out-of-town friends

manhattans

roasted mission figs wrapped in La Quercia prosciutto

Jamie Stachowski's paté with cornichons

camembert

roasted kabocha squash and fennel soup

2007 Macon Loche chardonnay

charcoal mixed grill: yogurt marinated Eco-Friendly goat sirloin chops, Jamie Stachowski merguez sausages, rack of lamb (Australian)

roasted eggplant relish (with roasted red pepper, capers, olives, roasted garlic, anchovy, parsley, lemon, red wine vinegar, urfa pepper, cumin)

green beans with roasted garlic and lemon

saffron basmati pilaf

2006 Clio Jumilla

plum upside down cake with whipped cream

Peet's espresso

Belle Brillat pear liqueur

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