Jump to content

Dinner - The Polyphonic Food Blog


JPW

Recommended Posts

My Mom came home from the hospital last night so our delayed Thanksgiving meal took place today. Yeah! Needless to say we were all thankful to be able to be celebrating together.

Mr. S cooked the turkey in the Big Green Egg, with hickory wood chips and a tasty rub. The house still has a lingering smell reminiscent of bacon. Mmmmn.:( Basic stuffing, both white and sweet baked potatoes, with sugar snap peas and spinach as sides. Fresh chestnuts, jellied cranberry sauce and previously frozen cranberry relish (from an NPR recipe) accompanied. No time for pie; we had to make do with what was in the freezer already, Lemon Sorbet and Blueberry and Cream frozen yogurt. We had the turkey defrosting last week but did not continue with making anything else so the rest was done "on the fly." Not bad for an unplanned thrown together meal! And I'm looking forward to leftovers for lunch next week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A weird dinner. Part one was potato and collard pancakes/patties, and about a half hour later, part two was pumpkin bread hot from the oven with pumpkin butter right off the stove. Part two included seconds and maybe thirds. A friend warned me that pumpkins can rot from the inside, and I listened (perhaps when I should not have) and roasted the biggest calabaza tonight. It was fine, and now I have both tasty pumpkin products and another five cups of pulp for the freezer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All leftovers:

Cranberry-walnut bread with fig spread

Cavatappi alla vodka

Turkey wings reheated in turkey broth

Mashed potatoes

Green beans

The cavatappi was served as a small pasta course before the rest of the meal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

mushroom*/barley soup**

HD vanilla i.c. with Valrhona hot chocolate sauce and marcona almonds

Bell's two hearted ale

*crimini, dried black trumpet, oyster and porcini

**Rachael Ray would call this a "stewp" or "stoup"--it was made with smoked turkey stock, and also had diced turkey, cannelini beans, leftover creamed pearl onions and roasted kabocha squash in it. Secret ingredients: dry marsala, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whole wheat penne and edamame in a radish leaf and arugula pesto. I'm out of pine nuts so I used pistachios. I'll do that again.

Pistachios are great in pesto. I came across a recipe years ago using them and wondered why I'd never thought of it before. It can take a while to shell enough nuts to use, though, especially if you eat them as you work :(. I prefer that to buying already shelled ones, since those are too easy to eat.

Last night:

Toasted cranberry-walnut bread with fig spread

Turkey-cranberry relish salad over butter lettuce

Turkey-vegetable soup with wild mushrooms

It didn't seem like we had many leftovers from Thanksgiving, but they have stretched a good long way. Even after I cut a hunk from the bread to freeze, the part that was left seemed to last forever. We finished it last night, but it needed to be toasted because it had dried out too much to be eaten as is. I will grudgingly throw out stale bread when I've run out of uses for it, but I truly hate throwing out bread I've made myself. The fig spread was a great discovery with this.

The salad was the last of the Thanksgiving turkey, chopped up, combined with some of the cranberry relish, and bound with a little light mayo. I added some raisins to the mix. Very nice.

One container of the leftover soup I made with the carcass (onion, garlic, celery, carrot, potato, green beans) was reimagined with the addition of the remaining giblet gravy and a pack of sliced wild mushrooms that had been sauteed with garlic. (I buy the mushrooms as a convenience food sometimes to make a quick mushroom soup.) The mushrooms and gravy added complexity to the basic turkey stock flavor of the original soup and thickened it a little more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seared pancetta-wrapped scallops over purple cauliflower purée, with spicy roasted haricots verts.

Vouvray.

Cauliflower needed more...something. It had garlic and mustard...maybe it just needed more salt. (I'm often super salt-sensitive so I undersalt when I cook and let people add their own; maybe tonight that was a mistake.)

Scallops have a better sear than iPhone's camera will admit.

post-6363-125988722718_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Grapes coated with cream cheese and finely-chopped crystallized ginger, rolled in toasted pecans, chilled

Baby romaine and arugula with honey vinaigrette and Gorgonzola

Black bean chili with butternut squash and red chard

Dried cranberry and apple crisp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cabernet-braised short ribs*

Sautéed green beans with garlic

Mashed potatoes with whole-grain mustard

I'm cooking for my dear friend who has a four-month-old** --dinner will serve as an early birthday present (for Mom, not baby). She and her husband have been living mostly off soup and sandwiches, and since I'm visiting this weekend, I thought cooking was a fair trade.

*Friend's husband, aka "Dad," could only find flanken-cut short ribs, which I've not used before in this dish, so this may be something of an adventure. They appear to be ok, though. We'll eat after baby goes to sleep, so we're killing time with, yes, Star Trek (baby can't see TV). I think it's clear why these people are my friends. :angry:

**If anyone likes baby pictures, here's a pic of me with the wee one post-6363-126014555132_thumb.jpg.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The moment I read Mark Bittman's description of pasta cooked risotto-style in The Minimalist the other week, I knew it wouldn't be long before I had to try it. This weekend's cold, snowy weather provided the perfect opportunity to indulge in some serious comfort food.

I may never eat pasta any other way, ever again.

I used maltagliati as my pasta and kept the rest simple with shallots, creminis and chicken. I used chicken stock and a torrontes (left over from a party) as my liquid, and added a pinch of manchego and a sprinkling of parsley to serve.

The inspiration can be found here.

This is such a great one-pot meal, and was a perfect end to this chilly winter weekend!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

chicken pot pie--I got a stewing hen at eco-friendly yesterday, along with a package of necks and another of feet for making stock. and by golly, after a couple of hours there was still enough flavor in that old hen to save the meat, and I used it and some of the stock, which had gelled nicely, to make a velouté, and added carrots, celery, frozen pearl onions and peas. made a cream cheese pastry dough to cover the individual casseroles and egg washed them so they came out of the oven all shiny brown and crusty. cluck old hen.

bartlett pears

TJ's dark chocolate covered sea salt caramels

2007 Valminor Albariño

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oatmeal Bread with Peanut Butter

Green Salad with Ranch dressing

Posole with Hatch Chiles, Pork Loin and Salt Pork

Boiled White Rice

I threw some cilantro into the posole near the end of the cooking time and served it all over plain white rice. Very good, and the heat from the chiles was at just the right level. (It was Rancho Gordo red posole.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Almost 1 1/2 weeks after purchasing from Next Step (Dupont), I used their yams and mustard greens. They were amazingly fresh...still. For the greens, I simply braised them with a bit of chicken stock and crushed garlic, and seasoned with salt. They remind me very much of broccoli rabe, which is to say, I loved them.

The yams were roasted and mashed with a bit of butter and crushed pineapple with juice.

I served the vegetables with Asian marinated, stir-fry pork.

The dinner had a sweet/spicy/salty thing going on.

I have been gorging myself on turkey vegetable soup* since Thanksgiving. With the turkey carcass and 2 legs ($4 at Bestway), leftover Tday veggies, tomatoes, limas and Next Step tat soi, I made about 12 quarts of soup. Thank goodness for Chinese take-out soup containers!

*I made the stock first with the turkey parts, carrots, celery, onions, ginger, rostemary, thyme, and sage (I bought too many herbs for Tday so, what the heck). I strained the stock and refrigerated for a day. The next day, I skimmed most of the fat, and took what meat I could off the bones. I then made the soup with meat, veggies and all sorts of beans, and even threw in leftover gravy. Why not?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

*I made the stock first with the turkey parts, carrots, celery, onions, ginger, rostemary, thyme, and sage (I bought too many herbs for Tday so, what the heck). I strained the stock and refrigerated for a day. The next day, I skimmed most of the fat, and took what meat I could off the bones. I then made the soup with veggies and all sorts of beans, and even threw in leftover gravy. Why not?

I put leftover creamed onions and roasted kabocha squash puree in mine.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Umbrian lentil* soup, which started with a mirpoix in the food processor. Then, I added the lentils, tomato paste, diced tomatoes with juice, cumin, paprika, corriander, bay leaves and chicken stock. Served garnished with Greek yogurt.

*beautiful, tiny dried lentils that I bought on a visit to DiBruno Bros. in Philadelphia.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Green Salad

Baguette, Sottocenere with Truffles and Duck á l’Orange Pâté

Tomato Blue Cheese Soup

Roasted Tilapia with Bacon

Green Rice Caribbean Crab Pilaf with Coconut Milk

Baguette, pâté, and buttermilk blue cheese for the soup all came from Cheesetique. The pilaf is a recipe from Susan Spicer's Crescent City Cooking that I found online.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roast Chicken

Latkes with homemade vanilla bean applesauce

Broccoli

Ciao Bella Sicilian Lemon gelato

Balvenie 12y Doublewood

Happy Hanukkah!

Happy first light!

Wow, I wish I'd known the Scots did Hanukkah years ago....I'll be sure to serve the Dalwhinnie and Glenfiddich with tomorrow's latkefest! :angry:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Toasted Baguette

Leftover Bacon-Wrapped Tilapia

Wilted Dandelion Greens with Balsamic Fried Eggs

Leftover Crab Pilaf

I had a portion plus some of the tilapia left, so I crumbled the fish from the partial serving into the pilaf and tore the excess bacon into bits and added it to the greens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ribollita

Asian apple pear

Hat tipped to Zora since I had been thinking about this soup ever since she mentioned it in this thread. Things came together this past, miserable Saturday when the chilly, rainy, snowy and slush-ridden world called out for soup and there was just a little bit of Savoy cabbage in the fridge. At the farmers market in Silver Spring, Spiral Path had some gorgeous Tuscan kale, so I brought that home.

Started out by making Marcella Hazan's plain old white bean soup and this time around I thought meh. So I added some baby chard to the hoard later on in the week and cooked up some extra white beans yesterday, leaving them to cool in their own broth as I put the soup together.

I really like Lidia Bastianich's recipe which I prepared more or less to the pre-bread stage before refrigerating it. Late last night, I just pulled out a gratin dish and lined the bottom with small, crustless cubes of Pugliese bread (I prefer this to traditional slabs) and mixed them with the thick, batter-like soup. Drizzled slivers of red onion on top w olive oil and popped it into preheated oven until bubbly and onions somewhat caramelized and charred. So, even if this didn't follow the three-day, progressive evolution of the Tuscan dish, it was exactly what you and your toes need when winter sets in.

More substantial menu: salumi, cheeses, red wine and afterwards, gingerbread and applesauce or warm crisp, galette or tart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Started out by making Marcella Hazan's plain old white bean soup and this time around I thought meh.

I'm not conversant with Marcella's white bean soup recipe. but I really like Suzanne Goin's version, which adds toasted and crushed fennel seeds to the mirepoix when you begin to cook the beans. It's not a dominant flavor in the final dish, but it adds a welcome complexity.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...