What's Cooking (Take Three!)

[Jenise]

Simple food here: grilled local sausages from Uli's in Seattle (an institution) with tomato and parsley salad. Desperately in need of working
down the freezer and will continue in this vein until the produce runs out

Thanks for your concern. I am nowhere near the current fires and I hopeful that all will stay good here.
However the smoke has been appalling all over the state.
Yesterday I wake up to find visibility about 100 meters and light rain had been falling so I now have smoke contaminated water. Not a health issue this far form the fires but I’ll have to get a filter or buy in some bottled water for drinking.
Now have much better visibility but still getting alerts re air quality.
Smokey bbq coffee anyone!.

[Jenise]

Not last summer but the prior three summers were saturated with smoke; local weathermen had to come up with new terms to describe air quality, smoke smog and smoke fog. Never existed before and outdoor activity ceased. Did not have contaminated water or the entire country affected but on a lesser more local level I get it and feel just horrible about what you're going thru. Stay strong, and may the worst be over soon.

Might be time to make some Scotch, Jenise.

Made some cranberry-orange scones for breakfast today.

Thanks for your concern. I am nowhere near the current fires and I hopeful that all will stay good here.

Glad to hear it!

Yesterday I wake up to find visibility about 100 meters and light rain had been falling so I now have smoke contaminated water. Not a health issue this far form the fires but I’ll have to get a filter or buy in some bottled water for drinking.

There are worse things in life than filtered water.

Smokey bbq coffee anyone!.

Make espresso... it's heavily roasted, anyway.

Yep espresso is on the menu!
The local hardwa shop has runout of filters and the supermarket ran out of bottled water.
I’ll manage on bottled water for drinking as I’m going away for two weeks soon and I’ll assess the situation on my return. I can endure the trip down memory lane iof the laundromat for a week or so.. the nearest big town is on reticulated water and that seems to be okay at the moment.
Some people have already had their tanks cleaned and refilled, but general advice is to wait til the fires are over, which seems sensible.

So to stick with he programme, tonight I’ll have grilled lamb backstrap with a spicy Mexican style salsa. Maybe potato salad.

[Jenise]

Tonight: Roast chicken. Yesterday at the market I wanted to buy two chicken breasts. There weren't any: well, there were if I would settle for the non-organic breasts already stripped of bones and skin but I wanted to roast them so needed all the parts. And this isn't the first time in this ready-made world I've failed to find what used to be so common. So I bought a whole chicken instead, and I'll break it down to breasts and freeze the leg quarters. I'll serve the roasted breasts on mashed potatoes with an arugula pesto.

Tonight I'm making pad prik gai bai krapow (Thai stir-fried minced chicken with bird's eye chiles and holy basil).

-Paul W.

Make sure you have another place setting.

[Jenise]

Make sure you have another place setting.

Let's all go. Paul, make that six!

Tonight I'll be making some Creole sauce to go over the leftover jambalaya.

-Paul W.

Tonight I'll be making some Creole sauce to go over the leftover jambalaya.

I'm confused by this... don't jambalaya leftovers have whatever consistency the original serving did?

[Jenise]

No idea what we're having for dinner. But last night a friend made a wonderful sous-vided boneless leg of lamb roast. First time I've had lamb prepared that way, and it was wonderful. Six hours, 135 and tender to the max. He would go back to 130 for his next try at this, and I can see his point though I was perfectly happy with my perfect medium slice. He used a Kenji recipe from Serious Eats.

Mainly going to have a melange of leftovers and cheap Canyon Oaks cab that I forgot I had.

I'm confused by this... don't jambalaya leftovers have whatever consistency the original serving did?

Yes, they do. The Creole sauce is just an optional, and tasty, topping you can spoon over the jambalaya.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Tonight's Dork Night and the wine theme is Piedmonte.

I'm making little taleggio and radicchio tarts to take along, as well as skewers of truffle-marinated langostines and olives.

I am making swordfish kabobs (marinating the fish in a spiced yogurt marinade first). Also, a sort of spinach-and-feta cheese shakshuka.

A simple dinner: ribeye with broccoli, cauliflower, and tossed salad.

Simple Ratatouille for dinner tonight. I made it earlier today to let flavours mingle.

ratatouille.png

2 Large courgettes, cut into chunks on bias (couldn't get small ones)
1 Aubergine (cut into large slices and salted for 3 hours, rinsed, dried, and cut into quarters)
1 Large red onion, chopped
1 Orange pepper chopped
2 cans Italian plum tomatoes
2 large,1 small garlic cloves sliced

Courgettes fried in olive oil in large pan to get colour, then drained on kitchen paper
Onion and pepper fried in olive oil in large pan to soften, then drained on kitchen paper
Aubergine fried in olive oil in large pan to get colour
Garlic added
Tomatoes added
Courgettes, onion and peppers added

Grinds of black pepper and grinds of Southern French dried herbs added
Brought to boil and then heat turned off.

To serve, warmed up accompanied by half-baguettes sprinkled with water and crisped in oven

Accompanied also with Domaine Laborie 2017 Vin de Pays d'Oc Languedoc Roussillon

Beef fajitas and frijoles refritos.

Had a wood-fired Spicy Hawaiian Pizza with green chile for my birthday lunch today. And I ate the whole thing. For dinner, it was ham and three-bean soup I had been cooking since last night, home-baked bread, and some leftover tossed salad from wife's lunch. And I'm still hungry.

Tonight I'm making one of my favorite winter dishes, hong shau gai (Chinese red cooked chicken).

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Happy birthday, Larry!

Today I'm making a pot roast recipe from Colombia for tonight's wine tasting using tri-tips because they'll slice so well. It's both sweet and spicy and should be interesting for tonight's Chilean wine tasting, cabs and carmeneres only, (a two-variety shoot-out which I've dubbed Chile Chile Bang Bang).

...which I've dubbed Chile Chile Bang Bang).

Oh, you.