What's Cooking (Take Three!)

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Last nights Toad in Hole.

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Served with steamed chopped cabbage. Also had Caramelised Onion Gravy to pour on, and Colman's English Mustard and Hot Horseradish sauce to spice it up. And with a delicious Chilean Maipo Valley 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon.

[Jenise]

That looks delish, Pete.

Our dinner last night was vegetarian. Our starter was something we eat at least once a week, bell pepper slices tossed with Lawry's garlic salt and red wine vinegar. And we followed that with white corn polenta with black truffles topped with steamed purple broccoli, a drizzle of condiment-level EVOO, and a dusting of parmesan cheese. The accompaniament was a 2017 St. Veran white.

Last night I made an aubergine in tomato sauce on tagliatelle, with a side salad of iceberg, cucumber, grape-sized plum tomatoes, and olives.

All, except the tin of Italian plum tomatoes from which I made the sauce, bought for us in lockdown.

The aubergine was sliced and salted in a colander for a coupe of hours, before rinsing, squeezing out excess moisture, brushing with olive oil and broiling till golden and crisp, then cut into strips and added to sauce.

With Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

[Jenise]

We had patty melts last night with a cabbage salad on the side. The melts were unconventional in order to test my theory that I might prefer the crunch of raw sweet onions to the traditional grilled. I was right.

[Jenise]

Not cooking tonight. I decided to get brave and order take-out from the small wine bar that's been the greatest thing that's happened to the nearby two-block border town of Blaine. You don't order from a menu, rather there's one offering every other day and you pre-order. I'd felt guilty for not ordering something just to support their business, though I'd rather cook since I love to do that and am frankly a little leery about the container issue.

Nonetheless, yesterday I called to order because tonight's beef stroganoff sounded pretty good. I was laying on my bed with my cat Jailbait cuddled up next to me and a cell phone in the other hand. The second the phone was answered, Jailbait suddenly let out a cry and peed all over me. I heard Joni's voice say "we're sold out" just as I blurted out, "I'll call you back!" The next 20 minutes were in panic mode, rinsing out the comforter, getting it out in the sun to dry and consulting our vet who asked us to bring her in right away.

Before we could get out the door the phone rang and it was Joni calling back. Someone had just cancelled an order for three tonight. Great, I said, I'll take two. I paused and immediately revised that: no, I'll take all three, and I'll deliver dinner to one of the elderly singles in my neighborhood. Oh, and a bottle of wine, maybe that uber cool tempranillo-nebbiolo blend from Baja California. Of course I don't need the wine either but that's not the point: this is what we must do.

Regarding the container issue, my brother the radiologist advises leaving delivered packages or shopping bags in the garage for three days, if you can, before bringing them into the house. The virus can't live that long on surfaces. If you can't leave the goods outside that long, wash the packaging.

-Paul W.

I listened to a podcast by Kenzi-J-Alt-Lopez, or whatever his name is. He went through all the deets on food handling, time/temp to kill virus, etc. He recommended that takeout food is (a) not put on the dining room table when it is delivered, (b) removed to clean plates/bowls, (c) throw out the packaging immediately, and (d) wash your hands. If you're of an extremely-careful bent, you can also reheat the food to the time/temp specs, verifying with a quick-read thermo.

ETA: https://www.splendidtable.org/story/food-safety-and-the-coronavirus-with-food-science-writer-j-kenji-lopez-alt

[Jenise]

Regarding the container issue, my brother the radiologist advises leaving delivered packages or shopping bags in the garage for three days, if you can, before bringing them into the house. The virus can't live that long on surfaces. If you can't leave the goods outside that long, wash the packaging.

-Paul W.

We've definitely been following that advice. Can't do that with take-out food, though, so we'll wear gloves and remove it from the container to our own container as soon as it arrives. Then we'll eat it Saturday.

Pork chops topped with cooked onions and lemon slices, with cranberry-chipotle sauce, and asparagus.

South Indian-style moong dal with idli last night.

-Paul W.

Artic char with meyer lemon/tamari/sichuan pepper Tues
1950s style beef stroganoff last night.
This morning I returned from office for breakfast, Betsy was making Gabrielle Hamilton's galletes
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/maga ... cious.html
and yes, first 3 were throwouts (well, throw to hound )

[Robin Garr]

Comfort food! Fettuccine Alfredo for lunch, with fresh chives snipped right out of the back yard, where they're popping up in the grass and we don't mind.

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[Jenise]

Tonight I'm making a roast chicken dish wherein a single but DD cup chicken breast will roast with leeks. When done, the chicken will come out, broth and cream will go in and get reduced with tarragon, then I'll add peas. I'll lay slices of the chicken across a grilled slice of sourdough bread, dish the sauce over and garnish with gin-fried sugar snap peas. But first a mimosa salad--green leaf lettuce tossed in a dijon mustard vinaigrette loaded with chives topped with grated hard boiled egg.

I bought a couple of gluten-free pizza crusts (<7% Americans have celiac d., but it's a fad) for a song on the clearance shelf. I didn't expect much, and I was right. Edible, but dry and nothing to write home about. So, pizza and tossed salad tonight and too many carbs.

Excited for the first arrival of soft-shell crabs this season. My wife doesn't like them so I rarely buy. But with the shutdown schedules, I have plenty of time to cook something different for her on the side!

Last night I had two shoft-shells lightly dusted in cornmeal and served with maitake and spinach sautee and barley. Great match with the riesling as I posted about in Wine Forum. Today's lunch was rice noodle soup (lovely homemade mushroom and ginger/soy stock) with sauteed dandelion greens, spring onions and crispy cornmeal-crusted soft-shell crab.

There are still good things in this world!

Yesterday was Pumpkin's birthday.

First, we had a Zoom chat with some of his high school friends. With Zoom I served alcoholic cocktails: Negroni for me (made with a rhubarb-ginger gin), and his favorite house drink (Cointreau + Lillet), and shrimp cocktails.

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When that was over, we sat down to a brief caviar service ("Kaluga" gold and black, on blini with creme fraiche).

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Next up, a chopped salad -- meaning, all medium dice -- made with English cucumber, red pepper, carrot, sweet potato that I had roasted the day before, blood orange segments, kalamata olives, and dressed with a blood orange juice vinaigrette.

Main course: blood sausage and herbed goat cheese en croute, the parcel accompanied by sauteed maitake and toasted crumbled walnuts. Colman's mustard on the side.

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Desserts were numerous (but none made by me)... the dark chocolate sampler and chocolate-covered orange peels (his favorite) from Jacques Torres, peppermint patty ice cream from a local shop, and a blackout cake:

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PS. As Pumpkin is also aka Honey Bunny, he also received a small package of Lindt chocolate carrots!

Max of 4 pix per post so here is the 'making parcels' picture separately:

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Alas, I forgot to take a picture of the finished plate! But we only ate two of the parcels so I'll try to remember to snap a photo of them, anyway, even if not garbed as festively as the first time. (Do leftovers ever get as nice treatment as the first time?)

[Jenise]

1st reaction: Pumpkin has another name!
2nd reaction: Beautiful, indulgent menu!
3rd reaction: As I perceive Pumpkin to be a little fussy, I'm surprised (but pleased) that he enjoys blood sausage.



It feels almost peasant-y to admit, after all that, that tonight's dinner will be soft tacos. (Ground turkey filling, seasoned like Mexican chorizo).

1st reaction: Pumpkin has another name!

Sorta. It's an in-joke based on an "I Love Lucy" episode where Fred and Ethel are being nice to each other. They look into each other's eyes and rattle off a string of cutesy-wutesy names for each other. Pumpkin likes that scene. Our wifi password is one of those names.

2nd reaction: Beautiful, indulgent menu!

Thank you! Also, operationally manageable: shrimp were boiled in the early afternoon, sweet potato roasted the day before, vinaigrette made the day before, the only real work is the puff pastry parcels, the rest is simple.

3rd reaction: As I perceive Pumpkin to be a little fussy, I'm surprised (but pleased) that he enjoys blood sausage.

Pumpkin sowed some wild oats in Edinburgh, long before the current epoch. He's still fond of Scottish things and we still have a few friends there. (We'll be WhatsApp'ing with one tomorrow.)

It feels almost peasant-y to admit, after all that, that tonight's dinner will be soft tacos. (Ground turkey filling, seasoned like Mexican chorizo).

Not sure how tacos are any more peasanty than blood sausage but OK.

It seems possible that Pumpkin aka Hunny Bunny is Also Jim
I coulenjoy everything I’m reading. Peter’s Toad in the hole, comfort food, Robins fettuccini, oh yes
Jeff, my. Birthday is on......I ll pay the airfare,(oh wait....) anything Jenise makes and the rest of you rock as well.
Tonight I’m doing my t Sunday roast, a mustard dukkah crusted two bone lamb rack witih the veggies

[Jenise]

Jeff, simple answer: Are there blood sausage-in-puff pastry trucks? No, I rest my case.

But the tacos WERE pretty fine. Flour tortillas; chorizo-spicy turkey/rice filling with loads of chiles, cumin and vinegar; topped with a slivered cabbage salad (vinegar, cilantro, oil) and grated ten year old Cougar Gold cheese. With that, a really nice syrah from the cool climate around Lake Chelan, an up and coming area for wine in Washington state.

Tonight, I'm making kung pao beef. I had every ingredient needed--a fairly long list--except scallions, which is why I went shopping today.

Accompanying it will be rice, which brings up the question of what's your favorite way of cooking rice? I use several methods, depending on how I feel.

Accompanying it will be rice, which brings up the question of what's your favorite way of cooking rice? I use several methods, depending on how I feel.

I tase each one individually. (I go through a lot of batteries.)

I tase each one individually. (I go through a lot of batteries.)

Wow! Do you get any split ends?

The technique I used today was cooking the basmati rice in a saucepan 2:1 water/rice.

My Kung Pao beef came out well, but I lied about missing only one ingredient. Embedded in the recipe was fresh ginger that I didn't notice. I rarely have fresh ginger on hand so I substituted galangal powder.

One kink was finding my Szechuan peppercorns. A few months ago, I bought some more and transferred them all to a new jar (which is an image not firmly set in my mind). It took me quite a while to find them, but I have a rule: look in the same spot four times before you give up. And that's when I found them. Never fails.