What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Another blast from the past, a "red, white and blue vinaigrette" ...

Sounds great, and I've never heard of it before.

[Jenise]

Jeff, it's wonderful. So good in fact that I'm surprised it hasn't caught on. Try it!

We had a great dinner last night. Started with a salad, as usual, this time frisee, butter lettuce, fresh chives, sliced almonds and shaved raw chiogga beets and the above vinaigrette. Our second course was pork--a single thick loin chop grilled, sliced and divided on two plates along with roasted red Jerusalem artichokes, and all were splashed with a sauce made of maple syrup, vinegar, roasted hazelnut oil, oregano and salt for a perfect California pinot noir match. The maple pulled the sweetness, the oregano pulled that herb flavor that comes with Sonoma coast fruit and the vinegar highlighted the acidity.

[Jenise]

For dinner last night, I soaked chicken thigh/drumstick quarters in the juice from a jalapeno escabeche then pan fried them to a crispy crust and served them on a Mexican dirty rice. We had a starter salad of tomatoes, bell peppers and frisee tossed with a cumin-garlic vinaigrette.

Last night I made Chinese beef and peppers with black bean and chili sauce. Thin-sliced flank steak marinated with soy sauce and cornstarch, red and green bell peppers, fresh ginger, garlic, and a heaping tablespoon of Lan Chi black bean sauce with chili.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Today, oven roasted chicken wings that have marinated overnight in Louisiana hotsauce while watching the Masters, with cabbage and red onion salad. Not sure what else. Probably don't NEED anything else.

[Robin Garr]

Mary just made oatmeal cookies with raisins AND chocolate chips. Aaaaahhhhh ...

Paella tonight: chicken, shrimp, and chorizo. If I'm really organized, I'll also bake and fill some little phyllo cups with Cointreau-scented dark chocolate for dessert.

So what else for Easter dinner, rabbit stew!
A jointed rabbit cooked in the pressure cooker with stock, tomato paste, rosemary, thyme, bay and olives. Served with boiled spuds and shredded sprouts sautéed with bacon and garlic. Pretty good.

Chocolate to follow

Happy Easter

[Jenise]

Sounds great, Barb. I'm having some of my heathen friends over for bocce and an easy BBQ dinner. Ribs, potato salad, marinated shrimp and a cucumber salad--had the idea on the fly coming back from a camping trip yesterday when I ran into friends at Trader Joe's. So between TJ's and Costco, where I headed next, whatever I could find there is what I'm doing.

[Jenise]

Pork verde on experimental pistachio waffles.

Pork verde on experimental pistachio waffles.

Ooh. Are they... atomic?!

Or maybe... post-trans-ultra-synergistic?

--

You know, I've read that pistachios occasionally can spontaneously combust.

[Robin Garr]

asparagus-salad.jpg

It's asparagus season, yay! Last night I took a bunch of fresh green spears, trimmed the tough ends and cut them into 2-inch lengths, and separated the tips from the rest. Simmered them in salted water until they were crisp-tender - about 4-5 minutes for the stalks, putting the spears in a couple of minutes later so they cooked less, then drained and poured them into a big bowl full of ice to stop cooking and keep them green. I made a tangy vinaigrette with three parts olive oil, one part lemon juice, and S&P, and whisked in a couple of tablespoons of Dijon, adding a little at a time and whisking until it emulsified. Toss the chilled asparagus in the dressing, add thin-shaved slices of Parmigiano, and it's good to go.

Sounds very yum, Robin.

I've been making vegetable ragu lately: a cup or so of carrot, celery, onion (or fennel), slow cooked in a little EVOO and herbs for a half-hour or so, then add a couple ladles of tomato sauce and simmer as long as you can stand to wait for it.

[Robin Garr]

simmer as long as you can stand to wait for it.

Five minutes?

The job thing has been more time consuming than usual lately, so I've had little opportunity to cook. One thing we did last week worked out better than I thought it would, though. I had some particularly good flour tortillas in the fridge along with some paper thin slices of housemade spicy coppa from the market around the corner and some sliced provolone, so I made quesadillas. They were wonderful.

Workaday cooking here, too. I recently made a panful of gratin, riffing on Robin's recipe here. I fricasseed some chicken and finished it cacciatore style. I used my cast-iron pan to seriously sizzle a NY strip steak, sliced and spread over a farro salad.

I'm waiting on an evening for another pair of paella, and then break out the charcoal!

Needed to do lunch for some visiting Kiwis on fairly short notice for me.
(<24hrs and we were on our way home from a brief holiday when the call came, brain fade).
Okay, so went for simple. Homemade tagliatelle carbonara with sides of a green salad and roasted truss tomato clusters. Followed by a tarte tatin made with apples from our tree, and local farm cream.
Local beer and wines. Stuff I can do happily, mostly mise and quick to finish and plate so I was able to spend as much time as possible with our guests. Had a lovely time.

Needed to do lunch for some visiting Kiwis on fairly short notice for me.
(<24hrs and we were on our way home from a brief holiday when the call came, brain fade).
Okay, so went for simple. Homemade tagliatelle carbonara with sides of a green salad and roasted truss tomato clusters. Followed by a tarte tatin made with apples from our tree, and local farm cream.
Local beer and wines. Stuff I can do happily, mostly mise and quick to finish and plate so I was able to spend as much time as possible with our guests. Had a lovely time.

Sounds wonderful. I really like carbonara and I really like tarte tatin.

[Robin Garr]

berbere-beans.jpg

My favorite way to improve frozen lima beans, a winter standby, is to braise them covered at low heat with plenty of aromatics and a relatively small amount of liquid until the limas are tender and plump and infused with flavor. This batch I braised with onions, garlic, tomato, black and red papper and a little Ethiopian berbere spice.

[Robin Garr]

A couple of recent dinners that were good but not photogenic ... A bunch of flavorful brown mushrooms with tomatoes and a ton of garlic as a pasta sauce ... and an African-style stew of lacinato kale with tomatoes, onions, peanut butter, and berbere seasoning. Both yummy, but the kind of brownish mass that doesn't look as appetizing as it tastes.

We had bounced back from the unseasonable heat to unseasonably chilliness a few nights ago, so I tried my hand at a skillet chicken pot pie. (I would have preferred individual pies but we didn't have any ramikins of the right size.) The recipe I used as a template called for a filling of butternut squash and kale, which was not at all what I was looking for. I left those out and used a mix of mushrooms, peas, fresh garlic, and leeks along with the chicken, and I used puff pastry as the topper. The filling came out exactly as I wanted, but I wouldn't use puff pastry again. I think I'd much prefer a regular pie crust. Overall, it was pretty good, though. We served it with a green salad (yes, a rare lettuce salad! ) For dessert, my wife made a lemon raspberry pudding-cake thing and I made ginger ice cream to go with.

So I was watching Greek Week on 'The Chefs Line' and they were variously re/ de/ constructing moussaka and so did I
I beat up some lamb steaks, softened up some longitudinal slices of eggplant and rolled them up together with some haloumi in the middle. Browned and then simmered in a garlicky tomato sauce.
Kinda weird that everything was in the fridge to do it.
Tasty.

Ooh, Barb, you are scaring me. I can't remember the last time -- if ever -- there was halloumi in my fridge.

I kinda like the idea of moussaka as a roll-up, though. Kinda like Italian braciole from a little further south and east.

[Jenise]

Needed to do lunch for some visiting Kiwis on fairly short notice for me.
(<24hrs and we were on our way home from a brief holiday when the call came, brain fade).
Okay, so went for simple. Homemade tagliatelle carbonara with sides of a green salad and roasted truss tomato clusters. Followed by a tarte tatin made with apples from our tree, and local farm cream.
Local beer and wines. Stuff I can do happily, mostly mise and quick to finish and plate so I was able to spend as much time as possible with our guests. Had a lovely time.

Brilliant meal: when simple is best. (And classy).