What's cooking?

Braciole !!!!!!!!! I'm using Lidias recipe, the house smells wonderful right now and I'll take a pic if I don't eat it too fast.

You inspired me, Drew. I made Lidia's braciole, too. The rollups themselves were good but the sauce was rather plain.

My 14 year old is doing a cooking class (not allied with her school) that requires she do four separate multi-course meals, from shopping to clean-up. Last night, she made a baked rigatoni and roasted asparagus with hollandaise. Kinda funny story - the rigatoni dish required fontina cheese. She went to the gourmet market just down the block to get supplies, which included prosciutto. When she went to get the fontina, the only kind she could find ran $10 for a wedge big enough to cover what she needed. This was some real artisanal Italian fontina, not the Danish stuff you get in a typical grocery store. The high cheese price caused my daughter to call home as she hadn't brought enough cash to cover the bill. When my wife got there, she asked if they had something a little cheaper and was told, "Come on - she's already buying prosciutto. You can't compromise on the cheese!". Turns out that the cheese was delicious on its own and made for an amazing bechamel for the rigatoni. Supper was delicious.

How old is your daughter? Does she want to become a chef? Wonderful for a young girl to be cooking like that!

Tonight is a pasta I got from this site a long time ago, Don't have the name of the poster but they sign off with "Clink!" I think Bill Spencer used to do that...

Anyway, it is Oreccheitte pasta with red bell pepers, evoo, Italian Turkey Sausage (I had an artichoke, garlic in the freezer, am using that)
oregano, garlic, Feta, Kalamata olives and pepper. Serving with a green salad dressed with Italian vinaigrette, and crusty bread. Going to get a good Malbec to go with it.

How old is your daughter? Does she want to become a chef? Wonderful for a young girl to be cooking like that!

She's 14. The thing she's doing now is an extension of a summer program she did a couple of years ago. It's run by a woman who was in the catering business (IIRC) and who set this stuff up to get kids interested in cooking. She loved the first two summer camps she did, and her group even won a contest by coming up with "Ratalouille", their version of ratatouille. The class she's in now was by invitation to kids who did well with the previous summer programs. She really does like it, although I don't know whether she'd be interested in a career in the food industry.

Oops, I did read she was 14.... She has a great start in a wonderful skill for anyone to have. You must be very proud of her. I love seeing young folks interested in wholesome things like that.

Braciole !!!!!!!!! I'm using Lidias recipe, the house smells wonderful right now and I'll take a pic if I don't eat it too fast.

You inspired me, Drew. I made Lidia's braciole, too. The rollups themselves were good but the sauce was rather plain.

I'm a Biba Caggiano fan, and I have made her recipe several times....it is great. She uses sirloin.

[Robin Garr]

Spicy red lentil dal with rice and fresh spinach, a simple and delicious Indian-style dinner.

Dinner tonight was Sichuan crispy beef shreds with celery shreds, hot bean paste, ginger, and scallions.

-Paul W.

I had made chicken soup and a beef and onion soup (kinda like carbonnade a la flammande) but I knew my son was coming to visit so I had to throw together something vegetarian.

I made use of 2 ideas from this forum -- chik'n strips and Lan Chi sauce -- and made a Chinese stir fry. My son isn't vegan -- so I fried the chik'n strips in butter to brown, and then doused them in oyster sauce and cooked a little more. They tasted really nice and kinda Chinese after I was done. Then half a dozen chopped vegetables including lots of broccoli florets and some water chestnuts, and a pot of rice, and there was a pretty interesting vegetarian meal. Louise and I had a little but tried to hold back since we had the soups available. We all really liked the "wok" meal tho.

Carnitas. And photobombed by my dog.

Halibut tacos with citrus coleslaw. Halibut is rubbed with Ancho spice, grilled on a cedar plank. Served in a warm corn tortilla shell, with coleslaw drizzled with a fresh lime/sour cream dressing.

[Robin Garr]

Spicy Ethiopian-style collards - gomen wat - with braised lima beans. No injera around, so we threw some flour tortillas on to toast.

Tonight it is risotto with shrimp, leeks,sherry, snow peas, nutmeg, Parmesan and a home made shrimp stock.This risotto is finished off with a chive gremolata. Salad with butter lettuce, radicchio, and Mache, dressed with a walnut vinaigrette.

[Robin Garr]

Garlicky lemon and pepper shrimp linguine with plant-based "prawns."

[Jenise]

Spanish tonight: pork meatballs with green olives, Amontillado-braised duck with figs, garlic rice, potatoes with chorizo, and a green salad with a blood orange/almond vinaigrette. My guests are bringing the rest.

We'll split a broiled Cornish game hen, marinated in garlic, fresh lemon, and soy sauce. Smashed potatoes drizzled with truffle butter and spices.
Corn cut from the cob, sautéed in butter, fresh mint and a salad of yellow bell pepper, black tomatoes, hot house cuke, red onion, fresh herbs from the garden with a citrus/champagne vinegar vinaigrette.

[Robin Garr]

Umami-rich mushroom risotto with crimini mushrooms and porcini and lots of browned onions and garlic. A dish made for Pinot Noir, it was good even with a simple cheapie, Avanti 2011 Pinot Noir delle Venezie.

Enchilada pie which is a long time family favorite...that I rarely make anymore. Serving with mandarin orange and avocado salad with a chipotle vinaigrette.

[Jenise]

Great combination, Karen. Speaking of Mexican food, I've been meaning to talk to you about Los Gordos, the one that's about a block from your big hospital downtown. Ever eat there?

Dinner tonight: company's coming, and I'm cooking Chinese. Ribs in black bean sauce, shrimp/asparagus/bamboo in a spicy chile sauce, garlic-and-ginger fried pea vines, fried rice with bean sprouts and bok choy, and shitake mushrooms and snow peas in oyster sauce with shaved macadamia nuts.

Great combination, Karen. Speaking of Mexican food, I've been meaning to talk to you about Los Gordos, the one that's about a block from your big hospital downtown. Ever eat there?

No, I have not...they have two locations in Redding, the downtown and one on the other side of the river, where we live. Did you and Bob stop there to eat? Here is a link to a article our mystery food critic wrote. People seem to really love her reviews.
http://anewscafe.com/2010/07/26/menuplease-at-los-gordos-offal-isnt-awful/

Tonight we are having an artichoke soup, cooked with onions, fresh spinach and fresh mint. Soup is pureed to a velvety smoothness. I'm adding a tablespoon of heavy cream just before serving, with a bit of lemon zest on top.
Side is a fresh orange, pineapple, strawberry salad, with a Greek yogurt, honey, lime zest and juice dressing. A crusty kalamata olive bread, grilled for some grill marks will finish off the meal.

[Jenise]

Karen, we passed through town in a hurry, hungry for Mexican food but needing something to go. I wished I'd had time to schedule a meetup with you, but we had three days to get home from Los Angeles and that particular day, needed to really pound down the miles so we could see Tammy Faye's oncologist in Seattle mid-afternoon the next day. So while Bob did a fill-up, I checked out a GPS for a Taqueria. Los Gordos was the first name that came up. We bought a carne asada burrito to share and one carnitas taco apiece, and additionally I talked them into selling me half a dozen tamales for reheating later. The burrito was very good, the tacos excellent and the chicken tamales outstanding--in fact, best chicken tamales I've ever had. It was just the kind of simple, rustic Mexican food we'd been hungry for, with everything exceptionally well seasoned. I reccomend it!

And someone there has a sense of humor. It's a simple little place with no decor per se, but the one big wall has a single portrait on it: it's the handsome gravelly voiced guy who does the Patron tequila commercials!

Karen, we passed through town in a hurry, hungry for Mexican food!

Well that is good news since we have an abundance of Mexican places. This one has gotten some good reviews. Plus, the second one across town is about 3 minutes from our house. We did eat there once, not long after they opened. It is near a huge Blue Shield of California building with hundreds of employees. I finally did recall eating there. Very plain inside, and it was not very tidy. The food was such that we decided not to go back. With your review, we will try again. You made good choices with the food as they seem to be mentioned quite often in the reviews. It would have been fun to meet you two, so sometime, when you are dashing through, give us some notice and we can meet you somewhere, or have something quick at our home.

[Jenise]

In a place where you have a lot of good options, los Gordos might not stand out but to people deprived of decent, authentic Mexican food it was a godsend. We'd been hungry since camping near a heavenly-smelling taqueria in Half Moon Bay. Another place that smelled great in Redlands? We stopped at a Petco to pick up some cat food and a new place had opened up just a week before on the other side of the parking lot, name something like La Cucina. Mexican, but a fresh, modern shi-shi take on Mexican with the snappy, modern decor to match. Even though I was hoping for a more old-fashioned style food, I'd have certainly gone for it but it wasn't the kind of place to ask for take-out. Anyway, Los Gordos was very good. And I loved that the little non-English mamasita came out of the kitchen to personally coach me on how to cook the tamales in the "mee-crow-wah-vee". It's a true mom-and-pop kind of place.