What's cooking?

I'm making another Gratin of Swiss Chard and Mushroom because the chard is so good right now. Besides the mushrooms, this one has shallots, Spanish Thyme, Mignonette Pepper, half and half, nutmeg, Gruyère cheese and is finished off with preserved chopped lemon. Spanish rice with sautéed banana peppers , garlic and green onion, and lightly breaded Talipia fillets.

[Robin Garr]

Barr Farm Kentucky beef shoulder roast braised with onions, garlic and green peppers in fresh tomato sauce, an Italian-style pot roast that makes its own "gravy" for spaghetti.

Barr Farm Kentucky beef shoulder roast braised with onions, garlic and green peppers in fresh tomato sauce, an Italian-style pot roast that makes its own "gravy" for spaghetti.

Robin, would you mind posting your recipe for this? I've never cooked with beef shoulder and I love to braise. We had an Italian dinner with friends years ago, and the lady of the house cooked a roast all day in some sort of red sauce. It was all served over pasta. I don't recall many details but I remember how the house smelled when we walked in and how wonderful the dinner was. Plus, my neighbor just brought over a sack of green and red peppers.

[Robin Garr]

Barr Farm Kentucky beef shoulder roast braised with onions, garlic and green peppers in fresh tomato sauce, an Italian-style pot roast that makes its own "gravy" for spaghetti.

Robin, would you mind posting your recipe for this?

Well, i fairness, Karen, Mary cooked it while I was working on a project. But I advised her on the procedure, which is very, very simple, a simple version of a remembered recipe from the old Craig Claiborne NY Times Cookbook. Basically, in a black iron dutch oven or similar vessel, brown a chunk of shoulder or rump with onions and garlic and some cut-up green pepper until it's all nicely browned and smells great. Then you put in enough tomato sauce plus a little water (and S&P) to come about halfway up the side of the meat. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for a couple of hours, stirring and turning the meat occasionally. Remove and slice the beef. Serve the sauce over pasta. Build a salad, and dinner's on.

Robin, I had never heard of a beef shoulder before, so today I went to our local meat market and asked about it. I was told it was a cross-rib roast. So I bought this beautiful cross-rib which I am familiar with but have never used for braising. I've always used a rub, and roasted in the oven to serve as a roast. Then I make french dip sandwiches the next day. Will the cross-rib work? I have used rump roasts for cooking is sauces before. Did I get the wrong information?
Well, I just found this link, so I guess my question is answered.
http://www.themeatsource.com/crossribroast.html

What's cooking at this moment is bacon. Glorious bacon. Lots and lots and then even more of glorious bacon, some of it being devoured as it comes from the skillet, the rest to be used quite soon in peanut butter and bacon sandwiches.

Hedonists of the world, unite!!!!

Best
Rogov

Wow Daniel, is this for you? I can't imagine bacon and peanut butter, although I love them both, the combination just doesn't seem right. I love bacon, tomato and lettuce sandwiches on toasted wheat bread. The fatty bacon just seems to go so well with the healthier tomatoes and lettuce.

Karen, Hi.....

All I can say is that peanut butter (smooth, not crunchy) and bacon sandwiches are one of humankind's greatest blessings.
Almost as good as .....

Best
Rogov

Turkey club sandwiches and chips. Washed down with ale.

[Robin Garr]

Robin, I had never heard of a beef shoulder before, so today I went to our local meat market and asked about it. I was told it was a cross-rib roast. So I bought this beautiful cross-rib which I am familiar with but have never used for braising. I've always used a rub, and roasted in the oven to serve as a roast. Then I make french dip sandwiches the next day. Will the cross-rib work? I have used rump roasts for cooking is sauces before. Did I get the wrong information?
Well, I just found this link, so I guess my question is answered.
http://www.themeatsource.com/crossribroast.html

Karen, you're way ahead of me! All I know is that we're in an organic/free-range/certified humane meat CSA from a really nice local farm (Adam Barr), and it was in the package that Mary ordered this month. It looked sort of like a really big round steak, but from the front end of the animal rather than the back end, I guess. It was obviously more like a braising cut, but the point is, I'm sure any braising cut would work in this dish. You just wouldn't want to use something like a T-bone or Porterhouse or strip or tenderloin that would be better as a quick-seared steak.

That's right and I do know the difference.....I was not familiar to "beef shoulder" as it is a name not familiar to this area. I found out the cross rib is actually a term used in Canada, but we also know use it on the west coast. The meat cutter also said it is called shoulder clod. Whatever, it is going into my Dutch oven this morning with a bunch of wonderful garden peppers and my home made tomato sauce. Can't wait...I not only love eating and smelling braised meats, I love the prep. Thanks for sharing this, I know it is going to be fantstic. Plus, this is the week our weather changes, no more hot days and that makes me happy, too!

It's a "roasting" night tonight. I just put two bone-in, skin-on, organic free-range (enough adjectives there?) chicken breasts in the oven atop sliced sweet onion, smashed garlic cloves and some Meyer lemon slices. Roasting in a pan below those are big chunks of carrot, butternut squash, and some new (to me) potatoes called "Buttercream."
We'll have a bottle Carmel Road, a very reasonably priced, but very good Pinot Noir we recently discovered.

Thai Mahogany Fire Noodles. The dish is a stir-fry of a pound of chicken cut into 1/4-inch matchsticks and a pound of fresh rice noodles (the thick, round ones). The fire comes from 30 Thai bird chiles

30? Whew. I love heat, but I'm sure 30 is far above my limit..

Yes--thirty red Thai bird-eye chiles.
Over a decade ago, there was a wonderful Thai restaurant in my home town, Merrimack New Hampshire. The proprietress was a delightful woman named Mowl Wolfe, who grew up in a village near Bangkok. The dishes on her menu were rated zero to three flames. Only two items on the menu rated three flames. I was a regular customer, and Mowl knew that I wanted to taste true Thai dishes, as they'd be served in Thailand, without any compromises for Western tastes.

So eventually I tried the larb nur (beef salad), which was one of the three-flame dishes, and per my wishes, Mowl Wolfe prepared it as she would for a Thai customer. It was wicked hot. After a few mouthfuls, I was gasping for breath, red-faced, tears running from my eyes, sweat breaking on my brow and running down my face. Mowl then told me that in her village, the women gathered daily at noon under the shade of a tree in the village center. On the table was a bowl of Thai bird-eye chiles. The women drank beer and ate the chiles as though they were potato chips.

One of the cooks at Bangkok Oriental Cuisine at this time was Muoi Khuntilanont, the wife of Colonel Ian Philphott, an employee of Digital Equipment Corporation, and stationed in their Nashua NH plant (where I worked at the time). Muoi K. was responsible for several of the recipes at Bangkok Oriental Cuisine, and I recently made her recipe for larb kai (chicken), and that again brought the gasping for breath and tears streaming down the cheeks due to its fiery nature.

Mahogany Fire Noodles is on a par with these two renditions of larb that I've had the pleasure/ecstasy of eating.

-Paul W.

What's cooking at this moment is bacon. Glorious bacon. Lots and lots and then even more of glorious bacon, some of it being devoured as it comes from the skillet, the rest to be used quite soon in peanut butter and bacon sandwiches.

Before the last fresh figs are gone...wrap them in bacon and grill them. Yum Yum!

Enjoying the last of grilling season (more due to early sundown than cold weather) - grilled trout stuffed with lovage, parboiled brussel sprouts soaked in garlic and marjoram then finished on the grill, tomatoed rice. Nice with aged Gruner.

Since my semi-retirement last year, I've picked up the mantle in the kitchen. Much to my suprise, I find it enjoyable.

Friday usually is pizza night. All fresh, from scratch. Served on the kitchen island with a cabernet, chianti, or occasionally a merlot. Cool jazz softly playing, a golden retriever begging for a piece of crust, and good conversation with my beautiful wife.

...Or i could make quiche.

I butterflied 2 pork tenderloins and pounded them a little until they were both approx. 1/4" thick and rectangular. I prepared a small dice of fuji apple and onion and sauted with a little butter, pepper and balsamic vinegar. Let it cool and add some crumbled feta cheese and spread the mixture on the tenderloins and roll up like a jelly roll. Secure with butcher's twine and tonight we'll smoke these on my big green egg. I'll post finished pics tomorrow.

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Wifey didn't want pizza tonight, so smoked salmon quiche it was.

Wifey didn't want pizza tonight, so smoked salmon quiche it was.

Not the most wine friendly dish. Especially those merlots you were talking about earlier. What did you end up serving with it?

(Don't get me wrong, I've had wine with smoked salmon and with quiche all the time. Just not merlot.)

Wifey didn't want pizza tonight, so smoked salmon quiche it was.

Not the most wine friendly dish. Especially those merlots you were talking about earlier. What did you end up serving with it?

(Don't get me wrong, I've had wine with smoked salmon and with quiche all the time. Just not merlot.)

No merlot. White bordeaux.

We've found quite a few dry French white wines that go well with this dish. Wife likes a couple of the California pinot grigios, but I think they're a bit fruity for quiche. It's mostly a matter of deciding what we're in the mood for.

Tonight's dinner was Chinese red-cooked chicken (I also threw one full, 8-clove, piece of star anise in), served with rice and a salad of Boston lettuce. Addictive perfection!

-Paul W.

White bordeaux.

Nice call.

I don't drink much white Bordeaux so I don't think of it. But I can see that matching very well and being crisp enough to not overpower the quiche but also flavorful enough to stand up to the smoked salmon.

Maybe one day I'll add that into my own repertoire.

Baked cavatappi with ragu made from leftover short ribs. Yummers.

We just got back from a weekend up in Bangor. On the way up Friday we stopped a Ted's Fried Clams and Bev had a haddock basket and I had a shrimp roll. That night we went to Captain Nick's in Bangor where Bav had a bowl of mussels and salad, and I had a "Mini Seafood Dinner" consisting of fish chower and an overstuffed lobster roll. On Satuday we had a so-so conference lunch, and a nice dinner at the Ground Round next to our motel; we decided to have some meat, so Bev had a Buffalo Chicken salad, and I have a half rack of Baby Backs. On the way home today we stopped at Ted's again (they are closing for the season next Sunday). We split a pint of Maine Shrimp, a pint of fries, and a large cole slaw. It's good to be home. Incidentally breakfast at the Ho-Jo's both mornings was also so-so.