What's Cooking (Take Two!)

Dinner last night was Sichuan chicken stir-fried with fish flavorings.

-Paul W.

[Robin Garr]

Fresh fennel, onion and potato hash with chorizo a.k.a. Field Roast "grain meat" Mexican chipotle sausage.

[Robin Garr]

With three plants in our garden producing small white eggplant by the bucketload, I'm looking for lots of recipes, and many of the best come from Asia. Tonight, a sort on Iranian khoresht made with eggplant, onions, garlic, tomatoes and red lentils.

Tonight it is Tomato Beef with Pan Fried Noodles. I use Chinese noodles, cooked, then spread on an oiled sheet pan over night. Then they are browned on each side until nice and crispy. Beef is sliced very thin and browned on both sides, but left rare. A sauce is made with fresh ginger, garlic. celery, onion, green bell pepper and fresh tomatoes. The cooking sauce is a mix of soy sauce, Worcestershire, catsup, hot curry power, water and cornstarch. It is hard to decide which tastes best, the glazy, succulent meat and vegetables on top or the crunchy brown noodles below.

Last night I made a summer minestrone, added shrimp, and served with a spoon of pesto stirred into each bowl. By itself, the soup is rather plain but a spoonful of pesto helps the vegetables go down! (hum along with me...)

Late summer caprese: Green Zebras, Pyriform Reds, bufala mozzerella, a splash of EVOO and a sprinkle of salt:

tomatoes sm.jpg

And I have enough to do it again!

Tonight it's Chicken, Zucchini and Fresh Corn Burgers with green onion and cumin, served with a Tomato -Cucumber Relish. A side of brown, organic Basmati Rice with fresh herbs. Served with fresh strawberry-lemonade

Burger recipe adapted from Jerusalem

[Robin Garr]

Caprese pasta! Caprese, the classic salad of the island of Capri off the coast of Naples, is a summer standby around here. In its traditional form, it's as simple as placing thick rounds of heirloom beefsteak tomato on a platter rubbed with garlic and smeared with good olive oil and a shot of lemon, then drizzling more oil, salt and pepper on top of the rounds, capping each with a thick round of fresh mozzarella (we love Lotsa Pasta's handmade product) and finishing with a garnish of fresh basil chiffonade.

Tonight, though, Mary had a brilliant idea: Take the premise of salsa cruda - fresh tomatoes and basil chopped and tossed, uncooked ("cruda") with hot spaghetti - and convert it to a Caprese version. It's still quick and simple: Dice the tomatoes, dice the creamy mozzarella, and tear the basil leaves into fragments. Mix them quickly with a little olive oil plus salt and pepper, and toss them with hot spaghetti. Mangia. Definitely mangia. And on a hot summer evening, the luscious tomatoes, aromatic basil and proteins and carbs in the cheese add up to a balanced, if light, meatless dinner.

We went with pasta tonight as well. Ours was linguine with tuna, onion, garlic, capers, raisins, chili flakes, and parsley. Quick, easy, and delicious.

For dinner tonight it is Pomegranate Merlot Braised Lamb Shanks with onions, garlic, cinnamon, cumin, allspice, bay leaf, honey, chicken broth, red wine vinegar, fresh thyme and parsley. Long, slender carrots are added the last hour of cooking. I saw this in the Williams-Sonoma catalog and it looked too good to pass up. To go with it is a dish by Laura Calder, Pommes De Terre a la Boulangere or Potatoes a la Bakery. A rather fussy name for a simple dish of butter, oil onions, potatoes, s & p, fresh thyme and beef stock. The method is what caught my eye. These are cooked at 300° for two to three hours until all the liquid is absorbed.

NY Strip steaks off the grill, Hasselback potatoes, and, for me, the second round of the caprese.

A slab of smoked salmon at the beach this past weekend.

I had a Paella Lawn Party this weekend. Someone took pictures. These were two of the dishes. I liked the lemon cheesecake best, but there was no picture of that.

Paella.jpg

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Grill work tonight: jumbo shrimp, marinated in pesto, skewered, and grilled. I also prepped half a chicken and two ribeye steaks (...while the coals are hot I might as well make several dinners).

Roasted whole chicken sitting on a bed or onions, stuffed with garlic, lemons, thyme, rosemary. It has been basted with a mixture of soy sauce, butter, garlic, rosemary and thyme.
Two sides: Baked asparagus drizzled with walnut oil, salt and pepper, with Swiss Gruyère cheese and red Serrano peppers sprinkled on top. My mom's risotto recipe which has sautéed onions, and rice, chicken broth, white wine, mushrooms, Beau Monde and Poultry Seasoning. After onions and rice are sautéed, rest of ingredients are added and it cooks until finished. Peeking or stirring not allowed. I grew up eating this on special occasions, very tasty. I changed the recipe a long time ago to use fresh mushrooms. Her recipe called for Haute Sauterne wine, which I can't find here, so I use a dry vermouth.

[Jenise]

[quote="Jo Ann Henderson"]I had a Paella Lawn Party this weekend. Someone took pictures. These were two of the dishes. I liked the lemon cheesecake best, but there was no picture of that.

Stunning, Jo Ann! Love the Dungeness crab in that paella.

[Jenise]

Grill work tonight: jumbo shrimp, marinated in pesto, skewered, and grilled. I also prepped half a chicken and two ribeye steaks (...while the coals are hot I might as well make several dinners).

Clever. The shrimp sound great. I might have to copy that idea for dinner tonight.

Block party/drive-in movie tonight, so we have a flank steak marinating in the fridge and I just finished a batch of hot and sour coleslaw. Our movie tonight is Ghostbusters, so we're providing the fixings for s'mores, in honor of the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man.

[Jenise]

Block party/drive-in movie? How does this work? And are we invited?

Block party/drive-in movie? How does this work? And are we invited?

On Memorial Day and (as of today) Labor Day, we do the block party thing, where we block off the street from traffic. It starts around 5 PM, with tables and grills coming out. Everyone brings food, beer, wine, etc., and we sit around each others' yards and eat and drink. The food is not wildly creative but appropriate for the occasion, and the people here are pretty good cooks. There's a bouncy house in our front yard for the little ones and plenty of other stuff to keep them busy. My next door neighbor is both a DA and a DJ, so he has a nice sound system to keep the music going. When it gets dark, he sets up a DVD projector that's pointed at a white tarp stretched between two trees and we watch a movie. So far, we've seen Grease, Mama Mia (not my favorite), and Ghostbusters. Everyone sets up chairs in the yard across from the screen and we pass popcorn and movie candy around. It's a blast.

And yes. Anyone here is most definitely invited for the Sunday of next Memorial Day weekend.

[Robin Garr]

A farmers' market dinner, a simple ragout of fresh lima beans and tiny, pea-size Brussels sprouts braised with onions and garlic in Parma butter and a bit of tomato paste until the limas were tender and plump, finished with a small scoop of crème fraîche.

[Jenise]

Block party/drive-in movie? How does this work? And are we invited?

On Memorial Day and (as of today) Labor Day, we do the block party thing, where we block off the street from traffic. It starts around 5 PM, with tables and grills coming out. Everyone brings food, beer, wine, etc., and we sit around each others' yards and eat and drink. The food is not wildly creative but appropriate for the occasion, and the people here are pretty good cooks. There's a bouncy house in our front yard for the little ones and plenty of other stuff to keep them busy. My next door neighbor is both a DA and a DJ, so he has a nice sound system to keep the music going. When it gets dark, he sets up a DVD projector that's pointed at a white tarp stretched between two trees and we watch a movie. So far, we've seen Grease, Mama Mia (not my favorite), and Ghostbusters. Everyone sets up chairs in the yard across from the screen and we pass popcorn and movie candy around. It's a blast.

And yes. Anyone here is most definitely invited for the Sunday of next Memorial Day weekend.

How cool! What a great neighborhood you live in; how could you ever move away from people who entertain their neighbors like that?

[Jenise]

A farmers' market dinner, a simple ragout of fresh lima beans and tiny, pea-size Brussels sprouts braised with onions and garlic in Parma butter and a bit of tomato paste until the limas were tender and plump, finished with a small scoop of crème fraîche.

I have never seen baby Brussels sprouts like that. Must be utterly fantastic.

[Robin Garr]

I have never seen baby Brussels sprouts like that. Must be utterly fantastic.

I so wanted them to be! They were from a sweet farmers' market vendor, too, a refugee organization that had gotten a dozen refugee farmers - most of them from Somalia, I think - and helping them raise crops for farmers' market sales. Nice guys, and they had some really interesting ethnic veggies.

The B sprouts looked so lovable that I had to adopt them, but as it turned out, they were little but not tender. I had to cook them to the point of funky and they were still chewy. But I loved the idea of them.