What's Cooking (Take Two!)

[Jenise]

Meat loaf tonight, ground turkey based and seasoned rather simply with just onions, black pepper and cheddar. Have no idea what I'll do for a salad or side dish.

[Robin Garr]

Spaghetti with butter and a whole head of garlic! It's National Garlic Day!

http://www.nationalgarlicday.com/

Tonight, it was shell pasta with a pantry "sauce" of tuna, white beans, capers, lemon juice, and preserved lemon. A favorite here.

The tuna was Trader Joe's tuna in oil - which I picked up based on the "what do you love at TJ's" thread. Good stuff.

Spaghetti with butter and a whole head of garlic! It's National Garlic Day!

http://www.nationalgarlicday.com/

I'm an unabashed omiovore, but this is heaven for as long as I can remember! C'mon, butter, garlic, pasta! OK, maybe some salt and freshly ground pepper too, but garlic, butter, pasta!

[Jenise]

Tonight, it was shell pasta with a pantry "sauce" of tuna, white beans, capers, lemon juice, and preserved lemon. A favorite here.

The tuna was Trader Joe's tuna in oil - which I picked up based on the "what do you love at TJ's" thread. Good stuff.

Just perfect for how you used it, too. These days, even when I drain off the oil I save it to a jar in the fridge and it eventually becomes the olive oil in a caesar salad or something. It's also wonderful as the base of a vinaigrette for a warm potato salad.

[Jenise]

Tonight I'm roasting a boneless leg of lamb. I brined it overnight in a lightly salted "tea" full of whole cloves, hoping that the resulting roast will have the same clove-y essence that the best well-done leg of lamb I've ever had did/does in the roasted lamb french dip sandwiches of Philippe's in Los Angeles. There, you stand in line to order your sandwiches and right in front of you, the hostess (who is one of many) fills your order by removing a whole leg of lamb on the bone from a warming drawer and carving off what's needed for your sandwich, dipping the long narrow bun to your specific request: no dip, single dip, double dip (we always double dipped). This restaurant had been making sandwiches this way since the 1920's, I believe it is. (They also do beef and ham, but if you order that the meat comes sliced already from the kitchen--it's the lamb you want!) While we lived in L.A., a great Sunday adventure was stopping at Philippe's and picking up a couple sandwiches to sneak into a Dodger day game. The rest of the menu hasn't been decided.

Just perfect for how you used it, too. These days, even when I drain off the oil I save it to a jar in the fridge and it eventually becomes the olive oil in a caesar salad or something. It's also wonderful as the base of a vinaigrette for a warm potato salad.

Ooh yeah - it would be great in a potato salad!

Easter dinner was "mouton bourguignon"--lamb braised in red wine. Accompanied by 1989 JL Chave Hermitage.

-Paul W.

Cara Cara orange, onion and oil cured black olive salad. A guest thought it was the best dessert she had ever had! Indeed, could have been a savory dessert but never thought of it before then.
Working this into a Moroccan/Mediterranean menu for a birthday buffet for 44 next week. Mains will be Merguez sausage from the Mourad Moroccan cookbook, Turkey Satsivi from Dara Goldstein's book on Georgian cooking and shrimp with red or green Charmoula. Other salads will be fresh watercress, romaine and shaved fennel dresssed with an orange juice and Pernod dressing and a Bulghur salad from Paula Wolfert. One veg will be a melange of roasted peppers with preserved lemons made 1 month ago. Have got to get eggplant in here somehow but caponata and baba ganouj seem too "expected". Still thinking about that. Desserts will be an assortment of dried figs, dates, apricots stuffed with various nuts/ nut butters and nut pastes - almond, pistachio, walnut with and without chocolate dipped ends; small sesame cookies made with honey and lemon zest and chocolate date truffles served on a bed of rose petals. Hoping no one brings a sheet cake

Coincidentally, we had a Cara Cara orange and olive salad a couple of nights ago - ours had small green olives, fennel, and a cranberry vinaigrette! Good stuff. I was a little disappointed that one of the oranges was badly frost damaged, but we still had enough for the salad.

We have some friends visiting from England, so that salad was part of their "welcome to Sacramento" meal. Also had a pork loin roast that was served with caramelized onions and a sauce that consisted of lots of fresh oregano pureed with a head of green garlic and olive oil. Also had mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus, and strawberry balsamic ice cream.

Have got to get eggplant in here somehow but caponata and baba ganouj seem too "expected". Still thinking about that.

The Imam Fainted. It's very simple so it's really all about the seasoning mix and which toasted nuts you sprinkle on top.

Easter dinner was "mouton bourguignon"--lamb braised in red wine. Accompanied by 1989 JL Chave Hermitage.

-Paul W.

Paul,

Can you please post your recipe for mouton bourguignon? I don't do much lamb, and when I do I usually do chops.

[Jenise]

Love olives and oranges--heartily endorse that combination. Way way way back when, when we did those Silichef menus? Someone had both olives and oranges on the ingredient list, which I turned into a dessert version of the salad: orange sorbet with an olive topping. Back then most of us had never even heard of 'savory' ice creams or sorbets. It was delicious.

No cooking right now for me, I'm afraid, so not much to contribute to this thread. Am allowed only bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. This is not fun!!!!

[Jenise]

Yeah! I'm back on real food! To celebrate, we had another couple over for dinner. I did a roast chicken for the main course and preceded that with a salad and another course that I made up while cooking, thinking I could fit a little extra thing in. It's an idea that's been running around in my head for about a year, or at least since asparagus season ended last year--a savory asparagus pudding, chilled in individual stems, that I topped with shrimp tossed in a shallot dressing. OHMYGOD.

Jenise,

Good to hear that you're allowed "real food" again. I hope that you're over and done with whatever ailment required the restricted diet.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Jenise,

Good to hear that you're allowed "real food" again. I hope that you're over and done with whatever ailment required the restricted diet.

-Paul W.

Thanks. It was Norovirus--nothing would stay in my body, ergo the restrictions. If you've never had it, it's just the worst. Instant onset, and the first 12-24 hours are just unbelievable. And all this while away from home on a camping trip. We turned around and came back, but we had to stay there a bit until things stabilized and I could be moved.


Anyway, tonight we're having chicken wings, a variation on the recipe I posted recently. I marinated 12 whole wings overnight in a 5 ounce bottle of Tabasco sauce, then drained them this morning and tossed them in the egg white/baking soda/salt mixture. They've been drying in the outside fridge all day. The thought of what those are going to taste like has been making me salivate involuntarily all day--I feel like a dog. Will report back on the results, but I'm certain this is going to be magic.

[Jenise]

Roast turkey in the oven; a perfect rainy day dinner, coming up!

[Robin Garr]

I made the "meatiest" asparagus risotto *ever*, kicking up a rich brown sauce with deeply browned onions and a dab of tomato paste for umami. It smelled so good that we dived right in and ate it all before I realized that I forgot to take its picture, d'oh!

[Jenise]

Robin, no offense intended by this question, but as I noted again just two weeks ago when we were in such a place, there is a tendency among vegetarian/vegan restaurants to absolutely reek of onions--to a degree I find very offputting. And I don't exaggerate in my description--I love onions but the degree to which I'm referring is truly more reek than pleasant aroma. I had looked forward to a vegetarian soup and salad lunch, but we left the restaurant I'm describing because of the smell, and this isn't the first time I've entered a vegetarian restaurant and for the same reason decided not to stay.

Is your description of the asparagus risotto you made the key? Does a lot of browned onion provide a meatiness, IOW, that somehow fills a gap for vegetarians? None of the meat-free meals I make at home have me reaching for more onions than usual, but then I still eat meat.

[Robin Garr]

Robin, no offense intended by this question, but as I noted again just two weeks ago when we were in such a place, there is a tendency among vegetarian/vegan restaurants to absolutely reek of onions--to a degree I find very offputting. And I don't exaggerate in my description--I love onions but the degree to which I'm referring is truly more reek than pleasant aroma. I had looked forward to a vegetarian soup and salad lunch, but we left the restaurant I'm describing because of the smell, and this isn't the first time I've entered a vegetarian restaurant and decided not to stay.

Is your description of the asparagus risotto you made the key? Does a lot of browned onion provide a meatiness, IOW, that somehow fills a gap for vegetarians? None of the meat-free meals I make at home have me reaching for more onions than usual, but then I still eat meat.

Hmm, I don't know how to answer this. I love onions, and when we lived in NYC and ate at Indian restaurants a lot, Mary and I used to laugh about one place that used so many, they had almost a continuous stream of men with dolly carts bringing in onions by the 50-pound bag. I took a lesson from that and started making Indian dishes with more onions than I though reasonable, and the more I used, the better and more "Indian-restaurant-style" my dishes became.

It also seems to me that browning onions well adds a deliciousness/umami character to dishes (not just Indian, not just vegetarian) that's hard to improve on. With a little liquid and a little reduction, you get a thick, rich brown sauce that I can only describe as "meaty." As Yaniger was fond of saying< "The Maillard Reaction is your friend."

So, I dunno. This question never even occurred to me, but then, I love onions, and Mary does, too.

Last night, it was risotto with spicy Italian sausage, kale, and (dried) porcinis. Lots of parmigiano, of course, and a bit of cream added at the end. It was good but it actually needed a bit more of the sausage.

And for Sunday night, we went for a lighter dish as we'd had a substantial Mother's Day lunch. It was mostaccioli with lightly roasted asparagus, favas, and speck (thank you, Costco, for reasonably priced speck!). Plenty of black pepper and parmigiano.

Last night's dinner was Sichuan dry-fried beef with celery.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Last night's dinner was Sichuan dry-fried beef with celery.

-Paul W.

Paul, I would eat that! I often make celery-intensive stir-fries. What else goes into yours?