What's for Dinner?

My DW said she wanted LOTS of red meat. Who am I to argue? I supplemented the meager tenderloin I had procured with a ribeye steak. Sides were roasted Romanesco broccoli with garlic, lemon juice, and capers; and orzo, cooked as if it were risotto, with lots of cheese, too. Washed down with a Valpolicella Ripasso.

Food fest for Easter [emoji214]

Food for what 5 or 6? LOL

ibglowin said:

Food for what 5 or 6? LOL

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I think 25 people [emoji4]

Today we had our delayed April fools joke...about 3-4 inches of a really wet, heavy snow. Would have made a great snowman, but your gloves would have been soaked through, unless they were plastic baggies. By the time I got home, it was hard to discern that it had actually snowed earlier this morning, which is fine with me. All this precipitation is reminding me I should have at least rototilled one swath in the garden so I could plant some peas. Guess peas will have to wait (or be skipped).

Wifey and kids were home today. Four month visit to the Pediatric Endocrinologist @ Milton Hershey MC, so I asked what they wanted for dinner, I got a "Bekah wants chicken fajitas". Made me smile and twisted my arm. Picked up some chicken breasts and a few peppers on the way home. Pounded the crap out of the breasts, which helped to alleviate any stress that my Monday brought to me, mixed up a fresh batch of seasoning, added some oil and the breasts with the seasoning to a baggie for an hour. Meanwhile got the charcoal started up on the 22" Weber kettle grill. Found a few small pieces of pecan wood and soaked to get the outside wet. Then watched the clock and started up the chicken a good 45 minutes before we were to eat. Turned into a beautiful day, perfect for some fajitas on a Monday.

I went off the board for 20, Jack, and did up two fajita quesadillas. Added some caramelized onions and some hot sauce, stuffed in Mission jalapeno wraps and kept one for lunch tomorrow. Yum!

We enjoyed a ridiculously good Easter Sunday dinner with two dear friends and my DW. Still savoring the thoughts of it! (Unfortunately, the pictures only take us half-way through )

The first picture shows the place setting. Ummm, scissors? WTF? Well, for the first course, I started us off with steamed snow crab clusters and lots of butter. (Some with lemon, some without.) Scissors are ideal for extracting the meat from snow crabs. This course was paired with braised artichoke hearts (garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, stock, white wine, some hot pepper flakes, and parsley). We drank champagne to wash it down.

The second course was roast rack of lamb (garlic, thyme, rosemary), seared in skillet then finished in a 500F oven. Also made a decadent Béarnaise sauce to smother this with (shallots, vinegar, white wine, egg yolks, butter, garlic, and marjoram instead of tarrogon). The first side dish was a twice-baked potato casserole (russets were simmered, then grated, with sour cream, bacon, scallions, butter, heavy cream, cheddar, and mozzerella, and baked for ~1 hr.) Finally, I made a spring pea dish: slightly undercooked the peas, then take ~1/2 of them and puree with heavy cream and mint, then recombine. We washed this down with a yummy Walla Walla Syrah that one of the guests brought.

For dessert, the other guest brought strawberries, which she then sliced and macerated in port (that I made for her many months ago), then served with fresh mascarpone cheese. She brought a novelty almond-flavored champagne to chase this. She was worried I would not approve of the novelty -- she was dead wrong! We slurped that right down the hatch.

Sadly, only the first course got documented.... (I blame the wine!)

Some good Easter grub here too.

Hummus, guacamole, fresh bread, seaweed salad, roasted butternut squash soup, jackfruit carnitas tacos, mushroom risotto.

You're killin' me, Greg! Those look fab.

Tonight's fare featured some loin lamb chops (for a change). These are basically T-bones, but from lamb. After dry-brining, I seared these and served with smoked paprika, which my little brain (correctly) thought might go with the leftover Béarnaise sauce from the other day (shallots, vinegar, white wine, egg yolks, butter, garlic, and marjoram instead of tarragon). This combo worked quite nicely. I also made a "green pearl cous-cous" inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi, but I did not slavishly follow a recipe. Basically, it was Israeli pearl cous-cous with lots of parsley, scallions, fried onions, toasted pistachios, tarragon, cumin, etc. And finally, I charred some baby bok choi halves, then braised them in sherry and chicken stock.

This was all washed down with my CC Showcase Argentinian Malbec (40 mos. old), which was very pleasant.

Some interesting recipes for the Sous Vide Cooker. They claim Chipotle is now serving all their meat this way instead of cooking "in house".......

http://ovens.reviewed.com/features/...=usat&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=collab

The Mrs and I headed down south to play yankee over Easter.

Along the way we stopped at my favorite rib joint for some Danish cut ribs. The bones are pencil thin and the meat is fall apart tender!!!

Here is a pic. I already started on my first rib!!!



For Easter dinner, I made roast ham, brats, mash, and Hungarian Cabbage salad. Sorry, no pics of that.

I made some cinghiale tonight, which is a Tuscan boar ragu. I used country-style pork ribs in lieu of the boar. Browned 'em, then simmered until tender with tomatoes and sauteed carrots, onions, garlic, mushrooms, lots of herbs and spices. This is then served mixed with pappardelle pasta, as is traditional. Also made a dish of braised lacinato kale, with bacon grease, onions, garlic, ho-made chicken stock, hot pepper flakes, coriander, and fennel. Washed this down with a WE LE14 Super Tuscan, since this is a Tuscan dish!

sour_grapes said:

I made some cinghiale tonight, which is a Tuscan boar ragu. I used country-style pork ribs in lieu of the boar. Browned 'em, then simmered until tender with tomatoes and sauteed carrots, onions, garlic, mushrooms, lots of herbs and spices. This is then served mixed with pappardelle pasta, as is traditional. Also made a dish of braised lacinato kale, with bacon grease, onions, garlic, ho-made chicken stock, hot pepper flakes, coriander, and fennel. Washed this down with a WE LE14 Super Tuscan, since this is a Tuscan dish!

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Well thanks, Paul! You just answered the $50 question: 'What is Jim making for dinner on Saturday?".

Boatboy24 said:

Well thanks, Paul! You just answered the $50 question: 'What is Jim making for dinner on Saturday?".

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It is indeed easy AND good! Find yourself a chianti or the like to quaff. (I was tempted to open a Rosso di Montalcino that I have a few of, but I want to age them for a while yet.)

Here was Thursday, but no time to post. I started a lamb shank the night before in the sous vide contraption. Pulled it out of the hot tub and browned it under a broiler. I pulled the shank meat off the bone, and braised it a bit more with sauteed onions and carrots, and a reduction sauce of Merlot and lamb-shank juice. Meanwhile, I made roasted broccoli and garlic (with just EVOO to play along). Fortunately, we had some leftover twice-baked potato casserole from the other day, which rounded things out nicely.

And tonight (Friday). I started a corned beef brisket this morning in the sous vide cooker. I followed j. Kenji Lopez-Alt's (or whatever his name is) advice and cooked it for 10 hours at 180F. I was worried when I saw the liquid in the bag that was lost from the meat, but I think he was correct. It was much better than than the traditional simmer in water, but it had a similar, flaky texture (but not yet dry). Some of you may have heard me say in the past that Corned Beef is my favorite legal substance -- tonight was no exception.

Side dishes were Savoy cabbage fried up with onions and garlic, then braised in ho-made chx stock. Finally, DW made some carrots that were the cat's meow -- braised and glazed, first in butter, then in balsamic vinegar for some time, with some garlic cloves to boot.

Being corned beef, this was washed down with some beer: a mixture of 1/2 Maibock and 1/2 Abbey Trippel, which worked out well.

Hmmm, maybe I should read this story on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/story/i...NL_SC01_PT022_WW_FY18Q2WK14&ign-itscg=as10032

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Marinated up some chops using the first thing I found "googling".

https://www.recipetineats.com/a-great-marinade-for-pork-chops/

Turned out really well, even the hot dog monger (my youngest daughter) liked them. My wife said they were almost as good as a steak (her favorite food)! Served with steamed green beans and some hash brown taters that my wife whipped up. Also did a left over hunk (not used for the chops) in a cuban type marinate (citris, sour, cumin, garlic and more garlic). Will use tomorrow for some cubano type sandwiches. Yum!

Those pork chops look really good.!

geek said:

Those pork chops look really good.!

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I ran them up to 157*F before pulling them because I was worried my new temperature contraption wasn't accurate (hadn't tested it yet), and they were still incredibly tender (and my chop had no pink in it at all, which to me is overdone). The marinate worked really well as a tenderizing agent.