Blown Z wrote:Jim, your daughter is adorable! Good thing she gets her looks from her mom, haha!! FWIW I am filipino and have beautiful filipino/american nieces, mabuhay!

thanks, and you are right, give her mom all the credit.

tonight looks like hotdogs, gonna do some Chicago style, and some topped with chili, onions, and coleslaw.

Whenever I get a window on Saturday or Sunday I will be doing some ribs(Spares, or BB's), & also some Scotch Armadillo Eggs on the smoker. however, I have been eyeing a few whole red snapper on the grill recipes, this might be the weekend I go for it.

tyrus,

Did your nine-month-old join in on your feast?

Regards,

G Wiv wrote:

Did you pick up a nice smoke flavor from the piece of asparagus on the coals in the bottom right?

All I'm making for dinner tonight is reservations, but I'm still proud of the dinner I made the other night— or should I say the picnic I made the other night— so heck, I'll inflict the photos on you.

First, I pulled a few French breakfast radishes from my Earthbox:



Put them, sliced, on Lithuanian rye with goat butter. Also some cheeses:



The one at bottom right, Jasper Hill Winnimere, is really great, with an incredible vanilla flavor that takes over in your mouth. Look at the rind, washed in raspberry lambic (!):



Made a fruit salad of mostly local fruit, made some Michigan asparagus with a balsamic-mustard vinaigrette dressing, and finally sliced some La Quercia prosciutto and speck and my homemade mulefoot coppa:



Mighty fine. And it took less time than a Homemade Pizza! Well, maybe.

It looks like tonight we're going to try the version of trixie pea's mac and cheese that appears in Low & Slow.

Jim,

Do you cook alot of filipino food?

Cathy2 wrote:tyrus,

Did your nine-month-old join in on your feast?

Regards,

Unfortunately not. Not yet, anyway. He's at that stage where he's "exploring" some solid foods. Right now, crackers, toast, and cereal is okay for him but all the other textures give him a funny face and he just spits it out. I'm sure he'll get over it soon enough and then it's all about eating the garden bounty. Cheers...

After my early evening run, I was just craving something protein-heavy: a griddled 1/4 pound chuck cheeseburger (I take a very loose ball of ground meat, stick it between a folded sheet of wax paper, and smack it hard with the side of a cleaver to get it real thin) topped with Munster, a fried over-easy egg, pickled beets, mustard, and ketchup, on a soft Kaiser bun. Runny yolks and beef are just a match made in heaven. Sloppy as hell, but oh so satisfying. Time to grab a homebrew and ease into the night....

Blown Z wrote:Jim,

Do you cook alot of filipino food?

no, & my wife does not cook, the only time I get Filipino food is when we go to a party,

Leftover casserole:
Cut up chicken pulled off the carcass (mostly white meat), leftover egg noodles, a can of Ro-Tel, chunks of cheddar cheese, some garlic, some milk.

I am making a nice salad with arugala from the Farmer's Market and some asparagus.

And I have home-made strawberry-rhubarb pie (all butter crust) and home made buttermilk-strawberry ice cream (made with buttermilk, 2% milk, 8 egg yolks and some butter because I had no cream).

Honey and Ginger glazed pork chops (instead of ribs like Bon Appetit suggested). Great marinade, really flavorful pork chops:

razbry wrote:Ah, picky eaters are tough. There is one meal that my picky eater son loves...chicken strips, dunked in ranch dressing, rolled in bread crumbs and lightly pan fried.

That sounds like it would work with tofu or seitan. I may give this one a try.

pairs4life wrote:

razbry wrote:Ah, picky eaters are tough. There is one meal that my picky eater son loves...chicken strips, dunked in ranch dressing, rolled in bread crumbs and lightly pan fried.

That sounds like it would work with tofu or seitan. I may give this one a try.

I'd be interested to hear how it turns out. Sounds positively revolting to me, but I've been surprised before.

Wanted to use up some fresh herbs from the garden, especially my exploding cilantro crop. My first thought was Mexican or Indian, but then I remembered the whole point of me buying the herbs I did this summer: Georgian cuisine. I picked about a cup total of basil, dill, cilantro, savory, tarragon, mint, and chervil (non-standard ingredient, but complementary), to make some chicken chakhokhbili. Came out quite well. The only thing I would do different for next time is drain the tomatoes (I used Muir Glen fire-roasted diced tomatoes), as the chicken released quite a lot of liquid in the cooking.

Basic recipe:
1 3-4 pound chicken, cut into pieces
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
hot pepper flakes or paste
salt
pepper
1 28-oz can tomatoes, drained
1 cup bunch chopped fresh herbs (basil, dill, cilantro, and tarragon are probably most important, although savory and quite often mint figure into the flavor profile, too. Parsley is quite typical, too.)

Pat chicken dry, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and brown in batches in very hot Dutch oven. Set aside. Reduce heat to medium, add onions fry until almost translucent. Add garlic and pepper flakes or pepper paste (Georgian recipes call for ajika/adjika, a spicy paste predominantly featuring peppers, garlic, fenugreek, and crushed coriander seed). Fry for 2-3 minutes. Add cooked chicken and any juices, tomatoes, cover. Simmer covered over low/low-medium heat or put in 350 degree oven until chicken cooks through and (just about) falls off the bone, about one hour. Salt and pepper to taste, add your chopped herbs, heat five more minutes, then serve.

Farmer's Market Dinner...

Homemade fusilli:


with Mick Klug peas, Genesis Growers carrots, Green Acres shallots, and Reggiano cheese:


Nichols Farm beet bruschetta on Bennison's ciabatta with Traderspoint Creamery fromage blanc, Farmer Jones micro beet-greens, Kinnikinick Farm mint, and imported aged balsamic:

Very light dinner, frugally using up things that should have been used up already:

In this case a semi-garbage salad with romaine, orange and red pepper, cucumber, tomato (unaccountably flavorful hot-house grown Canadian of all things), in a standard dijon vinaigrette with the addition of capers, which my son loves more than ice cream or chocolate. A nice baby eggplant was just past its firm prime, so sliced and into the pan to brown and then cook with garlic and Pomi diced tomato and yes, more capers. Cooked down for 10-12 minutes and scooped up with toasted slabs of Medici olive bread.
Vielle Ferme white: very decent value for money Rhone blend from the Luberon.
Leftover Medici mixed fruit tart for dessert.
Happy tummy; clean fridge.

Kennyz wrote:

Mhays wrote:I don't understand why skate isn't in more demand: its renewable, it's delicious (more like shellfish than fish,) the bones won't poke you, it stands up to all kinds of cooking techniques, and it's cheap. What's not to like?

the fact that when skate is just beyond its prime, it takes on a horrific ammonia-like smell and taste, much worse than other fish. Many people have probably tasted skate gone bad, and have sworn off of it.

I LOVE skate...but haven't made it in five years because of just the above scenario. Skate is one fish that you NEVER want to buy without asking to smell it or purchasing it an impeccable fish source. But, I appreciate the reminder from Michelle that I do indeed love it. Maybe I'll get brave again in the near future.

dinner is a mystery, but i did make 2 pans of lemon bars, 2 pans of lime bars, mango sorbet, and watermelon pudding. does that count for something? i'm guessing dinner will be leftover moroccan butternut squash carrot stew over quinoa pilaf.

Chilean Sea Bass encrusted with pistachios, arugula salad with tarragon vinaigrette, and fingerling potatoes.

Desert is Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Ceam - thanks Ben & Jerry - with raspberries.

(It's a birthday dinner)

I just picked a large quantity of assorted lettuce. I'm planning on making a fruit based vinaigrette salad dressing, potentially with some mint from the garden, and grilling chicken breasts with a citrus marinade, adding some toasted nuts, some fruit (orange, probably, potentially apple), and maybe some Craisins.

grilled chicken, homemade tzatziki, rice, wheat pitas, tomato, red onion, beer, & grilled corn on the cob.

nice hot night on the deck, & good food, life is good.

Wild sockeye salmon with honey/brown sugar/ginger/mustard/soy sauce glaze, grilled on a cedar plank.

Done this salmon recipe many times. My first time using a cedar plank though. It's soaking now.

Creamed beet greens and lambs quarters on Dinkel's rye toast:

What a great evening for cooking outdoors! We marinated some salmon in honey, tamari, and a bit of olive oil, grilled it and served with a relish of diced mango, kiwi, red onion, and cilantro. Summer is definately here. Katie - I've never tried the cedar plank thing either - looking forward to hearing how it turned out.

chick pea salad, homemade pita bread

LynnB wrote:We marinated some salmon in honey, tamari, and a bit of olive oil, grilled it and served with a relish of diced mango, kiwi, red onion, and cilantro

Beautiful, LynnB!

Yesterday I had a really tasty dish of beans & greens that I will be repeating tonight.
I cooked Yellow Indian Woman beans from Rancho Gordo til tender. In a second pot, I sauteed 1 onion and 3 cloves garlic in oil til soft and slightly brown, then added 1/2 a stick each of mild and spicy chorizo and cooked through. I added 1/3 can chicken broth to the beans and dumped in the onion/garlic/chorizo mixture and cooked until broth was almost evaporated. In the onion pot, I added the rest of the broth and wilted my greens (2 bunches collard, 2 turnip). I thought the meat wouldn't be enough but it was. Can't wait to eat this tonight too!

Grilling salmon, making salad with feta, watermelon, cucumber (plus chili and lime).

For lunch today I made a pasta salad with marinated beans (I cheated and used a can from Trader Joe's). It will be great tomorrow when the flavors merge and soak into the pasta. Unfortunately all the beans fall to the bottom, slippery things. You end up with mostly pasta at the beginning, mostly beans at the end. Need a better solution to this.... And this could have used some fresh tomatoes chopped in.

last night was a test tun on carnitas. I simmered a picnic shoulder in R.C. cola, condensed milk, water, 1.5 heads of garlic, 3 cinnamon sticks, oregano, cumin, thyme, and salt. 3 hours later it shredded perfectly.

Served on corn tortillas with cilantro, red onion, sour cream, and some El Yucateco green sauce. also some grilled corn on the cob as a side. Nice dinner after a nice weekend on the deck listening to the Sox.

I will post pics as soon as I remedy my home net connection issue.