I should have taken a picture - I made individual tomato tarte tatins for an appetizer.

Tomatoes in the winter are not necessarily that great. One thing to do with them is roasting. I cut some hydroponic Romas in half lengthwise, squeezed out the seeds, placed them cut-side up in a pan and let them cook in the oven for a few hours (epicurious suggests 6-8 hours in a 200 degree oven). You can drizzle them with olive oil, or just leave them plain which is what I did. I had them covered for about 1 hour, then uncovered. These will keep in the fridge for a while.

I took the cooled tomatoes, put them cut side up in individual, buttered gratin dishes - maybe 4-5 halves per dish, 3 whole and the rest cut to fit. I sprinkled crushed minced garlic and thyme over them, basil is also nice. I pushed a lid of pie crust down on top of the tomatoes and poked a few holes for steam to escape. Baked at 425F for 20 mins or so (make sure the crust gets nice and brown) then let them cool for a bit, and inverted onto plates. I sprinkled more thyme on top. Other recipes I have seen call for a bit of sugar sprinkled into the dish before you put the tomatoes in, but I didn't think it needed that.

Quite yummy!

For dessert I took some pears we had gotten as a gift (those huge ones from Harry and David) and poached them.

I used an entire bottle of an inexpensive Spanish red wine, not very tannic at all, 2 cups of orange juice, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp cardamom, 1 pinch salt (heat until sugar dissolves) - I would have added some orange peel if I had it, and it probably would have been nicer if I had used whole cardamom pods and cinnamon sticks.

Peeled the pears, quartered and cored, then simmered in the liquid for about an hour (I also read that you can throw in a beet for coloring, since they don't get really RED in there)

Then I removed the pears and threw in all the skin and cores, and simmered that in the liquid until it had reduced. I strained it, and put it over the pears. It was good by itself, or could have had a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

3 of those huge pears for 4 people and we still had leftovers I may take them and make a tarte tatin with the leftover pie crust from the tomato tartes tatin.

(the rest of the meal was good but unremarkable - a high-heat roast chicken and roasted veggies)

LTH,

Had lunch a few days ago at Taqueria LP Express and picked up a small container of salsa negra. Marinated a T-bone in salsa negra, oil and peach juice, run under the broiler, brown rice topped with torshi. Hint of smoky roasted heat from salsa negra, subtle sweet imparted by peach juice, pickle pungent torshi tang made for a simple tasty meal.

Salsa negra, torshi, kimchee, oil cured eggplant






Steak - Fresh Farms
Kimchee - New Chicago Kimchee
Torshi/eggplant - Attra Middle Eastern Grocery

Enjoy,
Gary

Attra post on LTH.
Looks like a lovely dinner, Gary.

tonight....pulled pork enchiladas, also some snow crab enchiladas

pulled pork enchilada topped with 2 sunnyside up eggs, and 1 crab and cheese enchilada over rice:

My butcher was kind enough to give me a small pork loin roast in thanksgiving for a soup sample and recipe I had given him. I had never cooked such a small roast, so here's what I came up with. I don't think I've ever written a recipe from scratch either, now that I think about it, but here goes:

Pork with Sausage & Apple Roulade

1 4lb Pork Loin Roast
3 Carrots, peeled and cut into large pieces
8 Yukon Gold Potatoes, scrubbed & halved
1 TB minced Rosemary

Stuffing

1/3 lb spicy ground sausage
1/2 large yellow onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Honeycrisp or Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and diced small (Honeycrisp for me, but I assume the apple should be fairly tart)
Big handful walnut pieces, toasted
4 fresh sage leaves, minced
2 thick slices country bread, crusts removed, shredded and staled a bit
1 TB fresh parsley, minced
1 t thyme leaves
1/2 c chicken stock
1 large rib celery, diced

Gravy

1/2 c dry white wine
1 kids' juice box apple juice (all I had!)
2 TB flour
2 TB butter

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Saute onion, sausage, celery, garlic, apple, approx 10 mins. Add bread, parsley and sage, then stock to moisten. Add walnuts, combine, and set aside
• Butterfly roast, sprinkle opened side with s & p, and spread stuffing on seasoned side. Roll tightly and tie in half inch increments. Sear all sides in a dutch oven with 1 TB canola oil until brown all over.
• Add carrot pieces and potatoes around roast; sprinkle with salt, pepper and rosemary. Put dish in oven.
• Roast until probe thermometer reaches 150 degrees, remove dish and roast, cover roast and vegetables with foil.
• Deglaze pan drippings with wine, add flour while whisking. Incorporate apple juice. Finish with butter and whisk until smooth. Adjust seasoning.
* Slice roast after removing twine into 1/2" thick pieces. Serve with carrots and potatoes on the side. Drizzle gravy over roast pieces, and vegetables if desired. (I desired)

last night was steak and eggs,

rare 8 oz strip from Brookhaven, 3 overeasy eggs, and hashbrowns. really hit the spot.

Pan sauteed (fried?) white fish (from Dirk's)

(if it ends up pretty I'll post a pic)

Farm-raised salmon filet portions that I rolled and tied to look like filet mignon, pan seared, S&P Zucchini sautéed with sage and garlic finished with butter
de puy lentils cooked in homemade chicken stock

A couple of bottles of Cameron Hughes Lot 110 CA Pinot Noir ($16 at costco, screaming deal)

baking off a ham right now, gonna use the ham for some ham and scalloped potatoes for dinner.

Due to the cold weather I am making Jokai Bableves which is a Hungarian bean soup. I've got two pork hocks cooking along this morning.

Erzsi wrote:I've got two pork hocks cooking along this morning.

I, too, had pork hocks and beans for dinner tonight. I braised the (raw, not smoked/cured) hocks from my half a Berkshire hog with some shallots, fennel and homemade chicken stock. After a couple of hours in a low oven, in went some reconstituted white beans. A couple hours later I fired a one of the hocks under the broiler to crisp up and sat down to comforting meal on a cold Winter day.

I also munched on pieces from four different pizzas, in my continued homemade pizza experiments. Commercial yeast poolish, same-day room-temp rise was today's winner.

-Dan

LTH,

Planned a nice healthy dinner, salmon steaks, steamed broccoli and brown rice, then we watched Julie and Julia and beurre blanc sauce seemed a good idea. Delicious, but so much for healthy dinner.

Enjoy,
Gary

Swiss steak made using "restaurant steaks" from Miesfeld's Meat Market and The Chow Poodle's mother's recipe. Very comforting.

spaghetti with elk ragout using the scraps leftover from prepping the filet for olive oil poached elk. Chopped the scraps and added to simmering garlic, carrots, onion, white wine, cinnamon. Reduced, added a ladle of pasta cooking water, and served with spaghetti and plenty of grated cheese.

had home calzone last night. sausage,cheese, onion

I made what may be one of the highest Ease of Making to Deliciousness ratio meals in my repertoire.

One bone in pork shoulder (5-6lbs) tossed in a freezer bag and marinated with most of a bottle of Goya Mojo Crillo for 24 hours. Put the roast in a dutch oven fat-side up (scored if there is a thick fat-cap) and pour the remainder of the marinade from the bottle in. I also sometime season the roast with Goya Adobo seasoning. Add some sliced sweet/yellow onion and cover.

Put in a 300 degree oven for 3-4 hours. When done uncover and turn the broiler on to crisp the fat.

Roughly pull meat into chunks and cover with the braised onions. Serve with Rice with Pigeon Peas (recipe on side of Goya Pigeon Peas).

having a pork loin ,rubbed with garlic& spices,sweet potato's, salad&rye bread from pticek's
& mountain dew throwback

Steamed fish in garlic, soy, ginger & stock
Bok Choy with Shiitakes and Oyster Sauce
soy-sesame marinated tofu pan fried

mhill95149 wrote:
Steamed fish in garlic, soy, ginger & stock
Bok Choy with Shiitakes and Oyster Sauce
soy-sesame marinated tofu pan fried

Very nice lookin food. For a moment I thought I was looking at a nicely crusted steak...but alas it was tofu.

here's a couple of 3 inch Costco Prime Strips coming up to room temp.

It's not all tofu around here

Dessert too

From the Saveur 100, Blackberry Slump (ice cream to be added later)

Making Seco de Chivo
http://laylita.com/recipes/2008/02/28/s ... goat-stew/

(for goat supposedly not being very fatty I sure pulled a lot of fat off the meat, and there's a lot of skimming that is going to happen before we eat...)

G Wiv wrote:

dansch wrote:I also discovered that I'm out of hardwood charcoal

Dan,

Burger looks delicious, and I'd guess using small/oxtail, larger/sirloin die will add to flavor and texture. A few years ago Trixie-Pea made Heston Blumenthal's "Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese", which calls for a pound of oxtail meat. She boned her fingers to the bone culling that amount of bony bovine tail.

Next time you run out of lump charcoal feel free to give me a call.



Enjoy,
Gary

Is that what the bags look like from Berger Brothers? Have not been there yet...need to get there early this spring. What you got hidden under the char coal? Cant make out the curves on the cover.

last night was habanero ABT breakfast tacos..

mercy...

mhill95149 wrote:here's a couple of 3 inch Costco Prime Strips coming up to room temp.
It's not all tofu around here

Did you get those this past Sunday? At the LP Costco they had these weirdly cut (like, in triangles) steaks, labeled Prime (on the blue trays) and "Loin, Sirloin, strip loin steaks" - $4.99 a lb. On the fridge label it said Prime NY Strip $10.99 lb, but it didn't say that on the package, and they were cut so oddly. We got some...

leek wrote:

mhill95149 wrote:here's a couple of 3 inch Costco Prime Strips coming up to room temp.
It's not all tofu around here

Did you get those this past Sunday? At the LP Costco they had these weirdly cut (like, in triangles) steaks, labeled Prime (on the blue trays) and "Loin, Sirloin, strip loin steaks" - $4.99 a lb. On the fridge label it said Prime NY Strip $10.99 lb, but it didn't say that on the package, and they were cut so oddly. We got some...

I like to buy a whole strip loin and cut it up myself. the SKU for whole prime strip loin put the price
around $7.39 per #

Here's one I did a few months ago

leek wrote:

mhill95149 wrote:here's a couple of 3 inch Costco Prime Strips coming up to room temp.
It's not all tofu around here

Did you get those this past Sunday? At the LP Costco they had these weirdly cut (like, in triangles) steaks, labeled Prime (on the blue trays) and "Loin, Sirloin, strip loin steaks" - $4.99 a lb. On the fridge label it said Prime NY Strip $10.99 lb, but it didn't say that on the package, and they were cut so oddly. We got some...

those were top sirloin, not strip steaks.. they've had them for a couple months.

Big batch of Zatarain's jambalaya with added browned cubed beef smoked sausage and diced green, red, yellow, and gold bell peppers (sauteed in smoked sausage fat). Dab of butter and Texas Pete's hot sauce on top. What can I say? We couldn't wait til (Super Bowl Saints v Colts) Sunday.

Cbot wrote:Is that what the bags look like from Berger Brothers?

Berger distributes Royal Oak and the bags can range from plain brown to well marked.