leek wrote:The butter poached lobster was good, but not necessarily worth the work. Cooking and dismembering the lobsters freaked me out (they still move when dead!!) and I don't think I'll do it again.

I made a citrus cream sauce to go with it, and didn't salt it enough. Plus it just didn't taste citrusy enough. Next time I think I need to put the zest in too and steep that for a while. I saved it, and will probably use it for the base of the lobster bisque I'll be making with the shells and body meat.

I was hoping someone would try The French Laundry's lobster method.

Thanks for the report.

Regards,

Well, keep in mind that I am not a huge lobster fan. If you like lobster I'd definitely give it a try. The full French Laundry treatment involves making a bisque right then, and them making a fancy mac and cheese with the bisque, some orzo, and mascarpone, putting the chunks of poached lobster on that. I didn't do that (timing - you blanch the lobs, remove the meat from claws and tail and refrigerate it, make the bisque, then poach the meat in butter, then assemble)

I've had that dish, and it was great when someone else did the work

I made spaetzle tossed with mascarpone, peas, parmesan and king crab (from Costco). Yum!

brandon_w wrote:Appetizers of seared scallops, bruschetta, garlic cheese bread and a flat bread with caramelized onions and blue cheese.

Should be a good meal.

All great foods for a good midnight kiss.

* I had sasuage/jalapeno pizza from Chicago's and vodka soda's to make my midnight kiss meaningful.

PitaChip wrote:Braised boar ribs over my first try at homemade gnocchi (luckily we're only cooking for each other), steamed mussels and clams, and the best bottle of Champagne I can find in our storage room downstairs. Yum!

Best sounding NYE dinner I've read..aybe because I cook Italian and make exactly what you explained daily or maybe just because they're great....either way I always enjoy boar gnocchi and sides of mussels and clams. (and we also had a few bottles of rather expensive Champagne last night compliments of the restaurant , that almost made working a holiday worthwhile)

Hoppin' John, mustard greens, cornbread with whole corn kernels and green chilis added.

NYE dinner was a happy success:

Arugula, Tarragon and Grape salad
Battered, deep-fried anchovy and fresh mozz sandwiches
White truffle custard w/ black truffle ragout and chip (thomas keller, sans egg shell)
Sous vide dry-aged rib-eye w/ sour cherry and veal reduction, potato, cippolini
Boiled lobsters w/ drawn tarragon butter

one of my favorite celebration meals ever

For the first time in many, many years, both daughters were out on New Years Eve, so we opted to go out ourselves. Not wishing to break the bank, we ran to Chuck's for his Cajun Surf & Turf special, a prime filet smothered in etouffee along with a serving of Pasta Magnifique, which had some of the best tasting scallops I've ever had, garnishing the top. This also came with a healthy serving of broccoli. We started with an appetizer of Tacos Esquinapas, which we have had twice before (once at the LTH Holiday party). We were too full for dessert and got home at the very reasonable hour of 9:15 to wait for the youngest daughter and her friend to get back from their dinner festivities.

New Years morning I made an oven-baked french toast casserole at my daughter's request. It was her 15th birthday. We spent a day at the mall (she shopped with her friend while I mostly lounged around on benches, pretending I wasn't with them) and then picked up my husband and parents for our annual dinner at the little Three Happiness. There were nine of us and dinner, as usual, was superb. The rice noodles were crispier than usual and nobody went hungry. Our menu for the evening was corn chicken chowder, chicken with crispy rice noodles, barbeque pork with crispy rice noodles, peapod leaf with garlic, salt and pepper shrimp and beef with peppers. We followed with a chocolate fudge birthday cake I brought for the occasion. There is a small bag of leftovers in my fridge, but I suspect it will be gone before I make it home from work.

Suzy

I made a lovely shrimp and crawfish etouffe (Prudhomme's recipe) for NYE. Served simply over rice with some garlic toast. I had Mulderbosch Rose 2006 to go with it (hubby doesn't do wine). New Year's Day was a relaxing day of leftovers from the past several days.

We went to West Town Tavern for New Year's Eve, mainly to try their version of lobster with macaroni and mascarpone (served as an appetizer). It was wonderful -- you don't get an intense lobster flavor from the sauce, but they did use nice chunks of lobster claw.

The shaved fennel and mushroom salad with truffle oil was also a dish I'll be trying to duplicate at home.

We also had the pork wrapped in country ham and the barbecued lamb shoulder, served over mashed potatoes and a crispy corn cake. I think they may have made the portion size a hair more modest since the last time we had the lamb, since it was actually possible to finish it without feeling as if you were taking a final plunge.

The spiced pumpkin donuts with vanilla cream sauce were not something I'd ordinarily have ordered to finish, but they were light enough for us to be able to polish them off, too. Though that very generous snifter of 18-year-old Calvados might have helped!

NYE: doing a crab boil(actually steaming the following) with some snow crab, live blue crabs(hopefully I can get some - if not a live dungeness crab or a live lobster will go in the steamer pot), kilbasa, whole garlic cloves, maybe some corn on the cob, and some red potatoes. May do up a batch of N.E. clam chowder based on clam availability and how late I have to work NYE.

New Years Day: smoking some bb ribs, and some sides TBD.

It is Pennsylvania Dutch tradition to eat pork on New Years day. The notion being New Years is a time to look forward and hogs can't look back.

Most folks made pork & sauerkraut. Our family made pig's stomach stuffed with sausage/pork cubes/potato. The following recipe is close in ingredients, but we used to steam the pig's stomach then saute in butter.

http://teriskitchen.com/padutch/pigstom.html

The chewy 'skin' was my favorite part but people that had a hard time with the stomach concept (my SO & brothers-in-law) could also enjoy the stuffing (aLOT of salt in there.)

I have to remember to call Paulina tomorrow.

Edited to replace crispy with chewy. Depending on how much meat is on the stomach you may get thin chewy or thicker and even chewier. Never crispy. Sheesh - revoke my Pa Dutch card.

wendy wrote: New Years is a time to look forward and hogs can't look back.

Brilliant!

wendy wrote:Our family made pig's stomach stuffed with sausage/pork cubes/potatowe used to steam the pig's stomach then saute in butter...The crispy 'skin' was my favorite part

Equally brilliant! Thanks, wendy - I wish I could try it, please post pictures and more info if you make this!

Cathy2 wrote:I was hoping someone would try The French Laundry's lobster method.

I've used the French Laundry method of cooking lobster and also their method of butter poaching it. Both are excellent techniques, though slightly more time intensive than simpler methods. I like the French Laundry idea to par-cook the lobster for a short time and then take it out of the shell - at this point you can treat it similarly to any piece of raw fish: grill, poach, fry, etc. Poaching in the beurre monte gives the lobster a nice buttery (but not overly buttery) taste.

Braised short ribs of beef from Zier's, followed by chocolate souffle.

We're going to The Bristol for dinner tonight, but tomorrow I'll be cooking steaks on the grill I am going to make some sweet and sour cabbage soup, and will use some flank steak for the stock. I'm not sure if I want to toss it on the grill to brown before using it in the soup...

Going to friends, I'm bringing a Shrimp Daikon Miso Salad

Recipe:
1 batch of nancy's daikon pickle prepared a day ahead from six "young radish", cut into 3/16" thick rounds, halves and quarters depending on the diameter
1 lb frozen small shelled shrimp, thawed
Green parts of 4 green onions, chopped fine

Put the thawed shrimp in a large bowl
Scoop the pickled daikon from its pickling liquid using a slotted spoon. A fair amount of the marinade will cling to them. Toss with the shrimp and green onions. Add a little more miso marinade to just coat the shrimp.

That marinade is amazing stuff. There's still a couple cups left, I think it's going on some chicken for tomorrow's dinner.

got my stash:

(1) live dungeness crab (Super H mart)
(1) live lobster Supreme Lobster)
2+# snow crab (Super H Mart)
1# crawfish (Super H Mart)
1# polish sausage
3 heads garic
red potatoes

gonna be steamed off for a feast.

alos got a couple dozen live clams(Supreme Lobster) for the NE clam chowder for tonight.

tomorrow:

5.5# bone in butt for the smoker (Brookhaven)
2 slabs BB ribs for the smoker (Brookhaven)
ABT's
home made slaw

Tonight:

--Green salad
--Cheese soufflé (Roth Käse gruyere)
--Roasted Brussels sprouts
--Whole farm-raised arctic char, baked in a salt crust
--Vanilla-roasted pears with vanilla ice cream

This is my first ever attempt at a classic cheese souffle. Wish me luck.

Happy New Year

Best,
Michael

Hoppin' johns, White House greens & sweet potatoes, another chocolate earl grey cake, maybe a red velvet cake, cornbread, & deviled eggs.

Need to clean my desk & straighten up as well. Hmmm, looks like I'm working today outside of court

Appetizer: char-grilled baby octopus

Main course: broiled lamb chops marinated in pomegranate juice, garlic, and chopped mint
Basmati rice & broccoli rabe on the side

Haven't figured out dessert yet, but we are going to friends' house later.

potato pancakes with creme fraiche and caviar
fennel and blood orange salad with toasted cocoa nibs
bouillabaise with garlic croutons and rouille
cheese course
assorted pastries from Vanille

• Huntsman cheese & crackers with some port
• Ale-steamed mussels with fennel & garlic (among other things) and a rip-off of Perennial's arugula-lemon-parmesan salad (only with asparagus instead of zucchini) accompanied by vodka martinis with St. Agur bleu cheese-stuffed olives
• A chocolate-molten-core cake thingie from Delightful Pastries with some scotch for me & bourbon for my wife
• A bottle of Iron Horse bubbly for ringing in the New Year (and then likely promptly going to bed & sleeping in tomorrow like a champ)

what we had(steamed live dungeness crab, live lobster, snow crab legs, crawfish, polish sausage, heads of garlic, red potatoes to go with some chowder:






Happy New Year.

A flourless chocolate cake (ATK recipe) which was upstaged--I would argue unfairly--by a Deerfield bakery cake. I even brought the shaker for powdered sugar to top each slice and some creme fraiche. Didn't even bother to get them out in the end.

Darn it, hostesses, if you tell someone to be responsible for dessert and you know he/she is making something special, don't go out and buy another dessert!

Oh well, it tasted pretty good for second breakfast today.

Apparently, Old Fashioneds . . . though some sort of food must be in our future.

=R=

pairs4life wrote: White House greens & sweet potatoes

How was this? I ripped it out of some magazine a few weeks ago and it is up on my refrigerator.

Mhays wrote:

wendy wrote:Our family made pig's stomach stuffed with sausage/pork cubes/potato

Equally brilliant! Thanks, wendy - I wish I could try it, please post pictures and more info if you make this!

Thanks for the encouragement, mhays. My pig stomach quest starts at Paulina. No pig's stomach, but the butcher referred me to Halsted Packing. No, Halsted Packing does not carry it. I thought, Peoria has all things pig. A call confirmed they do indeed carry pig's stomach but when I saw the 'pork stomach' it was a frozen block of many stomach (bits). I am looking for 1 whole stomach. I asked one of the butchers whether he knew of other sources. Nope. He must have asked a more seasoned butcher about this because as I was leaving, another butcher came running out and advised me to try Mario's Butcher Shop on Madison. So very nice of him to make the effort. I called Mario's. No pig's stomach. BUT, the butcher started brainstorming about using part of the intestine - that which he uses for cappicola. I know this is not what I need, but again appreciate the interest and support.

So, no pig's stomach for New Years this year. This is not the end. I am heading back to PA in a few weeks and will bring back some frozen stomachs. And I haven't given up on a local source. I never checked with Gepperths, Polish butchers, etc.

It's Chili by George
Grandmother's Buttermilk Cornbread
Sliced strawberry, blueberry, vanilla yogurt, and crumbled crispy gingersnap

A group of us got together and cooked, and we had a turducken with Paul Prudhomme's eggplant and sweet potato gravy, and red beans and rice. I brought two Quebec sugar pies, someone else brought cherry pie, and someone made creme a la sucre d'erable (maple sugar cream). So sort of a Canadian-Cajun connection. Great party.

Hi,

My original plan for New Year's Eve was to replicate last year's meal: blini with salmon roe and creme fraiche with some champagne. Last year, our celebration was at a nursing home and this year it was simply going to be at home. I spent the day running around settling loose ends. By the time I returned, I wasn't in the mood for delayed gratification waiting for the blini batter to rise.

We were travelling this week. Returned home to quite a bit of Christmas ham, which needed our attention. From reading the gratin thread I morphed ideas from Ronnie Suburban and SunDevilPeg: cauliflower gratin with ham.

Our evening's entertainment was watching The Long, Long Trailer with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. There is some great culinary slapstick when Lucy attempts to prepare a meal in the trailer while her husband drives. This includes a discussion on proper preparation of a Ceasar salad. She attempted to do what I have always thought would be a great idea: canned food along the trip whenever cheap, fully ripened fruit and vegetables presented themselves. Of course, canned goods are weighty, which presented problems when they drove into the mountains. It's a good movie to see every 20 years when you've forgotten enough of the details.

For New Year's day, I made ham and blackeyed pea salad. Tomorrow the bone will become the base for a soup.

Perhaps we will finally eat those blini, because the salmon roe can't wait forever.

Happy New Year!

Regards,