Cold rice noodles with veggies & peanut sauce, adapted from this recent NYT Diner's Journal recipe.

Rice noodles
Leftover Sun Wah roast duck & chicken
Carrots
Cucumbers
Scallions
Sprouts
Avocado
Thai basil
Cilantro
Peanut sauce (PB, lime juice, sherry vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger)
Fish sauce vinaigrette (Three Crabs, lime juice, garlic, Thai chiles)

Last week we grilled veal chops and thanks to having some really underwhelming yuca with mojo at Senor Pan, I decided to make my own. The homemade mojo sauce worked out fantastically. My husband loved it.


I also made some manicotti using homemade marinara and that came out just as good as well.


But my efforts to make orange chiffon pie and honeydew melon granite did not work out quite as well.

I've twice now made grilled bone-in pork chops with home blended "montreal steak spice" on them (as a marinade, with a little soy and worcestershire sauce added). YUM!

grilled chicken thigh skewers
(hot pepper, cumin, garlic and smoked paprika rub


grilled Fava beans Yum! some work at the table but super tasty

washed down with a

a year old (from the recalled batch that I never returned)
tasted just fine.

Chicken in black bean sauce, with the last snow peas and first jalapenos and dinosaur kale from my garden. The chiles were unfortunately jala-yos - no pain. Probably getting too much watering to keep the tomatoes and cucumbers alive.

The other night we grilled tarragon chicken on the grill. Recipe came from epicurious. Bah. Could have been better.

surf and turf (sockeye and flatiron)

"Barbecued" pork is in the slow cooker but will probably not be ready for sandwiches til tomorrow night, so I've got an outer skirt steak, nicely trimmed, ready to go on the grill. $8.99/lb from Sunset, which is the best price I can remember seeing for outer skirt steak in quite a while.

To hot to cook inside. We made Rick Bayless variation on tacos al pastor on the grill. Marinaded thin cut pork shoulder in achiote paste, chipotle chilies, adobo sauce, oil and water. Lightly blackened red onion and pineapple slices and then quickly seared the pork. Warmed up the tortillas, cut everything up and we were in heaven.

http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/view?recipeID=192

Greek grilled chicken

roasted baby red potatoes with garlic rosemary,
grilled broccoli dressed with preserved lemon
potatoes and broccoli were from Nichols Farm

split a bottle of Arnot-Roberts, Touriga Nacional, Rosé

Something new to me, Cherry crostini - very tasty!

sweet cherries, pitted, sliced in half or quarter, but not smaller
put into a bowl with some OJ, mix, let macerate for a while

toast some bread slices (I used a whole grain, but just don't use anything sourdough)
spread with softened goat cheese

top bread and cheese with sliced cherries, top with a dusting of minced fresh herbs (I used mint, basil might be nice too)

a simple dinner of Steak Frites


used hanger steak from WFs yum!

cod provencal

OMG that cod provencal looks incredible.
Was there a recipe you could share or did you just wing it?

sweat some onion and garlic in evoo
add a can of tomatoes some capers and olives
sprinkle of HdP & some pepper (I did not salt due to the capers and the olives)
cook down a bit
add some other veggie (pan patty squash is what I had today...)
nestle the two-bite portions of fish in the pan and cover till the fish is flaky
serve and drizzle with evoo

forgot to add some basil (was busy thanking the photo...)

I'm all over that, I have some nice zuccini and japanese eggplant I think will work well with a yellow squash.

Friday is Tacos al Pastor night - the pork is marinating as I write. Also guac, black bean/corn/Hatch chile relish, and pico de gallo. Yum!

Richard Blais' Mussels with Ginger Beer: http://www.tastingtable.com/entry_detai ... %C3%A9.htm

Last night I made turkey lettuce wraps with a cranberry, mango sauce with cayenne pepper and cinnamon.

I diced an orange pepper and 2 shallots and carmalized them in olive oil in a frying pan with salt, pepper and cayenne. Once it was almost carmalized I added chopped scallions to the mix with more seasoning. I let that go a bit before adding the turkey and more seasoning.

For the sauce I put about a cup and a half of dried cranberries in a sauce pot with some water. I cooked them down a bit before slicing a whole mango into the mix. Then I added salt, cayenne pepper, cinnamon and agave nectar and cooked it down. I pureed that in my kitchen ninja. The end result was a thick, almost paste like sauce that was sweet and spicy. And what goes better with turkey than cranberry?

We spooned the turkey into little lettuce bowls and topped it with the sauce. It almost came across as an Asian type of flavor for some reason. My wife and I really enjoyed these. Great success for something I just concocted in my head during work yesterday.

King Salmon

Mesquite-grilled pork loin (not t-loin), marinated for 24 hours in a citrus-y variation of the sweet/sour white-hot habanero salsa that Rick Bayless serves with the cochinita pibil torta at Xoco, and served in soft tacos with guac, pinto frijoles borrachos, and pico de gallo. Really wonderful summer-night dinner.

Corn, Kale and Black Bean Tacos!
(recipe inspired by one from Rick Bayless given out at Nichols' this past weekend)

Cut an onion into 1/4 and slice thick
Cut corn off cob (2 ears)
Bunches of Kale, removed from stems, washed, chopped (maybe 6 cups total)
1 can black beans, drained, rinsed (or equivalent amount home cooked)
1 cup enchilada sauce or to taste
(if using bottled sauce, add some red chile for heat)
Tortillas, warmed
Cotija cheese
Limes

Sautee onion, when soft and golden add corn, beans and kale. Cook until kale wilts. Stir well and add enchilada sauce, warm through. Put on tortillas, sprinkle with cheese and lime juice.

Last night we did chicken breasts on the grill using a recipe from epicurious. i think it was chipotle lime chicken. Simple and very easy and tasty and juicy to the core. Along with this and chorizo fueled rice, lemon butter asparagus and broccoli (also grilled) my husband was smitten.

As we move into tomato season, I wanted to share my yummy not quite gazpacho recipe. In the winter, I do this with those canned Fire Roasted Tomatoes. In the summer, I use home-roasted ones (you can roast them in a pan on the grill if you like them a little smoky)

Roasted tomatoes, approx 2 cups
(I normally halve them and squeeze out the seeds before roasting face up with olive oil, and then I slip off the skins after they cool, you can skip all that if you want)
2 cloves minced Garlic
Sherry vinegar
2 Tbs Olive oil
chopped red pepper
chopped cucumber
chopped fresh tomato
S&P

Put tomatoes, garlic, olive oil in blender, puree, taste, add Vinegar, Salt and Pepper to taste. Put in fridge for 2-3 hours to chill and let flavors meld. Garnish with chopped veggies (I use a lot of them, your choice how much you add). Drizzle with more olive oil if desired.

Leftover grass-fed pastrami turned into pastrami reubens, featuring home-smoked pastrami, sauerkraut, Russian dressing, rye w/ caraway and pan seared with that wonderful Nordic Creamery butter. Invited a couple of friends over whose jobs were to show up hungry (and with beer). The result: A little messy, but three happy tummies!

Birthday dinner at our house last night--pan-seared hanger steak with porcini and shallot pan sauce, potatoes au gratin, oven roasted string beans with Meata Hatter's Queen Mother's cake and David Lebovitz's salted caramel ice cream with chunks of English toffee for dessert.

Roasted delicata squash stuffed with spicy turkey sausage, sauteed escarole and grated cheeses (jarlsberg & parmesan). Really nice.

We're working our way through our last box of our CSA season. Had a lot of potatoes and kale, so I made a gratin. Thin-sliced potatoes layered with steamed kale, garlic, Swiss cheese, milk, salt & pepper. Simple, but good. I topped each of our portions with a fried egg.

Our local Treasure Island had both flank steak and mushrooms on sale. Seemed like a divine portent. Butter lettuce on sale too. So, went old school on everything: Marinated the flank 24 hrs. in garlic/rosemary/garlic/oil/red vin. Broiled it and then seared it at the end in a hot dry iron pan for a better char. While it rested, sauteed the mushrooms in oil/butter, garlic/thyme/rosemary and some sherry, then threw the steak juices from the broiler pan in with them at the end. Mixed the lettuce with arugula from the garden and made a sherry-mustard vinaigrette. Opened a $10 Argentine Malbec, and called it a night.

Chicken á la King going in the Crock-Pot for tonight's dinner, biscuits on hand to go with it. With work picking up and the weather getting colder, I think it's time to get more organized about using the Crock-Pot in the weekly dinner rotation.

From Wikipedia: The most likely account is that Chicken à la King was created in the 1890s by hotel cook William "Bill" King of the Bellevue Hotel in Philadelphia. Several obituaries in early March 1915 credited King after he died on March 4, 1915. A New York Tribune editorial at the time of King's death stated:

"The name of William King is not listed among the great ones of the earth. No monuments will ever be erected to his memory, for he was only a cook. Yet what a cook! In him blazed the fire of genius which, at the white heat of inspiration, drove him one day, in the old Bellevue, in Philadelphia, to combine bits of chicken, mushrooms, truffles, red and green peppers and cream in that delight-some mixture which ever after has been known as 'Chicken a la King.' "

I love the word "delight-some." I must sneak sautéed mushrooms into my own serving later. Mushrooms are on the extensive list of "Things My Dog Will Eat With Me That My Husband Will Not."