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  #76  
Old 07-28-2004, 12:51 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea
Or, wait. Why don't you and liv get married and adopt me?
Sounds good to me. You in, Rev?

Quote:
Puerco Pibil This is basically the recipe I'm using, from the Once Upon a Time in Mexico DVD. Except I'm going to serve it kind of like enchiladas instead, with, like, cheese and onions and stuff. Hmm. Maybe I should make cilantro rice, too. I guess I'd better hurry up and decide.
It sounds delish except for the cilantro part. Hate that shit. Hate it.

Quote:
So I am chopping up all this fruit, too, so I can make everyone eat it before it rots, and I'm probably going to make yogurt tonight so we can have mango lassis in the morning. How glamorous would mango lassis for breakfast be? Way glamorous is how.
That's insanely glamorous. Every day at the lisarea homestead is like a Hawaiian 5 star resort.

Hey, given all the freshly goodness you've got going on, have you considered a fruit gaspacho? I've never made a tropical wonders version, but I bet it would kick massive pie wagon ass.

Fruit Gazpacho

1 cup of sliced grapes (green or red)
3/4 cup blueberries or bananas
1/2 cup of diced strawberries
1/2 cup of diced pineapples
1/2 cup raspberries or sweet apples
1/4 cup of diced peaches
1 cup apple juice
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
a stick of cinammon

Place all fruit in a large bowl. Add juices, pepper and cinammon. Stir gently. Cover bowl tightly. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
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  #77  
Old 07-28-2004, 01:19 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

The fruit gazpacho sounds great. I'd try it, even, if I had apple juice, but I cannot make myself go to the store even one more time. Serious. I am dying from store-going.The fruit's doing a good job of getting et up so far, so I probably won't have to try anything too fancy, but I may do a fruit salad if it comes to that (which I make basically the same way, even including the pepper, but with yogurt instead of juice, plus honey and lemon).

liv, does cilantro taste like soap to you? I've heard people say that, but I don't taste it. What about coconut? It seems like I must be missing my soap-tasting organs, because the only thing that tastes like soap to me is soap.

Or am I misremembering the objection to cilantro?
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  #78  
Old 07-28-2004, 01:19 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea
Puerco Pibil This is basically the recipe I'm using, from the Once Upon a Time in Mexico DVD. Except I'm going to serve it kind of like enchiladas instead, with, like, cheese and onions and stuff. Hmm. Maybe I should make cilantro rice, too. I guess I'd better hurry up and decide.
That sounds awesome.. but !!two!! habaneros?! Hope you like your food incendiary, cause those things are painfully hot. Delicious, but excruciating. Hubby, who I call Asbestos Boy, can't handle more than half of a habanero in anything. I hope you plan to wear gloves while chopping them.

If it were me, I'd use cotija cheese with my puerco. It's that crumbly salty sharp feta-y thing. Nummers.
Quote:
So I am chopping up all this fruit, too, so I can make everyone eat it before it rots, and I'm probably going to make yogurt tonight so we can have mango lassis in the morning. How glamorous would mango lassis for breakfast be? Way glamorous is how.
Wait a minute. I just got culinary props from a woman who not only serves mango lassis for breakfast, but makes her own yogurt AND her own cooking utensils. What kind of bizarre mirror-universe wormhole freakshow is this? (Is there any more Milky Way Swirl Elvis cake left, I wonder?)
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Originally Posted by livius drusus
Sounds good to me. You in, Rev?
Sure!
Quote:
It sounds delish except for the cilantro part. Hate that shit. Hate it.
Never mind. It'd never work out. I fling cilantro about with wild abandon. (I'm from Southern California! I can't help it, I swear!) Ah well, we'll always have Paris.
Quote:
Fruit Gazpacho
Awesome, there's someone else out there who uses black pepper in desserts! I put black pepper in pound cake and gingerbread and gingerbread cookies, pretty much anything spicy, but never in fruit. I bet it's terrific. (Once I put white pepper in shortbread, which also featured ginger and lime zest. I thought it was great, but it hurt everybody else's feelings.)
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  #79  
Old 07-28-2004, 02:31 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea
The fruit gazpacho sounds great. I'd try it, even, if I had apple juice, but I cannot make myself go to the store even one more time. Serious. I am dying from store-going.The fruit's doing a good job of getting et up so far, so I probably won't have to try anything too fancy, but I may do a fruit salad if it comes to that (which I make basically the same way, even including the pepper, but with yogurt instead of juice, plus honey and lemon).
I wouldn't hork that up into my napkin, I'll tell you that much. Slide a cinnamon stick in there for me and we'll call it a deal.

Quote:
liv, does cilantro taste like soap to you? I've heard people say that, but I don't taste it. What about coconut? It seems like I must be missing my soap-tasting organs, because the only thing that tastes like soap to me is soap.

Or am I misremembering the objection to cilantro?
It tastes like lemon dishwashing detergent. Is that the soap taste? Because the lemon thing is definitely prevalent. I love coconuts, btw, but I hate coconut milk. No soap issues there, though; I just think it's gross.

Last edited by livius drusus; 07-28-2004 at 03:09 AM.
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  #80  
Old 07-28-2004, 02:39 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RevDahlia
Sure!

Never mind. It'd never work out. I fling cilantro about with wild abandon. (I'm from Southern California! I can't help it, I swear!) Ah well, we'll always have Paris.
The pill is a bitter one, but I'd rather swallow it than cilantro any day. If I harbour any resentment at all (and I assure you I harbour a large amount), I resent SoCal for infecting the cuisines of several continents with that vile plague.

* livius drusus faces west and shakes her fist at the whole damn state

Quote:
Awesome, there's someone else out there who uses black pepper in desserts! I put black pepper in pound cake and gingerbread and gingerbread cookies, pretty much anything spicy, but never in fruit. I bet it's terrific. (Once I put white pepper in shortbread, which also featured ginger and lime zest. I thought it was great, but it hurt everybody else's feelings.)
I propably would have sighed a little at the shortbread myself, but I certainly agree that pepper is an unexpected good call in desserts. It works particularly well in fruit, imo; the counterpoint verges on the balletic.
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  #81  
Old 07-28-2004, 03:12 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Quote:
Originally Posted by livius drusus
The pill is a bitter one, but I'd rather swallow it than cilantro any day. If I harbour any resentment at all (and I assure you I harbour a large amount), I resent SoCal for infecting the cuisines of several continents with that vile plague.

* livius drusus faces west and shakes her fist at the whole damn state
/me gently redirects that fist to cultures farther south than California.
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  #82  
Old 07-28-2004, 03:25 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

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Originally Posted by pescifish
* pescifish gently redirects that fist to cultures farther south than California.
Oh no. Don't even try to the whole blame the Mexicans thing. It's all California's fault: y'all bastardized, supersized and popularized what had been a blessedly rare and spare ingredient until no cuisine was safe. Cilantro is California kudzu, my friend. Oh yes. It surely is.
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  #83  
Old 07-28-2004, 04:16 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

You can't blame California for the evil doings of that nastypants Bobby Flay. He's a New Yorker, a nastypants New Yorker, giving NYC a bad bad name and taking California down with it in the process.
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  #84  
Old 07-28-2004, 04:32 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

California kudzu. Snerk.

Decided not to do the lamb korma. Contemplated the footlong shopping list generated when I tried to remember all the ingredients, and even considering the ones I'm probably forgetting it was intimidating. Besides, I've been in kind of a rut lately w/r/t great vats of orangish ethnic-y food. I am suffering from orange ethnic food fatigue. So this is what we had instead, adapted from a recipe on Epicurious.

Chicken Fricasee with Leeks and Mushrooms

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips
1 of those styrofoam boxes of sliced white mushrooms
1 giant leek or two tiny ones, white and light green parts only, sliced thinly (I used one-and-a-half regular-sized ones, and felt vaguely dissatisfied; what does one do with half a leek?)
2/3c dry white wine
3/4c half and half
fresh tarragon, chopped, about a tablespoon and a half
Butter
S&P

Flour for dredging, paprika

In heavy skillet over medium-high heat, cook mushrooms in butter until they have thrown off most of their liquid and are getting brown. Set aside.

Dredge chicken in flour to which you have added salt and pepper and paprika for color. Heat more butter in same skillet, add chicken and leeks and, again on medium-high, brown chicken for about 8 minutes.

Add tarragon, wine, half and half, and mushrooms. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer and cook for about four minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Uncover and continue to simmer for 15 or so minutes or until sauce has cooked down a bit. Add more S&P if needed. Done.

We had this with brown rice and the fantastic asparagus that the mediocre market around the corner has inexplicably been carrying lately.

It made my house smell very French, and it was a snap. I imagine that if you have someone to impress in a romantic sense, this would be the thing to serve them.
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  #85  
Old 07-28-2004, 08:19 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RevDahlia
That sounds awesome.. but !!two!! habaneros?! Hope you like your food incendiary, cause those things are painfully hot. Delicious, but excruciating. Hubby, who I call Asbestos Boy, can't handle more than half of a habanero in anything. I hope you plan to wear gloves while chopping them.
I did. I actually made the paste yesterday and marinated it overnight. And I cut out most of the veins and seeds. But thing is, I decided that next time, I'm putting in another habanero, or leaving more veins and seeds.

It turned out pretty damned fabulous, but I wanted it just a little spicier.

Quote:
If it were me, I'd use cotija cheese with my puerco. It's that crumbly salty sharp feta-y thing. Nummers.
Well, I tried it on corn tortillas with some Mexican muenster (because we had some), and then over rice (with cilantro and saffron, because I remembered I had saffron). I think it worked better just plain over rice, because it's pretty fatty, really. The fat just melts into the shredded pork. I cooked it about 5 hours, all wrapped up tight in the banana leaves, in the dutch oven (of course), with foil around the lid, just in case. So all the fat was absorbed right into it, and the cheese just put it over the top for me.

Quote:
Wait a minute. I just got culinary props from a woman who not only serves mango lassis for breakfast, but makes her own yogurt AND her own cooking utensils. What kind of bizarre mirror-universe wormhole freakshow is this? (Is there any more Milky Way Swirl Elvis cake left, I wonder?)
Well, let's just wait and see if I actually make the lassis. The yogurt's started, but really, it's easy to make, and I won't even know if that came out till morning. Sometimes, it doesn't. Even with the temperature-controlled yogurt machine, I can still ruin it.

Quote:
Awesome, there's someone else out there who uses black pepper in desserts! I put black pepper in pound cake and gingerbread and gingerbread cookies, pretty much anything spicy, but never in fruit. I bet it's terrific. (Once I put white pepper in shortbread, which also featured ginger and lime zest. I thought it was great, but it hurt everybody else's feelings.)
The trick when using pepper in desserts is not to let anyone see you do it. I put craploads of it in my oatmeal cookies, but I always make sure nobody's looking first. Man, I hope the ODB is bored enough by this nattering that he doesn't read that, because those oatmeal cookies are a part of my secret anti-donut arsenal, and I would hate to lose a tool in my fight against donuts. He hasn't bought any in probably weeks now.
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  #86  
Old 07-28-2004, 08:32 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Quote:
Originally Posted by pescifish
You can't blame California for the evil doings of that nastypants Bobby Flay. He's a New Yorker, a nastypants New Yorker, giving NYC a bad bad name and taking California down with it in the process.
Bobby Flay is an anagram for Flabby Boy.

Which is probably not as good an argument as the fact that he's a silly, arrogant, hackneyed one-trick pony who looks like my best friend's evil ex-husband, but it's concise.

The guys pours canned fruit juice on meat. He's the Gallagher of the culinary world.

Or, well. Gallagher smashes watermelons, so I guess Gallagher is the Gallagher of the culinary world, and Bobby Flay is like a poor man's Gallagher or something. Of the culinary world. Like Carrot Top, I guess.

I'll be back when I work this out.
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Old 07-30-2004, 03:04 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

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Originally Posted by lisarea
Man, I hope the ODB is bored enough by this nattering that he doesn't read that, because those oatmeal cookies are a part of my secret anti-donut arsenal, and I would hate to lose a tool in my fight against donuts. He hasn't bought any in probably weeks now.
That you know of.

Chicken enchilada casserole for dins. No Las Palamas Green Chili Enchilada Sauce here in Alabama, as the recipe calls for. Haven't made it since California, where perfect chilibeans and tri tip were also available (unrelated to the recipe in question but have the distinction of being CA-only foodstuff purchases, to the best of my knowledge), so I must make do with some Pace shit and hope it works.

d
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Old 07-30-2004, 04:05 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

For dinner tonight, I had a couple of turkey burgers (it's amazing how damn cheap those turkey patties are...12 of 'em for $7) with honey mustard, and some potatoes (fried in olive oil with a bunch of randomly chosen spices) on the side.
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Old 07-30-2004, 05:11 AM
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Dinner consisted of a bunch of steamed broccoli (got rid of the second head that I bought) and some chicken that I grilled on the GF grill and marinated with some tandoori marinade. :D
For a second, I almost reeled in horror as I read "...with some tandoori magpie." Don't scare me like that! :P
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Old 07-30-2004, 06:40 AM
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I pester my wife until she makes a giant batch of red sauce (think three pounds of ground beef and more tomato sauce and tomato paste than you can reasonably imagine, along with a quarter-pound or so of various green spices and an onion or two), then I make spaghetti with red sauce CONSTANTLY. That, and garlic pasta. I can alternate between them for two or three days and never feel put upon.

I am trying a new policy, which is that when I get hungry after midnight, I'm going to have one or two rice cakes instead of making another meal, and go to sleep a little hungry if need be. My hope is that this will make me weigh less.
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  #91  
Old 07-30-2004, 07:34 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

What's for dinner?
I went to what's left of the officer's club on this AF base for dinner. It's the only place on base with an actual menu, waitstaff and sit down dining (err... that I know of and can go to as non-military). It's about 6 miles drive from my test facility, but I wanted to take a real dinner break tonight.

The food is cheap and decent quality. I mostly go there for the carafe of fresh brewed iced tea served in a glass and not a paper cup. The garden salad always has 2-3 fresh veggies in addition to the lettuce and there are steamed vegetables with a dinner entree. Tonight I had a steak and baked potato with the veggies and salad, but those are almost entirely intact and will be eaten for tomorrow's breakfast or lunch.
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  #92  
Old 08-03-2004, 05:37 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

I have done it. I have finally conquered meatloaf. I love meatloaf, and have eaten many delicious meatloaves in my day, none of them made by me. My meatloaves have always been sad and pallid and slightly junior-high-cafeteria-tasting, until tonight.

Here is my recipe for the ur-meatloaf. It is kind of fussy, but so worth it.

Wild Mushroom Meatloaf chez Rev, with Gravy

Makes two meatloaves, one to make right away and one to freeze, cook and eat later.

You need:

3 lbs 15% fat lean ground beef
1 styrofoam container white mushrooms
1 1 oz package mixed dried wild mushrooms (I use Santini Chef's Choice brand, available for a pittance at Trader Joe's )
3 tbsps butter
1 very large white onion
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 1" thick slice artisan levain, crust removed
3/4c milk
1 large egg
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp Heinz ketchup, plus more for spreading on finished loaf
S&P
1 wineglassful dry white wine
1 beef bouillion cube
2 tbsps flour

Rinse dried mushrooms well. Place them in a small bowl and cover with about 2 cups hot water. Set aside.

In a small bowl, beat egg with fork until white and yolk are incorporated. Then beat in milk and add the slice of bread. Mash it with fork until it absorbs all the yolk-and-egg mixture.

In heavy skillet heat 2 tbsps butter over medium-high heat. In food processor, blitz half the onion until it is finely chopped. Set aside. Then blitz the white mushrooms until they are also finely chopped. Saute chopped mushrooms and onion in skillet until onion is translucent. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Set aside.

Remove wild mushrooms from soaking liquid and squeeze out well. Place reserved soaking liquid in a small saucepan with bouillion cube and bring to a boil. Cook mixture until it is reduced by 2/3. Remove from heat and set aside. Blitz soaked mushrooms in food processor until finely chopped.

Preheat oven to 350.

Place onion-mushroom-and-garlic mixture, and wild mushrooms, in a large bowl. Add bread-egg-and-milk mush, thyme, rosemary, Worcestershire and ketchup. Stir well to combine. Add meat, plus salt and pepper to taste, and mix with your hands until all is incorporated. Place half of meat mixture in a baking dish and make into a loaf shape, then cover with a thin layer of ketchup. Place in oven. Cook for 1 1/2 hrs or until internal temperature of meat reaches 150. (Place other half of meat mixture into a spare baking dish. Shape into a loaf. Cover with plastic wrap, then tinfoil, and freeze for up to 2 months.)

Meanwhile, start to make gravy.

Rinse out the same skillet you used to saute the mushrooms and onions and add 2 tbsps butter. Melt over low heat. Chop remaining half onion and add to melted butter. Cook gently, stirring occasionally, until onion is caramelized.

When meatloaf comes out of oven, set it aside. Spoon out drippings from around meatloaf and add them to skillet with the onions. Turn heat under skillet to medium-high and add flour. Stir and cook flour-and-drippings for 3 minutes, then add white wine and mushroom liquid, and a pinch of dried thyme. Cook until gravy is thickened. Serve with sliced meatloaf.

We ate this with steamed broccoli and my husband's righteous mashed potatoes, and it was worth the work. Also quite economical.

(You don't need to defrost the frozen meatloaf; just preheat oven to 350 and pop that sucker in there, then cook until loaf is done.)
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Old 08-03-2004, 07:42 PM
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Sweet sassy molassy, Rev, that looks crazy good. Much like you, I love meatloaf but have never made it successfully. I'm so trying yours.

I don't suppose I could persuade you to hook us up with the recipe for hubby's righteous mashed pot, now could I?
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  #94  
Old 08-04-2004, 07:23 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

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Originally Posted by livius drusus
I don't suppose I could persuade you to hook us up with the recipe for hubby's righteous mashed pot, now could I?
No recipe per se, although he does use an indecorous amount of half-and-half. It's really in the wrist. He knows exactly when to stop mashing -- after the lumps are gone and before the whole thing gets gluey from all the free starch floating around. This is a skill I have never mastered, so I make him mash.

The thing for making perfect mashed potatoes is a ricer, although I've broken three and have given up in frustration. (We now use a grid masher, not that WASPy wiggly-line kind.) If anyone knows of a good, durable make of ricer, I am at your feet.
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Old 08-04-2004, 04:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RevDahlia
No recipe per se, although he does use an indecorous amount of half-and-half. It's really in the wrist. He knows exactly when to stop mashing -- after the lumps are gone and before the whole thing gets gluey from all the free starch floating around. This is a skill I have never mastered, so I make him mash.
Ah yes, that skill is a precious thing indeed. My mom has it down. Needless to say, mommy's mashed potatoes are the bestest mashed potatoes in the whole wide world.

(Although my own feta/oregano ones don't exactly suck.)

Quote:
The thing for making perfect mashed potatoes is a ricer, although I've broken three and have given up in frustration. (We now use a grid masher, not that WASPy wiggly-line kind.) If anyone knows of a good, durable make of ricer, I am at your feet.
Ricers make it easy for sure. I'll check out Cook's Illustrated to see if they've done any ricer assessments. I believe everything they say, and so far I've been damn right to do so.
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  #96  
Old 08-10-2004, 06:55 AM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Dinner tonight was unremarkable. Dessert, however, was epic.

White Nectarine and Blueberry Biscuit Pie

Preheat oven to 400.

Make biscuit dough by rubbing 3/4 stick butter into 2c flour, 2 tbsps brown sugar, 2 tsps baking powder and a pinch of salt. When butter is well-distributed, add buttermilk and stir with a fork until dough comes together in a ball. Turn dough out onto ungreased cookie sheet and press it into a 9" round, thinner in the middle with a raised edge. Brush with melted butter so it doesn't get soggy.

Spread dough (excepting edges) with a thin layer of blueberry preserves.

Thinly slice nectarines, about 5 medium-sized. (You could use peaches too, but you'd have to peel them.) Place in a bowl and toss with more brown sugar, the juice of half a lemon, and a little vanilla. Arrange slices atractively on top of blueberry jam.

Sprinkle with a generous handful of toasted slivered almonds. Bake for about 25 minutes.

(I got the crazy idea to add a teeny je ne sais quoi of rosemary to the fruit next time. Will let you know if this is successful.)
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Old 08-12-2004, 11:40 PM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

So, a little ways back, we were in the grocery store, and they had flats of mangos for $2.99! $2.99!!!

So we bought one, despite the fact that we had not yet finished the previous flat of mangos we paid like $9 for or something. So I made a lot of lassis (mango, yogurt, crushed ice, a teeny bit of sugar or honey, and enough milk to make it the right consistency), and a sort of mango custard thingy that wasn't really a custard, but just mangos, milk, a little sugar, and I think some lemon, with plain gelatin to thicken.

And last night, I used the last of the second flat of mangos, without wasting a ONE. Not ONE. We ate two whole flats of mangos in succession, without a single one getting rotten. We rock.

Also yesterday, I got a call from Mitchell's Garden Center, telling us that THE CHILES ARE HERE THE CHILES ARE HERE! So we went straight away, and we got the first bushel of hot Hatch chiles roasted on the roaster the guy had just finished setting up. Hell, he had to take our batch of chiles out of the truck.

So, tonight is green chile stew, which is almost the same thing as posole, except with potatoes instead of posole, plus I'm making it with chicken instead of pork. And I'm making chicken stock out of the chicken, too, because we are out of chicken stock. And that's bad.

OK. Here:

Chicken
Roasted green chiles
Potatoes
Garlic
Cumin, oregano, salt, pepper, etc.

Marginally related stock-making: Put your chicken in a big stock pot, cover with water, and add spices like rosemary, sage, garlic powder, salt, pepper, a bay leaf, etc. Boil it, then simmer for a long time until you have stock. Drain the stock and put most of it in the freezer.

Dice the remaining chicken.

Now, saute some garlic in EVOO. Peel the chiles, removing some of the veins and seeds, depending on how spicy you want it. (The more veins and seeds, the spicier it'll be.)

Add the peeled chiles, the diced chicken, and some chicken stock to the pot. Add spices as you see fit, and simmer, correcting the spices as you go along. Once the flavors marry, add some diced raw potatoes, bring back up to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the potatoes are done. It'll kind of be a thin stew or thick soup consistency.

Eat with flour tortillas. Yum.

Anyway, youse guys! Youse guys in the cowboy states! The chiles are here!

Also, liv? Do you have any pasta e fagioli recipes? I made a decent one last week or something, but I put hamburger in and stuff, which is not the good Friday Catholic pasta e fagioli I remember. (Just so you know, I like to pronounce 'pasta e fagioli' as 'PASta EE FAG-ee-o-lee' to make people mad, but it never works.)
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  #98  
Old 08-13-2004, 02:15 AM
livius drusus's Avatar
livius drusus livius drusus is offline
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

That sounds killa, lisa. I might even try it should I get my hands on some good chiles.

Meanwhile, I have two pasta fasu (as I like to pronounce it in elegant Emilia Romagna dialect) recipes: the easy one from my mom and the one it'll take me an hour to write up from Rev's favorite food snob Marcella Hazan. Until then, here's mom's.

Pasta e Fagioli
serves 4

1 lb pound canned borlotti (cranberry) beans or 1/4 lb dried
1/4 cup EVOO
1/4 cup canned peeled tomatoes or 1 medium fresh, also peeled
1 medium onion, chopped
1 Tbsp Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 lb of pasta ditale
1 Tblsp fresh basil, chopped

If you went with the dry beans, soak them overnight and drain. Cover the beans with water, EVOO, tomato, onion, parsley, basil and cook covered until beans are tender. Depending on how thick bean soup is and how thick you want it to be, add a couple of cups more water (just enough so that pasta can cook in it) and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook until done. It's such teeny pasta that it won't take long. Must guard like hawk.

Grate parmesan on top and serve to delighted manly populace.
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  #99  
Old 08-17-2004, 08:15 PM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

Ok, I've got something in the works that's very nearly like a recipe, so here goes. I have been thawing some flank steak and this morning I noticed it was defrosted (enough) to get it prepped for grilling later.

Usually I like my flank steak simply salt, pepper and garlic rubbed for fajitas style, but some cooking show inspired this:

prep:
nuke several rashers of bacon
chop mushrooms, onions, garlic and jalapeno
get some stinky cheese of your choice crumbly ready (I used crumbled blue cheese, but I think asiago or feta would be good, too)
get out the Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, dry ground garlic

assembly:
rub all sides of the flank steak with salt, pepper, ground garlic and a dash or two of Worcestershire
lay out the flank steak so that it is flat
distribute the rest of the stuff all over on top
roll up the flank steak and tie it up about 1.5 inches apart

I probably won't grill those until tomorrow lunchtime, so all the goodies will be mushing up their juices. I'll cut up the roll to fat 'steaks' about 1.5 inches tall before grilling. These would work in the George Foreman Grill, but I'll probably do them on the regular propane one with some anaheim, jalapeno peppers, zucchini and pineapple slices.

I'll let you know if it turns out to be hideous, but I think it will probably work out pretty well.
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  #100  
Old 08-20-2004, 04:57 PM
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Default Re: What's for Dinner?

So how did it turn out, pesci? The plan looked delicious. Was the execution as yummy as the blueprint?
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