too funny, I was thinking of making Gordon Ramsey’s lettuce wraps tonight- with pork. Quick and light in this heat!
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Lordamercy, when does it stop? (“It” can be whatever fits for you at the time - for me, it’s the nonstop “stuff” - both at work and at home). So tonight’s dinner was a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
A coupla ears of corn were stripped of their kernels. Half a small red bell pepper was chopped. Some chives were chopped up as well. Some garlic was minced.
Corn and red bell pepper was sauteed, with garlic added in. In was tossed about a half cup of chicken stock and 1/4 cup of canned diced tomatoes with a bit of tomato sauce.
Simmer, simmer, simmer. Reduce, reduce, reduce.
Added half the chopped chives, some Aleppo pepper to taste, salt, and 1/4 cup of heavy cream.
Simmer, simmer, simmer s’more.
Add in the pappardelle, toss to coat, plate into a bowl. Sprinkled with some more chives, and some toasted breadcrumbs, and it was dinner.
There WAS wine.
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It has been WAY too hot to cook lately so I’ve been eating a lot of charcuterie/cheese/olive dinners this past week. However, last night I wanted something a little more substantial, so I braved the heat to make a house favorite, spicy crispy beef and tofu, with a side of steam-sauteed haricots verts. Hit the spot for sure. I’m getting home late tonight though, so I think I’ll be back to charcuterie!
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As a Floridian I don’t understand this issue
If I had central air and/or a larger space, I wouldn’t care. However, I have two crappy window unit ACs, neither of which is in the kitchen. The apartment is small enough that the oven heats the entire place. Ugh.
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BLATs were diner. Toasted rosemary bread, mayo mixed with a diced serrano from the garden, avocado, bacon, yellow tomatoes, micro arugula. 
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So hot and sticky here, in combination with intense long days.
Tonight i celebrated Ripe Avocado Day with the other half of my avocado (first half was part of breakfast) which i smooshed onto some thick seedy crackers with a hefty sprinkle of hemp seeds, and some smoked salt and pepper. Side salad with greens and lots of cilantro
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I made a low carb shrimp pad Thai. Instead of rice noodles, I used a combination of shirtaki noodles and zucchini noodles. The flavour was great and the textural contrasts worked well. I didn’t miss the rice noodles.
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Have a kilo of fresh and cleaned scallops in the fridge. Thinking about creamy risotto. Half to go in a salad?
OK, we shall see.
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Lunch, not dinner, but I had a package of BISO chicken thighs in the fridge that needed to be used and I didn’t want to turn on the oven. So, I boned them (bones are in the slow cooker for stock) and left the skins on, cut them into wing-sized pieces and dumped them in the deep fryer. Boneless wings! Not bad at all, but I ended up overcooking the meat in order to get the skins crisp-ish. I think the skins on thighs are just too thick to achieve the same texture as wing skins in the fryer. Perhaps pre-steaming or something would help to render some fat, and then they could just be flash fried for crispness? More experimentation needed.
Another problem may have been oil temp - it was 360ish when I dropped them in, but lost over 100 degrees of temp immediately. If I could keep the temp up, that might help. Smaller batches would work, but I have also thought of buying an induction burner for deep frying - I would think the faster heating/response time would help tremendously in maintaining a high temp for frying. Does anyone here have induction, and if so, how good a job does it do on oil temps?
I just picked up a whole wild caught Sockeye salmon from Costco . @ 4.99 # it was a no brainer . I might put it in the smoker or just steak it out . Ingredients for tonight . Baby new potatoes , dill , fennel bulb , crusty French bread . I’ll figure how I’m going to put it all together .
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gorgeous!
So tonight’s dinner was roasted chicken breast (BISO) with a lemon zest and garlic rub, fresh local green beans tossed with dill and butter, steamed cauliflower with cheese sauce.
The recipe I used for the chicken was a bit different. You put the chicken breast in a ziplock and pounded it to an even thickness- I hadn’t thought of doing this to chicken with the bone in but the results were great. Obviously, it cooked more evenly.
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From the FM . It’s busting out with great produce .
Baby cauliflower
Basil
Russian fingerlings
Heritage bone in pork chop
Baby spring onions
Mussels from Washington
Dry farmed Early girl tomatoes .
So with all that . Mussels and eggplant for lunch . Dinner , braised baby cauliflower in tomato puree and anchovy , Gilled bone in pork chop ( brining at the moment ) its got some real nice fat on it , Caprese salad with Mozzarella Di Bufala , Russian fingerlings sautéed in butter and fresh sage . Cheers
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A leisurely day - finally did some cooking, since I’ve done none since Thursday evening (out on Friday evening with a coworker, which ended up being 3 glasses of wine and a large appetizer dish of mac & cheese), and Saturday was at a friend’s party, where I had jerk chicken (from Blue Ribbon BBQ, a favorite in the Boston area), pulled pork, potato salad, cornbread and assorted other items. Sangria to drink (friend’s son used the Dali’s recipe, and it was good!)
This morning, I made corn stock for the freezer, and zested and juiced 9 oranges left over from the sack purchased to make sangria last weekend.
Had taken out a half turkey breast from the freezer and did a quick brine of apple juice, salt, sugar, peppercorns, bay leaf, and sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme. Roasted the turkey as well as a separate pan of roasted baby taters tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and Herbs de Provence. Fresh corn stripped from the cob mixed with peas and sprinkled with ground sumac was the final side dish. Well, except for a glass of wine. 
Decided to use some of the fresh OJ and zest in an orange cake from Epicurious. Instead of the 2 tsp. of orange zest, I used 1-1/2 Tbsp. of fresh zest (comments section showed that many doubled to 4 tsp., so I figured the little extra to bring it up to 1-1/2 Tbsp. wouldn’t hurt. It did not overwhelm, and the cake is nice and light and fresh-tasting.
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Tonight was Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with spaghetti squash, a simple leaf lettuce salad with lemon and oil, salt and pepper and sliced garden strawberries for dessert.
I like to cut the richness of the tomato sauce with spaghetti squash rather than pasta.
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By “homegrown”, do you mean someone in your family hunted the deer, or do you actually rear deer?
Hard to find deer tongues. I’d love those prawns too.
As for me, it is very hot today (yes, here in Québec) and I’m enjoying a small Greekish salad with lovely ripe plum tomatoes, feta and non-traditional green Spanish olives stuffed with paprika. I also have a bit of shrimp pâté on croûtons from a slightly stale baguette. And ordinary but decent spanish vino tinto cut with bubbly mineral water…
The whole salad is in a tapas dish; I’m not very hungry in this heat.
@lagatta, I’m pretty sure Sasha means this lettuce:
http://www.seedsavers.org/amish-deer-tongue-lettuce
And we’ve moved over to WFD #12 for August:
Though this is a 4 year old post; I am very interested in an “authentic traditional classic” recipe called:
Prawn Saganaki … Must be in European Measurement System …
The recipe I have is:
1 Kilo of large langstinos ( large prawns)
Greek Evoo - 125ml.
Scallions sliced finely or diced - 4
1 garlic clove minced tiny
Green bell pepper - 1 small to medium sized
Fresh red chili pepper de-seeded and sliced finely ( I use Spanish Guindillas or Basque Esplette)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Fresh tomato sauce from scratch -
1 cup
Tomato paste - 1 scant tablespoon
Ouzo or dry Santorini Greek White Wine - 2 tablespoons
fresh oregano herb 2 tsps snipped finely
parsely freshly and finely sliced - 1 / 2 cup
Greek Goat Cheese Feta crumbled - 220 grams
Unsalted French Butter 1 tablespoon
salt to taste of course
YIELD: 2 to 4 servings depending if you are making a main course or an appetiser or amuse boûche
Does any one out of curiousity have an addition to the dish ?
This recipe works wonderfully … So, it is just a question of additions ?
