Finally got home from work at a reasonable hour to give me time to make something other than a bowl of cereal or reheating leftover veggies for dinner:
Beef Stroganoff with egg noodles and peas. Didn’t have a whole lot of mushrooms in the fridgerator, so I tossed in about 2 Tbsp of caramelized onions in the fridge from the cheese steak sandwiches this past weekend.
Yep. Wine.
Thanks!
I’m more than fine with a lack of porky flavor! (Actually never liked bacon or sausages etc back when i was a kid and an omni)
Good call on the pasta needing to be sturdy, i’ll save my alphabets for something else.
Last night was late, i scored some fancy sourdough pretzels from a gift basket thingy that was in the office and then hit whole foods prepared section near my subway home for a vegan kale ceasar salad with added tempeh. Pretty good but kinda heavy on the seaweed flavor (which i think was in the dressing as the anchovy sub). Overpriced bottle of hard cider a la carte.
Got in too early and left at a semi decent time tonight. Hippie bowl with some quinoa from the freezer that i warmed up and dribbled with toasted sesame oil, shelled edamame with furikake, sauteed some cruciferous crunch with a splash of soy sauce and sesame oil. Chopped scallions and cilantro over all of it. I wanted avocado but the dumb thing is still hard as a rock…
i see hot chocolate with almond milk (made from chopped dark chocolate whisked into the heating almond milk) and a big pile of vegan mini marshmallows in my not distant future.
@Ttrockwood. You don’t do fishes either, right? When I am cooking for my sister, I often add a bit of miso to my soups to give that deep flavor without any animal/fish proteins.
I know this sounds nuts, but I don’t want a store bought dip. I have all these ingredients… and haven’t been able to use them up. I can feel an artichoke dip in there, just have never made one, and if I am honest, haven’t eaten them often. I always had to watch my weight so dips were just 'I don’t eat them" and now… things are different.
I really appreciate your ideas. They are good. But, I am hoping to make it at home. 
Maybe you can find or modify something here
Yep wine.
Me too. Cheers
No fishies but i loooove miso (i buy the japanese miso, nothing fishy) good idea!
I need a “like all posts” button!
Good eating, everyone.
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I’ve been lazy with uploading photos. Here are some dinners I managed to photograph (quickly). Other meals were either leftovers or you have seen them before.
SV partridge went in the oven briefly. Saucy broth in the pan was chicken stock, wine and preserved lemon. Lots of minced shallots and garlic as well. There were 3 but we could only finish 1 so the rest became soup (for today’s dinner). Greenery was just stir-fried savoy cabbage.
Has Cantal cheese in this mashed potato. I’m always too lazy to mash the potatoes so finely. Look up Aligot if you want to make it.
SV pheasant breasts, with the wing attached. I don’t normally buy pheasant breasts, this was a test. Roasted crown prince squash slices alongside.
Home made potato dumplings with coarsely grated Hokkaido squash in the dough. Fried in goose fat.
SV goose breast, brushed with my sauce laced with liquid smoke then rendered the fat a bit. Goose breasts are always massive. My half was even a big too much for me.
Store-bought Spätzle, I added the cheese.
I used 1 and a half wedges of cheese.
The cheeses: with forest mushrooms
A mix of goat and sheep’s milk.
PS: pet owners, are you going to make a cat/dog proof tree?
Did the pheasants pass?
No. I prefer the thighs, and specifically duck.
In another direction, I love smoked paprika to flavor dishes like greens during cooking and sprinkled on top of hummus or baba ganoush. Smoked paprika adds depth to braised greens without using a pork product.
Za’atar seasoning—the green kind that includes sesame seeds in the blend—is another favorite condiment that adds umami.
Yesterday, I smoked 2 racks of ribs in my MAK pellet smoker using a combination of apple, cherry and hickory pellets. 3 hours set point at 250 degrees followed by 3 hours set point smoke. I followed Meathead’s recipe, 1.5 tbsp for every pound of ribs after removing the membrane, oil it, and then used his rub liberally called Memphis Dust which I make ahead of time as rub for smoking pork. ( 3/4 c demerera sugar, 3/4 c white sugar, 1/2 c paprika,1/4 c garlic powder, 2TBSP black pepper, 2TBSP ginger powder, 2TBSP onion powder and 2 TBSP rosemary powder) With the rib side down after 6 hours, I brushed it with STUBBS BBQ sauce and flash grilled for a few minutes. ( my son cut it before I took a picture). This was served with macaroni and cheese, and green beans ( no picture taken as he was famished!) Prior to purchasing the pellet smoker, I used to cook my ribs in the oven for hours, then grill it. The meat would literally fall off the bone. Meathead says the best Ribs are not the ones where the meat are falling off the bone but the ones that are soft and he is right on the money! This was served with macaroni and cheese and french string beans ( boiled with bay leaves for a few minutes, shocked with ice water, drained then briefly sauteed with garlic and olive oil and a splash of lemon juice. These were paired with pinot noir.
18 inch rockfish caught from our pier just an hour ago, filet, dipped in sweet potato starch, eggs then panko (60%) and parmesan cheese 40%. Just enough for 2 DELICIOUS when fish is so fresh, served with left over macaroni and cheese
Food from the smoker today. Chuck was on sale the other day
Chuck roast and chuck meatloaf . Had to have a little of both
My husband turned 65 this week. Hard to believe, to be honest. He has a Medicare card! Tonight was a celebration dinner at Sarma. We can only eat four small plates. Tonight our new item was the “sunchokes black truffle, peppercorns, balsamic” which was delicious! I don’t think I have eaten sunchokes before even though they are this year’s culinary darling. I liked them, and the truffles certainly didn’t hurt. The sunchokes were sautéed. There might have been a bit too much oil used to cook.
Next were the “calamari fritto pinenut tarator, hot peppers, eggplant, dukkah” which is just stellar. The calamari is fried with a tempura-like coating. I have no idea what is in the tarator, but I am determined to figure out how to make this at home. It is really special. Mr. SMT doesn’t like eggplant, so those baby eggplant slices were all mine.
The last two items are standards for us: cauliflower fatteh black garlic, shishito, kumquat, pine nuts and harissa bbq duck carrot, orange blossom, ginger, dates, almonds. The carrot-harissa smear on the plate is addictive and so good. I do make that at home, but my version is never as smooth and I suspect I use far less fat.
I guess they had planned to comp us a dessert, but we never eat dessert. Instead they brought us a lovely sparkling cider and we then giggled our way up the hill and home.
How lucky we are to have a place of this quality that we love so much within walking distance.
Sounds like a fabulous meal! I love sunchokes…! (Aka jerusalem artichokes), they’re great just scrubbed and roasted with salt and olive oil, the outer skin gets a nice snap to it. What a great restaurant to have close by!
Rice a roni reminds me of my childhood, mom loved it and it was on the table once a week or so. Somehow i wanted some very badly for the first time in…ummm…decades and realized while reading ingredients in the store they all have chicken fat or chicken broth!!? Wtf? Even the “plain” kind did! Not cool rice a roni peoples.
I settled for a box of “near east” mushroom pilaf which is actually vegetarian. Also picked up mixed mushrooms because more mushrooms = better.
Sauteed the mushrooms chopped with some thyme, a splash of soy sauce and little “butter” (miyokos cultured vegan butter), and then flopped the hot mushrooms on baby spinach to let it get wilty. Added a handful of hemp seeds since i forgot i needed tofu. Rice pilaf on the side. It wasn’t what i remembered, and kinda meh actually. So that’s disappointing but then again also not the same as what i had as a kid. Oh well. I might add the considerable leftover pilaf to a soup, it wasn’t offensive.
@smtucker , wishing you and your husband birthday happiness! Here’s an Ana Sortun recipe for tarator, though not with pinenuts: http://www.finecooking.com/recipe/snap-peas-with-turkish-tarator-sauce
P.S. I checked my copy of Ana’s Soframiz cookbook and the tarator recipe isn’t included.
NY strip steak sliced very thin, with mad river reserve cabot cheese on one sandwich and danish havarti on the other one ( son does not like havarti) cooked on the plancha of the vulcan stove, with fire roasted red pepper ( came in a jar from Costco), roasted poblano pepper ( i roasted this) and caramelized red onions with ground r
ed pepper and store bought garlic rosemary bread
