What's for dinner? #5 - Jan 2016. The Happy New Year Edition

The mixture is currently in the fridge – he was going to take it out and form the cakes & roll in the panko just before frying/broiling? It’ll be anything but room temp.

The very best scarpariello I’ve had or made is Ann Burrell’s recipe based on Rao’s, I believe. I always make it on the bone: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/chicken-scarpiello-recipe.html

It is SOOOOO damned good, especially the next day, I think.

Chilling after forming really does make them hold together better, for some reason. But they’ll taste great no matter what. :slight_smile:

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Oh, thanks for the link. I love Anne and have had good luck with the recipes that I’ve tried. This is different enough from my dish that I’ll have to give it a try.

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Please let me know what you think once you do! It’s my husband’s favorite Italian restaurant dish and this is his favorite version. I use half and half sweet and hot peppers for normal people and all hot ones for when it’s just the two of us.

I haven’t been cooking that much lately, so I thought I owed my husband a meatloaf. Have a big one in the oven because he loves leftovers, bound with almond meal and a tiny bit of panko. Cauliflower fauxtatoes and mixed veg on the side. House reeks of the onion I grated into it, will be burning incense tonight.

Oh, we will be using all cherry peppers for sure. We both love heat!

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It’s the rare person who’s able to turn their ‘love’ into a job. So good that he’s out and working and supporting himself.

Dinner with clients tonight, thus no pics. Apps of jumbo shrimp cocktail and an assortment of oysters on the half shell. Wedge salad with traditional blue cheese dressing, entree NY Strip Steak medium side of sautéed spinach! Yummmmm…

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Indeed. I would rather sit at a table covered in newspaper and heaped with crabs with people I like than any starred table with people I don’t.

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When I was a broke college student a crab feast was the only party I could afford to throw.
We’d buy a pack of chicken necks, put them in the trunk and drive an hour or so south of Tallahassee to a brackish canal. By the time we got there the chicken necks were funky enough to delight the blue crabs. There was a big-assed alligator that hung out on the outer bank and observed. He ignored all our average sized catches. But somehow he knew the moment we caught a big crab and would swim over and grab it off the line! Luckily there were always plenty of normal sized crabs for us! :laughing:

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As for me? I’m working my way through the upstairs freezer. Gotz way too much stuff in there - time to clean it out.

A thick-cut pork chop was seasoned with salt, pepper, and dried thyme and pan-seared in some hot oil. A 1/4 cup of white wine was added to the hot pan, and then 1/2 cup of defrosted Keys Mango Sauce was then added, and blended into the white wine. Covered, and simmered until the chop was done.

Side dish was steamed broccoli. No starch. But wine.

The Key’s Mango Sauce is this combo that I had used for a pork tenderloin awhile back:

2 1/2 cups fresh mango, diced (2 mangos)
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar (I’ve also used lime juice)
3 Tbsp dry sherry
1 1/2 Tbsp ginger root, finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste

In a food processor or blender, puree mangos. (If the mangos are stringy, strain the puree through a fine sieve.)

Transfer to a medium-sized heavy saucepan and stir in sugar, vinegar, sherry, and ginger. Heat over low heat, stirring to dissolve sugar; do not boil the puree. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.

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I have a downstairs freezer (and a big ass generator if it comes to that, looks like we in NY may be dodging the worst) with a lot of frozen fish and shellfish so I bought plenty of cream, have leeks and veg to make a creamy bisquey kind of seafood stew for my spouse. Some day I’ll get back to eating fish and shellfish, but that time is not here yet. I always start with very smoky bacon or some salt pork, leeks and carrots, fish stock (usually home made from my freezer, not sure I have any left) cream, thyme, saffron, sherry, s and fgbp, tomato paste. It looks like I’ll be using some halibut, shrimp and sea scallops.

For me, there are pastured chickens down there that I like spatchcocked and roasted at 450 after brushing with melted butter, then s and p, over a bed of onions, celery, and carrot in big chunks with fresh thyme, evoo s and p. A whole bird with even inch of skin crispy and seasoned.

I rarely bake sweets, but got a big tub of mascarpone and one of smooth ricotta; thinking lemon ginger cheesecake with an almond meal crust flavored with ginger oil and freshly grated ginger to approximate my old ginger snap crust of yore.

I think I also have all the makings for a turnip gratin, gruyere and lots of fresh herbs. I love really fragrant, herbal, homey smells if it’s stormy. I may have to pretend it’s snowing, at this rate, though. Every forecast has us getting less.

I have a downstairs freezer AND full (apt-sized) fridge/freezer in my garage as well. Just no generator. Last time I lost power here was the first winter here - the Halloween snowstorm that was heavy and wet. I was without power for 2-1/2 to 3 days. But while I had to clean out the upstairs fridge of some stuff, things in my freezers stayed frozen without being opened at all (I ended up staying elsewhere during the power outage).

I love the bisquey seafood stew idea. And your spatchcocked chicken. And the lemon ginger cheesecake.

:::Looking around for my invitation:::: :smiley:

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I didn’t buy the freezer til I got the generator, since the idea was to fill it with a lot of pastured meat at some expense. After Sandy, when it hit the 20s and I could see my breath indoors, I decided I was just too old for that shit. Our generator allows us to run everything at once if we want to, at stupid expense, which pretty much guarantees we’ll never have an outage again.

But if we do, at least I won’t be running out every a.m. to the beverage place for more bags of ice to pack my fridge and freezers!

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Tuscan Thursday: Ribollita with Italian Sausage. Molto bene. I was going to make Panzanella salad, but decided too much bread and I forgot to buy a cuke, so it was romaine, radicchio, red onion, cherry tomatoes & basil with a rw vinegar & oo dressing. There was a glass of Sangiovese. A rare dry, mild day today, defrosted the freezer and like Linda I need to start paring it down.

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The crab cakes turned out well, especially for a first! The tartar sauce could’ve been a bit on the thicker side (and the pickles chopped even finer); also, I think I’ll pan-fry the leftover 1.5 cakes.

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Leftover night. Grilled chicken on good corn tortillas with back beans and rice

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Hi LindaWhit,
The forum software here doesn’t have the Chowhound issue of thread loading slowly once a thread gets to ~400 posts that necessitated a new thread. So originally we tried to switch to a new thread every month so its easy for everyone to know when exactly to migrate over to a new thread. With that said, I will leave it up to you all on this thread to decide how you want to handle when to start a new thread.

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My personal preference: a new WFD thread for EACH MONTH. Easier for search and to know if the thread is doing better or worse…
Can admin move the posts?

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I’ve cooked two evenings in a row! Arm roast one night and then stew last night made from some round steaks I found on sale. The stew ended up bland but thickened well, and that’s what I always worry about.