OK, no one else started a new thread in the last two days, so here you go.
March is blustery - especially on the Winnie the Pooh Day such as today on the Eastern Seaboard. Many of us are in the middle of “sheesh, when is winter going to end?” and “Oooh, look at the crocuses!”
So are you shoveling or growing new flowers? And what’s cooking?
As for me?
Well, THAT was a day and a half. Due to the proverbial isht hitting the fan mid-afternoon after dealing with umpteen leaks from the heavy rains and unplanned mid-afternoon HR stuff, what I had planned to do for work got shot to shit. Which means working this weekend from home to get stuff done prior to Monday.
I finally called it quits at 6 p.m. and joined the Friday Night Gang in the kitchen for wine and beers. Damn I needed that.
Of course, that mean getting home later than I planned, but realized I had dinner to make or toss it into the garbage because it wouldn’t wait until Saturday night.
So it was a Lime, Thyme & Wine Pork Chop - seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme and lime zest it was pan-seared with sliced mushrooms, onions, and chopped red bell pepper. Chop removed and into a 375° oven, and then lime juice and wine added to the pan that still had the shrooms, onions, and pepper bits. A swoosh of heavy cream, and the whole lot poured over the chop to finish cooking.
Served on leftover fettuccine with some green beans alongside Yes, there’s a pork chop under there. And yes, there was more wine . I needed it after today!
Oh, hello sleeve of Thin Mints - you are MINE, you bitch.
A lot of wine. Whatever’s in the fridge. It’s moving time . Moving sucks. Cheers.
we are having a miserable nor’easter and I am facing a weekend in the office but a recipe for some sort of horrid non-dairy “carbonara” popped up on my feed this AM making me want the real deal - it’s still on my mind so I think that is tonight’s dinner + something nice from the wine shop
Had a pack of pork tenderloin I had been wanting to use, and also had a big pack of mushrooms, so was thinking of making a mushroom risotto with pork tenderloin, and then realized I didn’t have enough arborio rice on hand. Was too lazy to go to the store.
Ended up improvising – I sliced the tenderloin into 1.5-2" pieces, then pressed them with my hand to flatten them a bit. Seasoned with S&P and sauteed in some butter until brown. Sauteed chopped red onion and halved mushrooms until the mushrooms started to brown. Added chicken broth and reduced it for a few minutes. Added the pork back in and simmered for a few minutes. Realized I had about 1/4 cup of evaporated milk in the fridge, so added that along with some chopped parsley that I thought I didn’t have but found after all. Touched up the salt and pepper.
For the potatoes, I was planning to use some baby yukons I had and realized several of them had sprouted, so I improvised with some cubed russets. I sauteed the cubes in olive oil, then added garlic powder, dried thyme, dried rosemary, and S&P. Added about 1/2 cup chicken broth and covered. Simmered for about 12 minutes or so. Took the lid off and cooked until the broth was gone. I wanted them soft, not crispy on the edges.
Kale was red onion, olive oil, red pepper flakes, chicken broth. Covered and simmered about 10 minutes.
Queens…My almost entire life there…What was good ? what did you retain…
Next time it should be “Sorry, the house is filled - can’t fit you in!”
New month’s thread here:
Rain and howling winds here for the past few days but the sun has come out a few times for the first time in what seems like months. I wandered the store tonight with no idea what I wanted for dinner and happened upon asparagus and swordfish so felt it was meant to be. Simple broiled swordfish with magic mushroom powder and roasted asparagus. It’s been so long since I’ve had asparagus, it was a wonderful treat.
No
No
No
NOooooooooooooo! Not again!
Haha… it’s been -5C/23F with -18C/-0,4F wind chill for like 2 weeks now, and next week it’s supposed to be 15C/59F.
My hand was frozen cleaning these cuttlefish. A whole kilo with guts and ice (in the cavity).
.
Mostly guts and water you pay for but it’s more yummy than squid. I don’t touch the cleaned and packaged seafood imported from China so whatever it takes until I have to think twice about eating what I like.
The big ones I sometimes braise (and smoke). Old photo.
I’ve only eaten cuttlefish twice.
First time was in Mallorca where my notes from the meal read _“I’d never tasted cuttlefish (sepia) before going to La Cantina. And can now say I don’t like it. I’ve had overcooked rubbery squid before. It’s unpleasant and this was worse. Far, far worse. Thicker, even more rubbery, this was tasteless “stuff” in a thin tomato-ey sauce. Just nasty.”
Must have forgotten that meal as I ordered it again, in a lovely beachfront taverna in Cyprus in 2010. From the notes - “chewier and with much less flavour [than squid]. I wouldn’t be in a rush to order it again.”
Since then, whenever I’ve seen it on a menu, I’ve remembered I really don’t like it.
Something must have gone wrong. They must have boiled it so vigorously to make it that tough. The big ones need longer braising time but the tiny ones don’t take long at all. I cook them almost like squid. This is another good reason to get only tiny sepia. Super tender and sweet.
Yes sir, I can bulgogi but I need a certain song,
I can bulgogi, bulgogi bulgogi all night long.
.
It’s supposed to be over in a couple of days.
Both Trader Joe’s and Wegmans were visited today.
I bought absolutely NOTHING.
I’m lying. Like DUH.
I bought sea scallops for dinner tonight. Seasoned with s/p and pan-seared in hot butter for about 2-1/2 minutes, and served over mango rice, with asparagus on the side along with wine. It ended up a bit bland, but a decent, quick dinner after doing some work this afternoon. Dessert was a couple of Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter Cookies.
I did find out my CEO’s house was damaged in the nor’easter. He made it through the first two high tides, but the third ended up busting through his lower level, pretty much destroying the downstairs apartment in his island “cottage”. Tonight’s high tide won’t help much either. Going to be a lot of cleaning up and repairing for him to deal with. 
My gosh it sounds like your area has been hit so hard by the storm! I hope it has passed now and you and your family are all safe and cozy
Long overdue socializing last night with a coworker who became a friend- partly because she was my dinner buddy on our crazy asia trips since she’s vegan. It was very windy and rainy outside but we decided all the more reason to go!
We met at Ladybird which was charming and rather small but beautiful with large comfortable padded chairs at the bar that had a back (!! Almost unheard of, most bars are tall very hard stools, no back, to encourage leaving quickly i think)
I started with a lovely cocktail made with basil (strained out), cucumber, strawberry, reisling and a bit of a fortified wine i forget the name of. Very refreshing and interesting combo
We ordered a number of dishes to share-only got half decent photos of two the others were dark blobs. Avocado with black garlic ponzu and sesame seeds, garnish ontop was battered fried avocado (!)
Mushrooms dish had fried hen of the woods, plus pickled mushrooms and mushroom purée underneath- this was the showstopper, exactly right amount of maldon on the fried mushrooms too
Not pictured we also had the sweet potato with miso butter and the brussel sprouts. It was hard to make a decision!! I am not used to so many options available to me as my omni friends are twits and don’t like to go to vegan restaurants
Also a wonderful unique orange wine from Greece
Much less fabulousness this evening… i found a big bag of green beans on mark down in the produce section and they were not the best for just steaming so i made a long slow braise of them with lots of garlic, onion, olive oil, thyme, tomato paste, chopped tomatoes, v8, and plenty of black pepper. I made a bowl for dinner with a few meatless balls and wished for some crusty bread- made do with a fennel raisin roll from my freezer. Most the leftovers will go to the freezer, i’ll add in some beans and call it soup for lunch tomorrow
Very upset. Discovered that my 2 citrus plants are destroyed by the cold, all the leaves turn yellow. My fault, I have a stupid belief that warmer snow and froze (32ºF/0ºC) does more damage than the sunny dry cold days(20ºF/-6ºC). I brought the plants indoor when snowing a few weeks ago but not last week. It will take some time to know if there is root damage or not. 
Made some classical veal in cream sauce (blanquette de veau), while we find it was good, we still felt a bit heavy (beef broth reduction with cream, butter and egg yolk as sauce). Recipe from Pierre Gagnaire, his book, la cuisine de 5 saisons.
Our reheated second meal, stripes of raw green apple, reduced grapefruit (juice and flesh) is added in the sauce, (actually it was the online version of Gagnaire’s veal recipe, I don’t know why his online version is more modern). It wasn’t so different from the first version, we sensed instantly the sauce was lighter.
The following day we had an English beef stew with Guinness. I remembered making one with a Jamie Oliver’s recipe some years ago, but found it very bitter and the beer was overwhelming. But this recipe from Felicity Cloake was really good, beer and broth was well balance, I even made the dumplings.
that looks fabulous - a bright spicy respite from the weather I imagine!
Friday was Carbonara as planned it was a nice respite from the miserable weather along with some NY Times bread. Saturday the Jeep decided to start spewing steaming coolant so a wrench in all plans had to throw dinner together with what was on hand so half a head of cauliflower and some old potatoes became curry now the house is … well… fragrant. Tonight I think a beef stew - something that will make leftovers for lunches this week.
I had steak on the menu last night until Coned cut our power right at sundown to fix some power lines down the street. Why they didn’t do it during daylight hours is beyond me, but we decided we didn’t feel like having dinner in the dark, so we went out for sushi. The steak will make an appearance tonight, simply grilled with some roasted cherry tomatoes and another vegetable side TBD.
I hope everyone in the Northeast is safe and sound and powered up. We were very lucky not to have sustained any damage to house or cars, and only a short power outage last night. A tree down the block crushed two cars and stopped traffic for two days!
