What's for Dinner #34 - June is Bustin' Out All Ovah! Edition - June '18

Drool to both!

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I’m curious and if this is not appropriate, please remove, but a WFD Facebook group has been mentioned several times, I’m guessing it was started by an ex-Chowhounder?

Does anyone have a link? I’m fairly active on FB and I joined a WFD group with 13K members, but I don’t recognize any hounds. I’d much rather belong to one with (ex)Hounds posting.
Here’s the link if you’re interested

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I think linguafood (who posts here) started the one you’re looking for. She definitely does not have a moratorium on swearing, if I know her, LOL! Maybe try messaging her on Hungry Onion?

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Not pretty, but dinner last night was food truck fare at a brewery followed by smoked and grilled sausages and Nathan’s hot dogs on our deck. DH made a yogurt, mint, and cumin sauce for the merguez he made in a class earlier this week. I also made curry ketchup to serve with grilled brats.

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Thanks.

I am not on FB or anything like that but you can just smg @linguafood or @mariacarmen (<— pretty sure she knows) for the FB group address.

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@biondanonima, I made your coriander/mint pesto tonight. We ate it with monkfish and pasta. It was a hit. There is a LOT leftover, so we’ll be enjoying it all week. Thanks for the inspiration.

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Glad you liked it! I find the combination of cilantro and mint so refreshing, perfect for summer meals.

Acronym for What’s For Dinner. Your meals sound wonderful!

A quiet day, and due to a late lunch at Krispy Krunchy Chicken (better than Popeyes, or so I’ve been told, since I’ve not had Popeyes), I went with a small dinner.

Roast duck breast (a very small one) with a Thyme Honey, Balsamic, and Wine Reduction Sauce, and steamed green beans. There’s wine.

Anthony Bourdain’s favorite Parts Unknown episodes on CNN tonight, starting with the Hanoi episode where he sits down at a noodle shop with President Obama.

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This should be what will be for dinner.

8 chicken thighs and 2 leg quarters went for a swim for several hours. Iced down and stored for chicken confit meals to come

Tonight was more of a nosh. hummus and baba ganoush with homemade microwaved corn tortilla wedges and cantaloupe

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I watched Parts unknown “West Virginia” last night
Should be required viewing IMO.

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Well that’s one way to get back to cooking! Gorgeous profiteroles!
Congratulations on finishing up the epic work project, i know that can be a stressful life energy sucking situation

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Hanging out with my favorite six year old (and soon to be first grader!) tonight while the parents went for a long overdue date night.
While diligently watching and waiting for the pot of water to boil for pasta he wanted to eat his previously steamed broccoli cold and plain straight from the fridge. I was like “go for it kid”.

Pasta de jour was angelhair. The point of it is really just a butter delivery system.

I cut up watermelon for dessert, and was rather pleased by the way it fit perfectly into the tupperware
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I had made myself a simple israeli salad with chickpeas to bring and we did some serious damage to the watermelon.

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No 7 Lychee Broccoli Sub. Hoagie roll, mayo, roasted broccoli, lychee pickle, feta, toasted pine nuts, fried shallots.

I got repeated requests for it and was happy to take a break from Pakistani food. We made all the components ourselves. I use fresh lychee, not canned. Also, the original cheese is ricotta salata, not feta. I’ve been to the shop, and the recipe posted out there is the real thing. (Don’t settle for Alton Brown’s watered down version.) It’s a great combination. Absolute home run in my book.

Recipe: https://www.wnyc.org/story/recipe-tyler-kords-no-7-sub-broccoli-sandwich/

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Plate of pickles. Would be nice if the onions were also pickled. Pickled tomatoes are very common here, and they are new to me, not to mention nice. Rather them than tomato marmalade in Portugal.

We like these little cabbage rolls a lot so had to had them again.

Crispy pastry filled with mince.

Most Moldovans are bi-lingual. This is an old enamel street name sign. They are being replaced by newer signs that has no Russian.

Sign with specs.

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Maize meal balls filled with sheep’s cheese. Moldovans eat a lot of maize meal mush. It used to be food of the poor in centuries past. The arrival of maize put an end to millet mush which used to be eaten previously. Dip for the balls is dill, garlic and oil.

Moldovan flatbread.

Filled with sheep’s cheese and dill. We want to eat as much cheese as possible because we don’t have it at home. I mean not Moldovan-style.

Old Russians cars are still running round. Back in Soviet days Russian cars were the only car you could buy, or were allowed to.

Dashboard.

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Remnants of 3 centuries under Ottoman Turk rule are found in the food. Restaurant was so dark, unfortunately.

They grill all the meats over coals at this restaurants. Meat is threaded on metre-long metal skewers like how the Turks do it.

Small and modern-looking restaurant, only saw well-to-do Moldovans here. Prices are a bit high for the average locals I guess.

Romanian-style pretzels sold here. Pretzels are a common snack, to my surprise. I have looked it up… Greek merchants introduced them to Romania to get people to drink more of their wine, apparently.

The parliament. I have done it, made it to this least visited country in Europe (and on top 15 least visited countries in the world list)!

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Smokey roasted aubergine. The Ottoman Turks had left their mark here.

Moldovans love these pastries. I’ve read that they got it from the Greek.

Filled with sheep’s cheese again. We thought we also ordered soup but the waitress didn’t catch it. Good thing then because we were so full after the cheese pastry.

Want to show you this… The van goes to Tiraspol (the “capital” of a country that doesn’t exist called Transnistria), then continues on to Bender (Benderi in Russian). Moldovans remain in the vehicle, foreigners proceed to passport control. You are issued a slip on which states the time you are allowed to stay in the territory. It all depends on the border guard how long you can stay, from stories I’ve read. Some gets 8 hours, some get 12. Some can stay up to a week but probably only if you hire a driver-guide via an agency.

This van next to it goes straight to Bender. It was in the news quite recently, if you can recall, that the Swedish government admitted “Swedish meatballs” were indeed Turkish. Well, king Charles xii of Sweden had lived several years in Bender which was then controlled by Ottoman Turks. He returned to Sweden 5 years or so later and brought with him the recipe for meatballs. Basically that’s the background story of the meatballs. The place still exists and it is in Moldova.

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You have much more interesting news that I do…

And thank you for the pictures. I really enjoy your travel posts.

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