Tonight we made Melissa Clark’s wild rice and clementine salad with many tweaks. I subbed tricolor quinoa for wild rice (actually made stovetop) and Guara almonds for pine nuts. Added butter lettuce, fresh goat cheese, asparagus, and herbed chicken breast for a complete meal. It was really good. DH made a light cauliflower bisque to start.
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Some things off my To Do list, Including driving Christmas presents down to my sister and BIL’s house on the South Shore of MA to drop off.
I knew I wanted shrimp tonight, and took some out of the freezer to defrost (Gulf shrimp). I didn’t want to do a typical scampi with garlic and lemon, so I rooted around in my pantry and found some Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning mix. Figured I’d try it since it’s been awhile.
Simply sauteed after seasoning with the Cajun blend, dried parsley and a healthy pinch of turbinado sugar, served over the rest of some leftover Basmati rice, with steamed asparagus alongside.
Bad decision on my part to use the Tony Chachere’s. WAY too salty for my taste. (Salt is the first ingredient in the blend, so I should have known.) So it goes into the trash bin. You live and learn.
There was wine alongside.
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Drooling !!! Seriously
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WFL. Friend brought us these from a place at Fisherman’s Wharf, but we actually liked the Costco ones the other day a lot more. Fatter and sweeter. Still, great lunch!
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Potato, toma truffle, speck, and rosemary pizza. I wondered if the potatoes would stay purple after cooking.
See for yourself.
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We dined at Cafe Panache in Ramsey, NJ for the first time sine the passing of beloved Chef/owner Kevin Kohler. Details and pictures are in the below link for those that might be interested.
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I picked crabs today. Made Maryland crab cakes for dinner, sides were cauli rice and Carolina slaw. I made a really good stock from the shells. Does anyone have a favorite recipe for crab bisque?
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Well, here it is folks. Maybe not as faithful to the original Boulevardier: a 2-1-1 ratio of bourbon, Campari, sweet vermouth. I also added a literal drop of Cointreau. And a thin orange slice rather than a peel.
Better than I remember. Its been years. So good I think I’ll have another. A very complex cocktail!
(Pairing well with Thai food takeout)
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Chinese for dinner, a little homemade and the rest takeout.
Sweet corn chicken soup, yangzhou fried rice, beef with scallions and ginger, and char siu pork.
I made the pork, which was quite delicious even though I drastically scaled down the sugar for our low carb days - of which today was not one 
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Recipe for that amazing looking pork?
Yet another dinner of that beautiful marbré steak, this time at my sister’s cuz she hadn’t had any. So great, it doesn’t even matter if it’s cooked beyond medium rare. It’s still so tender and flavorful. Wedge salad on the side.
And yes, that’s a Chardonnay with it. My sister doesn’t do reds. I have never, ever, ever liked Chardonnays. Hadn’t even tasted one in at least 20-plus years. I hate California chardonnays, can’t stand the buttery/oaked profile. I do enjoy a good dry French Chardonnay, though. But this one was gifted to my sister, so I thought I’d try it. It was very meh, not super oaky/buttery. Just kind of dull. I wanted to see if my taste had changed over the years. It hadn’t.
And my take at a more proper Boulevardier. Really tasty!
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They looked really delicious! And all those work!! If you’re making them the 4th time, I’ll be there!! 
From @shrinkrap 's SE thread:
One wrong bite will leave hot broth bursting through the pastry, both scalding your fingers and threatening to stain your reputation. In Bolivia the first to dribble is stuck with the bill, while excessive spilling means you’ll be haunted by five years of bad sex. I usually smash the whole thing in a bowl and dig in with a spoon—I wonder what that says about me?
Sounds like a challenge, I love enclosed broth in food. Maybe we should all try to make Salteñas together!
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Thanks for the Georgian threads, such a passionate read. Now I would like to cook some dishes…
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Yesterday, made the eggplant, pomegrante with buttermilk sauce, from Ottolenghi’s Plenty book. I guess many of you here have tried this recipe. I don’t know if the 200ºF 35-40 minutes oven temperature a mistake or the eggplant is meant to be barely cooked. I’ve attempted this recipe several times, and decided I prefer to have aubergines roasted with really soft texture.
Cod filet with sesame and olive oil.
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Ditto.
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I’ll make a wild guess that the eggplant is meant to be more cooked, as you and I would prefer.
I have noticed that eggplants straight from the farm in summer require less cooking than eggplant I buy in the supermarket this time of year. Hmmm, maybe that’s why the recipe doesn’t work as expected?
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For the purpose of learning some people may find this interesting. Salteñas are named after a place in Argentina called Salta
Empanadas in Argentina and Chile are quite different and salteñas are super juicy (as explained by Maria).
Caprese is my favourite because tomatoes.
Was deep in the mountains hiking in El Chalten. Empanadas were perfect food to take on hikes. Here I put them down on a rock for the photo. We sat down on another rock eating empanadas and this was the view. That’s Monte Fitz Roy, the symbol of Santa Cruz province and a magnet for hikers.
Empanadas in Chilean Patagonia are awesome, too.
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Deep fried and filled with crab meat!
Beautiful Chilean food words!
It had only occurred to me, after coming back from the trip, to make photos of food! My first trip to SA was Peru and Bolivia. Incredible and heart-wrenching. Here’s a proper salteña shop in Potosi. The peak in the background is the mine.
And many unofficial sellers on the street everywhere. Salteñas are kept in the baskets. We all need peace (la paz) and salteñas to be happy and productive 
These came home with me from Bolivia. Maria can have them if she wants them. There are recipes for “empanadas” in one of the books, with photo for each recipe).
PS: some photos don’t appear (yet). Simply click on the links.
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This eggplant recipe can be found easily online now. I read some of the comments below the recipe, many people found the vegetables under cooked, one comment stressed the eggplant could be cooked with this temperature if they were stored in room temperature. Your theory of summer farm ones do make sense, but it was not stated in the ingredient. This dish is on the cover of Plenty, I think they can make mistakes on other recipes, but not this one. So I supposed they wanted them lightly cooked.
My version this time is cooked at 200ºC / 390ºF for 40 minutes, H still complained… lol! Don’t know, maybe the aubergines here are “fat”.
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Cooking for one tonight. BF has work early tomorrow and will be in bed by the time I get home. So that means…STEAK! 
Bought a nice little skirt steak in the Italian market (only place I can get smaller sized cuts for one-- everything in Shop Rite is just too large).
Currently marinating in hoisin, oyster sauce, soy sauce, Shaoxing cooking wine, olive oil, garlic, and gochugaru.
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