Thanks for the tip
Was feeling a bit wonky when I woke up at 6 or so. Slept for another couple of hours until the boyz went all Audrey on me, hollering FEED ME! (In Catese, of course).
I felt a bit better after waking up, but kept it relatively quiet all day. Dinner had already been decided: roasted pork tenderloin seasoned with olive oil, s/p, and dried cracked rosemary, served with an orange juice, orange marmalade, and mustard glaze and sauce.
Roasted potatoes in the convection oven, and roasted Brussels sprouts.
Wine.
And the weirdest 4 minute sunset snow squall that turned our landscape pink-orange. Before, during and after pics. It went from gray to pink-orange to clearing blue skies with a sunset in 4 minutes as I ran around the house taking pictures from windows and doorways. Bizarro.
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Hope you’re feeling better. That’s crazy weather…
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Another one from deep into the Caggiano family archives: mom’s horseradish encrusted roast beef (homemade breadcrumbs, horseradish, red onion, and garlic coating). It could have used a few more minutes in the oven but it came out bursting with flavor. Served with mashed potatoes and sautéed green beans.
To drink: despite a brief intense snow squall today that literally blocked out the sun, and sub-freezing temperatures to follow, I was feeling summery and made an Elderflower Gimlet.
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We enjoyed another great dinner at James on Main in Hackettstown, NJ including a wood fired hog chop with apple cider and maple glaze; pan roasted black bass; pork belly with smoke and soy- mirin wine and 5 spice syrup, scarlet yam velvet, and prune compote; duck leg confit; mushroom ravioli; amuse bouche of beets with blue cheese and another one of taleggio cheese and onion jam. It all went great with an excellent cabernet and red blend.
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Veal Meatball Pizza with veal meatball (made from ground veal, potato and thyme), caramelized onions, olives, fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella and parmesan. Using the dough from Jim Lahey and a home oven is tasty but it is tempting to think about an Ooni Kona.
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I found this recipe for dill pickle soup on Tik Tok. It is described as perfect for pickle girls and gorgeous, gorgeous soup girls, and since The Sprout is both, decided to try it for dinner. Potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, garlic, a few bay leaves, fresh dill, dill pickles and their juice, heavy cream, grated cheese (I used Jarlsburg), and broth. I perused other recipes and it turns out dill pickle soup is a common soup in Easter European cuisine. It was easy to make and really good.
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@LindaWhit, we experienced the same weather on Saturday evening. Wow!
Took the dog for an extended walk on conservation land before dinner. Sunny and cold. As we were on the second half of the walk, the skies darkened. Whiteout conditions blew into the woods where we were walking. When we were nearly back to the car, the popup storm was gone and the sky put on this show.
Time for a tapas-inspired dinner after we got home. Did the prep before we left and repurposed some stuff from earlier in the week. While I roasted fingerling potatoes in duckfat, I amped up leftover baked gigante beans with smoked paprika and baby greens for a warm salad. Set out leftover roasted mushrooms at room temp, smoked shrimp with cocktail sauce, mahi mahi spread, and baguette slices. Also a cheater garlic and lemon “aioli” that I mixed earlier, for the roasted potatoes.
No dinner pics though. The humans and the dog were all a little tired from our unexpectedly exciting walk.
Hope you’re feeling better, too. No fun to be feeling blah on your long weekend.
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This all sounds amazing! And your “After” sunset picture is beautiful! Although I’m not sure I would have wanted to be out in the whiteout conditions!
And yes, I’m doing better today. A single day of wonkiness and headache.
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So glad to hear you are feeling better!
We didn’t see that short burst of snow on the weather radar map when we checked pre-walk. A relaxed dinner afterward and we were all warm and cozy again.
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Upstairs freezer review.
Had some leftover rice, black bean, shredded chicken, sauteed onion and red bell pepper in there.
Had 4 tortillas to use up.
ENCHILADAS.
Added some extra shredded chicken from making stock to the filling mix.
And even though I didn’t know what I was doing the first time I made homemade “chunky” enchilada sauce last summer, I will NOT use Old El Paso enchilada sauce again as I did this time. Too thin, too watery, no oomph. My homemade was way better, at least for my taste.
So I added some tomato paste and defrosted minced green chili to the sauce. Not authentic, I’m sure, but it worked.
Sauce, chicken/rice/bean mixture, then grated Monterey Jack cheese all spread/sprinkled on the tortillas, rolled, more sauce and cheese on top, baked for about 20-25 minutes or so at 350°.
Sour cream, green onion, and minced fresh parsley as the stand-in for the dreaded cilantro.
Wine.
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Finally found my way back into the kitchen for a home cooked meal. Costco pierogies (first time trying them, certainly better than MrsT’s) Nice thinner dough dumpling style pierogies, boiled then pan fried with garlic and onions.
Some mass market kielbasa in the cast iron, finished on the grill after the lamb chops. Sauerkraut, onion and bacon bed for the kielbasa!
( side story - we replaced our smoke detectors in our home after 20± years, I was out of propane so inside grill it is. The lamb overwhelmed the grill/fan setting off the new smoke detectors which not only “ring” but say……”Evacuate Immediately “)
Stick to the bones kind of meal!
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Yum - cold weather cooking indeed, looks fab!
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Sunday dinner, chicken thighs, fingerlings, carrots, all roasted in duck fat. Salad of mixed greens, red onion, jicama, gold cherry tomatoes, avocado with blue cheese dressing.
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A few recent meals to post:
Chicken wings, crudités and blue cheese during the last playoff before SB, half chile verde burrito from a favorite Mexican place, filled with beans, rice, and avocado. (These are huge, so we shared.) and pork tenderloin with plum sauce, rice and veg. Am always reminded how good plum goes with pork!
ETA: 3 different seasonings on wings - lemon pepper, voodoo seasoning and Frank’s hot sauce, respectively.
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That looks awesome! Yay you! (And yes, some enchilada sauces are way too watery. I end up boiling them down before I use them…)
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Mbahal - Very interesting and tasty stew from Senegal, Gambia. Small amount of lamb shoulder, okra, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, black-eyed peas, jalapeño and jasmine rice cooked at different stages in a sauce made of beef broth, peanut butter, tomato paste, fish sauce, tamarind paste, All cooked to a consistency not unlike risotto- the combination of peanut butter, fish sauce and tamarind is great and addictive.
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Not dinner, more of a pre-dinner out door gathering. But a dear neighbor, at 4:30pm said “How about a last minute 5pm happy hour? Just to decompress?”
As we are in Los Angeles and it was warmish, we could say “Yes.” So we did.
She brought a bottle of chilean sauvignon blanc she wanted us to try, and I quickly popped popcorn - one batch just salt, one batch salt and pepper, and packed them in brown paper lunch bags so we could sit safely apart and yet still have our own bag of popcorn to much as we sipped and caught up.
It was lovely.
And the wine was almost as good as the friendship. Combined? Hooray!
Yay the power of food and drink.
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The BF made pho tonight, with the leftover uncooked beef i had from our Bolivian dinner the other night. made his own broth (using 2 kinds of bouillon cubes, not like a bone broth) and star anise, cardamom, etc. turned out fantastic. he also marinated some of the beef slices in a lemongrass/ginger/garlic mixture, grilled quickly and served that on the side. The beef he used for the pho was cold from the fridge so even though the broth was boiling, the beef cooled it down and the meat was pretty raw, which I enjoyed (i adore tartare and carpaccio), but he put his all back in the pot for a couple of minutes. Anyway, all incredibly flavorful, especially the marinated/grilled beef, which we both ended up putting in our pho.
i made a chicken/peppers/mushroom sauce for pasta for one night this week, and also a batch of fiery habanero sauce following a Rick Bayless recipe. the fumes in the kitchen were epic!
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