What's Cooking (Take Two!)

I just remembered one of my favorite ways to have it uncooked, though: salad dressing.

Agreed. Just did that last night because I was low on mustard.

I just remembered one of my favorite ways to have it uncooked, though: salad dressing. Thinned with orange juice, sesame oil, salad oil, rice vinegar, blah blah blah, it's quite nice - especially if you like that orange goop they put on salads in bento boxes, but don't like the goop factor so much.

I do like the orange-ginger goop. ::orange-ginger-goop-icon::

[Jenise]

Ted's herb and mushroom polenta last night was delicious.

Tonight I'm grilling some locally made potato sausages (contents: beef, potatoes, pork, onions, spices). I don't know their origins but would suspect Russian or Polish (both of which there are populations of here). For that reason I'm leaning toward side dishes that would lean that way, too, like my Hungarian stepmother's creamed cabbage seasoned with coriander and fenugreek.

Howdy Strangers...LTNS

IT just unblocked this alcohol related website....after nearly 10 yrs, lol

[Robin Garr]

Howdy Strangers...LTNS

IT just unblocked this alcohol related website....after nearly 10 yrs, lol

Welcome back, Richard! I wonder how that happened! Did they get religion?

Howdy Strangers...LTNS

IT just unblocked this alcohol related website....after nearly 10 yrs, lol

Welcome back, Richard! I wonder how that happened! Did they get religion?

I'd suppose that some Executive Director wants to post on Berserkers so the alcohol category suddenly became OK.

Lovely late spring lunch.

Baked tuna with a 'sauce' of garlic scape pesto. Baked plantains. Homemade cornichons. And a salad of grated beets in vinaigrette, which were the tenderest beets I've had in ages.

I usually don't buy beets in spring/summer, because I overdose on them in winter. But they've been looking so lovely in the farmers market these past weeks that I finally gave in. I initially planned to saute them but when I peeled they were so juicy and tender I couldn't do anything but serve them fresh and raw.

The planets must have aligned today.
I hate waste, but am not a big fan of leftovers (always exceptions of course)
The leftovers worked for me, I had some beautiful cooked Atlantic salmon, cooked potato and found a nice sounding recipe for salmon croquettes;
salmon, mash, frozen peas (almost exactly the amounts lurking in the fridge and freezer) scallions, herbs. Then made into croquettes and breaded ( I had some good but stale bread so into the oven for crumbs).
So I will serve those with some left over mac and cheese which I have put in small ramekins and topped with some truffled cheddar, and a salad based on the watercress remaining from the salmon dinner. Oh and I think I will try the mustard sauce from the grilled salmon dish with the croquettes.
I am happy with the way this is all shaping up.

Howdy Strangers...LTNS

IT just unblocked this alcohol related website....after nearly 10 yrs, lol

Welcome back, Richard! I wonder how that happened! Did they get religion?

I'd suppose that some Executive Director wants to post on Berserkers so the alcohol category suddenly became OK.

Hi Robin & Jeff,

Probably something like this. Though its impossible to know. I was at my desk on a slow Friday and thought about ya'll...typed in the url and lo and behold..there you were.

Richard

Wow! Great to have you back, Richard.

Tonight's dinner will be Sichuan dry-fried beef and celery.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Howdy Strangers...LTNS

IT just unblocked this alcohol related website....after nearly 10 yrs, lol

RICHARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whachoo been doing?

[Jenise]

I couldn't do anything but serve them fresh and raw.

What a lovely menu. And, aren't they good raw? If I weren't allergic to them raw I'd eat them that way more often than cooked.

[Jenise]

The planets must have aligned today.
I hate waste, but am not a big fan of leftovers (always exceptions of course)
The leftovers worked for me, I had some beautiful cooked Atlantic salmon, cooked potato and found a nice sounding recipe for salmon croquettes;
salmon, mash, frozen peas (almost exactly the amounts lurking in the fridge and freezer) scallions, herbs. Then made into croquettes and breaded ( I had some good but stale bread so into the oven for crumbs).
So I will serve those with some left over mac and cheese which I have put in small ramekins and topped with some truffled cheddar, and a salad based on the watercress remaining from the salmon dinner. Oh and I think I will try the mustard sauce from the grilled salmon dish with the croquettes.
I am happy with the way this is all shaping up.

Fantastic; and exactly why I actually love leftovers.

[Jenise]

We had a good food weekend. On Saturday I decided that it was time to celebrate our anniversary, that I might do so all week in fact leading up to THE day, and so from the freezer I took out a precious prime rib cap purchased from a fantastic restaurant/charcuterie place in Buellton, California, when we were down there last April (we were driving our van, so I had a freezer). Believe me, prime rib caps aren't available for purchase where I live! This is probably the fourth prime rib cap I've ever cooked, and the previous three were all done rare. This time, though, after thinking through the fact that when a whole slice of prime rib is rare, the deckle (cap) is usually well done. So I cooked this guy to well done--tied into a cylinder, seasoned outside and seared before roasting. That was going to take, I calculated, about an hour, which motivated me to slice my one remaining russet potato into two little ramekins, top them off with cream and minced garlic, and bake those mini gratins while the meat roasted. We had an escarole salad to start the meal, and enjoyed it all with a '94 Chateau Margaux.

On Sunday we had dinner at a pop-up restaurant at a small neighborhood bakery in Vancouver. The son and brother of the owner and her daughter, the chef is 23, studying for his Masters in Film at university in Montreal, and while there he's been cooking at Joe Beef and Pied de Corchon (both names one should recognize from Anthony Bourdain's last visit to Montreal). The meal was fantastic, even if it was a little hard being in an un-airconditioned west-facing bakery on an 85 degree day.

We stayed over and shopped at Granville Market on our way home for things I can't buy here. Sausages, pates, Colston Bassett Stilton, a jar of sliced truffles, duck confit, true watercress (vs. the hothouse kind we only sometimes see in B'ham), gailan, raw veal ready for scallopini, ham that isn't smoked or filled with nitrates, etc. Going to be a good week here at Chez J.

One of yesterday's finds was large fresh scallops. So dinner, once 13 shots of novacaine wore off (I spent the afternoon at a dental surgeon's, getting a wisdom tooth root canalled), was a starter salad of raw mushrooms and watercress tossed with just lime juice, olive oil and salt. That's a combination made in heaven--if you've never done it, you should. And I followed that with huge seared scallops served on orzo finished with cream, chicken broth, chopped tomato, rosemary and garlic. Bob said that if he weren't already married to me he'd have to marry me again just to make sure he could have that dish once more in his lifetime.

Tonight we're joining one of our wine tasting groups, and I'm going to make a bowl of shrimp escabeche (pickled vegetables) to take to that. Dinner is generally not part of these tastings but I believe in having food with all that alcohol and always take something, but eat late self-defensively so we're not very hungry. Toward that end today we'll have a late lunch of veal scallopini served over a zucchini/mushroom/onion saute.

Thanks for the report, Jenise. I love the spontaneous gratin and the mushroom ceviche. How wet was the orzo?

[Jenise]

Thanks for the report, Jenise. I love the spontaneous gratin and the mushroom ceviche. How wet was the orzo?

Not very. The sauce wasn't scant, but it was so clingy that by the time you had eaten all the pasta and scallop, there was no sauce left behind on the plate. It's a great quick sauce that you can pull together in minutes in the same pan the scallops were just seared in. Literally: remove the scallops, add in one diced roma (outer flesh walls only, discard seeds), a tablespoon of chopped fresh rosemary and one minced clove of garlic, swoosh swoosh for under a minute, add in about equal amounts of chicken broth and cream, no more than 1/4 c each plus a dribble of white wine or dry white vermouth, grind in some pepper and a pinch of K salt while it bubbles, add back the previously cooked and drained orzo, cook for another minute or so to meld flavors, and serve. It's our favorite scallop dinner.

[Jenise]

For Jeff:

DSCF0657.JPG

Jenise - Couple of questions on the mushroom/watercress thing. How thinly are the mushrooms sliced and do you let it sit a while with the lime juice or just dress and serve?

The scallops look great. You remind me that we haven't had them in quite some time now, and they're now on the list.

For Jeff:

DSCF0657.JPG

Got it. Thanks, Jenise.

[Jenise]

Dinner tonight: chilled white asparagus topped with shrimp and a red chile vinaigrette.

[Jenise]

Not cooking tonight. Dinner will be at Vancouver's Le Crocodile, a classic high-end French restaurant.

Yesterday's dinner was chao larou, which is the same as Sichuan twice-cooked pork except bacon is used instead of fresh pork belly.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Jenise - Couple of questions on the mushroom/watercress thing. How thinly are the mushrooms sliced and do you let it sit a while with the lime juice or just dress and serve?

The scallops look great. You remind me that we haven't had them in quite some time now, and they're now on the list.

I sliced the mushrooms about 1/8 of an inch thick. And, just dress, let sit for about five minutes, then add the watercress and serve. Mushrooms are too absorbent, and they'd leave nothing behind for the watercress if allowed to.