What's Cooking (Take Three!)

[Robin Garr]

The other day I made Mexican-style mole beans, loosely based on the recipe link that follows. Rancho Gordo Midnight Black beans with onions, garlic, cumin, chipotles en adobo, and chopped bitter chocolate!

https://minimalistbaker.com/easy-1-pot-black-bean-soup/

mole-beans.jpg

We had a small lunch of hot-and-sour soup to take the edge off.

Tonight, for me, the rest of the bbq rack of ribs I made yesterday, with pinto beans and chiles. For wife, dinner a la breakfast (which she likes) consisting of a waffle w/real maple syrup, some type of egg, homemade bread toast, and fruit. We frequently eat totally different meals because she can handle carbs better. It makes me feel like a cook in a restaurant.

It's her BD (I'm living with an older lady today!), so her dessert today will be some fancy chocolates from a local chocolatier. I eschew carbs the best I can so I usually eat Lindt 90% or 95% chocolate if I want a chocolate fix.

Tonight I'm making a pasta sauce of fried aubergine strips in tomato/basil sauce into which I'll tip cooked penne to thoroughly coat them; served with a mixed salad and bottle of Montepulciano d' Abruzzo.

(Because aubergines absorb so much oil I've slice them into rounds and salted. I'll rinse and squeeze out excess moisture then brush with oil and broil them till brown, then cut into strips no wider then the penne's diameter.)

Tomorrow night I'm making pizza which will be accompanied with a crisp dry Chenin Blanc from De Morgenzon winery in Stellenbosch.

Last nights pizza.

20200205-pizza.png

The accompanying De Morgenzon Chenin 2018 was stunning.

[Jenise]

Peter, you forgot the cheese!

Tonight I'm cooking lamb chops in the interest of developing a recipe for a dinner party on Saturday night where I'm going to open my one and only Pingus for some of my favorite people.

Peter, you forgot the cheese!

Not forgotten, not wanted!

[Jenise]

I spent nearly all day in the kitchen yesterday, cooking/creating for Saturday's dinner party. Made four sauces, dehydrated citrus slices, poached figs in oloroso sherry, yada yada. By the time we needed dinner, after tasting all day I wasn't hungry so we settled for salad. Poor Bob.

Larry, you're a good man making two separate meals. Doesn't happen here! Bob gets what I feel like cooking, which is normally fairly deluxe but sometimes, like at breakfast, since retiring he's had to adjust away from the usual morning carbs and learn to eat just fruit or veg-centric Jenise-food, like a bowl of creamed peas. He's okay with it now but it took awhile!

...since retiring he's had to adjust away from the usual morning carbs...

I think, even when retired, I might be able to find my own way to the bakery and back. Toast is an incentive all its own.

[Jenise]

Spanish dinner tonight for friends. Won't reveal the menu as Bill Spohn will be here and I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Last nights pizza.

The accompanying De Morgenzon Chenin 2018 was stunning.

Looking at this pie again, this looks wonderful. It has a sheen but I expect the toppings had actually dried a bit and so intensified their flavors.

Thanks, Jeff.

I was very pleased with it and it was delicious.

I sautéed the onions, pepper and mushrooms in olive oil first, and let them drain on kitchen paper before putting them on the tomato base. (the tinned Italian plum tomatoes were drained in a sieve after crushing and chopping and had chopped garlic, herbs and black pepper mixed in.

I'll be making a batch of niter kibbeh tonight, in preparation for making doro wat on Tuesday. I'll be using steamed lavash in place of injeera.

-Paul W.

Last night we had friends over and had the following

Steenberg traditional method Brut sparkling Sauvignon Blanc NV (Western Cape, RSA)
Aperitif
Morwald ‘Malachit MIII’ 2015 (Wagram, Austria)
with roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and parsnip, steamed carrots, brussels sprouts and cauliflower
Les Jardiniers Muscat de St. Jean de Minervois NV (AoP, France)
with Bramley apple crumble and custard.

Our friend Peter loves - as do I - apple crumble and custard. We've called a truce in our 'Yorkie' wars
The fizz shows that the world’s wine desire to emulate Champagne by using their three varieties is mistaken, excellent sparkling wine can be made from others, as this sauvignon Blanc demonstrates. However, the buying public didn’t agree, which is why M&S discounted this wine from £15 to £10 and I was charged just £5 at the till.
The Morwald Austrian wine is a blend of 60% Zweigelt and 20% each of Cab S and Merlot, bought at the winery from the irrepressible Erhard Morwald, owner and winemaker when we visited with Viking River Cruises. Morwald supplys Viking with its house red (Zweigelt) and white (Gruner Veltliner) wines.

[Jenise]

Chicken soup. Neecie's not well.

Again tonight I'm making a pasta sauce of aubergine strips in tomato/basil sauce into which I'll tip cooked penne to thoroughly coat them; served with a mixed salad and bottle of Montepulciano d' Abruzzo, which I posted in more detail on 2 February.

Mentioned today because I realised just how many decades I've been cooking this dish which the two of us now have most weeks.

I'm just about to slice and salt the aubergine and the memory came to me of asking the kiddies' nanny to do that for me so I could cook the dish when I returned home from work. Well, the youngest child is now in the second half of his 30s.

What's changed since then is I no longer fry the aubergine as that soaks up oil (I broil after brushing with oil) and I use penne pasta rather than the tagliatelle that the youngest preferred, and we don't tear off chunks from a knotted cholla loaf to soak up juices.

I got the recipe from an American cookbook that illustrated the steps needed to make the recipes with line drawings and I recall that used spaghetti as the pasta. My kids preferred tagliatelle with the sauce put on top. I prefer penne mixed in the sauce while in the pan so the sauce goes inside the tubes as well as thoroughly coating the outside.

(Last night I made vegetable curry with plain rice and a bottle of Beyerskloof Pinotage 2018.)

Last night a quick cacciatore, goaded by some aging tomato paste: paste, a small can of plain old tomato sauce, chunks of parboiled carrots, sauteed mushrooms, garlic, rosemary, black pepper, and a pat of butter - tossed over tortelloni.

[Jenise]

Peter, for Asian dishes, I now marinate eggplant for an hour or two and then microwave for an initial cook, only then do they go into a pan for browning. Might work for you too.

Thanks, Jenise

what marinade do you use and is the aubergine whole or sliced?

I don' have a microwave, but its not a problem. I slice the aubergine very thinly 2-3 hours before cooking.

They are cooked till they are crisp

I can cook the aubergine, cook the pasta, lay the table, make the salad and open and pour the wine and have the dish on the table in under 1 hour.

I made a Jamie Oliver recipe Aubergine Arrabiata Penne pasta sauce where he had the aubergine sliced in half lengthways and boiled for 5 minutes, then cut into chunks and fried till golden. This successful. I also made the chilli oil...

I liked the dish but Mrs M found it was too hot for her to eat so she has vetoed any further tries.

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pas ... rrabbiata/

Easy tonight - I enjoyed a dish of 'Pollo alla Pizzaiola i.e. chicken breast in pizzaiola sauce in local Italian restaurants and I reckoned I could cook it at home...

So, cover the bottom of a baking tray with tomato sauce. I use mini fillets of chicken breasts, so lay them on top of sauce, sprinkle generously with halved stoned olives, capers and dried herbs, cover with another layer of tomato sauce and bake in oven, 180C (fan oven) for 45 minutes.

I'll serve that with boiled baby potatoes, and this time, cauliflower florets and carrots left over from Sunday's roast.

with it we'll have a 2015 Societa Agricola Siddura ÈREMA Isola dei Nuraghi IGT (Italy, Sardinia, Isola dei Nuraghi IGT) . Its a red made with Cagnulari grapes, which, according to Jancis, is a synonym of Graciano.

[Jenise]

Hallelujah, I'm finally back in the land of the living. My sense of smell returned today and I'm hungry for real food. Dinner? A steak, kind of a bulgogi marinade inspired by a really sweet and syruppy bottle of balsamic vinegar I was recently gifted (just add sesame oil, soy sauce, chili pepper flakes and green onions). Perfect example of turning lemons into lemondade, kitchen-style. With that, sauteed snow peas and water chestnuts, following a salad starter. And wine!

Haven't had a sip since last Saturday, really looking forward to it!

It is going to be a caprese salad for me tonight.
The first fruit from the volunteer tomato plants in my new veggie patch is ripe and ready to eat, weighed in at 225 grams! and I have fresh basil growing.

As so many tomato plants popped up in the new bed (from my good compost which went on the top layer) and it was late in the season I didn’t plant many other, known varieties . And wow as fruit is coming on it is exciting to see what is developing. Huge variety of shapes and sizes and y gardener thinks there will be different colours.
I’m going to document them and save seeds and see if they come true nExt season, yadda yadda the scientist got loose

[Jenise]

How fun, Barb. Tomatoes are my number one favorite food and I'm currently in winter deprivation mode so it's fun to read about yours. I plant some every year but I have a lousy location for gardening. Still, it must be done.

No idea what I'm doing for dinner tonight--still not entirely well, but at least food tastes good again. Under consideration: a new idea to me, a "dump" recipe of sorts, wherein chicken leg/thighs are oven roasted in a pan of seasoned coconut milk. Everything goes in the pan raw but cooks together, so over 60-70 minutes the sauce develops, the chicken (one bastes it) browns and the final result should be pretty damned good.

I'm roasting a variation of Marcella Hazan's lemon roast chicken (added garlic and some thyme). Will let you know.

One instruction I did not follow was to wash the chicken inside and out and let it drain. Washing chicken spreads germs everywhere, experts have found. Newest reccos state to just cook the danged thing.

Yeah, I've read that but I'm not happy to cook a chicken with bits of guts and plastic wrap and whatever else on it. Rinsing is.