Category: Dinner (Page 6 of 7)

My international cooking project has been on hold for several months. A difficult pregnancy and a small baby are not really conductive to entertainment. But I miss it, and I want to get through those damn “B”s so I’ve planned a couple of international dinners in the next few weeks (Bahian and Berber) and decided to make this “Bolivian” week at the Marga household. Rather than cook a whole Bolivian dinner for my family, however, I decided to try a different dish every other night or so. I started last night by making Picante de Pollo or Spicy chicken, an easy yet very typical dish. I’d been meaning to make it for quite a while, but finding yellow pepper (aj

I have often written about how rotisseried chicken is one of my favorite meals, none the least of it because it’s so easy to make and yet so good. So we have it for dinner probably once every two weeks or so. I used to make my own spice rub, but now I just buy a pre-mixed Cajun rub for greater ease. Last time I made it (Sunday) I used a Safeway organic chicken. At about $2.60 a lb this was almost twice as expensive as their Foster Farms, but organic food is expensive. Mike found it to be particularly juicy, which I’m not sure was a good thing – I didn’t think it tasted particularly better than regular chicken. Still, when we can afford it I’ll probably buy it.

We served it with snow peas that Mike had bought at the farmer’s market, I steamed them, he ate a whole bunch of them.

For dinner tonight I had a carnitas special quesadilla from Taqueria Los Pericos. As usual it was good, large, though I wish they had better quality guacamole.

Last night I made a cheddar cheese fondue from that fondue book I bought at the library sale. It was quite simple, I browned about 1/2 cup of chopped Canadian bacon, added a glass of white wine and 1/2 lb of shredded medium Cheddar mixed with a couple of tablespoons of flour. To that I added 2 tablespoons of Calvados. I served it with fresh sourdough bread, apple slices and sliced, grilled chicken and apple sausages.
The fondue turned out OK, but it was too thin and too alcoholic tasting – if you make it I’d only use 1/2 cup of wine. I also wouldn’t bother with the Canadian bacon. It was good with the sausages, but it didn’t work at all with the apples.

Some time ago I ran across the website of a Gastronomic Society from the Basque province of Alava. Wednesday night I finally made a recipe from the site, oxtails in red wine sauce. Unfortunately they didn’t turn out well. But hey, I have one more “A” in my list of international cuisines.

Last night I made the above mentioned dish, also from the All About Braising cookbook I got from the library (and which I’m going to buy). It was good, though not worth all the trouble. A roasted leg of lamb is just as good (particularly the Armenian Leg of Lamb recipe) and much easier and cheaper to make – so I wouldn’t make it again. But we did enjoy it a lot.
It consisted of a boneless leg of lamb stuffed with a mixture of Italian parsley, mint, rosemary (you could also put thyme and/or sage), garlic and shallot, then rolled and tied up and browned on olive oil. The leg was then braised on a mixture of red wine and broth (I used beef, the book called for veal, lamb or chicken broth) with chopped onion and carrots, parsley stems and a little bit of chopped rosemary and mint. The lamb was then sliced and served with a reduction of the braising liquid.
I served it with steamed green beans and mashed potatoes from a box. Fresh mashed potatoes would have been better, but I hate peeling potatoes. When I mentioned that to Mike he told me he actually likes doing it – so in the future I’ll make home-made mashed potatoes.
In any case, it was a great dinner. Mika wasn’t too enthused by the lamb, but she did eat a lot of green beans 🙂

Last night we went to our friend Regina’s house for dinner. I had gotten her the Les Halles cookbook for Christmas and she made a meal out of that. The main dish was “pot au feu”. She had been hesitant to make it as the concept (boiling meats and vegetables together) just didn’t sound good. But many people have told her how much they loved the dish so we figured there might be something to it and it was worth trying.
It turned out to be pretty much what we expected, boiled meat and vegetables in a thin broth. It reminded me very much of Argentine puchero, which is pretty much the same thing with a less sophisticated name. The meat was very tender (of course) but pretty insipid, though it was helped by mustard. Iggy liked it, though, probably because he grew up eating boiled foods so there was a comfort element on that. And indeed, my mom used to make puchero for my sister quite often, so she, at least, likes it. The rest of us will skip it next time.
Lola also made some pot-au-creme for dessert and I thought these were really yummy, though they didn’t seem to like them as much. To each their own.

A couple of nights ago I made the Lomo de Cerdo al horno con Cebolla & Puerros recipe from the Delicioso Spanish cookbook. It’s a very simple recipe from Catalunia, but unfortunatelly it wasn’t very good. The pork loin, roasted surrounded by onions and with some white wine, wasn’t very flavorful and it was a bit dry. The mixed onions were delicious, however. Still, I won’t be making it again.

Christmas Eve dinner was a huge success. All the food I made was simple and easy to make yet delicious. Everyone – not the least me – was impressed.
I put up the menu and recipes already (they are at http://www.marga.org/food/party/xmas04/), as I failed to do it in previous years.
Christmas day we had a frozen lasagna for lunch and then went to the Oriental Tea House for Chinese, we were the only non-Chinese people there!
Yesterday we ate leftovers, and that’s what I assume we’ll have for lunch as well. For dinner we’re taking K. to Chevy’s, as that’s where she wants to go.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I prepared a (reduced) Thanksgiving feast for our small, nuclear family. Still – cooking for 3 or 7 is not that different and I did spend a fare amount of time in the kitchen. Enough to realize that there is no way I’ll be able to cook Xmas dinner next month – when I’ll be almost 8 months pregnant.
Dinner came out well, but nowhere near perfect. The problem was clearly that I didn’t pay enough attention – pregnancy brain, tiredness, I have tons of excuses. I did leave tons of dirty dishes for Mike to cook, however.
We started with a sweet pumpkin soup, made from a Trader Joe’s base I’d previously bought. All you have to do is add some sour cream and milk, and it’s very good but very sweet. A jar should be enough for four as an appetizer, as you can’t quite handle too much more of the sweetness. Mika liked it and ate quite a bit as well.
Then it was time for the main meal.
I made Roast Turkey with Prosciuto-Hazelnut Crust from this recipe at epicurious.com.
I started by brining the chicken (a free range, organic 12-pounder) in a solution of kosher salt, sugar, dried thyme and bay leaf the night before. Then I rinsed it (note, some of the thyme leaves stuck to the turkey skin), dried it and let it sit in the fridge for several hours before cooking. I cooked it according to instructions, but I wasn’t able to baste it as part of my baster was inexplicably missing. I also overcooked it somewhat. I’d checked the turkey and it had been at 172 – when I checked 10 minutes later it had shot up to 180. Clearly I should have taken it out at 172. Live and learn.
The turkey was very good, I found the drumstick a tad too salty but Mike found the breast was fine. It was, however, too dry – though Mike said he expects that from turkey. Still, I wanted something jucier. Mike loved the skin where the butter had been.
The accompanying gravy was rich and thick and tasted quite good, but the bits of meat made its consistency too disconcerting. The recipe didn’t call for it, but it should definitely had been filtered. In any case, I wasn’t able to palate it – knowing that it was made from the internal organs gave me a case of the willies. This even though I have no problem eating foie gras or pates made out of innards. Oh well, let’s blame it on pregnancy.
I made mashed potatoes from the Zuni’s cookbook recipe. I’d previously made it and loved it. Once again, they were a big hit – I’ll make them again for Xmas and quadruple the recipe. This time they were too lumpy, I didn’t spend enough time mashing the potatoes and I should have probably whipped them for longer (I was afraid they’d get gummy – they didn’t), but the taste was all there. Oh, and this time I didn’t use buttermilk, just whipping cream.
Finally, I made Stove Top stuffing, which I like so much that I never see a need to make any other kind. We made the sourdough kind with salted butter, and I found it a tad too salty – Mike didn’t. I had meant to mix it up with grilled chopped apple-chicken sausage, but I totally forgot. Pregnancy brain again.
I had also meant to make green beans, but we left them in the plastic bag overnight and they had mold by then.
For dessert I made an apple pie. I used frozen Marie Callender pie crusts and they were very good, they tasted great in combination with the apple stuffing. They were too thin, however, so it wasn’t possible to cut off a piece of pie without having the whole thing disintegrate, and my proportion of apple-stuffing to crust was too high (I used four granny smiths, next time I’ll use 3), but the pie was delicious, in particular with some Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream. I had meant to make a sugar-free pie, using Splenda instead of sugar, but once I started adding the spleanda to the apples I realized the taste just wasn’t there so I used probably twice as much sugar as splenda. My other ingredients were cinamon and a dash of nutmeg and ground cloves.
Today our leftovers are mostly turkey and pie. The pie held up great and Mike said his turkey sandwich (bread, turkey and mayo) was awesome.