Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Supper -- what are you cooking? - Page 26  

Hey, that's a skill in itself, making something good out of whatever might be at hand. My mom is really good at that and I learned from her. I grew up without refrigerators :D And in a place where it was unthinkable to waste food--in India.

Not exactly a meal I made, but something I made a big batch of because I'll never get tired of it--mashed potatoes. This time I used 6 boiled russets and 1 sweet potato, yogurt, semi-sharp cheddar, slightly carmelized onions, sauteed shrooms and garlic, and S&P. It's hard to go wrong with mashed potatoes, in my book, and this came out tasty:D I consider this a big batch because I cook only for myself.

tonight...

Well, let me preface this by saying, this is the 2nd time I have ever followed a RR recipe. I actually took the time, looked it up online, printed it and made sure i had all of her ingredients. Now, I didnt follow it to a "t", but it was close.

I made her Super Scampi Pasta. It turned out very good! Maybe a little bit too much lemon, or maybe I had a big one. But all in all, It was very tastey!


my differences: I used Penne, instead of Linguine. I also added some grape tomatoes right before serving.

One other thing, I thought it seemed too "soupy", so i drained the pasta and shrimp, then put some more buttler in the pan, a little starch, put the pasta and shrimp in, then slowly added the chicken stock back in. It thickened up just enough to really coat the pasta. Then squeezed the lemon in...VOILA!

I made up a Mexican spice blend with some toasted cumin, cinnamon, cocoa powder, cayenne, dried oregano, garlic powder, salt and brown sugar. I used some of this in a tomato sauce and towards the end added some finely chopped parsley and cilantro with a squeeze of lime. I then sauteed a chicken breast. I served it with basmati rice with some of the parsley/cilantro, golden raisins and some toasted pine nuts. I was very happy with it!:lips:
http://i33.tinypic.com/2gt2sfm.jpg
I know, I know, the sauce could have been reduced a touch more!!:o

Last night tortelloni with some bolognese and garlic bread. (and 5 cocktails)

Tonight, a nice crispy piece of duck confit on top of a heaping pile of risotto made with the duck stock.

quack quack.

Last night we had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn and fresh baked biscuits. I gotta admit though, the meatloaf was less than what I normally make. I've been using this same recipe (for this type) for almost 30 years now and have never had the loaf not set correctly. I think it goes back to the beef. It seemed to be more pale pink in color than normal for the fat % listing than what we normally get from Costco. After cooking there was just too much grease for "at least 87% lean" in my opinion. Tasted good and served cold, definitely made a great sand today for lunch but served hot it's like mush. Doohhh!!!!

Tonight is chicken fajita's, black bean soup, cilantro/lime jasmine rice and a really nice fresh orange salad. The California Naval oranges are really good this year!....So far.

Oldschool my last meatloaf (or rather my fiances...I blame it on her) came out just like that too.

here is last nights duck confit with duckstock risotto....

Throughout the whole dinner, after each bite of crispy skin, and awesome flavored risotto, we just kept looking at each other in that "We are the $hit" look with giant smiles....probably the best comfort food dish we've ever made!!




tonight, we have some left over tomato basil soup we made we're going to heat up, some roasted potatoes, and....what I did was take our "free supermarket turkey" and butcher it up to store (I LOVE my foodsaver) since we'll never need to make a whole turkey.

Well, after watching a video of Grant Achatz cook up a turkey seperately sou-vide...thats what I have cooking now....a turkey leg with some butter, duck fat, sage and thyme vaccuuumesealed in a foodsaver in a 175 water bath....

mmm.
(the duck fat is on the other side in this picture....but rest assured, there is a big hunk of it!)

Potato and bacon soup simmering away. Comfort food for a major winter storm day.

I just now got to this thread and im already furious with envy.

Murphy, you and ur fiancee seem to have the same tastes as me and my fiancee. Duck confit is one of our favorites.

And a sous vide set up? Thats awesome.

All I've been up to lately is a lot of hollandaise at home, which takes more concentration than it did at work because of smaller quantities.

did you ever see my hollandaise step by step I did on here? i'll search around for it.

and no....no sous vide setup, just a foodsaver and a pot in the oven or a thermometor on the stove. No immersion circulators or anything fancy

I am trying to get a job at a restaurant that does a little sous vide but I think I'll need to get a similar home set up to you by doing it more manually.

Didn't see your step by step but I'd be interested. I'm really good at it now (I can save it at just about any point but hardly need to now, and I can adjust for consistency at several points as well) but it took a while to get it down in a home kitchen with only three egg yolks and a tiny mixing bowl as opposed to what I'm used to at work.

Speaking of duck, one bad thing about today was cleaning the fridge. I've been a bit under the weather, cold and snowy outside, seemed like a good day to stay home and fuss about. Had to toss out about a cup and a half of duck fat from not that long ago. I guess I didn't get all of the water out, it was getting moldy and rancid. Drat!

On the plus side, however, I roasted a small piece of pork loin, not quite 2 pounds and did an onion - apple marmalade to top it. The marmalade was GREAT, probably the best batch I've done in years. Made up for having to toss out the duck fat.

mjb.

Today I made beef stew in the pressure cooker when I got home from our daughter's. Slow-cooked flavor in under 30 minutes -- including prep and pressure drop time (move over Rachael Ray). HubbyDearest was a happy camper. We had 7" of snow overnight. Looking out at the fresh landscape, a steaming bowl of stew seemed like the perfect food to have on a day like this. Tomorrow...leftovers...maybe beef pot pie---yummy.

Last night was Beans and ham with cornbread and collards. Tonight was Steak Dianne, Roasted Potatoes and Green beans (actually I had a side of collards instead of the green beans. Left over from last nights dinner.

I had some pics but since I have lost more than a step over the last couple years........:( Actually there's a couple reason but let's just leave it at I ran out of film for the digital camera. :eek::roll::rolleyes:

some asian style buns, with five-spice S&P duck that I threw in a cold pan, rendered on low for a few then blasted to crisp up and flipped for a second....hoisin, cucumber, scalions. A take on the eversopopular Momofuku pork belly buns.

I had everything in the fridge or freezer ....and these duck breasts just suck for anything else. They were left over from the ducks I bought to make confit....from the Asian market and they just dont have any good flavor, and are pretty wimpy.

The original plan was to make beef pot pies using last night's left over stew. That plan fell apart when my brother arrived to play dominoes, and I decided it was too much trouble to make the pie dough. So I whipped up a corn bread instead, and I served the warmed over stew on top of the corn bread wedges...just as good, maybe even better than the pot pies. (I beat him 2 out of 3 rounds, by the way, but the game isn't over yet). :look:

One of those what the heck is in the freezer that is easy nights. I had hamburger patties from the organic beef I buy, some leftover uncooked biscuits (I freeze them on a sheet pan, great for a quick meal). Chicken fried beef patties and pepper milk gravy over biscuits along with a nice romaine salad. Quick and easy and tasty.

for breakfast (or rather lunch by the time I awoke...) I took comfort in toasting up some left over dinner rolls, taking that thick sliced prosciutto and frying it up, with an egg and I grated some gruyer over top. RPMcMurphys egg-mcmuffin sliders. I at them pretty might right out of the pan, so no pictures.

Sweezed a few oranges i had that had some cocktail twist divets taken out of them as well.

Roasted chicken and butternut squash soup with grilled Goat Cheese on Naan sandwiches.

Breakfast this morning was something different, well, at least for me the last few years. I finally got around to cooking up a small pot of grits. Back in the midwest I usually ate white hominy grits, today I used coarse ground yellow corn meal. Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to frying up some patties out of the leftovers one of the next few mornings.

mjb.

Just a mixed green salad with pinapple, apple, cashews and a ginger dressing and a leg of crispy duck confit...

oh...and some different pork buns and dumplings (donchu judge me!)

Manhattan before dinner......diet coke with, and I'll be mixing up something with vermouth in a few (I gotta get rid of this antica formula vermouth somehow!)

I wish to make a formal complaint.

RPMcMurphy makes me hungry with his pics of food and his descriptions. Yeah some is good, but he should only post on days when I have already had delicious food. I have less problem when it's just words. The photos kill me sometimes

I think that no matter what RPM's current occupation is, he could make a great living photographing food.

Thanks for the kind word oregon. I cheated yesterday and today and had someone else cook my food for me...and my pictures were from my crappy camera and I didn't wanna "be that guy" so bear with me.....

so, starting yesterday lunch, we went to 11 Madison Park in NYC .
Fiance had winter salad and then a lobster roll (a really really really GOOD lobster roll)

I had agnollotti with suckling pig, followed by a duo of lamb.





we skipped dessert for lunch and had a cocktail instead


then, went to the hotel, took a nap. and went to Pegu for some more cocktails.



after....perhaps ....3 cocktails...(really good cocktails) we hopped in a cab and went to Jean-Georges.....

started out with an amuse of a cumin flavored soup, salmon wrapped around a pear? and a piece of citrus.

then, fiance had....tuna ribbons, I had....beet/goat cheese/pistachio dish
tuna:


mine.


next I had seared Fois with cranberry foam perhaps? she had...halibut? with a consomme? No pictures...

then finished (well kinda finished) with....I had crispy rabbit (spicy and awesome!) she had beef tenderloin with japaneno something or other,
wabbit


hers




then, we "finished" off with some dessert....not sure if you guys know about jean-georges desserts, but...well pastry chef is a genius. They come in petite fours and you order by "topic" winter, apple, caremel, or chocolate was on the menu...I choose chocolate...


fiance choose winter.



then......waiting for the check.....we REALLY finished it off, with some.....marshmellos, macroons and chocolate. (hey, I didn't order it....just came...and well...I'm not going to waste food!)




then we slept.


and we slept.

Until this morning, when we woke! Then went to Momofuku milk bar (bakery) for the ultimate mcmuffin.....homemade english muffins, blackpepper butter, carmelized onions, thick slab of bentons bacon, and a poached deep fried egg.
(and a strawberry milk)

6$ of goodness right there.

fiance had pork buns. (like I've been trying to recreate.....having them at momofuku's, you realize....you just cant)


now we are headed to xmas eve dinner!!!!:eek: but not before a bite of some momofuku cookies!

SO last night for dinner, we had.....ham turkey, sweedish meatballs, 2 kinds of kielbasa and sauerkraut. Beets, peas&carrots, corn, stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, a huge antipasta salad with salad, and varius salumi, cheese cake.....and some good homemade horseradish..
half of my pictures got deleted (**** kids) but here are some at the end of the meal...im trying to recover what I had on my plate.







oh yeah some potato salad and a few other things (canned cranberry sauce)






just woke up, on to the inlaws for xmas dinner! :D (stretchy pants on!)

recovered last nights lost pictures...

Last night for Christmas Eve, it was just the three of us so we had home-made pizza and watched the new Indiana Jones on DVD. When we were in KC we had a housefull....close to 20 of the DW's side of the family. Just not the same here.

Yet for Christmas dinner , every year that we've been married, we alternate between Lasagne and a roast of some sort. Last year we did standing Rib roast with all the side and glace de viande. This year it's Italian so tonight we are having anti pasti (assortment of marinated mush, artichokes, peppers, olives and tomatoes, hot cappocolla (for you Sopranno fans Gabbagoul. hehehe:smiles:), pan crisped proscuitto San Danielle I got a deal on because it was the shank end all served with oiled bruscetta crisps). lasagne, meatballs (The DW and DD wanted Buca di Beppo monster size but with my recipe:) ), sauteed broccoli and cauliflower with olive oil and Pecorino Peppato and bread made from my Grandmothers recipe.

For dessert we have fried bread (Italian thing), croquembouche and a chocolate bourbon pecan pie.

Last night was turkey with stuffing, ham, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy (stock was from the turkey I made at thanksgiving), 7 layer salad, a jello salad, fruit salad, homemade dinner rolls, 20 kinds of cookies (my friends grand daughter was busy), pumpkin pie, and lemon meringue pie. No pictures because I couldn't keep the carnivores out of the meat even when I was slicing it :lol: they are brave to be sticking fingers in a roaster when I am using my 14 inch granton edge slicer!

Tonight is leftovers, cold turkey sandwiches, reheat the stuffing and potatoes, and in general graze on whatever is in the kitchen :lol:

Tonight, went italian and fiance made some white bean crostini with balsamic, garlic, and some basil (and I'm sure some other things, just don't remember)



I made some orecchiette with hot italian sausage and broccoli rabe.






bottle of 1999 barberesco


also whipped a warm polenta terrine with sausage peppers garlic and mozz (stole the recipe from I think a Batali book) that will chill in the fridge for tomorrow...never made it before, see how it turns out.