My Food Blog

Happy Halloween! 
Tonight we will eat “little league food”
Kosher dogs boiled in beer with chili on the side if you want
tater salad
pasta salad
chips if you must

November 1st

Tonight's menu
Grilled marinated London Broil
squash casserole
Mac N Cheese the baked kind
salad

November 2nd

Tonight we will have Vegetable Beast Soup with French bread
see the photo!
Vegetable beef soup made from leftover London Broil (I cooked an extra one last night that had been marinating for a few days) I chopped up the beast and threw this all into a 9 quart dutch oven.
chopped potatoes, carrots, celery and onions
2 large cans fire roasted diced tomatoes
organic beef boullion cubes
water
soy sauce
worchestershire sauce
parsley


I'm making wonton/egg rolls as an appetizer for early porch activities.

Sunday November 4th

Spinach Pie
cooked 2 or so lbs of spinach with onions and garlic, just to wilt the spinach
added greek sheep's feta
a ton of dill
a large dollop of cottage cheese
4 Jumbo eggs for 2 pies
kosher salt
cayenne pepper to taste
 fill a pie shell and top with a pie shell and bake at 350 or about an hour and 10 minutes.

also on today's menu
roasted french fingerling potatoes
with thyme, lemon juice and grapeseed oil and unpeeled garlic; I used about a half a head
salt and pepper
450 degrees for 20 minutes uncovered and then 20 minutes covered.

Creamed corn
12 ears of sweet white corn cut off the cob.  I of course have a fabulous gadget that does it for me.
finely chopped onion
butter
milk first and then finished with heavy cream
salt and pepper

I'm giving consideration to stewed tomatoes to go with this feast!

Yum Yum
Mistress Heather

I've been remiss since my trip to NYC.  I have cooked, I just haven't written it out, but will provide a synopsis here:
Friday night: We ordered chinese
Saturday night: Chicken enchiladas: marinated in lime juice, cilantro thyme, grapeseed oil and then grilled, cooled and chopped to fill the corn tortillas, cheese inside the tortillas, green sauce on top then covered with cheese.
pinto beans: cooked with homemade chicken stock, whole sage, chile, jalapenos rough chopped, deseeded., cumin, oregano, salt
rice cooked with veggie chicken stock and a tomato boullion cube
cucumber salad with red peppers
apple crumble pie for dessert with vanilla ice cream
Yum Yum!

This blog is more for my own personal use but thought it would be fun for others to read and/or comment on. 

Tuesday November 6th, 2007

What to fix for dinner?  How about Num Tok better known as Thai Beef salad.  I've also heard it called “Crying Tiger”, it can be as spicy as you want.  I usually make it so that it is very spicy but not painful, maybe a 3 on a zero to five scale.
This is a somewhat complicated dish and requires having the right ingredients:
I have doubled this recipe tonight but that is the way things are at my house.  Here is the regular sized way to do it.
cook a pot of jasmine rice

3 fresh peppers, chili, serrano or jalapeno
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 1/2-2 lb flank steak
1 red onion
4-6 green onions
1/4 cup+ 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1-2 teaspoons dried red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons ground toasted jasmine rice
2 bunches cilantro
a few shredded mint leaves
non bitter salad greens, red lettuce or romaine works and or finely shredded cabbage

First step: 
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar the plain kind (has the green label) 
3 serrano or chile or jalapeno peppers sliced into lengthwise very thin strips

Put these two things in a glass bowl for at least 15 minutes, mine are usually steeped for hours

Second step:
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon lime juice, use the real thing.  I've never tried it using the plastic green kind so if you do this, don't blame me if it sucks!
1-2 tsp dried (chili) red pepper flakes *throw them into a frying pan on med heat just until they begin to change color, it opens up the flavor.  Add this to the lime juice
2 tbsp fish sauce * * only buy fish sauce in glass bottles, it is just a rule!
2 tbsp ground roasted jasmine rice * place uncooked jasmine rice in a dry skillet and heat over a moderate heat until it is between a chalky and deep golden brown color.  Stir constantly, when it starts to change color it does so pretty quickly and beware, don't burn it.
Here is a HUGE HINT!  Do this in a large quantity say a cup of rice and you won't have to do it again for a really long time.  Grind it to a fairly fine powder.  The Ground Rice Makes this dish and absolutely cannot be left out!  You can use a spice grinder. I use  morter and pestle to grind mine, it is a rhythmical therapeutice thing, zen like if you will.

Third Step:
Arrange a layer of lettuces and or finely shredded cabbage.  Surround with English cukes cut in long diagonal rounds; Grape tomatoes around the sides too. 
Add red bell peppers cut into thin strips if you want as well. 
Clean 2 bunches of cilantro, just the whole leaves not chopped, put 1/2 of them in the salad greens.  Reserve the rest of the cilantro for a step later.  Peel a red onion remove the root portion and slice into thin vertical strips.  Place the onions in ice water.  Trim a bunch of green onions and place them whites down in the ice water with the red onion.  This takes some of the strong burn out of onion and crisps them before they go into the salad

Fourth Step:
Grill an oiled flank steak to desired doneness.  Leaving it Medium rare is the most you should really do for this.  It just takes mere moments on the grill.  Remove from the grill and let the meat rest to reabsorb the juices.  Wait at least 15 minutes or more before slicing into thin strips.  Cut the meat agains the grain approx 1/8 inch thick and about 2 inches long so that no knife will be needed once it is served on the plate.  Add the remaining cilantro and some ripped mint leaves (optional) plus the red onions and the green onions cut on the diaganol, I use kitchen scissors for this.

Finally you add the salad dressing to the meat and toss together then  pour over greens mixture.

Serve with jasmine rice. 

I've been remiss since my trip to NYC.  I have cooked, I just haven't written it out, but will provide a synopsis here:
Friday night: We ordered chinese
Saturday night: Chicken enchiladas: marinated in lime juice, cilantro thyme, grapeseed oil and then grilled, cooled and chopped to fill the corn tortillas, cheese inside the tortillas, green sauce on top then covered with cheese.
pinto beans: cooked with homemade chicken stock, whole sage, chile, jalapenos rough chopped, deseeded., cumin, oregano, salt
rice cooked with veggie chicken stock and a tomato boullion cube
cucumber salad with red peppers
apple crumble pie for dessert with vanilla ice cream
Yum Yum!

Sunday, we had a house full!
breakfast: White corn Cheese grits, country ham, scrambled eggs, biscuits and apple cider

supper: smoked sausage, german soup/stew with potato gnochhi cooked in the  tomato, vegetable beer broth.  This dish was amazing, it had onion roasted potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, celery, homemade veggie chicken stock, fresh thyme.  I threw in some potato gnochi about 4 minutes prior to serving.  I toasted buttered rounds with shaved parmesan. 
German cole slaw:  I sauteed an onion, celery and a granny smith apple together briefly in a tiny amount of grapeseed oil, I added white wine vinegar, sugar and strong mustard and heated that to a boiling point and then poured it over shredded cabbage and tossed it.  I stuck it in the fridge to cool off before serving.

I made black currant tea sweetened with simple syrup, served over crushed ice.

Dessert: oatmeal cookies, the break and bake kind.  350 degrees for both
I also made the ultimate choc. chip cookie
1 box devils food cake mix
1 instant pudding mix, I used vanilla since it is what I had
1 cup mayo
I put this in my mixer and blended until it looked like cookie dough
I stirred in 1 cup ghirardelli big semi sweet chips
1 cup pecan halves
I formed this into balls and made 1 sheets worth of them and put the rest of the dough in the fridge to make more tomorrow!  These are awesome Bake about 15 minutes

November 12th, 2007
Dinner
Country style ribs, precooked slowly in the oven and finished on the grill with homemade BBQ sauce
Broccoli
Cole Slaw
Cucumber Salad in a vinaigrette
rice cooked in chicken stock and tomato sauce
leftover roasted potatoes/garlic
bread

dessert was cookies

November 13th  Tuesday

Finally getting back to the puter so here is dinner on Tuesday
Stuffed shells with Spinach, garlic, ricotta and cottage cheeses, parm and asiago too on top of red sauce
Caesar Salad
Bread

chocolate cookies made fresh and hot and gobbled up immediately!

Yummy!

Wednesday I was out of town for most of the day so Eden made ramen noodle/napa cabbage chinese salad with red peppers for when I got home.  It was not half bad!

Thursday November 15th
Beef and bean (leftover pinto beans cooked in homemade veggie stock) cheese enchiladas
Bean enchiladas for the vegetarians among us.
rice cooked with veggie stock and a tomato boullion cube
salad

We had 10 for a family dinner and then some of us went to see a free screening of Beowulf.

Friday Night
High Communion on the Church of the Porch!

appetizers:
roasted carrots, onions and sweet potatoes with a balsamic drizzle and balsamic dipping sauce.
egg rolls made with BBQ pork, bok choy, carrots, onions, red pepper, rice noodles, bean sauce on the inside.  Dipping sauce is one of those never to be repeated amazing things with too many adjustments to discuss!
egg salad on crackers and toast points

Lobster and shrimp bisque with sourdough bread
salad with lemon dijon vinaigrette

cream puffs provided by Karen
caramel candies and heath bars

coffee with kahlua and cream

Wish you could have been with us!

Saturday night
November 17th
 
appetizers
roasted onion cheddar cheese
Alon's date cake and crackers

Coq' au Vin with leeks
mashed potatoes
stewed tomatoes
roasted asparagus
croissants

ice cream and cookies

Sunday night

spaghetti
Sauce made with italian sausage, mushrooms, red wine, garlic, tomatoes, fresh basil and lots of secret ingredients!

We had vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and oreos crunched up in it.