Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Like this one - geesh. Seems like a lifetime ago.

Well, since the oven has resurrected this thread ....

Last night
- Fluffy mashed. A variant of the serious eats/CI one. Yukon golds an a lot less butter, and they are still wonderful IMO
- Braised baby Bok Choi. Damn I love baby bok choi. Basic method is very fast saute (olive oil) to do a little initial wilt, throw in some chicken stock and cover, simmer till done.
- Pork chops, cut off the bone, jaccard'd and cooked over low-ish heat in clarified butter. We bought a pig recently so will be eating a lot of pork They were cut a bit unevenly (wedge) is why they were cut off the bone. Plus not the tenderist part, so the jaccard helps (with flavour too)
- Saute'd onions, in clarified butter, with a bit of the butter from the pork chops thrown in at the end for flavour.

It turned out to be an exceptionally tasty, if basic, dinner. I was really pleased with the chops with the onions; very tasty.

Baby bok choy is my go-to side when I've made a stir-fry that is too low in veggies to be eaten alone. I just sear it quickly in peanut oil then dress it with soy sauce or fish sauce or sesame oil, or whatever I think will work with the other dish.

I had dinner over at a friend's house last night, so this is not me bragging.

We had:

Champagne cocktail with her homemade cranberry liquer added and a few floating berries. Very good, not too alcoholic tasting.

Salad of mixed greens with roasted beets from her garden (three colors), feta, mandarin sections, walnuts and a vinagrette.

Roasted game hens with wild rice stuffing (adorable).

Cranberry relish with asian pear and I don't know what else, it was not sweet but not bitter, really nice.

Brownie torte

Nice for a dreary dark rainy sleety evening.

(no caps!!

I made chicken normandie - CI's recipe. We will not ever make it again. I have another recipe that is much, much better.

I was really boring, but was craving salad, so it was a Cobb salad.

Amy

Now you can't just throw that out there and let it hang, that is just being a tease.

Last night we were at the neighbor's and had cheese fondue (can't go wrong there) and I made a plum tart (had to use frozen plums so it was a bit moister than I would have liked but OK). Tonight I made a recipe from a Splendid Table newsletter. Chicken breasts topped with tomatoes, fennel, olives, capers, shallots, raisins, and garlic. My kind of food so I am keeping it.

I was thinking of you über-foodies just now. Heston Blumenthal's Perfect Christmas was just on. He does a series where he re-interprets historical dishes and it is just wild. I think it is my favorite cooking show. Tonight one of the things he made was dormice. This was a great Roman delicacy. His take was to mix the mice with liver into sort of a mousse. He used the mousse to fill white chocolate mouse shaped shells. He served them on a stick. It did not go over all that well. His research into the dish (including whole, skinned, fried mice) was hysterical and horrifying. Does this get shown on BBC America? Well worth the watch if it is.

Mary

(Sous vide was employed)

Kind of reminds me of the time my mother was making Brunswick stew and she didn't have a squirrel (which is traditional). As it turns out, there was a dead one in the yard which my father brought in on a shovel and "presented" to my mother. (No sous vide employed.)

I'm not sure if the show is shown here...I don't watch much TV, but it certainly would be interesting to see.

Amy

I'll start another thread, in recipes.......( I even mispelled Normandy - very dyslexic day)