Misc Dinners

So I've pretty much stopped photographing and logging the dinners that we're having this year. I guess I'm surprised that I was able to catalog a good 3 months of dinners. The following are some miscellaneous dinners & did photograph along the way. I'm going to try & post occasionally if the mood takes me (or if we make something really special). On to round 1 photos (there are enough that I'll probably post them over a few days):

A ground chicken stir fry with fried shallots & garlic:


An egg baked in pruciutto with parsley and parmesan (a favorite comfort food)


Panzanella


Cheese omlette with scallions and a salad of arugula and dried cranberries

Trying out Posterous

Wanted to see how posterous auto-update to FB, twitter, flickr, etc works. Pic is from trip to Patagonia

Posted via email from hoguech's posterous

Dinner #71: No Clue

Thursday, May 7, 2009: Sadly I've let this go for so long that I have no clue what I ate tonight. My guess is some type of leftovers.

Dinner #70: Shrimp, Broccoli, and Cauliflower Stirfry

Wednesday, May 6, 2009: Luckily I saved a picture of this so I could remember what this was. Obviously a shrimp, broccoli, and cauliflower stir fry.

Dinner #69: Porter Airlines Box Dinner

Tuesday, May 5, 2009: Had dinner on Porter Airlines. The classic half sandwich, cheese, and cookie.

Dinner #68: Ki Restaurant in Toronto

Monday, May 4, 2009: Had dinner with the Roundarch team working on a project at RBC. We ate at Ki Restaurant near the client's office. Food was okay, not great but okay. I think the best thing on the menu was a braised pork belly - which I could honestly eat 7 days a week!

Dinner #67: Sea Bass Fillet with Lime

Sunday, May 3, 2009: We were a little tired of Derby party leftovers so we went for fish. This is a nice simple preparation and got rid of some old limes in the fridge.

Dinner #66: Kentucky Derby Party

Saturday, May 2, 2009: I grew up in Louisville and have been to the Kentucky Derby many times (although never the grandstands). Since leaving Louisville many years ago I haven't ever done much for the Derby. Emily & I have talked about going back for it or hosting a Derby party but over the years we've either been away on vacation or it's snuck up on us so quickly we've never done anything for it. So this year we decided to actually host a party.

We prepared a lot of food for it as well as having beer, wine, and mint juleps (the runaway hit in the drinks category).

As opposed to posting a bunch of individual pictures of the food I used the snappy collage feature in picasa to create the below.



Above you'll see the following:
- Chorizo with chocolate, saffron, and sea salt
- Biscuits with Virginia ham
- Vanilla and chardonnay soaked raisins on brie and toast
- Quince and manchego cheese skewers
- Miniature pecan pies
- and a few other items

We hope a good time was had by all even though we didn't have a winner in our group. There's always next year I guess.

Dinner #65: Edamame Shumai

Friday, May 1, 2009: I wanted something easy as Emily was grabbing dinner out with girlfriends. I was also getting home late from work so I decided to grab dinner at Broadway Farms. The winning selection was a package of frozen edamame shumai. I threw together a dipping sauce of lime, soy, fish sauce, and sugar.


The easy factor was also important as we had a lot of stuff to finish prepping for our Kentucky Derby Party the next day as well.

Dinner #64: Sausages and broccoli

Thursday, April 30, 2009: Emily bought a package of pre-cooked little apple turkey sausages. The kind that you really only need to throw on a skillet to warm up. I cooked the broccoli in a wok with a little grape seed oil and garlic.

Dinner #63: Porter Airlines Food

Wednesday, April 29, 2009: I ate the free snack on the Porter Airlines flight back to NYC from Toronto. It was a half turkey sandwich, crackers, cheese, and a chocolate chip cookie.

Dinner #62: Egg Salad with Smoked Salmon

Tuesday, April 28, 2009: Tonight's dinner was a repeat of our Easter lunch. Egg salad (the Barefoot Contessa recipe), smoked salmon from Zabar's, and an arugula salad with pomegranate seeds.

Dinner #61: Leftover Greek Salad

Monday, April 27, 2009: Pretty sure we had leftover greek salad for dinner. No need to repeat the pic, it's below.

Dinner #60: Greek Salad

Sunday April 26, 2009: Emily and I left Martha's Vineyard relatively early in the morning so that we could run a few errands on the way back (Target + Fairway in Harlem). We got both in & managed to drop a fair amount of coin at each place.

So when we got home inexpensive fruits & veggies sounded good. So... yet another greek salad. This time with feta cheese instead of haloumi and no red onions.

Dinner #59: Emily's Birthday at Detente

Saturday, April 25, 2009: Emily's Birthday!

Tonight we ate at the other of our two favorite restaurants on Martha's Vineyard, Detente. Again, no camera but the web site has some pictures.

We split the seared sea scallop to start. They were really nice & broke it out onto 2 plates. We're fine with sharing from the same plate but this was a really nice gesture. For the main I had goat cheese ravioli with asparagus, sugar snap peas, and braised rabbit. All was very good but I can't say it all went together exrtemely well. Emily had seared wahoo with lobster, curried gnocchi, and shoe string potatoes. For dessert we split the lemon rum cake with chocolate sorbet, shaved coconut, and pineapple. Seems random but it all went together very well.

Sorry for the lack of pictures as the food again is great from both the presentation & taste standpoint. However, here's one from the Vineyard Haven port.

Dinner #58: Alchemy on Martha's Vineyard

Friday, April 24, 2009: Emily & I went to Martha's Vineyard to celebrate her birthday this weekend. It's a tradition we started when we were dating and we loved it so much we have kept it up. Although since we moved from Boston to NYC we don't get out there every year anymore.

We had dinner at one of our two favorite places on the island, Alchemy Bistro in Edgartown.

I took a screenshot off their homepage as I forgot to bring a camera and the one on my antiquated phone is worthless.



The real share of course is that I have no pictures of the food - which is fantastic in both presentation and taste.

To start we had the fried oysters (Bag o' Fried Oysters) which are probably one of the best dishes I think I've ever had. We also split a salad with roqufert, candied walnuts, and apple which was very good. Entrees where tolouse cassoulet and grilled salmon with lentils and duck sausage. We decided to stop half way through our entrees, have them boxed up, and save room for dessert (portions are large). For dessert we had a cardamon poached pear with ricotta.

A great way to start off Emily's birthday weekend.

Dinner #57: Miscallaneous Airport Food

Thursday, April 23, 2009: Went to Chicago for a social media summit. Since it was a day trip I ate dinner at O'Hare airport on my way back. Dinner was a Powerbar Harvest bar, some celery, carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli from the AA lounge, and water.

Dinner #56: Greek Salad with Haloumi Cheese

Wednesday, April 22, 2009: Yes, we're still in Bill Granger week. Although I think this is the last of the meals from the Bill's Open Kitchen cookbook for a few weeks. Mainly because I'm traveling tomorrow and then Emily and I are going to Martha's Vineyard for the weekend to celebrate her birthday.

I bought some haloumi cheese from Fairway the other day with this recipe in mind. I love haloumi cheese because you can pan fry it to get a nice crisp outer layer while the inside stays hard. It's really nice on top of a greek salad.

The salad is a combination of tomatoes (heirloom from Canada in this instance), Israeli cucumbers, olives, parsley, red onion, salt, pepper, and a little olive oil.

Dinner #55: Pink Snapper with Asparagus Salad

Tuesday, April 21, 2009: It's Bill Granger week!

This is another one out of his Bill's Open Kitchen cookbook. What originally drew me to it was the photo in the book and the nice crispy skin on the fish. Unfortunately mine didn't turn out as crispy but it was still very good. I think the sauce of soy, fish sauce, shallots, & lime (not shown in the picture below) adds some great extra flavor.



I made & used the sauce - I just liked this picture the best.

Dinner #54: Fish Tacos

Monday, April 20, 2009: Tonight was another favorite. Fish Tacos! The marinade comes from Bill Granger's Bills Open Kitchen cookbook. It's a combination of cilantro, paprika, cumin, serrano pepper, lime zest, salt, pepper, and olive oil. The pico de gallo is tomato, red onion, jalapeño, lime juice, cilantro, salt & pepper. I like a little extra hot sauce on mine. So there you go, all the "fixins" for a great fish taco.

The photo is super dark but the only one I took.

Dinner #53: Cashew Chicken with Cucumber

Sunday, April 19, 2009: This one is a repeat from an earlier post - back to dinner #35. Although this time I didn't add noodles to it.

Dinner #52: Ducale with Ann Marie and Alex

Saturday, April 18, 2009: Emily and I went out with two friends (Ann Marie and Alex Buerle) to a restaurant called Ducale. Turns out all of us had walked by this place so many times and never even considered going in because there is never anyone in it. Turns out the place is not only very good, but never really crowded because they have an upstairs and actually seat people on both floors to give everyone as much room as possible.

Not such a smart strategy in NYC. Personally, I think they'd do much better if they filled the downstairs before seating anyone upstairs. But that's just me. ...and Emily. And Alex. And Ann Marie, who actually decided to tell them - hopefully they will listen.

Dinner #51: Panko and Sesame Chicken

Friday, April 17, 2009: I think I've already done a variant of this before mixing the panko with lemon zest. This time I decided to try mixing the panko with sesame seeds. I was originally looking for the white sesame seeds but could only find black ones in the house. Here's a shot of it in the pan with some sunflower oil and butter.



I wanted some type of vegetable to go with it but didn't really have anything around except for a little leftover carrot and onion pickle. I added some cilantro to it to give it a little fresher taste. Turns out I like it much better with the cilantro. The green also adds some much needed contrast to the photo :)

Dinner #50: Leftover Baked Orecchetti Eggplant & Turkey

Thursday, April 16, 2009: Yes, here it is again. Last night of this though - thankfully. It's still good but after a while you get sick of the same thing over and over.

Dinner #49: Leftover Baked Orecchetti, Eggplant & Turkey

Wednesday, April 15, 2009: Got home late again. Emily is out to dinner with a friend. Hello leftover lasagna.

Dinner #48: Leftover Black Bean Soup

Tuesday, April 14, 2009: I'm on a crazy busy project through Wednesday so it's a really good thing that there are leftovers. Tonight is leftover black bean soup from Sunday.

Dinner #47: Baked Orecchetti with Eggplant and Turkey

Monday, April 13, 2009: We're sort of on a Tyler's Ultimate roll here.

Tonight was Tyler Florence's Baked Rigatoni with Eggplant and Sausage. This was a slightly modified version though as we used ground turkey instead of sausage and orecchetti instead of rigatoni. The only rationale for this is that it's what we had in the house.



I'm happy to say that the resulting dish was [most likely] every it as good as the one prepared with the ingredients called for. The recipe must feed like 10 people so expect to see this show up at least a few more times in my posts.

Dinner #46: Black Bean Soup

Sunday, April 12, 2009: I "Tivoed" an episode of Tyler Florence's, Tyler's Ultimate show about a month ago. The episode was his Ultimate Cuban Sandwich one. And while I love a good cuban - and his looks good - I saved it because I thought the black bean soup looked even better.



It was actually pretty easy to make and another winner from him. Black bean soupls can turn to mush pretty quickly but his has a really nice texture. The lime also really gives it that little punch of acidity that it needs.

It's a good thing that it's tasty as it will be making a repeat appearance at least 1 more time this week I'm sure.

Bonus Post: Easter Lunch

Sunday, April 12, 2009: Emily & I had to back out of going down to Philadelphia to see her family as her vertigo still has not improved to the point where she could spend 1.5 to 2 hours driving in a car. Since we couldn't see family we decided to do easter with the two of us.

To start we had to color some easter eggs.



In the process we also managed to stain the carpet and our fingers. Eventually the finger stains came off but the carpet once just wouldn't come out no matter what we tried.

After all the fun of trying to clean stained carpet we had to decide what to do with all of the hard-boiled eggs. Enter our idea for lunch. Egg Salad from the Barefoot Contessa's Home cookbook, scottish smoked salmon from Zabars, and bagels from H&H Bagels - arguable the best bagel in NYC - which is should be for $1.30 a piece!

Dinner #45: Dukkah Coated Flounder

Saturday, April 11, 2009: This is a beat of a repeat meal in that I made this dish a few weeks ago. While I did use extra dukkah I swapped out the fish and bought flounder this time instead of the red snapper I used previously. It's still just as good and since flounder is not as thick I didn't have to finish it in the oven this time. Here it is prior to my cooking it.

And because no meal is complete without using something random in the fridge, I had a carrot I needed to get rid of. I also love pickled vegetables so I decided to do a carrot and onion pickle I ran across the other day while writing the cashew chicken post. It was on the UK TV web site.

I can't say that it went particularly well with the fish but it was good. Don't think I'd rush back to this one but I also used an old carrot and a yellow onion instead of a white one, which does have a different taste.

Dinner#44: Omlette with Oven Fries

Friday, April 10, 2009: We did comfort food tonight. I had some sweet peppers and potatoes that were going to go bad if I didn't use them soon so they were the inspiration behind this meal.

The omlette is cheese (fontina & cheddar - also in the soon to go bad bucket) and sweet peppers. The fries are yukon gold potatoes baked in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, & thyme.

Even though this post (and a lot of others) all seem to be about getting rid of food I should say that these are all great, and simple, meals.

Dinner #43: Burger at Fred's

Thursday, April 9, 2009: Emily and I were both wiped out last night so we decided to grab dinner at one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants, Fred's.



This is a great comfort food place. The inside is full of pictures of patron's dogs. In fact we first heard about it from a friend of our whose dog, Roger, has his picture up on the wall. Sorry Roger, next time I'll make sure to publish your picture.

Sorry for the lack of pictures (food, interior, Roger) on this post. It was night, all I had was my phone and the camera in it has no flash - and takes terrible pictures to boot. Next time...

We got all crazy and spring happy and decided to try sitting outside even though it was pretty cold. I think next time I'll wait for dinner outside until it's at least 70 degrees.

Dinner #42: Leftover Seafood Pot Pie and Cabbage!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009: You've seen and heard about the pot pie two times, no need to repeat. However, look how much fun you can have by adding some leftover cabbage!

Dinner #41: Fage Yogurt with Granola

Tuesday, April 7, 2009: I'm getting some additional life insurance so a guy is coming by tomorrow morning to take blood, urine sample, etc. They said not to eat anything high in cholesterol so I went simple for dinner tonight. Fage 0% fat yogurt with granola and lots of water. It wasn't really worth taking a picture of but here's one I found online - is that lazy of me?

Dinner #40: Leftover Seafood Pot Pie

Monday, April 6, 2009: This is why I generally don't include photos with leftovers.



Not that I really spent that much time trying to make this look pretty but I figure once you've seen it fresh, why look at it reheated in the microwave?

Dinner #39: Seafood Pot Pie

Sunday, April 5, 2009: This is an old time favorite from what I think is the first Barefoot Contessa cookbook, the barefoot contessa cookbook.



It's an oldie but a goody. I love the barefoot contessa recipes because she focuses on simple fresh ingredients. Of course, all the cream & butter she ads doesn't hurt the taste factor but I find I can cut down on the amounts without losing much (if anything) in the translation.

I also tried to play around with the formatting of the picture for a little variety.

Dinner #38: Pizza

Saturday, April 4, 2009: To be honest I'm surprised to see pizza showing up this early in the blog. It's a pretty rare meal in our house (maybe 2 - 3 times a year). However, it proved to be a really nice treat and great food for a Saturday night.

Emily wasn't really into the lamb sausage pizza so we decided to make 2 different ones, both roughly based on recipes from the Bon Appetit Fast, easy, Fresh cookbook. The first was a fennel, radicchio, and roasted red pepper pizza. It had a mixture of fontina and goat cheese to top. I can honestly say that I would never have come up with this combination but it was a big hit.



The second pizza we made was with some merguez lamb sausage we bought at the store near an apple orchard we went to last year. I wish I could remember the name of it (something like hilltop orchard?) but I can't. If we go back this fall I'll post a link back here with the actual name (we're hoping Jenny & John will take us there again. hint... hint...). This one has watercress, goat cheese, and small sweet peppers. So good.

Dinner #37: Sushi

Friday, April 3, 2009: Tonight, as most Fridays, we're looking for something quick & easy. Sushi is one of those items that is always at the top of the list. Tonight we ordered from Asia Kan (a perennial favorite).

Dinner #36: Egg Fried Rice

Thursday, April 2, 2009: Fried rice is one of the ultimate comfort foods in my book. It's also super easy to make and a great way to get rid of leftover rice. I also happened to have some leftover edamame, onion, and cabbage so I threw those in as well.

Dinner #35: Cashew Chicken with Noodles

Wednesday, April 1, 2009: I may have to call this dish a new favorite!

I was intrigued by this recipe from Kylie Kwong mainly due to the combination of chicken, cashews, and cucumber. I only have 1 of her cookbooks so it's out of the same one, Simple Chinese Cooking. I loved the color contrast but had no idea what it would taste like.

As soon as I started making it I was even more intrigued/skeptical since the marinade for the chicken was essentially sherry, corn starch, water and salt. I'm game for just about anything though so I gave it a whirl and I have to say this is one of the best dishes I've had out of her cookbook to date.



There is a lot of salt in this dish though (1 tsp in the marinade and 2 tsp in the dish while cooking) so have lots of water, wine, or both available.

Dinner #34: Grapefruit and Blueberry Salad and Roasted Fennel

Tuesday, March 31, 2009: Mainly I was trying to get rid of more stuff in the refrigerator before it went bad. This meant arugula and fennel primarily. I was originally going to repeat the grapefruit and avocado salad from the other night but the other avocado I had went south. So the grapefruit and dried blueberry salad was born!



It was actually very good. The blueberries were dried Maine blueberries so were really sweet. A nice contract with the grapefruit.

Emily also found half a red pepper so I tossed it in with the fennel and roasted all of it with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. I had meant to throw some parmesan cheese on it but forgot. It was still very good and now even lower calorie.

Dinner #33: See Dinner #32

Monday, March 30, 2009: Back to the weekly grind. I had the exact same thing tonight, as last night. Tomorrow is looking like leftovers again but maybe I can get something new in.

Dinner #32: Skirt Steak with a Lentil, Grape, Feta, and Herb Salad

Sunday, March 29, 2009: This recipe came from Tyler Florence's Tyler's Ultimate cookbook. This is the first recipe I've made out of this book but if they are all this good it won't be the last.

I've been a fan of Tyler since his How to Boil Water show on the food network. I've been to his restaurant, Cafeteria in Chelsea a few times as well. Everything I've always had has been great but I hear lots of differing opinions. Not really sure if he is still involved in it or not anymore anyway since his move to California.

To start I roasted a head of garlic. It was so good. I also loved this picture of it.



The skirt steak and lentil salad were also super easy to make. The skirt steak was very good but I think the lentil salad was the star of the show. The combination of beluga lentils, green grapes, cilantro, feta, and jalapeno is great. You get earthy, sweet, spicy, salty, I honestly think this could be my new favorite salad.



You can find the recipe for all of the above on google books.

Dinner #31: Leftover Chicken with Roasted Cauliflower and Brussel Sprouts

Saturday, March 28, 2009: Not even the wine I drank with dinner tonight was new. Most of this you've seen and heard about before so I'll spare the description.

Dinner #30: Leftover Pork, Chicken, Coleslaw, & Beans

Friday, March 27, 2009: It was a long work week on top of Emily being sick all week with vertigo. If not for Dorothy coming in town to watch Emily I don't know what I would have done - Thanks again, Dorothy!

Since Emily is still on "white" foods (rice, plain pasta) I just pulled together random leftovers from the week. Tonight's included BBQ pork (finally, the last of the pork), part of a rotisserie chicken from Zabars, coleslaw, and cowboy beans (getting close to polishing these things off as well).



Not much else to say. Need sleep.

Dinner #29: Dukkah Crusted Snapper with Avacado and Grapefruit Salad

Thursday, March 26, 2009: Tonight was Dorothy's last dinner with us in her week-long stay to take care of Emily. We went simple with just salad and fish. To start I made a grapefruit and avocado salad. The dressing is a combination of grapefruit juice, salt, pepper, cumin, and extra virgin olive oil.



We got red snapper for the fish as it is a nice and firm. The coating on top is dukkah. If you don't want to follow the link to the recipe (and don't know what dukkah is) dukkah is a mix of nuts and spices (hazelnuts, sesame seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, salt pepper). I coat the top, sear it in olive oil on the stove top, then flip it over and finish cooking it in the oven.



Definitely won of my all time favorites.

Dinner #28: Fried Tofu with Black Bean & Chili Sauce

Wednesday, March 25, 2009: For a little change of pace tonight I decided to go with tofu as the main course tonight. I really like tofu and everytime I have it wonder why I don't cook it more often. The source of tonight's tofu is Kylie Kwong. Emily & I first heard about her from Delicious magazine. We were going on vacation to New Zealand & Australia and they said we had to stop by her restaurant, Billy Kwong while in Sydney.

We were excited to go & planned to get there early as the restaurant doesn't take reservations. We showed up at 6:30 hoping to get in later in the evening but at that point they were already booked for the night and not taking any more reservations (apparently you need to show up around 5pm to get a table sometime that night.

A few years later I happened to pick up her Simple Chinese Cooking cookbook and this recipe comes from it.

Below is a picture of the tofu dish.



The recipe calls for salted black beans but I didn't have any (I need to make another trip to chinatown) so I used some black bean paste I had instead. The resulting sauce turned out really well. We also had stir fried bean sprouts (not pictured) which were very tasty. I tried to see if I could find the recipe anywhere online for either of these but didn't have any luck.

Dinner #27: Spinach Linguine with Sicilian Meatballs

Tuesday, March 25, 2009: Emily is still in about the same shape on the vertigo piece of this. Sucks. Really wish I could do something to make it better but the ENT says only time will heal.

Tonight I got rid of the last of the Sicilian meatballs I made for dinner #10. We had frozen about half of them so Dorothy (Emily's mother) pulled them out to thaw while I was at work. These I did with some spinach linguine I bought at Fairway over the weekend. They have great fresh pastas in one of the aisles near the orange juice (which is very good. Instead of a red sauce I just added some good extra virgin olive oil and some pecorino locatelli cheese.



Dorothy was also very nice to have gone out and picked up a nice nero d'avola from Best Cellars on Broadway.