The 'Here's what I had for dinner last night' thread - Part I

Ophiopogon

So this is not technically what I had for dinner but it came out of what I was making for dinner tonight...

I was just making Polenta crackers for late lunch/dinner tonight and was had some batter left over so I had it with fried eggs and strong black coffee...if only there was a little bit of sun it wouldv'e been the best lazy breakfast.

trackguy

Had my second go at smoking yesterday. 2 chickens took 4 hours on the smoker. I used charcoal briquettes and applewood. Results were really nice, it had a lovely flavour and the chicken was really moist!

Caros

Always read this forum but never posted here except once or twice yonks ago but going to do it from now on!

Last night I did a Coqueille St Jacques type of thing but with the scallop mushroom in sauce thing in the bottom of the bowl, covered with creamy mash and then some cheese and breadcrumbs on top, delish!

Tonight is meatballs with pasta.

Shenshen

Canelloni filled with mushrooms, courgettes and black olives, covered in tomato sauce and cheese and baked in the oven.
No leftovers for lunch today, unfortunately.

Honey-ec

Last night - was at a pot-luck barbie, so a bit of everything, but off the top of my head: caramelised onion & bacon quiche (my dish), pork belly with fennel, lamb burgers, puy lentil salad and lots & lots of crusty French bread (also brought along by me).

Night before - Julia Child's Daube du Boeuf with homemade French bread.

Tonight - buttermilk fried chicken with kicked-up mac & cheese.

Minder

Last night we had spaghetti with veal meatballs - minced veal with chopped garlic, lemon zest, basil and parsley cooked in a white wine and tomato stock.

beertons

Tonight I had Jamie Olivers Steak sambo, gralic baby spuds, grated beetroot with feta cheese, and big mushrooms with chilli, garlic, and cheese. Heavenly. Leftovers for lunch tomorrow with my dad.

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Tonight I made a monster of a pie. I had tried before with my own sauce and didn't enjoy as it was very heavy.

This time I browned some chicken added it to some par boiled brocolli, cauliflower, carrots and baby spuds in the pie dish. Added a packet white sauce prepared to instructions, and some rosemary and sage in there too. Some puff pastry over the top and oven for 25 mins.

Beautiful!!

trackguy

Stir fried Duck with noodles & bamboo shoots

NewFrockTuesday

Paneer in a spicy tomato sauce, brown rice and daahl. afizzy cocnut drink that I cant remember the name of. Was very tasty though.

Caros

This eve had lamb cutlets and salad with spuds fresh from the garden - my first time growing spuds in grow bags and they are just superb!

Minder

Pasta bake tonight - penne in a light tomato stock with cubes of mozzerella, some cherry tomatoes and a handful of basil leaves. Then topped with cheddar, parmasan and pecorino cheeses and baked until the cheese was golden and crispy. All crispy cheesey stringy gooeyness.

Faith

Oh, that sounds lovely, Minder. I think I'll make something similar tomorrow.

boodlesdoodles

Spanish salmon with chorizo and chickpeas tonight. Basically, did a dry rub of smoked paprika, chilli powder, salt and pepper on the salmon and fried it off, the skin was lovely and crispy. Cooked up the chorizo with red onion, garlic, a few fresh sliced plum tomatoes and a small tin of chickpeas. It was gorgeous if I say so myself. Threw a few chilli flakes into the chickpeas to give a bit of heat. All in all, the whole thing took 20mins, 10mins prep and 10mins to cook.

The Sweeper

Minder wrote: »

Pasta bake tonight - penne in a light tomato stock with cubes of mozzerella, some cherry tomatoes and a handful of basil leaves. Then topped with cheddar, parmasan and pecorino cheeses and baked until the cheese was golden and crispy. All crispy cheesey stringy gooeyness.

Okay I call the difference between tomato stock and tomato sauce. Is there a difference or is it just menufication of terminology? (That's a real phrase. Or at least it is now.)

Minder

The Sweeper wrote: »

Okay I call the difference between tomato stock and tomato sauce. Is there a difference or is it just menufication of terminology? (That's a real phrase. Or at least it is now.)

Half lazy, half light sauce. I blitz a couple of cans of tomatoes, add a whole bulb of garlic cut in half, a large bunch of basil, some salt and sugar and simmer for a while (30 mins). I then push it through a sieve. The result is a lighter tomato sauce or stock.

trackguy

Tasty Crusted Cod from the 30 Minute Meals book



The broccoli, pea, potato mash was magic!

beertons

^ we had that a few days ago too. The veg mix was fab. We absolutely hated the cod though. So we've decided to ditch Jamies book now, and head over to Nigella for a while.

The Sweeper

beertons wrote: »

^ we had that a few days ago too. The veg mix was fab. We absolutely hated the cod though. So we've decided to ditch Jamies book now, and head over to Nigella for a while.

...where we'll begin with cod coated in chocolate, and for the vegetable we'll have carrots in a sugar caramel.



(<3 nigella tho)

Faith

I'm not going to lie to you, I was feeling lazy tonight. So I had pasta... in Heinz Cream of Tomato soup . And it was bloody delicious!

Caros

Tarragon and lemon roasted chicken with roast sweet potatoes, peppers, garlic, onions and courgettes.

Have some left over chicken now for wraps for lunch tomorrow.

Minder

Vietnamese fresh herb noodle salad and a mackerel dish called nanban-zuke. Fillets of mackerel dredged in arrowroot powder and deepfried until crisp, then marinated in a sauce of cider vinegar with mirin, light soy, dashi, ginger and shimichi togarashi.

Corvo

Simple Rogan Josh, poppadoms and some beer.

Cant beat it.

trackguy

Chicken Ramen with spinach and sesame seeds

fitzcoff

Fajitas! wrote: »

Nothing new - Nearly 3 years old at this stage - 5D mkII

Tonight, pork chops with sage, apple and stilton - Just before going back into the oven..


Just wondering what exactly you did for this dish, it looks yum, did you fry off the apples first and what kind of apples were they,

thanks

Fajitas!

fitzcoff wrote: »

Just wondering what exactly you did for this dish, it looks yum, did you fry off the apples first and what kind of apples were they,

thanks

It was pretty simple - After frying the chops for a few minutes, I fried off the apples in the fats from the chops along with a knob of butter - I just used ordinary eating apples, nothing sour, and chopped them into wedges.

Pop them on top of the pork chops with the cheese and sage, and poured whatever butter and oil was left on top of them, and pop into the oven for about 20 minutes - They turned out great - Really tasty

Honey-ec

Last night - totally lazy freezer dinner of pizza & cheesy chips while watching Man V Food.

Night before - only got home from work at 9pm, so just threw on some homemade sausage rolls that I had in the freezer. Must make up a new batch on my next day off, they're dead handy to have.

The Sweeper

Nice cooking weekend again. Yesterday mostly a home-made sweet and sour pork. Today more pork - using a shoulder roast, I unbound it and cut it into 1.5" cubes, with some fat on (but the skin trimmed off).

Split that into two lots of about 900g apiece. Used one lot to make a Nyonya braised pork dish (Malaysian stew where pork is braised with a paste of shallots until golden, and then slowly cooked with cinnamon, star anise, cloves, water, dark soy sauce and vinegar - the sauce reduces to a flavoursome paste coating meat that's tender but not falling asunder).

The other half went into Vietnamese claypot pork again - simple dish of pork, fish sauce and a caramel sauce made from melting sugar and diluting it into a sauce with boiling water. You cook the meat in teh reducing liquid until it turns into a sweet, sticky coating - then liberally grind black pepper over it before serving.

Both of these benefit from being served with plain rice - plain as plain, boiled or steamed - and stirfried asian greens. I like to stirfry pak choi leaves with chili, ginger and garlic, adding a shake of sesame oil before serving.

Minder

Made yakitori chicken skewers yesterday on the BBQ (between the showers). I made the tare sauce from scratch - roast chicken bones and scraps cooked in a mixture of soy, mirin, sake, water and sugar. Simmered until the sauce is glossy, then sieved to remove the chicken bones. We skewered diced chicken thigh meat, added salt then brushed on the sauce as it grilled.

Interesting fact I picked up. In Japan, the old school yaritori bars never brush the sauce onto the skewers. Instead the skewers of partly grilled chicken are immersed into a clay pot of tare (sauce) to coat them. This sauce is never boiled despite the immersion of many partly cooked chicken skewers. The result is a living soup of sauce much like a sourdough starter. The yakitori chefs feed the tare with more ingredients over time with a result that the tare can become distinctive environments many years old, each pot with its own unique flavour. Mannen Tare - 10,000 year sauce.

Honey-ec

Last night - spinach & ricotta cannelloni. The spinach, basil, oregano and salad leaves were all out of the garden, which is very fulfilling.

Night before - spicy beanburgers. They were only ok; my coriander is gone to seed and they badly needed some.