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

trackguy

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Where'd you get the beans?

It was just a tin of Old El Paso refried beans. Got them in Tesco

the beer revolu

Had some lovely gravy left over from last weeks roast pork so did savoury mince with brown rice.
Pork and beef mince, carrots, celery, onion, leek, garlic, tomatoes, frozen peas and sweetcorn, wine, bayleaf, thyme, flat leaf parsley and, of course, gravy.

Very tasty but didn't warrant a pic.

NewFrockTuesday

Friday - Dadas on Sounth William Street - its a Moroccan restaurant and it was office party night:

Starter: Mixed dips with pitta. zzzzz
Main: Duck with prunes and carrots - odd but fairly tasty. The 7 hours roasted lamb that my colleague had opposite me looked far better. Managed to steal a bit. Delicious.
Dessert: Icecream. blah.

Saturday - Mozzarella sticks and garlic bread - X Factor final fodder

Sunday - Chickpea curry with rice and dahl.

Monday - Roasted veggies with brown rice.

Tuesday - Same

Wednesday - Tofu wokked with peppers, onions, mushrooms and alfalfa sprouts and avocado in a wrap.

Tonight - Experimenting (ho dear) - kidney beans and potato chilli cakes. kinda like fishcakes except with mixed beans instead of fish. Bean buger I suppose.

Last week I tried kidney bean crepes stuffed with mushroom bolognaise - kinda like a findus crispy pancake. Ive never tasted anything so vile in my life (barring the liver bolognaise or the kidney and pea terrine or maybe the haddock in coca cola sauce)

neuro-praxis

Went to Acapulco for the earlybird before Handel's Messiah in the NCH last night.

Had nachos supreme, pork enchiladas with rice and a salsa verde and deep fried ice cream. Perfick.

AstridBean

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Tonight we had pork fillet, stuffed with a home-made stuffing of bread, herbs, butter, smoked bacon, apple and black pepper, and roasted with white whine and bay leaves. We ate this in thick slices with mash and green veg. There was an amazingly rich dark gravy from the juices, too. Nyom.

Oooh, have you got a recipe for that please? I bought pork fillet last week that I want to roast but am terrified it'll come out dry!

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Went to Acapulco for the earlybird before Handel's Messiah in the NCH last night.

Had nachos supreme, pork enchiladas with rice and a salsa verde and deep fried ice cream. Perfick.

LOVE Acapulco but think it's a tad overpriced.

neuro-praxis

AstridBean wrote: »

Oooh, have you got a recipe for that please? I bought pork fillet last week that I want to roast but am terrified it'll come out dry!

...LOVE Acapulco but think it's a tad overpriced.

The earlybird is three courses for €20 which is a bargain.

Ok, for the pork and stuffing:

1 small onion, finely chopped
1 large slice bread, whizzed to crumbs (I used batch because it was what I had)
2 slices smoked streaky bacon, cut into matchsticks
1 eating apple, peeled and finely chopped
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (I used dried)
Salt and black pepper
Butter and olive oil
1 glass white wine
2 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 180. Butter a large roasting tin.

Season fillet all round with salt and pepper. Slice fillet down the middle lengthways to butterfly it (don't cut right through the meat though). Cover in cling film and bash with a meat mallet until flat. Season the inside of the meat, too.

In olive oil, fry your bacon until beginning to crisp. Add the onion and fry til soft. Add in the apple, herbs and breadcrumbs. Season with black pepper. Add in a large knob of butter and mix together well in the pan until everything is moist.

Spoon the stuffing down the centre of the fillet, fold up the sides and secure with string every 2 inches or so.

Place in the buttered tin. Pour over a glass of white wine and throw the bay leaves into the tin.

Roast for one hour.

To make gravy, place fillet in a warm dish and set aside. Put the roasting pan on the hob and deglaze with a good splash water, stock or wine, scraping up all the lovely pork juices and bits. I then added 4 teaspoons of bisto mixed with a cup of cold water - you may prefer to use flour or your own method. Stir until thick and bubbling, and season to taste. Run through a sieve and serve.

Serve the meat in thick slices drizzled with the gravy. Enjoy!

Honey-ec

Have been doing eff-all cooking recently as I'm back living at home for a while and my mother does her utmost to stop me from cooking. Sure it's only a matter of time until someone who eats their steak blue poisons the whole family :rolleyes:

I miss contributing to this thread.

NewFrockTuesday

Honey-ec wrote: »

Have been doing eff-all cooking recently as I'm back living at home for a while and my mother does her utmost to stop me from cooking. Sure it's only a matter of time until someone who eats their steak blue poisons the whole family :rolleyes:

I miss contributing to this thread.

Aww...why dont you put down what you would like to cook - and we will all pretend that you are going home cooking it.

neuro-praxis

Pea soup, followed by sirloin, balsamic onions and mashed cauliflower, followed by raspberry cheesecake (with a white chocolate drizzle :pac: ).

AstridBean

neuro-praxis wrote: »

The earlybird is three courses for €20 which is a bargain.

Ooh, I shall be availing of that!

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Ok, for the pork and stuffing:

1 small onion, finely chopped
1 large slice bread, whizzed to crumbs (I used batch because it was what I had)
2 slices smoked streaky bacon, cut into matchsticks
1 eating apple, peeled and finely chopped
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (I used dried)
Salt and black pepper
Butter and olive oil
1 glass white wine
2 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 180. Butter a large roasting tin.

Season fillet all round with salt and pepper. Slice fillet down the middle lengthways to butterfly it (don't cut right through the meat though). Cover in cling film and bash with a meat mallet until flat. Season the inside of the meat, too.

In olive oil, fry your bacon until beginning to crisp. Add the onion and fry til soft. Add in the apple, herbs and breadcrumbs. Season with black pepper. Add in a large knob of butter and mix together well in the pan until everything is moist.

Spoon the stuffing down the centre of the fillet, fold up the sides and secure with string every 2 inches or so.

Place in the buttered tin. Pour over a glass of white wine and throw the bay leaves into the tin.

Roast for one hour.

To make gravy, place fillet in a warm dish and set aside. Put the roasting pan on the hob and deglaze with a good splash water, stock or wine, scraping up all the lovely pork juices and bits. I then added 4 teaspoons of bisto mixed with a cup of cold water - you may prefer to use flour or your own method. Stir until thick and bubbling, and season to taste. Run through a sieve and serve.

Serve the meat in thick slices drizzled with the gravy. Enjoy!

Fantastic, thank you! Doesn't sound too complicated actually. For a fan-assisted oven, I presume I'd just lower the temp by 20 degrees or so?

the beer revolu

AstridBean wrote: »

I bought pork fillet last week that I want to roast but am terrified it'll come out dry!

It will come out dry.......
if you over cook it;)

AstridBean

the beer revolu wrote: »

It will come out dry.......
if you over cook it;)

Well no, there is a bit of an art to it. If you don't stuff it, it's hard to not dry it out because it is so lean.

NewFrockTuesday

AstridBean wrote: »

Well no, there is a bit of an art to it. If you don't stuff it, it's hard to not dry it out because it is so lean.

Agreed. Dont mind BR, hes useless anyway. Only last week he was making liver bolognaise. :pac:

Ended up in a friends house last night so didnt get a chance to make my kidney bean cakes. Tonight Im going to make bacon and cabbage and parsley sauce and supermash for a friend whos a bit down in the chops. It seems to be everybodies comfort food this weather.

the beer revolu

AstridBean wrote: »

Well no, there is a bit of an art to it. If you don't stuff it, it's hard to not dry it out because it is so lean.

Seriously, pork is only dry if it's over cooked - even pork fillet.
Irish people, generally, are very unkind to pork:(

AstridBean

the beer revolu wrote: »

Seriously, pork is only dry if it's over cooked - even pork fillet.
Irish people, generally, are very unkind to pork:(

It's tricky because pork, like chicken, has to be cooked well through. It's a fine line between just done and overdone.

We'll have to disagree on the pork fillet thing but all I'll say is recipe sites in the UK, the US and Australia agree with me, so it doesn't appear to be just an Irish thing.

reallyrose

I'm posting early, but I have a good aul stew on the cooker. Beef, veg, stock. Going to let that bad boy simmer away for the day. Later on, I'll throw a bit of streaky bacon in. Oh yeah.

neuro-praxis

AstridBean wrote: »

Ooh, I shall be availing of that!



Fantastic, thank you! Doesn't sound too complicated actually. For a fan-assisted oven, I presume I'd just lower the temp by 20 degrees or so?

Actually I cooked it at 180 in a fan oven. Now that you say that, in retrospect 170-175 might actually have been a touch better.

barbiegirl

Last night we had a very tasty warm chorizo, potato and egg salad.

Absolutely yummy, very tasty, yummy and fresh tasting whilst still stodgy enough to satisfy us on a cold Winter night

For 2
200 g of baby potatoes, boiled to tender, drained and halved
2 eggs hard boiled and shelled
1/2 a ring of chorizo sliced
1/2 clove of garlic
juice of 1/2 lemon
Salad leaves
2 tomatoes cut into 8th's

Stir fry the potatoes and chorizo for about 8 minutes until the potatoes are getting nice and crispy and the chorizo is releasing it's juices. Take them out of the pan into a serving bpowl, leaving the liquid.
Add the lemon juice, fry the garlic for 30 seconds
Put everything into the serving bowl, mix and serve.

Yummy, Yummy

the beer revolu

NewFrockTuesday wrote: »

Agreed. Dont mind BR, hes useless anyway. Only last week he was making liver bolognaise. :pac:

.

Now, haven't I spoken to you about the use of apostrophes before?!:p


Funny thing is, I do put a little chicken liver in my bolognaise !
But not made it in a while.

xxxkarenxxx

Sake amiyaki gohan (grilled salmon with veg, ginger, oyster sauce and steamed rice) from the wagamama cook book. yum

reallyrose

the beer revolu wrote: »

Now, haven't I spoken to you about the use of apostrophes before?!:p


Funny thing is, I do put a little chicken liver in my bolognaise !
But not made it in a while.

Chicken liver in bolognaise eh?

the beer revolu

reallyrose wrote: »

Chicken liver in bolognaise eh?

Just a little. Try it!

livinsane

I made a very simple vegetable curry with red pepper, onion, sweetcorn and mixed greens

the beer revolu

Coq au Vin with creamy mash.

AstridBean

Pork goulash with herby dumplings. I can assure you it tasted a lot better than it looks. Just think of it as "rustic".

trackguy

Was in Ristorante Isabella in Skerries last night.

Had this lovely dish for main course - Linguine with king prawns, garlic, white wine and cherry tomatoes. It was excellent.



Karen had fillet steak, which was lovely. She ate most of it before I could take a photo.

neuro-praxis

Last night we had beef madras. Tonight we had pie and chips. Wintertastic.

emeraldstar

Chinese takeaway last night; roast pork with all the trimmings today.

The Hill Billy

On Saturday night I had Heisses Gnagi (Swiss pig's feet) & sauerkraut.
Last night I had a t-bone steak with scallion & tomato gravy with crusty bread for mopping up the juices.

AstridBean

AstridBean wrote: »

Pork goulash with herby dumplings.

This was even better the second day!