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

neuro-praxis

You guys are such interesting eaters; my diet is so bland in comparison.

Tonight we had baked chicken enchiladas with corn salad and salted nachos, with lots of fresh salsa and sour cream.

tSubh Dearg

Roasted a chicken over the weekend so made the remainders into a pie last night. Made a another quiche for my lunch as it's just yummy.

Tonight I'm making roasted chicken thighs with roasted chip potatoes. I tried an experiment with tomatoes to try and dry them out in the oven (which I know my OH really likes) but they burnt as I forgot about them at the wrong moment. I'm also making a caesar type salad for this evening.

s&mbarbie

Chicken and wild mushroom pie with leftovers from yesterdays roast chicken.

Loopy

Creamy Pasta Bake with chicken, courgettes, peppers, onions and bacon..

watna

I'm working this week and my lovely OH isn't so he had cooked a meal for to have when I got in.

We had chicken in bbq sauce (apparently made with soy sauce, stock, sweet chilli sauce, sugar and ginger) with mashed potatoes and green veg. It was very good of him but it was extremely sweet. He was supposed to add lemon juice to it but forgot and I think that would have helped. He's muttering away now about trying again and "perfecting the recipe"!

tSubh Dearg

Tonight I whipped us up pasta with pesto, mini mozzarella balls and quartered tomatoes. Super tasty.

Gavin "shels"

Chicken and Mushroom Vol-Au-Vents in about 10 minutes for me.:p The left overs from a lovely roast chicken last night.

The Sweeper

I ate out yesterday lunchtime and had a really excellent smoked duck with snow peas and pine nuts in a creamy sauce over fettucine. Felt like asking the restaurant where they sourced smoked duck from out here, but didn't at the time. They're local, and it's the first time I've tried them since we've been here because the exterior looks crappy and I thought it was just a 'caff'. Will definitely go back and beg for the source of smoked duck and have another dish off the menu.

Minder

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

I ate out yesterday lunchtime and had a really excellent smoked duck with snow peas and pine nuts in a creamy sauce over fettucine. Felt like asking the restaurant where they sourced smoked duck from out here, but didn't at the time. They're local, and it's the first time I've tried them since we've been here because the exterior looks crappy and I thought it was just a 'caff'. Will definitely go back and beg for the source of smoked duck and have another dish off the menu.

Snow peas sound so much more interesting than mange tout:D

The Sweeper

They were better than mange tout as I remember mange tout - the peas in the pods were large and round, like sugar snap peas, and there was no horrible sinew down one side and they were crispy. Different cultivar or something? Dunno!

karynp

We had pasta. The sauce i made up with 2 red oinions, 1 large aubergine,1 corgette, mushrooms all finely chopped and simmered in some milk to allow the natural juices out,2 teaspoons of mild curry powder for a kick and 2 cartons of roma garlic flavoured tomatoes,makes a fab sauce,then i added in some browned best mince and a little bit of coriander,and some nice small pasta shells and topped off with fresh grated parmasan cheese served with garlic bread,the kids love it and its all made in half and hour including prep time,very easy for those in a rush.
then tonight with the left overs i will make a kind of shepherds pie,mashed potatoesi mixed with salt,pepper,butter,milk and philadelphia cheese, simple yet yummy with some baby carrots on the side.

tSubh Dearg

Tonight I cooked a piece of bacon, first 30mins in tinfoil, for the next 20 mins I covered it in a glaze made from marg, brown sugar and mustard. Served it with mashed potatoes with their skins on and, as an experiment, I made puréed peas with the remains of a bag of frozen ones in the freezer.

They were gorgeous! I boiled them for about 5 mins with a couple of mint leaves in the water with them. Then I squashed them (and the leaves) with some butter, some cream that I had left from the pie on Monday, and salt and pepper. Even my OH who is not the biggest fan of vegetables thought they were yummy.

kenco

tSubh Dearg wrote: »

Tonight I cooked a piece of bacon, first 30mins in tinfoil, for the next 20 mins I covered it in a glaze made from marg, brown sugar and mustard. Served it with mashed potatoes with their skins on and, as an experiment, I made puréed peas with the remains of a bag of frozen ones in the freezer.

They were gorgeous! I boiled them for about 5 mins with a couple of mint leaves in the water with them. Then I squashed them (and the leaves) with some butter, some cream that I had left from the pie on Monday, and salt and pepper. Even my OH who is not the biggest fan of vegetables thought they were yummy.

tSD that all sounds delish and is def on my list (when we get this child rared!). Love what you did peas!

Actually managed a meal together tonight! Marinated a couple of nice pork chops in a chilli sauce. Roasted some veg and had a couple of prepped Croq spuds. All nice with a glass of Portuguese red!

Minder

Last night we had chops - Lamb chops with cumin, smoked paprika and salt for Mrs Minder, pork chops with jerk marinade for me. I found a bag of jersey royal spuds in the fridge which tasted fantastic, so buttery and we had a bunch of asparagus griddled with a little lemon juice and butter for a quick sauce.

watna

Tonight we went out for dinner and I had chicken mee goreng in a Malaysian restaurant. Twas yummy.

Then we went to a cafe for dessert and coffee. I had a white chocolate cupcake. Twas even yummier... one to look at making methinks.

@ tsubh dearg - Pureed peas sound yum. Will def we trying it!

tSubh Dearg

The great thing about the peas was that puréed they had about ten times the flavour they do just boiled. Especially as these were quite old frozen peas too.

Tonight we had good ol' spag bol. Now I have to clean the cooker

The Sweeper

Last night, had 22 people front for a Winter Solstice party.

Food prep between Friday night and Saturday. Final menu:

Leg of roast lamb, boned and stuffed with a rice, apricot, pine nut and mint stuffing bound with an egg. A leg of roast ham (shop-bought as pre-cooked.) Two roast chickens stuffed with bacon and mushroom stuffing. 24 individual beef-and-guinness pies, muffin-sized. Loaf of sourdough, loaf of cheese bread, loaf of herb bread, loaf of multigrain. Potato salad, general side vegetables (avocado, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce). Flatbreads and julienned vegetables laid out on plates with home-made hummus. Bowls of mixed nuts. A cheese platter with a wheel of brie, a wheel of camembert and a wheel of blue castello, with assorted crackers and dishes of quince jelly.

Drinks were egg nog (went down a storm), mulled wine and apple martinis, among the other usual favourites.

And when we fed them and watered them, then we played pass the parcel, pass the orange and bobbing for apples. It was actually really bloody good fun!

Minder

Last night we had grilled seabass, griddled asparagus with bearnaise sauce and potatoes dauphinoise.

tSubh Dearg

Last night we had a couple of striploin steaks that had been dry aged for 3 weeks. They were fantastic! Quite possibly the nicest piece of steak I have ever had. We had it with green beans tossed in butter and garlic and home made oven chips.


EDIT: MAJD - sounds like you had a great party! Any chance of the recipe for the cheese bread? oh and the bacon and mushroom stuffing

The Sweeper

Stuffing - I don't have exact amounts here, I judge it by sight based on the size and number of chickens I'm stuffing.

Start with enough breadcrumbs to stuff your chicken. Melt a very large knob of butter in a frying pan, and soften a finely chopped onion in the melted butter. Add a large handful of finely chopped button mushrooms and allow to colour.

Pour the onion and mushroom into the breadcrumbs. Mix. Finely chop some rashers of smoked bacon, and then fry them off in the same pan. Add to the breadcrumb mix. Season liberally with black pepper, and salt depending on the saltiness of the rashers. Add a large handful of chopped, fresh parsley. Beat an egg (or one egg per chicken) and add to the stuffing mixture to bind. It will be quite sticky. Stuff chickens. Then using about a tablespoon of olive oil per chicken, liberally grease the outside of the chicken, then salt and pepper the skin. Put in roasting dish and roast.

The cheese bread is a plain sourdough loaf, kneaded and allowed to prove, then knock it back once, then stretch the dough and knead grated cheese (about two handfuls for a 1kg loaf) through the centre. Work and shape the loaf, so most of the cheese is through the dough, but there is a small amount protruding here and there from the dough. Put it on whatever baking sheet you're going to cook it on, then allow to prove and double in size again. Then put it in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

I find that if you allow the dough to prove the second time in the receptacle you're cooking it on, you don't lose any of the air by having to move it from where it's been proving onto your baking sheet.

Sparks

Some pseudo-bolognaise ragu with linguine.
Three onions, finely minced + three carrots, finely chopped + three stalks of celery, finely chopped, cooked over a low heat in the pan with olive oil and butter until the onion was nicely yellow and everything was softened. Then into a pot.
250g each of minced beef (round steak), minced lamb and minced pork, into the pan at a high heat to brown. Broken up as it browned, and the liquid poured off once (The meat was frozen so it was mostly water and you want it fried, not stewed). when it looked nicely browned, added in about two inches of salami, chopped finely. Fried for another three or four minutes. (Had no pancetta or veal mince, hence pseudo-bolognaise). When that was done, threw it into the pot with the onion and carrot and celery, added a cup and a half of milk, stirred and left it on a medium heat. Sirred it once or twice while waiting for the milk to reduce down.
Meanwhile, added a half-pint of beef stock (cheated, used two stock cubes in half a pint of water) to the pan to deglaze. Left that reduce, after adding two teaspoons of nam pla and a tablespoon of rioja vinegar (didn't have red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar). Left the pan on medium heat for the reducing.
When the milk had reduced away to nearly nothing (draw spoon across bottom of pot, if you can see the bottom and not much liquid shows up for two or three seconds, it's ready), added the now-reduced stock, a tin of chopped tomatoes, about a tablespoon of tomato puree, stirred and then left it for ten minutes to settle on a low heat. If you don't mind the taste of alcohol, you'd add a good glass of red wine and let it reduce away (same as for the milk) first.
Washed pan and bowls and knives and stuff (easy brownie points )
After ten minutes, added salt (everything was unseasoned to this point), pepper, oregano and ground coriander to the pot. Stirred, then left it to simmer for a good hour (six or seven hours would really be better, topping up with water every so often).
Make linguini as per instructions, serve with ragu on top.
Yum.

tSubh Dearg

Tonight we are having roast chicken with twice baked potatoes, filled with mushroms and cheese.

The Hill Billy

A very simple dinner of boiled, then baked ham. Served with floury spuds, steamed in their skins, slathered in butter & ground pepper. A dollop of Coleman's on the side & a few lightly-dressed rocket & spinach leaves for a bit of colour.

chiempi

Quick and simple spaghetti carbonara: 4 rashers of bacon fried until golden then rested while the onion was fried, returned to pan and tossed with cooked spaghetti and a little extra olive oil, a whisked egg tossed through quickly, half a cup of grated parmesan tossed through, and a pile of fresh-chopped parsley for colour. Ready in 20 minutes, served with a green salad, lovely.

Fish and chips tonight, I think - quick and easy again.

_blank_

What does twice baked mean?

kenco

Attempted to make a chicken in cream and mushroom sauce last night but things were a bit chaotic and we did not really get to eat in comfort. Recipe is up on the www.bbcgoodfood.com site and is straight forward enough (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1827/panfried-chicken-in-mushroom-sauce).

Sunday was a bit more sedate, half leg of lamb roast with rosemay and garlic, roast spuds and great asaparagus (thanks Dunnes Stores!)

r3nu4l

Last night I had home-made burgers, boiled new potatoes and beans. I was waiting on a grocery delivery so made do with what we had left over

So the burgers were made with:

Extra-lean minced beef
Finely chopped white onion
dried mixed herbs
Splash of soy sauce
A small amount of white flour to help bind the mix

Cooked on a George Foreman grill.

Minder

Last night was turkey escalopes in panko breadcrumbs and a baked penne pasta with mozzerella and parmasaen cheeses.

neuro-praxis

DesF wrote: »

What does twice baked mean?

I might be wrong, but I presume she means they baked some potatoes, took them out of the oven, scooped out the flesh, mixed the flesh with cheese and mushrooms, put the mixture back into the skins, and baked them again until crispy, melty and golden.

Faith

I unstickied this thread because it's popular enough to stay on the front page anyway.