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

oscarBravo

Sunday dinner was a Tom Kerridge venison pie recipe, with chestnuts, mushrooms and salami:



Last night was venison medallions in the most amazing sauce with creamy mash, and tonight is leftover pie - venison overload!

the beer revolu

I'd been planning on doing this dinner for days but my stomach wasn't up to eating it after a dose so we ended up having a special Monday night dinner.:D

Pan/oven cooked duck breast fillets with a Kriek reduction, honey and ginger roast parsnips, boulangere potatoes and IPA braised sweetheart cabbage.
I over cooked the duck - it was still pink in the middle but was over done for my taste:mad::o. Otherwise, I was extremely pleased with myself:D The kriek reduction worked really well.

You know how sometimes a wine seems just made to go with certain meals? Well, we had one of those happy occasions. I opened a bottle of 2005 Langhe Nebbiolo that I had stashed away a couple of years ago. IT was effing gorgeous and seemed to compliment all the flavours amazingly - especially the kriek sauce. Yumm.

The evening was beautifully topped off with a few glasses of the sour wonderfulness that is Rodenbach Grand Crú in The Abbot's.

vicwatson

Faith wrote: »

I was afraid you'd say that! I'm also very fussy about spice racks and as a result, I don't have one!

Something like this work for you Faith? (if you have an island)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spice-Rack-Avonstar-classic-range/dp/B004DDKQO0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1385506877&sr=8-6&keywords=spice+rack

or this maybe?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spice-104-Avonstar-Classic-Britain/dp/B007N24WKC/ref=pd_sim_kh_8

the beer revolu

Duck and cabbage steamed dumplings with a soy dipping sauce. Chinese greens with soy sauce.

2ndcoming

My first time making one of my mother's Donegal Classics last night:

Doherty's Hamburger mince (sliced, floured and fried)
Homemade chips pan-fried with rosemary & thyme
Runny fried egg, baked beans.

So simple, and so effective! One of those dinners designed to be eaten at 1pm on a turf-turning day.

Whatever goes into that Doherty's mince, I would drive to Donegal just to get it, amazing stuff!

omb0wyn5ehpij9

Pasta (whole wheat) bolognese. It doesn't look like much, but it was very tasty!

Billy86

...did that image in the post above load sideways for anyone else? What's that all about!?

Actually looks pretty damn tasty when you zoom in!

oscarBravo

Billy86 wrote: »

...did that image in the post above load sideways for anyone else? What's that all about!?

EXIF orientation tag

Billy86

Sorry, couldn't resist.

homemadecider

Slow cooker lamb stew with pearl barley. Added in brocolli for the last 30 mins and then some pre-cooked baby potatoes.

Mrs Fox

I've been dying of a nasty dose of flu the last week, so it's been takeaways for a number of days. While I'm still standing upright during the day thought I might as well cook dinner and get it over with.

Roasted Mediterranean vegetables with fusili bake, with meatballs in a simple tomato and basil sauce.

Seaneh

Made a MASSIVE pot of meat sauce.

800g minced beef
200g raw chorizo (which I skinned and micned with a big knife)
1 clove of elephant garlic (microplaned, took a while, was a big fecker).
1 aubergine
1 courgette
1 yellow pepper
1 medium sized sweet potatoe
3 medium onions
3 medium carrots
3 sticks of celery
2 500g cartons of pasata (+ about about 1/5th a carton of water to wash out the bits at the bottom)
2 desert spoons of tomato paste
1 beef stock cube
salt, pepper, cayenne and paprika to season.


grated the celery, onions, carrots and then half the sweet potato, aubergine and courgette.

Chopped the other half the sweet potato, courgette and aubergine as well as the yellow pepper.

Threw the beef and sausage meat into a big pot, cooked it on high for like 10 minutes to brown it all up and cook off the excess water in the meat, made a hollow in the pan and let the fat gather, blotted out about half of it with kitchen towel (I like fat as much as any man, but there was way too much).

Added in tomato paste, paprika and cayenne, cooked it out for about 90 seconds, added the garlic and cooked for another 60 seconds.
Added the grated veg, stirred it all through, turned the heat to medium low, covered with a lid and left it alone to sweat down for a good 15 minutes, stirring it now and then to get it evenly cooked.

next I added in the chopped veg, mixed it through, crumbled in the stock cube and poured in the pasata, turned the heat back up, brought it to a boil, reduced the heat to low, checked for seasoning, added some salt and pepper and let it cook for about 45 minutes with the lid on, stirring every now and then.

After that, checked for seasoning, another turn of the salt mill and a pinch of cayenne and cooked on medium low for another 10-15 minutes to let some of the liquid reduce down as it was a little wet for my liking.

Ended up with a massive pot of yummy "Espantalinano" (I invented that word just now, bastardised Spanish/Italian) meat sauce I can serve with anything from potatoes to quinoa.

I had it tonight with some al dente whole wheat Farfalle.

Seaneh

Mrs Fox wrote: »

I've been dying of a nasty dose of flu the last week, so it's been takeaways for a number of days. While I'm still standing upright during the day thought I might as well cook dinner and get it over with.

Roasted Mediterranean vegetables with fusili bake, with meatballs in a simple tomato and basil sauce.

Hey, could you pm me the recipe for those?
Or just post it here.

Looks amazing.

Mrs Fox

Seaneh wrote: »

Hey, could you pm me the recipe for those?
Or just post it here.

Looks amazing.

Thanks.
For the pasta bake I used this recipe, although I didn't add black olives and capers, and I used fusili instead of rigatoni.

For the meatballs, just a pack of SuperValu meatballs roasted in the oven until cooked. In the meantime I made a sauce with passata, chilli flakes, dash of balsamic vinegar and fresh basil, and tossed the two together, enough to coat the balls.

Merkin

Have been dosed with cold so take away last night.Had chicken tikka dopiaza, saag aloo and plain naan which was delish. Mr.Merkin had lamb rogan josh, mixed veg and chapatti.

Billy86

Had a gluttonous, unhealthy night of deep fried everything...
- Chicken fillets (cut thin)
- Squid rings and tentacles
- Brie, cut into squares and mozzarella balls
- Jalapenos, ctuffed with cream cheese and home-made 'bacon salt'
- Mushrooms (with some curry spices added to the flour)
- Home made chips

Must've soaked up about 10-12 sheets of kitchen paper just by leaving each batch of items lying on top for 20-30 seconds each after taking out of the pot!

And for dips I used ketchup, and made three others:
- Pesto, paremesan and mayo (on the left, below)
- Guacamole (centre)
- Roasted garlic chipotle mayonnaise (right)







The one let-down was the japalenos. If you do this with the rings out of the jar they taste absolutely incredible, but having cut the tips off and used a narrow knife to deseed them prior to stuffing, with full jalapenos it just doesn't work - the skin seems too strong or resistant to be able to get a clean bite. In future, might be best to deseed and stuff them, then use a REALLY sharp, serrated knife to slice them prior to battering and breading.

Dizzyblonde

Last night I made my best lasagne ever, with equal amounts of minced beef and minced pork. We demolished it.

The Hill Billy

We had our work Christmas event last night - lots & lots of yummy fondue, weisswein & schnapps.

fussyonion

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

Last night I made my best lasagne ever, with equal amounts of minced beef and minced pork. We demolished it.

Sorry to be a pain but would you post your recipe?
Lasagne is my favourite dinner and I'm always looking for a good recipe.

ibarelycare

I went to Salamanca last night and had chicken and chorizo paella, patatas bravas and chicken wings, followed by a really rich and scrummy piece of chocolate gateaux and accompanied by too much wine. Really enjoyed it.

Dizzyblonde

fussyonion wrote: »

Sorry to be a pain but would you post your recipe?
Lasagne is my favourite dinner and I'm always looking for a good recipe.

It's probably not a recipe that purists would recommend, just one that works for me. It feeds 6-8.
500g of minced pork
500g of round mince
A good sized onion
2-3 crushed cloves of garlic
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
2 tsbps of tomato puree
2 tsps of sugar
2 tsps of balsamic vinegar
a heaped tsp each of dried basil and oregano
Salt and black pepper
I sauté the onion for a few minutes, then add the garlic for a minute before turning up the heat and adding the mince. When the mince is sealed I add everything else, then partly cover it and simmer for 3 hours.
To assemble I usually use a pint sized packet of Knorr white sauce (too lazy to make white sauce), grating cheddar into it to make it cheesy. I do a layer of meat, then pasta, then a small amount of cheese sauce before repeating twice. I put all the remaining sauce over the top, and grate parmesan onto it before baking for 40-50 minutes. I use the wavy lasagne sheets because I think they cook best.

oscarBravo

fussyonion wrote: »

Lasagne is my favourite dinner and I'm always looking for a good recipe.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057017253

nosietoes

I made Malaysian Split Pea Curry with Vegetables last night from Madhur Jeffrey's Curry Bible and a Lamb Bhuna to use up some left over roast lamb.

The Split Pea Curry was incredible - have never had anything like it. Serious recommend making it.

April O Neill II

Billy86 wrote: »

Had a gluttonous, unhealthy night of deep fried everything...
- Chicken fillets (cut thin)
- Squid rings and tentacles
- Brie, cut into squares and mozzarella balls
- Jalapenos, ctuffed with cream cheese and home-made 'bacon salt'
- Mushrooms (with some curry spices added to the flour)
- Home made chips

Must've soaked up about 10-12 sheets of kitchen paper just by leaving each batch of items lying on top for 20-30 seconds each after taking out of the pot!

And for dips I used ketchup, and made three others:
- Pesto, paremesan and mayo (on the left, below)
- Guacamole (centre)
- Roasted garlic chipotle mayonnaise (right)

The one let-down was the japalenos. If you do this with the rings out of the jar they taste absolutely incredible, but having cut the tips off and used a narrow knife to deseed them prior to stuffing, with full jalapenos it just doesn't work - the skin seems too strong or resistant to be able to get a clean bite. In future, might be best to deseed and stuff them, then use a REALLY sharp, serrated knife to slice them prior to battering and breading.

Amazing.

homemadecider

Slow cooker teriyaki chicken drumsticks with egg fried rice. Oh god, a mountain of food, ate about half of it and then collapsed happily on the couch with a glass of good wine. Bring on the toy show!

dipdip

We had loin of bacon tonight, roasted in a honey glaze, with mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and stuffed mushrooms. Strawberry cheesecake for dessert.

And loads of non-alocholic mulled punch with cloves and cinnamon.

...into which I lashed a naggin of brandy and a whole lot of port.

Mrs Fox

Tonight we had homemade cheese burgers with homemade chips.
It's Missy Fox's birthday so I made a mixed berry Pavlova.

livinsane

I made beetroot, apple and onion soup on a whim as I had a bag of windfall cookers to use. Twas delicious and pink! Even my boyfriend who HATES beetroot and HATES cooked apple LOVED it. And he wonders why I am always trying to force him to retry foods he hates from his youth.

Billy86

My phone died out literally as I raised it to take a picture, but I will be trying this again. Probably the tastiest meal I've had in weeks. It also looks well fancy if you're trying to impress someone, but is surprisingly easy to make.

Wine-cooked chorizo and feta-stuffed squid in sauce.
- Excellent, easy to understand video on how to cut/prepare a squid here... don't worry, they don't all have eggs (mine didn't at least)! If the ink leaks don't worry, it rinses out under the tap.
- Cut 30-40g chorizo into tiny bits, put in small pan with about 100ml wine. Bring to boil, then simmer for 10 mins and prepare 30-40g feta.
- Drain the wine out, but keep 20mls or so (soaks with the feta) and mash the chorizo/feta/wine together - mix well and evenly.
- Stuff the squid with this mix about 70-80% full (it shrinks a little as you cook it) and stick a toothpick through the top like this, to seal.
- Fry on high heat for 2 minutes on all four 'sides' (same way a sausages has four 'sides'). It surprisingly basic to actually cook - you want it to go just a tiny, tiny bit brown on each side.
- Take off heat and throw on the tentacles (which are seriously yummy), and add any sauce you want to cook with for about 2 mins... I used the garlic chipotle mayo from here - replacing 'adobo' for a mix of spices and some chicken stock to rehydrate the chipotle peppers in, then chopping them into tiny pieces before adding to the sauce. Tomato-based and spicy sauces would also work extremely well.

- I served with some remaining deep fried squid rings, jalapenos and mushrooms... but pasta or small potato fondant would be an excellent typical thing to serve it with.
- Another idea that just dawned on my now would be holding onto all of the wine, adding a little bit more, and using it to cook mussels in a separate pan while you are doing the squid.

Also back to the deep fried jalapenos one last time - definitely leave the seeds in. Taking them out makes it more like a bell pepper, which is massively underwhelming since the cream cheese/batter/breadcrumbs are all meant to offset a very spicy pepper. Probably best to buy full jalapenos, cut the tip off, pack them tightly with cream cheese using a piping bag or your fingers, then slice (did this yesterday, they cut into slices cleanly - just use a steak knife and be sure to plug the loose end with your finger).

Billy86

Went back to it again already tonight.

A significantly bigger squid, stuffed with chorizo, feta and seasoned/diced chicken, all mashed together into an orangey paste. Used the chorizo-wine to cook a handful of mussels (and poured into their shells at the end), served with marinara sauce over linguine. Also kept the tentacles, chopped the wings into smaller pieces, and make some rings since the stomach was so large to begin with...









*When taking apart the squid, I accidentally cut through the eye... yyyyyiiiiiiccccckkkk.