The 'Here's what I had for dinner last night' thread - Part II - Don't quote pics!

dibkins

Green saffron lamb korma. Nom.

RentDayBlues

Pasta with smoked salmon and prawns, served in a cream cheese and chive sauce. I also did a sort of spinach ball, was delicious!

kylith

Carbonara with plenty of black pepper. Yum.

MissFlitworth

Roast chicken (over done to the point of chicken leather - well done me), roast potatoes, weggies & gravy. Followed by apple cake with toffee apple sauce and Lidl's wonderful vanilla ice cream.

NOS3

Roast chicken with carrots, broccoli, gravy, and garlic and rosemary roast potatoes. Followed by artic roll. :pac:

StripedBoxers

My two best friends came to see me today, they are two angels and I would be lost without them.

For dinner I did roast chicken, carrots, peas, broccoli, boiled potatoes and gravy.

Harry Palmr

I wish I had the patience for roast potatoes

northgirl

Lamb chops w/mint sauce, poppys, peas & broccoli.

Zelda247

I had chicken breasts on the bone with honey and mustard, also added some carrots and parsnips and potatoes, and stock and simmered for 1.5 hours on the hob, it was yummy! It was a recipe from the BBC site, very good indeed.

Taboola

MissFlitworth those roasts look gorgeous.

How do you get them so crispy? What potatoes are you using? I've been using roosters lately and not seeing fantastic results.

MissFlitworth

They were par boiled and tipped into hot beef dripping in a hot oven (how hot I cannot tell you because our oven is RUBBISH. It was turned up to 200 but was probably swinging between 160 & 180). I let them form a crust on the side in the fat and then turn them to crisp up another side, and baste them pretty regularly. In my oven they take about 35-40 minutes to get to the crispy on the outside and soft on the inside stage. This week's potato was one of the organic potato varieties from Lidl and it was lovely, although I had roosters last week and they were nicer. We're on a mission to get Sunday dinner Down so will be roasting Maris Pipers this weekend.

I'm obsessed with roast potatoes at the minute.

the beer revolu

Miss Flitworth, looking at those roasties, I'd say your oven is hotter than you think.

For me, the secret of good roasties lies in three key things:

Don't overcrowd the pan.
Have the oven hot - ideally 200°
Give them plenty of time. For me that's 50 - 60 mins.

Other things:
I can get good crispy roast potatoes with any oil or fat but duck fat is particularly nice, as is beef dripping. Sunflower or olive oil is fine too.
I always par boil and shake them in the pan.
Season them well.
Cutting up the potatoes will give more crispy edges - but they take up more room.

MissFlitworth

the beer revolu wrote: »

Miss Flitworth, looking at those roasties, I'd say your oven is hotter than you think.

I might have also left them in too long and up near the heating element at the top of the (nasty, ancient, weird brand, rental house) oven. Which incinerated a few of them When I have a thermometer in there it normally shows somewhere around 170 when the dial says 200. One of these days I am going to have a grown up oven!

the beer revolu

MissFlitworth wrote: »

I might have also left them in too long

Ah! I couldn't see those roasties being crisp like that in 35-40 minutes.

Taboola

Well they look gorgeous anyway. I've a massive craving for them now.

rubadub

MissFlitworth wrote: »

I have a thermometer in there it normally shows somewhere around 170 when the dial says 200.

There is a way of testing the temp and for hot spots in ovens using sugar. You get foil fairy cake cases and put small bits of sugar in them. Then you set it to a certain temp and they should go a certain colour as the sugar caramelizes (or not).

This is the first hit I found, probably are better ones.

http://www.food.com/recipe/how-to-test-your-oven-temperature-without-a-thermometer-450973

RuckingSwimmer

Not a great picture - balsamic glazed steak rolls and hassleback potatoes, followed by homemade ginger biscuits while watching the great British bake off masterclass

Kovu

No photo as it's reeeeeeally not a photogenic dinner atall atall atall, but it's one of my favourites.
Stuffed lamb hearts cooked between 200-250 deg for five hours. Just threw them in on top of onions with spare stuffing (made fresh with a burger bun, parsley, sage, onion, garlic and chilli) under them as well. Sealed the tin 100% in foil and just forgot about them as the cooker is always going here. Ermagad, so good and so tender by the time I ate them.

kylith

Roasted some chicken thighs then made a mushroom sauce and had it with rice. I didn't take a picture because it was white on white. I also had a big bowl of crudites and hummus. Stuffed now.

Dial Hard

RuckingSwimmer wrote:

Not a great picture - balsamic glazed steak rolls and hassleback potatoes

Can anyone else not read this without immediately thinking "Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink"?

Been doing it for years.

dee_mc

Dial Hard wrote: »

Can anyone else not read this without immediately thinking "Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink"?

Been doing it for years.

Hasselhoffs in this house

homemadecider

Twas batch cooking Sunday here yesterday, I made 10 portions of bolognese and 10 portions of chilli. The bolognese had tons of hickory smoked bacon in it, and the chilli was made most excellent with cocoa powder and chipotle powder. Very handy to have in the freezer now but chopping 4kg of veggies took me well over an hour!

MissFlitworth

Leftover pie again - chicken, bacon, mushrooms, potatoes & gravy. Very delicious.*




*although, possibly, someone mistook the bowl of barely par boiled, pretty raw potatoes in the fridge for cooked spuds and just sort of diced them and lobbed them in. So there was a bit of a crunchy element to the pie. But, like, that's way cool babe, who doesn't like a crunch. And the second pie sitting in the kitchen now should hopefully be continuing to cook potatoes through for tomorrow. Yum yum, raw potatoes, that's probably very paleo

Harry Palmr

Stew dammit, just stew! Very tasty actually potatoes, lentils, tomatoes, onions, swedes, and that's it.

tampopo

yesterday I had stir fried vegetables in a Blue Dragon black bean sauce. Plus three mahogany pork sausages. yum.


Those roasties look lovely Miss F. I had three roosters diced, fried in butter (oil container was empty, couldn't find the new ones) and then roasted at about 170,I think. Alongside a home made mince pie in the manner my aunt made them. Simply fry up some diced onions, then the meat and put in a pie. Bake. Quite nice. If I can, I may edit in a photo later. But it's a mince pie, I get it, no big whoop!

I'm heading over to the disaster thread to cry my eyes out. Have had (another) failure at making macarons. This time the idiot proof (but still failed) Lidl mix-it packet bought a couple of weeks ago. I don't know where I went wrong...anyway, boo-hoo-hooo....

Dolbert

We had leftover fry stuff from the weekend so had breakfast for dinner: sausages, rashers, mushrooms and toast Mallon's low-fat sausages are legitimately nice too if anyone's on the lookout.

Tarzana2

RuckingSwimmer wrote: »

Not a great picture - balsamic glazed steak rolls and hassleback potatoes, followed by homemade ginger biscuits while watching the great British bake off masterclass

Are hasselback poatotoes worth the, well, hassle?

RuckingSwimmer

Tarzana2 wrote: »

Are hasselback poatotoes worth the, well, hassle?

They were a nice a nice cross between roast and baked potatoes - I don't think I'd do them every day but as a change from the normal roast or baked every now and then yes they're worth it

The Hill Billy

Indeed they are. You can add your favorite flavourings into the slits - garlic, Rosemary, thyme, plain ol' salt & pepper, you name it.

A good sharp knife & they are ready in no time at all.

Whispered

Kidney bean dip/pate/collapsed burger on mini toasts with sweet potato fries and sweet chilli sauce.

Big glass of apple juice.

Followed by an argument over the last packet of crisps in the house.