I feel I have to slightly expand the topic of “dinner tonight” with the question “what’s for a great snack when you wake up in the middle of the night feeling somewhat peckish because you only had a small dinner?” And one great answer is …
Dim Sum!
Specifically, Chinese style pork & vegetable “potstickers”. First fried in olive oil until the flat side of each is thoroughly browned, then 1/3 cup of water added and covered with a glass cover so you can watch until the last of the water boils away. Meanwhile, prepare a plate with a small dish of soy sauce.
When the water has all boiled away, transfer dumplings to plate and dab a small amount of Huy Fong hot chili garlic sauce on each one. Grab chopsticks, dip each dumpling in soy sauce, and enjoy!
I counter with the related (as in a subset) but Superior option - Xiao Long Bao, ie Chinese (or Pan Asian / Fusion depending on who’s making it!) Soup Dumplings.
This brand is my favorite, and of course, cook via the same technique the most admirable wolfpup suggests, but the combination of rich dough and piping hot soup that nearly scalds the tongue is the ultimate experience. Though I’m just as likely to use a nice Ponzu or sesame chili oil as the condiment as the hot chili garlic oil, especially if I’m going back to bed with the wife in the middle of the night!
Tonight we plan to go out for seafood. I’m going to have to decide between fried shrimp or boiled crawfish. It’s not going to be easy to decide, but I won’t lose either way.
I decided to do some prep to make tonight’s spaghettini dinner easier. I’ve just washed, let dry, and then fried in garlic butter a bunch of whole cremini mushrooms and then put them in the fridge. I pureed a wonderful but chunky marinara in the blender so it’s smooth, with enough added water to let it simmer for awhile and absorb the flavour of deli meatballs, and put that away, too, and then ran the dishwasher which already had a lot of crap in it. Meatballs from the deli are thawing.
Dinner tonight should be simple, involving no more than simmering the marinara with added meatballs while I consume either rum or Caesars (or both, why not), cooking the spaghettini, and nuking the prepared mushrooms.
I visited my favourite little deli again today. I almost left without getting their wonderful cabbage rolls because some idiot had put a package of stuffed peppers in the wrong section and I thought they were out of them. But they did indeed have them. They almost always do.
I don’t remember if I mentioned it before but the previous time I was there I picked up two beautiful in-store vacuum-packs of Montreal smoked meat, along with half a dozen onion buns to have them on, and then stupidly failed to notice they were still in the shopping bag after I put everything away. Didn’t find them until the next day, and they went straight in the garbage. Really pissed off at myself.
So this time I was of course super-careful! The shopping bag is definitely empty, the smoked meat is definitely in the fridge, and cabbage rolls stuffed with beef and rice and doused in tomato sauce are definitely in my near future, along with Montreal smoked meat sandwiches for lunch, on toasted onion buns with lots of Dijon mustard!
The only thing that would be more perfect is if I had stopped at another store and picked up their sublime Forest Mushroom soup. But I’d had a busy day and was just anxious to get home and have a well-deserved stiff drink or three. As to the nature of those drinks, I believe we now have a thread for that!
Well, I finally bit the bullet and drove out to one of my favourite supermarkets to get their amazingly wonderful Forest Mushroom soup (it’s a bit of a drive to this particular one). To make the trip worthwhile I got two large containers of it. But a new complication cropped up!
Their fresh prepared meals selection has expanded quite a bit – that’s the place that makes my fave stuffed chicken breast with a side of fettuccine alfredo. I couldn’t resist picking up some of the new stuff that will be dinner for the next few days, to wit: sweet & sour chicken, Chicken Souvlaki with Greek-style rice and Tzaziki for dipping, and sesame chicken with Udon noodles and vegetables in a hoisin sauce.
This store makes excellent quality stuff, so I’m looking forward to it. And the portions are large, so there will probably be leftovers from each dinner. Come to think of it, the vac-packed Montreal smoked meat will probably stay sealed in the vac-pack for at least another week!
To be perfectly honest, I’m days late on this one (hey, I’ve been busy with…stuff). But after having wonderful pan-fired pork chops with rosemary and thyme butter on Saturday, we kind of went easy on Sunday and decided to bake and eat the HEB hot dogs we picked up that were made with brisket burnt ends…
HOLY HELL!! I want no other hot dog. I mean, I’ll eat your regular ass hot dogs, even if you’re one of those weirdos who boils them when you’re making them at home. Throw some brown mustard on it, and let’s go. But I kind of counted the minutes until I could justify heating one of those blissful leftover dogs in the microwave, sticking them in a bun and splooging some mustard on it and devouring it. I finished the last one yesterday evening.
If it is in any way convenient, you gotta try the HEB Brisket hot dogs.
Wow, what a great roast beef sandwich I just had for lunch! Picked it up yesterday with my other shopping. This was completely different from the small roast beef sub with cheese that I usually have.
Instead of oven-roasted beef with cheese on a small sub, it was sliced pot roast with sauteed onion and mushrooms on a ciabatta bun, nuked in the microwave and smothered with Dijon mustard. Delicious!
Due to the astronomical cost of prime rib these days, I see pot roasts in my future, and this gives me a great idea for what to do with the leftovers!
Tonight was Cajun seasoned catfish, rice(vegetable paste, file powder, celery salt and a splash of red wine to make Justin Wilson happy), and blackeyed peas with Hatch chilies.
Very nice meal there. I suggest you schedule a few more birthdays this year!
Today I was working on using up some of my shelf/pantry stable goodness in delicious dishes.
I made nori-wrapped sardine onigiri. The sardines (I have almost a dozen in the pantry) were in oil, which I drained, and added some siracha sauce for extra kick. Sushi rice (from the pantry) was cooked on the stovetop, seasoned with the usual sugar/rice wine vinegar/salt mixture, with toasted sesame seeds and furikake sprinkled on. Sushi rice into my 6-serving triangle molds, filled, topped, pressed, and each wrapped in a half-sheet of nori. Served with a decent ponzu soy sauce.
Very nice. And more importantly, all made from what I had on hand with no extra shopping! I’m trying to get my pantry less overstuffed, and also work through stuff I’ve frozen and set aside for some mythical “later”.
