Saturday: Meatloaf burgers (Inspired by Smother Goldberg) and pear gorgonzola salad, Granville Island Pale Ale and Dreaming Tree Crush for SWMBO.
Sunday:Fettuccine with homemade alfredo sauce (recipe below) and the rest of the salad with a 2013 Ripasso Chianti.
Tonight: Leftover meatloaf with broiled new potatoes and spinach salad.
Alfredo:
Finely grate up 1-1.5 cups of good Parmasan or Asiago and set aside.
Into the sauce pan-
1 stick salted butter, Melt.
Add 2 cloves of smashed garlic (You’ll be fishing them out later. You’re shooting for subtle garlic essence here and velvety sauce).
Dash of black or a bit more white pepper if you have it.
Bring to a medium-low heat and slowly drizzle in 1 cup of warmed whipping cream. Don’t have the heat too high or you’ll split the cream. Whisk until just about to boil.
Add the cheese a little at a time until integrated and add more, whisk constantly. Once your sauce is smooth and almost like cheese fondue, put on a warmer or set to lowest setting.
Boil up a suitable amount of fettuccine and once done to your liking, drain, put back in pot, remove garlic cloves from sauce; add sauce to pasta, stir and serve.
Don’t add veggies or shrimp or anything else. You want to add stuff, put it in the salad.
A sad night in Brooklyn. The Ukulele Lady has been on a tear with the NY Times cooking app, and keeps throwing these weirdies at me.
The main attraction was an “Indian Vegetable Salad.” Brown rice, chopped scallion and long hot pepper, steamed cauliflower and green beans tossed in a big bowl. So far so good.
“Put coconut milk, rice vinegar, S&P, and curry powder in the blender. Dressing will emulsify in under thirty seconds.” Uh, no. Probably because I used LIGHT coco milk. It made a very loose dressing which the rice failed to soak up.
Side dish of Tandoori chicken breast, sliced into strips to soak up marinade. Marinade of yogurt, lime juice, lots of coriander and paprika plus a little cumin and crushed red pepper. I remember now why I haven’t done Tandoori in a long time: that marinade reacts like Elmer’s Glue when it hits the grill. Lots of scraping when transferred to the platter, all coating left behind, so the presentation was naked chicken strips as dry as any other grilled chicken breast. Good flavor, though.
Yes, please! I grew up near Ithaca; some of my favorite food memories are of spiedies and Cornell chicken with salt potatoes. I even bought a tall smoker just to make the chicken. Now that I live in Texas, I think I should introduce these regional treats.
Tonight, I made some chicken saltimboca with mushroom ravioli and a nice salad. Went over well, but no leftovers unless I want to do all the work over again.
I want something sweet. So I mixed 2-½ cups of Bisquick, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and ⅔ cup of milk, kneaded it a few times, and rolled it into a rectangle. I put Nestlé’s semi-sweet chocolate morsels all over it, rolled it up, sliced it up, and put it in the oven at 375ºF.
I think the election is bringing out a yearning for comfort food lately. Meat loaf, homemade mac and cheese (I never have mac and cheese!), steamed peas. It was nice, and plenty of meat loaf left over for sandwiches.
Slow cooker pot roast. This morning I seared a huge, nicely-marbled chuck roast withthe 7-bone and another bone in, in a cast-iron frying pan. (I had to get the big one out.) I sprinkled it with Lipton Onion Soup Mix, spooned on a can of condensed Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, and added carrots, halved yellow potatoes, and a couple of cups of sliced mushrooms. It’s smelling really good.
I know people will object to the soup mix and the CoM soup, but this is how dad made it. (Only, he cooked his in the oven, and added onion wedges and sliced green bell peppers.)
I feel for you. There’s a reason that Polish restaurants don’t dot the landscape. If you can, you might want to point her in the direction of this recipe for Zeberka Wieprzowena Z Kapusta (Spareribs and Cabbage.) With a lot of pepper, and crusty loaf of bread, it’s one I like on chilly fall nights.
Supper here for the next week is going to be a mishmash mainly of things pulled out of the freezer, as I’m now engaged in a project to make room in preparation for the holidays. Tonight we’re having stuffed chicken breasts on a bed of spinach with yellow rice.
I didn’t find it very satisfying, although the Ukulele Lady loved it. Right now I’m have a little Irish cheddar melted over a piece of rye bread and a kosher dill pickle. Bed soon afterward.
I grabbed a few homemade potstickers from the freezer. Dark chocolate and salted nut bar for dessert, and a cup of black tea with a tiny splash of vanilla.
Had one of my recent favorites: Green Chile Stew. Pork, Onions, Scallions, Garlic, Roasted Green Chiles, Tomatoes. I add lots of mushrooms, too, but that’s just me. Served of pasta tonight (rice is good, too). So good.
