What's for dinner?

[NMDemDist2]

We're having Yankee Pot roast with taters, onions, mushrooms and carrots done in the Dutch Oven

Fresh baked wheatberry bread (my breadmaker just broke while making this loaf, so it's rising now in a bowl :( )

and I'm gonna whip up a batch of molasses cookies for dessert

[livetohike]

1. Eggplant Parmesan, Green Beans, Salad

Crostini, and leftover Black Forest Cake.

[NMDemDist2]

2. sounds great and pardon my ignorance but what is Crostini? n/t

[livetohike]

3. It's like toast

Take a baguette, cut it into 1/2 wide slices. Make a mixture of olive oil and crushed garlic and spread it on each slice. I broil mine, flip it over and toast the other side.

You can sprinkle parmesan cheese on it too, or olive tapenade, or whatever you want. Makes a nice appetizer, too.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Fresh (home made) tagliatelle and a tonno sauce

The macaroni dough is resting, waiting for me to roll it out and cut it. The gravy's on the stove reducing down a bit.

Pomodoro e Tonno

4 cloves garlic
1/2 large onion, sliced very thin
Olive oil to sweat the onion and garlic
1 tsp fennel seeds, ground in a mortar and pestle
1 can San Marzano tomatoes, mashed up, with all the liquid
1/2 cup red wine
1 can anchovies (drained of the olive oil packing), mashed in a mortar and pestle
Basil, oregano, and parsley (dried, not fresh) to taste
Oil pack tonno (Italian tuna) (6 oz can - or larger)
Sun dried tomato paste to thicken (if needed)

Sweat the onions and garlic
Add the tomatoes
Add the seasonings
Let 'er rip on a simmer for about an hour
Add the tuna and stir until the tuna is hot - a minute or so.
Add the tomato paste if needed

Macaroni

3-1/2 to 4 cups bread flour
5 jumbo eggs
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Put the flour on your counter in a mountain. Make a well in the middle (like a volcano)
Add the eggs, salt and olive oil to the well
Break the yolks
Pull flour from the sides into the well and mix into the eggs (use yer hands ... s'what God gave 'em to ya for)
Keep pulling in flour until the dough is silky (10 minutes or so)
Rest the dough for 30 minutes or so in a ball under an overturned bowl

Roll out the dough thin (#2 if you use a macaroni roller) and into strips about 8" long (or longer, if ya want).

Cut the dough very wide ...... an inch or so

Add to 6 qts rapidly boiling salted water
This cooks very quick ...... a minute or so .... until it floats

Put the tagliatelle in a bowl, toss in the sauce

Buono appetito! Mange!

[Stepup2]

7. Oh my god

This looks really good! I wish we had a 4x5 recipe printer feature on DU..

[NMDemDist2]

8. ok that's it! I'm making pasta from now on

any excuse to made mud pies with food LOL

H2S where do you chef? You have all the earmarks of a professional in the food and beverage industry :D

[Stinky The Clown]

12. I don't chef ...... but I'm in the restaurant biz ...... sorta.

I went to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) after the Navy ... GI Bill. I went there when they were still in New Haven, CT. Now they're in Hyde Park, NY (since 1972? 1973?).

Never got paid for cooking, though. I went into management. After too many years doing the same crap in bigger and better places burn out set in (Really, lady, there's a fly in your soup? Sheeesh. Tell someone who gives a shit, okay?). I left the biz and got into designing restaurants. Been doing that for almost 25 years. Actually, I don't do many actual restaurants any more. Most of my business now is large institutional kitchens. Fact is, restauranteurs are cheap and don't pay their bills. Institutional clients pay much better and don't bitch about big fees.

So now I get to sit all alone and do what I enjoy. Then I get to go out and eat in great places all over the world and get paid to do it. I often get to take Sparkly with me so we can turn business into pleasure. Recently we've been to Paris, Barcelona, Amalfi, Amsterdam ..... next week I go out to Santa Barbara .......

My cooking is purely for the love of it.

Food biz bin berry goot to me!

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Tagliatelle and Pomodoro e Tonno - update

A note about the tuna gravy. Make sure you drain the oil from the tuna before you add it to the pot. That extra olive oil would be way too cloying in the gravy.

Just before I was about to start the finishing of dinner the phone rang.

Son #2: "Hi Dad. Ya eatin' tonite"
Me: "No. We're boiling our shoes and sucking on them."
Son #2: "Yeah, okay. Seriously, what're ya makin'?"
Me: "Home made macaroni and tuna."
Son #2: "Oh, great! Can we come over?"
Me: "So long as you promise to leave within 30 minutes of the time you finish doing the dishes."

So I made another half recipe of macaroni and we ate till our bellies were bustin'.

[The empressof all]

5. Chili, Cornbread, salad and.....

I made a great chili yesterday with pork and beef---No beans

Cornbread made with corn and Jalapenos

Caesar Salad

Chocolate Decadence that I've had hidden in the freezer since Christmas. (with fresh whipped cream of course)

[Stepup2]

6. I made lubyee

or rather a version of lubyee I call risso-lubyee (I add rice to the recipe) and I had a really nice glass of red wine (left over from some really nice friends who brought it to dinner here on Saturday!)

[grasswire]

9. pork chops....

....and fresh asparagus with lemon butter, and smashed yukon gold potatoes with horseradish and sour cream.

The last real meal before I move this week -- it'll be pizza for several days, probably.

[NMDemDist2]

10. smashed potatoes with horseradish? hmmmmm

that sounds wonderful!

[grasswire]

14. oh boy, you gotta try that

Put about a tablespoon into your mashed potatoes with sour cream and butter. It's just delicious!

[Elidor]

11. I just boiled portabellos in au jus with onions

MmmmmM!!!!!! That was SO. DAMN. GOOD!