It had been what was probably a record-setting 20 days since I last grilled chicken thighs. So, back to one tonight but first, some side-dishery . . .


Eggplant Mise En Place & Yu Kurosaki R2 Hammered Gyuto, 210mm
Red wine, mini tomatoes (mix of homegrown and farm box), dried oregano, salted eggplant, tomato paste, chopped garlic, salt, black pepper and evoo. Just working through some seasonal inventory with a quick stove-top prep. Eggplants and some of the tomatoes were from our friend's farm. The rest of the tomatoes were from our garden.


Grilling
Salt, black pepper, granulated garlic & onion, dried oregano. About 25 minutes covered on the indirect side.


Plated Up
With a blob of the weekly slaw.

=R=

A quickie salad to go with some leftovers . . .


Mise En Place & Yu Kurosaki R2 Hammered Gyuto, 210mm
Black beans, Mexican oregano, salt, homegrown tomatoes, cilantro, homegrown garlic (microplaned), raw Mirai sweet corn, red jalapeno, lime (for zest and juice), charcoal-roasted poblanos, evoo, black pepper and cumin.

Still working through some corn and poblanos from 3SG (the latter of which I roasted late last week). Decided to go raw with the corn because it was so sweet and lovely. No weekly beans on hand, so I went for a can of black beans, which worked out great . . .


Sweet Corn, Tomato, Roasted Poblano & Black Bean Salad

Happy Monday!

=R=

Tonight, charcoal-grilled ribeye. But first, some very seasonal sides . . .


Baby Squash Mise En Place & Michael Rader 52100 Gyuto, 240mm
Evoo, black pepper, stray carrot, chopped garlic, baby squash, 'hot' Hungarian banana peppers, red jalapeno, salt and red wine. Hot and fast saute . . .


Sauteed Baby Squash
Almost all of this was from 3SG. It's just the peak of the season right now. Speaking of the season . . .


Homegrown Tomato & Basil Salad
This is why we garden. We're having a bumper year on tomatoes . . . yellow brandywine, pineapple, purple cherokee and celebrity. So happy!

Now, about those steaks . . .


Grilling
Dry-aged ribeyes from Zier's. Marked directly over the coals, then finished covered, on the indirect side, for a few minutes.


Plated Up
Really a lot more rare than it looked here. It's a lot darker at 6:15 than it was a few weeks ago. Time to adjust the shooting set-up.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Tonight, charcoal-grilled ribeye. But first, some very seasonal sides . . .


Baby Squash Mise En Place & Michael Rader 52100 Gyuto, 240mm
Evoo, black pepper, stray carrot, chopped garlic, baby squash, 'hot' Hungarian banana peppers, red jalapeno, salt and red wine. Hot and fast saute . . .


Sauteed Baby Squash
Almost all of this was from 3SG. It's just the peak of the season right now. Speaking of the season . . .


Homegrown Tomato & Basil Salad
This is why we garden. We're having a bumper year on tomatoes . . . yellow brandywine, pineapple, purple cherokee and celebrity. So happy!

Now, about those steaks . . .


Grilling
Dry-aged ribeyes from Zier's. Marked directly over the coals, then finished covered, on the indirect side, for a few minutes.


Plated Up
Really a lot more rare than it looked here. It's a lot darker at 6:15 than it was a few weeks ago. Time to adjust the shooting set-up.

=R=

Beautiful spread Ronnie. But I respectfully have to ask… why buy beautiful organic “baby” squash and cut it down ratatouille style when they’re so beautiful on their own?

Evil Ronnie wrote:Beautiful spread Ronnie. But I respectfully have to ask… why buy beautiful organic “baby” squash and cut it down ratatouille style when they’re so beautiful on their own?

Thanks, Ronnie. I love cooking those baby squashes whole and default to that but in this case, there were so many varieties, shapes, sizes and thicknesses, I decided to cut them up into similar-sized pieces to help them cook more evenly. I felt like leaving them whole would have required a lot more attention, which I didn't have time to deal with tonight. Still, a fairly minimal prep that didn't obscure the flavor of the squash. Tracey Vowell grows some great stuff at 3SG.

=R=

Tomato strata for tonight. Keeping it simple with homegrown tomatoes, stale mini-French, eggs, milk, semi-aged provolone, basil, black pepper.

Probably shouldn't mention, but Mariano's Buffalo Grove has had some great deals in the stale bread rack lately. Used the other mini-French for sorta Cuban sandwiches last night.

Mariano's always has good deals on the day-old bakery.

Tomato pie season! Pie crust topped with a few layers of grated Buffalo mozzarella, homegrown tomatoes, mix of chopped homegrown chard, arugula and Lacinato kale and grated Parmesan. Almost as good the next day cold. Told the kid it was “pizza” lol.

With such an abundance of homegrown tomatoes, why not a tomato (and corn) pie?


Tomato & Corn Pie Mise En Place & Takeda Stainless Clad Sasanoha, 190mm
Everything but the dough . . . Mirai sweet corn, black pepper, parmesan/romano blend, salt, lemon (for juice), homegrown tomatoes (celebrity, yellow brandywine, cherokee purple & pineapple), homegrown basil, mayo and grated sharp cheddar cheese.

I *think* this is basically the Laurie Colwin version of tomato pie, and I added the corn, along with a few other minor tweaks. There are so many iterations of what is supposedly her version posted online -- each with its own modifications -- but I think I got the essence of it . . .


Tomato & Corn Pie
I had a hunch that following the recipe and baking it for 30 minutes at 400F was not the best way to go. Juicy tomatoes would need more time to cook down before the crust would finish. So, I went with 375 for 30 minutes, then draped the top with foil and went another 30 minutes at 325F. Finished with 5 more minutes uncovered. In any case, the pie was delicious and it made a nice side dish for our marinated/grilled salmon . . .


Grilling
Faroe Island salmon with some nice fattiness. Marinated (easy teriyaki), seasoned (my bbq rub), and then about 20 minutes indirect/covered until it reached ~130F internal.


Plated Up
Aah, summer.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:With such an abundance of homegrown tomatoes, why not a tomato (and corn) pie?


Tomato & Corn Pie Mise En Place & Takeda Stainless Clad Sasanoha, 190mm
Everything but the dough . . . Mirai sweet corn, black pepper, parmesan/romano blend, salt, lemon (for juice), homegrown tomatoes (celebrity, yellow brandywine, cherokee purple & pineapple), homegrown basil, mayo and grated sharp cheddar cheese.

I *think* this is basically the Laurie Colwin version of tomato pie, and I added the corn, along with a few other minor tweaks. There are so many iterations of what is supposedly her version posted online -- each with its own modifications -- but I think I got the essence of it . . .


Tomato & Corn Pie
I had a hunch that following the recipe and baking it for 30 minutes at 400F was not the best way to go. Juicy tomatoes would need more time to cook down before the crust would finish. So, I went with 375 for 30 minutes, then draped the top with foil and went another 30 minutes at 325F. Finished with 5 more minutes uncovered. In any case, the pie was delicious and it made a nice side dish for our marinated/grilled salmon . . .


Grilling
Faroe Island salmon with some nice fattiness. Marinated (easy teriyaki), seasoned (my bbq rub), and then about 20 minutes indirect/covered until it reached ~130F internal.


Plated Up
Aah, summer.

=R=

I par-bake the crust and pre-roast and drain the tomato slices. Eliminated sogginess but still tasted juicy and delicious!

A variation of Pad Kra Pao, made with beef and basil from our garden. Also Serranos and chives from our garden. The bride has an abundance. All served on crispy pan-fried noodles.

Ellen and neighbor Barbara gave a thumbs up. Charlie the Dog enjoyed the occasional stray noodle.

click to enlarge



Pad Kra Pao, Count me a fan!

G Wiv wrote:Pad Kra Pao, Count me a fan!

Nice. Love the noodle move.

We're bringing a roasted corn soup to our friends' house for dinner. This one starts with charring the corn . . .


Grilling
Lightly avocado oiled and blistered for a few moments directly over the coals. Once cooled, it was time to assemble the mise . . .


Mise En Place & Konosuke HD2 Gyuto, 210mm
Avocado oil, evoo, black pepper, cumin, roasted sweet corn, salt, lime (for juice), chile powder, sauteed onions & garlic, crema and chicken broth.

Held back some of the kernels for texture and garnish. The rest, sans evoo, went into the blender. Once blended, I added some of the evoo, as it gets pretty bitter when blended mechanically.


Plated Up - 'Tester' Bowl
Garnished with crispy shallots, charcoal-roasted poblanos, charred corn kernels, fresh cilantro, crema and tajin. Forgot the mini-tomato dice but hopefully, I'll remember to bring it along tonight.

=R=

Dinner prep started with a visit from the forager . . .


Chanterelle Mise En Place & Konosuke Tetsujin Blue #2 Gyuto, 210mm
Dry vermouth, salt, shallots, foraged chanterelles, unsalted butter and black pepper.


Sauteed Chanterelles
It doesn't take much to bring these guys to life.

Next up, half a bone-in Berkshire pork roast from the Ziers . . .


Grilling
Once marked directly over the fire, this took about an hour covered on the indirect side to reach 135F internal. That's where I pulled it. Let it rest for about 20 minutes, then sliced it . . .


Plated Up
With leftover/reheated baby squash and buttered rye toast.

Happy Monday, Happy Labor Day!

=R=

Recently I was fortunate enough to be gifted a Le Creuset 2 qt Dutch oven/casserole. To break it in, and to thank the giver who was our dinner guest, tonight I made a pork shoulder/green pepper/homegrown tomato stew.Added a mixture of tomato paste and breadcrumbs to thicken it a little, served over Granoro bucatini. Next time I might add mushrooms and olives. Not tonight - our guest likes neither. It's truly a top quality pot, great for browning and oven simmering plus the enamel is super easy to clean.

Chicken mole tacos. This was an extremely easy dinner since the mole was in the freezer and the chicken was left over from Monday night.

Chicken mole: https://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/red- ... ken-tacos/
While this recipe takes all day in the slow cooker, it makes a huge amount which I freeze in individual servings and is mostly slow cooking - not much actual work.

Toppings: Avacado, chopped and washed white onion, cilantro, lime wedges and toasted sesame seed directly into the sauce. When you rinse chopped white onion in a strainer, it looses all of its pungency.

still summer, still summer:
farmer's market corn puree, seared scallops, farm tomato salad with sherry vin and cornbread croutons

(apologies that i am one of the forumites who designs websites but can't post pics here; i do love this thread!)

Tonight's dinner prep actually started yesterday afternoon, with an overnight marinade . . .


Marinade Mise En Place
Red miso, rinsed/cleaned short ribs, black hatcho miso and sake.

We love this one and I feel like I make it a lot but the last time I made it was in early May and that was the only other time this year. So simple and such a huge flavor to effort ratio. By weight, 50% sake, 25% hatcho miso, 25% red miso. Marinated them for about 24 hours, wiped them off a bit and headed out to the grill, where they cooked very quickly, directly over a very hot fire . . .


Grilling
Gotta' keep those guys moving. A couple of them got a wee bit toasty.


Charcoal-Grilled Miso-Sake Marinated Short Ribs
All's well that ends well.


Plated Up
With buttered/togarashi Mirai sweet corn, cilantro-lime brown basmati rice and a blob of the weekly slaw.

=R=

here's what i made for dinner last night- pretty much for sauerkraut lovers only, i think:
i made this up years ago and call it Pork with Sauerkraut and Eggs:
cook 1# of ground pork with 1/2 medium onion, chopped, and 1-3 cloves of garlic. keep stirring so the meat remains loose. when the pork is thoroughly cooked, drain off most of the liquid, leaving maybe 2-3T. in the pan. in a bowl, beat 2-3 eggs with 2T.catsup, 2T.milk, 3T.yellow mustard and lots of black pepper. then stir in a 14oz. can of drained sauerkraut (i use Franks, but any kind, fresh or canned should work). then add to it about 1/2cup of panko and a sprinkle of caraway or fennel seeds. pour this mixture over the pork and cook, stirring, until the eggs are set. this makes several servings...

Monday, Monday, and back to one . . .


Green Bean Mise En Place & Makoto Light Saber, 210mm
Avocado oil, toasted/ground Szechuan peppercorns, buena mulata chiles, shallot, green beans, pixian doubanjiang, fermented black beans, carrot, chopped garlic and soy sauce.


Szechuan-Inspired Stir-Fried Green Beans


My Happy Place
Chicken thighs a-grillin'.


Plated Up
With some leftover/reheated/shriveled-but-still-tasty buttered sweet corn.

Happy Monday!

=R=

justjoan wrote:here's what i made for dinner last night- pretty much for sauerkraut lovers only, i think:
i made this up years ago and call it Pork with Sauerkraut and Eggs:
cook 1# of ground pork with 1/2 medium onion, chopped, and 1-3 cloves of garlic. keep stirring so the meat remains loose. when the pork is thoroughly cooked, drain off most of the liquid, leaving maybe 2-3T. in the pan. in a bowl, beat 2-3 eggs with 2T.catsup, 2T.milk, 3T.yellow mustard and lots of black pepper. then stir in a 14oz. can of drained sauerkraut (i use Franks, but any kind, fresh or canned should work). then add to it about 1/2cup of panko and a sprinkle of caraway or fennel seeds. pour this mixture over the pork and cook, stirring, until the eggs are set. this makes several servings...

Sounds interesting, but I'm having trouble picturing the appearance and texture of the end result. Is it like scrambled eggs? Or more like a frittata or egg foo yung?

tjr wrote:

justjoan wrote:here's what i made for dinner last night- pretty much for sauerkraut lovers only, i think:
i made this up years ago and call it Pork with Sauerkraut and Eggs:
cook 1# of ground pork with 1/2 medium onion, chopped, and 1-3 cloves of garlic. keep stirring so the meat remains loose. when the pork is thoroughly cooked, drain off most of the liquid, leaving maybe 2-3T. in the pan. in a bowl, beat 2-3 eggs with 2T.catsup, 2T.milk, 3T.yellow mustard and lots of black pepper. then stir in a 14oz. can of drained sauerkraut (i use Franks, but any kind, fresh or canned should work). then add to it about 1/2cup of panko and a sprinkle of caraway or fennel seeds. pour this mixture over the pork and cook, stirring, until the eggs are set. this makes several servings...

Sounds interesting, but I'm having trouble picturing the appearance and texture of the end result. Is it like scrambled eggs? Or more like a frittata or egg foo yung?

this is not a pretty dish regardless! i scramble it, but sometimes i'll make a smaller batch- just 1 serving, and then it would be possible to make it more like a frittata. it's also very flexible- the eggs could be doubled or the sausage halved for a more egg forward dish.

Tonight was a Food & Wine recipe I'd saved back in like April, awaiting appropriate weather: italian wedding risotto. Nicely garlic-y meatballs scooped tiny, crisped up well (I brushed the broiler pan and their tops with oil). Risotto with onion and celery, and then parm, and fresh spinach wilted in at the end. I added a big squeeze of lemon and julienned basil on top. Came together quickly and we enjoyed. First meal without summer-specific produce in ages though!

I needed to 'get past' some lousily cooked shrimp I recently suffered through at a couple of restaurant meals, so I decided to marinate and grill some up myself. But first, a little side-dishery . . .


Okra Mise En Place & Kanehide PS60 Gyuto, 210mm
White wine, black pepper, mini tomatoes, chopped garlic, okra, tomato paste, scallions & bulb onions, salt, dried oregano and evoo. Sadly, these are the very last of the mini tomatoes from our garden this year. Otoh, it was a banner year for our tomatoes -- and we still have a few full-sizers left -- so I can't be too sad about it.

While that simmered, it was time to prep the shrimp . . .


Shrimp Marinade Mise En Place
Avocado oil, rice vinegar, lime zest, gochujang, lime juice, u16-20 ez-peel shrimp (shells went into a stock for later), ssamjang, microplaned garlic, Shaoxing cooking wine, dark-toasted sesame oil, shoyu and red pepper paste. Once the marinade was mixed, I poured it over the shrimp, coated them thoroughly and let them marinate for about an hour. After that, onto skewers and onto the grill . . .


Grilling
These 16-20's are smaller than what I prefer to grill, so I went with a really hot fire in order to get some char on them before they fully cooked. They only need about 2 minutes per side.


Charcoal-Grilled Shrimp
Flavorful, with some nice charred bits on the exterior but still tender and supple on the interior.


Plated Up
With buttered sweet corn and some freshly-machined jasmine rice.

=R=

More time at the grill tonight. Burger night!


Grilling
'Merikan cheese melting nice and easy.


Plated Up
Working some homegrown tomatoes -- yellow brandywine and celebrity -- into the dinner. Had some leftover potato kugel mixture that I couldn't fit in the pan on Saturday, so I baked that up and cut myself a big-ass corner. With a homemade garlic-dill pickle and a blob of the weekly slaw.

Happy Monday!

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote: Had some leftover potato kugel mixture that I couldn't fit in the pan on Saturday, so I baked that up and cut myself a big-ass corner

Gimme Dat kugel, right the fuck NOW!

Sunday's Packer game lunch at MIL's assisted living apartment. Portability and minimal cleanup required, so I made sandwiches on homemade focaccia. This seemed more pizza crust-like than I intended, so the recipe may be repurposed soon for Sicilian-style pie. It's a wet enough dough to require parbaking before topping but that's not the end of the world.

My memories of fall/winter 2023 will mostly be Sundays with a cardboard box and a cooler.

tjr wrote:Sunday's Packer game lunch at MIL's assisted living apartment. Portability and minimal cleanup required, so I made sandwiches on homemade focaccia.

Wow, I really liked you until I find out you are a cheesehead

tonight i made something that's been in our rotation quarterly for a little more than a year, that is nothing to brag about in terms of cooking effort, and that i never would have tried were it not for a smart persuasive chef-y friend: the beer battered cod from costco's freezer section. baked up on a greased sheet at 475, it gets nicely crispy, and we enjoy it fishwich style: on warmed brioche buns with a slice of sharp cheddar, pickles, and a crunchy creamy slaw (savoy, carrots, scallions, parsley, and a garlicky sour cream-mayo-lemon dressing). dinner in 20ish minutes on a busy night, and everyone is happy. the friend who recommended also endorsed using them for baja fish tacos, which we have also enjoyed.

Back from out of town with no time to hit the grocery store, so I thawed the second half of a bone-in Berkshire pork roast, the first half of which I cooked a couple weeks ago . . .


Berkshire Pork Roast
Trussed, lightly oiled and seasoned. From here, into a 200F oven. Meanwhile, it was time to prep some side-dishery . . .


Rice Pilaf Mise En Place & Nigara SG2 Tsuchime Gyuto, 210mm
Chicken broth, evoo, salt, orzo, black pepper, jasmine rice, chopped garlic, unsalted butter and scallions. Toasted the orzo in a mixture of evoo and butter. Once it browned, I added the rice and stirred it all up in an effort to coat each grain. After that, dumped in some of the garlic and scallions and let them soften a bit. After that, transferred it all to the rice cooker and cooked it in the broth (plus a little additional water) until done.

And one more (also procured at the DCFM yesterday) . . .


Sauteed Broccolini
Evoo, garlic, red chile flakes, s&p and lemon.

After about 3.5 hours at 200F, the pork roast reached 135F internal. I removed it from the oven, after which I crisped up at 450F/convection roast for about 6 more minutes . . .


Berkshire Pork Roast


Plated Up

Happy Sunday!


=R=

Where did you purchase the Berkshire Pork Roast?
All I have found are small cuts at Mitsuwa.
Nice dinner!!!
Thanks.-Richard
Read the previous Post since you had another half previously.
On to Zier’s, a place I really like but don’t frequent very often!