What are you cooking for V-Day? [+chicken soup]

Seems like a good moment to start a Valentine's Day dinner thread. Or at least to start it with dessert:



Chocolate pot de creme, from the Balthasar cookbook.

I'm still figuring out my menu...perhaps a surf and turf dinner with a asian twist?:

- pan seared gyoza for apps
- small ribeye steak
- a few tempura shrimp
- confetti rice
- a couple stalks of roasted asparagus

As for dessert...I'm not sure. I'll let him take care of that since I'll be slaving in the kitchen.

I must say, your chocolate pots de dreme look heavenly!

dinner for 200

sorry for the spam, i couldnt resist.

E

Working on it now. Here's the plan:
Amuse: Foie gras over a roasted celery puree in a Parmesan cup
Salad: Classic Caesar Salad
Appetizer: Stuffed Nigerian (red) eggplant
Entrée: Peppered Salmon stuffed with asparagus and fennel, served over collard greens, with baked yucca chips
Dessert: Flourless Mexican Chocolate Cake, topped with Zabagione and fresh raspberries
Accompanied by Seaview Brut 2000

The story would probably be different if today weren't Tuesday, but tonight we're doing the same as every year: Lobsters and Champagne. Last year I did a fancy salad and soup to go with the beasts, but they really were superfluous. This year we are regressing back to the "traditional" yankee sides (as told by my Husband's Indiana-born grandmother): pickles and potato chips. Nothing says romance like killing and carcasses.

Kristen

Guinness and um...maybe I'll heat up some potstickers. But definitely Guinness:)

I haven't a clue what I'm going to pull together for dinner tonight. We originally planned on going out but we've scrapped it since neither of us really feel like it. I've made split pea soup today but that doesnt' really say Valentine's Day.

I hate to admit it but today all I've really wanted to eat is a big juicy cheeseburger.

We've also talked about running out to the Plush Horse over in Palos Hills for ice cream. I'm nearly addicted to their peppermint ice cream.

I guess the point of my post is, hopefully by 5 pm, I'll have something pulled together!

nr706 wrote:Working on it now. Here's the plan:

Appetizer: Stuffed Nigerian (red) eggplant

Your dinner sounds delicious!!!
Can you share some information on the Nigerian (red) eggplant- I've never heard about this vegetable. Where can I buy this?

Thanks.

Octarine wrote:Guinness and um...maybe I'll heat up some potstickers. But definitely Guinness:)

A feasible plan, certainly.

With The Wife out "on business" (she gets irritated when I inquire), I'll just be here with Jack Daniels, watching Three Stooges shorts... gosh, that sounds sad, borderline pathetic...oh, and there will be some peanuts...that's better, isn't it?

Hammond

So along with the pots de creme I wanted to try out a couple of recipes from my newest cookbook acquisition, The New Spanish Table by Anya Von Bremzen, which Saveur seemed to like best in a recent roundup of Spanish cookbooks trying to take in both traditional Spanish cooking and all that Adria El Bulli nitrogenized foam stuff. (One fascinating revelation: besides his $200 art cookbook, Adria did an everyday cookbook for some supermarket chain designed to help busy moms whip up something good with a few ingredients and shortcuts like rotisserie chicken. Imagine Jewel doing that with Achatz or Cantu...)

The dish above is Basque Chicken, and though I had read the part of the recipe calling for brandy I hadn't realized until well into the dish that it called for flaming the brandy. A technique I had never actually performed at home. Making sure I knew how to operate the fire extinguisher, and thinking what pizza could deliver quickly if it came to foaming my dinner that way, I gave it a try... and of course it was no big deal (but then I wasn't trying to wow customers at Greek Islands with five-foot flames, either).

Here's what it looked like next to another dish from the same book, spinach with garlic, pine nuts and raisins:



Even the boys ate some spinach-- knowing there was chocolate pot de creme on the way.

Happy Valentine's Day, LTHForum!

HI,

While the day began with no particular plans. Our plans evolved as the day progressed:

Parsnip Gratin: 1 pound parsnips cut into 1/8 inch disks cooked in 2 cups milk. Spoon turnips into a greased gratin pan, pour 1/4 cup milk, then sprinkle 1/2 cup parmesan cheese. Under the broiler until browned.

Original plan was for crab cakes until we learned we had two more for dinner. Crab cakes then morphed into Crab Florentine: buttered a gratin pan, first layer was finely chopped fresh spinach, next layer was crab sauteed with butter, a couple tablespoons grated onion, a tablespoon of horseradish then salt and pepper to taste, pour 1-1/2 cups veloute sauce (1 cup clam juice, 1/2 cup milk) with gruyere cheese, topped with half cup of gruyere cheese. Under the broiler until browned.

Green salad.

Rice.

Vanilla pudding with an embedded chocolate heart.

***

I began the day thinking of making cabbage rolls!

Regards,

I made steak salads with organic mesclun, pea pods, onion, and tomato topped with a grilled portabello (98 cents a pound at Stanleys) and a small rib-eye, medium rare, sliced, and dressed with the pan juices mixed with soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil. Garlic croutons. Dessert was a fruit salad with kiwi, honeydew, strawberries, oranges and mango. That's all. It was delicious.

But the best was when I looked at the steak package as I was putting away the two I hadn't cooked. Turns out my four rib-eyes from the Berwyn Fruit Market together cost me $3.55. So we each had about a 90 cent rib-eye. How was a 90 cent rib-eye you ask? Well, even though Berwyn Fruit Market sells lots of choice meat, this was marked utility grade. But it looked pretty well marbled and what the hell, for that price it was worth a try. The dog got a little more gristle than he might have with a choice steak, but otherwise it was more than satisfactory. I'd buy it again anytime. A fine and very quick meal.

LTH,

Last year our V-Day dinner was Homaro Homard the 5-Lb Lobster, this year chicken soup. Chicken soup, you say? Yep, we were on a plane yesterday and Ellen caught one of those air travel maladies that seem to strike every 4th or 5th time we fly and chicken soup with egg noodles was her request.

Chicken soup is dead simple, cut up carrot, onion, celery, parsnip, few cloves of garlic, salt pepper.


Add chicken.


Bring to a light boil, skim off the brown scummy stuff that comes to the top. Lower heat, simmer for a couple of hours.

Make, in this case, Mrs. Grass egg noodle in a separate pot.


Few egg noodles, ladle broth, add your wife's favorite chicken part, serve, eat.


Yes, I know, there is a little chicken fat shimmering on the soup surface, that's not a defect, that's a feature. As I was serving the soup I spied the truffle salt, Ellen declined as she simply wanted plain soup, I sprinkled a wee bit on mine, wow de wow wow. Delicious.

I did my soup shopping at Lincolnwood Produce, which is just a block from Rolf's, so I picked up a Valentines Day dessert, heart shaped raspberry something or other. ~shrug~ Better than chain grocery offerings, but not by much. I'm just not a fan of Rolf's.


Hope all had a wonderful V-Day.

Enjoy,
Gary

Rolf's Patisserie
4343 W Touhy Ave
Lincolnwood, IL
847-982-9400

Lincolnwood Produce
7175 N Lincoln Ave
Lincolnwood, IL
847-329-0600

Mike G wrote:

So along with the pots de creme I wanted to try out a couple of recipes from my newest cookbook acquisition, The New Spanish Table by Anya Von Bremzen, which Saveur seemed to like best in a recent roundup of Spanish cookbooks trying to take in both traditional Spanish cooking and all that Adria El Bulli nitrogenized foam stuff. (One fascinating revelation: besides his $200 art cookbook, Adria did an everyday cookbook for some supermarket chain designed to help busy moms whip up something good with a few ingredients and shortcuts like rotisserie chicken. Imagine Jewel doing that with Achatz or Cantu...)

The dish above is Basque Chicken, and though I had read the part of the recipe calling for brandy I hadn't realized until well into the dish that it called for flaming the brandy. A technique I had never actually performed at home. Making sure I knew how to operate the fire extinguisher, and thinking what pizza could deliver quickly if it came to foaming my dinner that way, I gave it a try... and of course it was no big deal (but then I wasn't trying to wow customers at Greek Islands with five-foot flames, either).

Here's what it looked like next to another dish from the same book, spinach with garlic, pine nuts and raisins:



Even the boys ate some spinach-- knowing there was chocolate pot de creme on the way.

Happy Valentine's Day, LTHForum!

long pepper steaks/zin reduction
asparagus in blood orange vinagrette
yellow cake w/ chocolate frosting

Chez Pim ran a piece re: Adria's supermarket collab. awhile back: despite the inherent wow factor it supposedly sucks

Yes, here's the Chez Pim piece:

http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/2005/0 ... th_fe.html

Chez Pim doesn't seem all that negative on it, but it seems rather dire to me-- people who don't even have time to cook ordinary good things being taught how to assemble avant-garde fancy cooking out of supermarket parts. I'm sure some things taste good but it seems the wrong way to go to me, like teaching kids to be abstract artists without ever encouraging them to paint what they see in front of them.

Oh whoops, that actually describes the kid art on my fridge in the photo....

So the potstickers didn't look appealing so I went out and grabbed a dozen oysters and a couple pints of Guinness. Not a bad meal at all. Mike and Gary's food looked great, I think I will make the kids and myself some chicken soup tomorrow.

Mike G wrote:Chocolate pot de creme, from the Balthasar cookbook.

Those look damn good!

Bet the kids liked the fire portion of the evening.

Enjoy,
Gary

Had a big lunch today, wasn't feeling too hungry, so I had a bowl of Wheaties for dinner. Followed with a few shavings of Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar on some Triscuits.

Meanwhile, Ms. V. made herself a baked potato and a bit of salad.

We both forgot it was V-Day. Had we remembered ... maybe I'd have mixed up some chocolate martinis?

Next year....

My guests prefer to eat just a little meat, so I turned to Nicole Routhier's book of Vietnamese classics, starting with fried shrimp spring rolls with lettuce leaves, mint, coriander, scallions, cucumber, unripe mango, carrot, daikon radish, and nuoc cham. Then my taginiere came in handy to braise some grouper with ginger, garlic, scallions and fresh shiitakes. With this, stir-fried pea shoots and baby bok choy, as well as jasmine rice. For dessert, we had Australian date- toffee pudding (Saveur, November 2005) and vanilla ice cream. I think everyone went home happy. Alas, the leftover date pudding also went home with my guests!

Ann Fisher wrote:I made steak salads

Ann,

Steak salad, one of my favorites, and a .90c rib-eye, now that's a darn good price. Your V-Day dinner might have been even less expensive than mine, with was not much as whole chicken was .79c a lb at Lincolnwood Produce today.

Enjoy,
Gary

We cheated and had a lovely dinner at VOLO Monday night, taking full advantage of 1/2 price bottles of wine.

For Valentine's Day I made a simple Pasta Puttanesca. Sauteed Sweet onion, added a hefty dose of capers, chopped Kalamatas and a large can of Muir Glen diced tomatoes. Tossed with Barilla Plus Penne (no it's not DiCecco, but extra protein for the toddler is always a bonus.) And topped with $6.79 Parmiaggiano and served with a Romaine salad with homemade vinaigrette. (The best deal here was the Romaine from Caputo's: a mere 39cents/lb.)

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

kafein wrote:We cheated and had a lovely dinner at VOLO Monday night, taking full advantage of 1/2 price bottles of wine.

Cheating? Smart!

Many of us did not end up in a restaurant last night because it was Valentine's Day. While we were having dinner last night, there was an offer to go out sometime soon. Instead I countered I would buy lobsters and steaks (for my nieces who declared they won't eat lobster due to mercury ... what if I mentioned mad cow disease ). Dessert, by request, pecan pie.

Regards,

MrsF came home with two 1/2lb steaks, 1.2lbs of shrimp from Jewel and a loaf of LaBrea sourdough, plus ingredients for dessert, for the four of us.

The steaks were grilled simply, and served with a bearnaise that broke.

The shrimp were made into Dejonghe, using a blending of several recipes (no, not one of the ones featuring cocoanut):
1.2lbs shrimp, peeled
1 can artichoke hearts, quartered
1 stick butter, softened
4 cloves garlic, grated on a microplane
1 tbs chopped parsley
1.5 tsp dijon mustard
2 tbs sherry (no Vermouth in the house)
1 tbs lemon juice (fresh)
dash of cayenne pepper
dash of nutmeg (Beard suggestion, didn't taste it)
several grinds of black pepper
2/3C bread crumbs

Place shrimp and artichoke in a single layer in a shallow baking dish
Combine all other ingredients except bread crumbs into a compound butter. Mix the bread crumbs into it, then spread over the shrimp.
Bake 15 minutes in a 400-degree oven, turning on the broiler for two minutes afterward to brown the bread crumbs.

The Beard method of the compound butter mixed with bread crumbs came out rather mushy. Higher heat might have helped, but I might try melting half the butter with the wet ingredients (lemon, mustard, sherry) and pouring directly over the shrimp, then combining the rest of the butter with the crumbs, to have a drier texture. I also used part panko, and they may have just dissolved under the moisture.

Very tasty, and I could have probably used even more garlic.

MrsF baked up four wonderful molten ganache mini-cakes, served with vanilla ice cream (am I the only one who doesn't like the texture of Breyer's new double-churned varieties?)

3 words...

Goose... Island... Shrimp... =)

Dave gave me a laptop, so since I wimped out on his gift (Comiskey Cash), I decided to give him a break. Did not make him leave his couch to go out for dinner. Instead picked up 2 lbs of jumbo shrimp and 1 lb of frog legs from Goose Island Shrimp. Washed everything down with an ice cold beer...

Then I left him alone...

Comimos...



Tacos de cecina de res
Arros 'Duque de Sessa' con habichuelas roseadas
Piperrada

What's 'Valentine's' day?



Antonius

dry-aged ribeye steaks

NV Champagne
tamari-flavoured almonds

Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
pepper-crusted ribeye steaks
oven-roasted potatoes with parsley butter
oven-roasted asparagus with lemon zest and parmigiano-reggiano

blackberry-cabernet sorbet

E.M.

Antonius wrote:What's 'Valentine's' day?



Antonius

It's a holiday celebrated since the 3rd century...even in Italy.

http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/valentine/?page=history

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men -- his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

stevez wrote:It's a holiday celebrated since the 3rd century...even in Italy.

http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/valentine/?page=history

Really only since the end of the 5th century, at least officially

Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day around 498 A.D.

i did the right thing by NOT cooking at home. by the time i'm done, pretty much any resemblance of romance has drained out of me.

4 of us had ~2 lbs of chadol gui @ Cho Sun Ok; knock it back with some San soju, finished with dolsot kimchee fried rice. this might be my new vday tradition... cheaper than any prix fixe in town to boot.