Dinner Prep

Dinner Prep, originally uploaded by wickenden.

A quick dinner, a vodka pasta sauce with spaghetti, some spring greens and some cherry tomatoes for the salad.

Cobb Salad Supremo

Tonight's Cobb Salad was superb. It was a bit early to be wanting tomatoes and avocados -- and neither were fantastically ripe, but they were edible. Amy, Ben and Ayla and Tavian were to dinner, as were my two younger daughters. Dean was there for the evening cocktail and stayed to dinner. He brought Betty home a plate. Finally my Missa arrived as dinner was ending and there was plenty left for her to enjoy. For dessert, Amy and Ben brought a cheesecake, but it was a bit sweeter than I prefer. Cookies and Cream, or some such. I like a nice dry New York.

I love laying out a Cobb Salad on a big platter and coming up with an arrangement that seems appetizing and festive. We must have one again as soon as the heirloom tomatoes come in this summer.


There's the platter in all its glory.


And my plate!

Pasta Putanesca

Putanesca Cooking, originally uploaded by wickenden.

One of my favorite things to cook, simmering waiting for the pasta to finish. I started with 2 diced onions sauteed, two bulbs of garlic, peeled and chopped and sauteed. Then, 4 tins of anchovies with the oil, one small jar of non-pareil capers, about 1/2 cup of kalamata olives, minced, and one quart of last summers san marsano and roma tomatoes (from august!). I let that simmer and reduce a bit. Then, top the pasta with it, add some chopped flat leaf parsely and some freshly grated reggiano parmeseano.

Putanesca is an old italian dish -- the "whore's" dish, but stories vary as to why it is so named. One version is that prostitutes made it to lure men in, another that such women weren't able to shop on regular days, and so made a dish from what was in the larder. Whatever -- it's one of my favorites.

Here is the family bowl. You can see I put both spaghetti and linguini in, but it was unintentional.


Here's my plate with a nice glass of red wine. I also served a fried cauliflower with allspice (which is a regular recipe of mine) and a salad made of strawberry-tomatoes with basil and green onions, dressed in olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper.


Finally -- I added some chili flakes to my plate and a dusting of reggiano.

Today I'm making a cobb salad. I feel a bit ill, but hope I'm up for making dinner later this afternoon.

Bratwurst Braised in Beer

Bratwurst Braised in Beer, originally uploaded by wickenden.

I use the following method when cooking Bratwurst, Weisswurst or sausages:

Sear the brats in a medium high hot pan with a bit of olive oil so that the brown on both sides nicely. Add a bit of beer and increase the heat. I prefer a nice brown / pale ale. It will foam and pick up the brown, if you knock it a bit with a wooden spoon. Keep adding beer as soon as it begins to reduce away. When you've done the whole bottle this way, the brats should be about done and there will be a lovely, unctuous, brown sauce to top it with.

We had this with lovely little 3 cheese tortellini's from Barilla.

Friday Dinner: Spaghetti with meat sauce and Broccoli

Friday Dinner: Spaghetti with meat sauce and Broccoli, originally uploaded by wickenden.

I picked Dorise up on the way home from work, as it had snowed and we car-pooled in the 4 wheel drive. Swung by Albertsons and picked up some burger, some ground italian sausage and some dessert. Diced an onion and fried it, added a bulb of chopped garlic and reduced that a bit in beer. Set that aside and fried ground beef and ground sausage and combined that with some tomato sauce. Topped with reggiano and had a side of steamed broccoli with it.

As can be seen below, Ayla liked it.

Broiled Salmon and Pasta with Mussels

I made the yummiest dinner on Sunday.  Costco has these bags of black mussels, they are huge -- for about 12 bucks -- and I took them home and cleaned them.  I also bought an expensive slab of Salmon.  I marinated the salmon in olive oil, a bit of lemon, and salt and pepper and a touch of vermouth.  I also cleaned and then braised two bunches of rainbow chard.  For the mussels, I sautéed a diced onion and bulb and a half of peeled, crushed and chopped garlic.  I added chicken stock and vermouth and reduced it until it was about a third the height

I added the mussels after I cleaned them of beards and stuff and discarded all the broken ones or ones that wouldn't close.  I covered them and in no time at all they all opened.  As soon as they were opened I dressed barilla spaghetti with them.

They were absolutely delicious, and work beautifully with the salmon on the side.

Sunday Night is Pasta Night

Saturday is Pasta Night, originally uploaded by wickenden.

A spaghetti dinner. My little Ayla likes "big pasta", meaning not penne or farfalle, sometimes. Her night is saturday, when we traditionally keep her while her parents have a night out. She wanted "big pasta" tonight, and this is what I made: spaghetti with a pork sausage and beef sauce with mushrooms, a side of fried cauliflower with allspice and some cheese breadsticks.

Good enough.

Omelettes for Everyone

By noon on Sunday everyone was hungry and ready for some brunch. I decided to make omelette's and they turned out great. I started by frying a serrano pepper in oil, then adding onion spears to the oil and cooking them until they carmalized. I then added garlic and sautéed it for a bit. I added about a cup of beer and let that reduce to a nice unctuous sauce (isn't it funny that sauces are great if they are unctuous, but people are annoying if they are?) and set that aside.

I used cheddar and feta for the cheese filler. I nuked some baby frozen peas in butter and chopped up some Italian flat-leaf parsley. As the omelet readied I layered in the cheeses, the onions, the peas and dusted it all with parsley. I sealed the omelet up and gave it a further dusting, and then poured the lovely beery sauce over the top.

It was good.

The Main Spread

The Dinner Spread, originally uploaded by wickenden.

Frankly, we've been eating a lot of chicken. Here is a dinner of pasta, squash and chicken back in October. Must-start-documenting-my-dinners again.

My plate

Saturday Pasta Dinner

Saturday Pasta Dinner, originally uploaded by wickenden.

Thin spaghetti (6 minute) with a sauce of red onion and garlic sautéed and a vermouth reduction. Pork chops marinated in gran marnier, olive oil, habenero sauce, and salt and pepper. Broiled then the pan was deglazed with gran marnier and added to the pasta. Salad was garden paste tomatoes julienned lengthwise and served with garden cuke, red onion spears, garden basil, and feta. Dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Pork Loin, Potatoes and Artichokes on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Last night's dinner was pork loin, marinated and grilled (lid down) on a cedar plank, some delicious red new potatoes, dressed in butter and parsely, and artichoke with lemon-mayo dressing.

Read more at www.flickr.com/photos/w...

Pasta, Chicken and Salad

Pasta, Chicken and Salad, originally uploaded by wickenden.

A delicious campanelle with parmeseano reggiano with butter, peas, and a beef sauce. Served with bbqed chicken thighs that were marinated in oil, beer, garlic, pear jam, and kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Served with a salad of spring greens, roasted red peppers, pesto, tomatoes, parmeseano reggiano and topped with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was delicious. We invited Lemar Eyre, from next door, and his daughter Susan over to sit down and eat with us.

Chicken Curry

Chicken Curry, originally uploaded by wickenden.

I was so tired when I came home from work and was going to nap right away, but deano called and we had a martini. I layed down about 7 and slept till about 8. D. was out in the yard mowing. I began dinner prep (we were out of onions, so I called Betty (deans wife) and borrowed a nice yellow one) . Dinner was ready by 9 (although my pics exif data say 8?? perhaps my clock is on winter time?). It was yummy enough, despite the missing green things.

The other pictures are of Benny at the table, Amy and D looking out at the lavender, and Amy at the table.

Salmon with Farfalle

Salmon with Farfalle, originally uploaded by wickenden.

We enjoyed this salmon, marinated with olive oil and white wine, and broiled with tarragon over farfalle pasta with a salmon reduction sauce.

Leftovers at my House

We had a big dinner on Sunday. Suzy (wykhurst) from LJ came to dinner with her family. I made roast chicken (with garlic and rosemary) tacos, and several varieties of toppings, including a delicious New-Mexico red chilli sauce, a roasted anaheim sauce, and napa cabbage and queso fresco, and serranos, and some other toppings. On corn tortillas. With a tomato, red-onion, english cuke, olive oil and balsamic salad.

It was good, and three days now we've been eating leftovers.

That's the picture.

Oh... the entire history of my typepad blog dinneratmyhouse, is dead. I think I successfully made a copy on wordpress.com. I should check.

BBQ'd chicken, with a habenero, honey, and apricot hefevisen garlic marinade.
posted by Wickenden using hello and bloggerbot

Curry shrimp with asparagus and tomato salad. 

Cobb Salad for our sunday dinner. Just Dorise, Caitlin and I this time. 

Asparagus with shrimp curry 

Pan Seared Scallops with Beet Greens and Shallots and Pasta

Since it was the weekend and my neice Kristen was coming over, I served a non-meat dish (she will eat fish, but not other forms of meat). As I went to the grocery store I noticed nice looking large scallops and got a pound and a half of them. I'd already put summer squash, several beets with greens, cilantro and parsely into the cart, not knowing what I'd make.

Once home I hit upon the menu:
Spaghetti with pan seared scallops, shallots, serranos and beet greens
Braised Beets
BBQed summer squash spears, marinated in olive oil, salt and pepper.

The key to making this recipe yummy is to properly cook the scallops. When properly done, they are moist and tender (not rubbery in the slightest) and deep brown from the pan searing, and they release a substantial yummy brown in the pan, that when deglazed, makes a fabulous sauce. While I made it pretty well, I used too much peanut oil and so the searing wasn't as deep, and there wasn't as much brown sauce. Ah well, one learns the same lessons over and over (and sometimes, "incorrect variations yield delicious surprises!).

I would say the flavor combination at base in this recipe is the shallots and the scallops (nice slant rhyme, eh?). They are to be offset by some sort of braised light leafy green. I've traditionally used rainbow chard, but the beet greens were superb. I also find that a chilli pepper, generally poblanos, adds to a nice flavor combo.

What I normally do is heat a large pan to very hot temperature with a bit of peanut oil. You can add some dried piquin peppers to the oil for flavoring and brown them first, but I didn't this time. Then add your scallops, sprinkling with kosher salt and freshly crushed black pepper. You want high heat to sear them quickly -- you don't want them getting overdone. A few minutes on each side until they are nicely browned and are oozing liquid. Remove them and set them aside.

Next, add the shallots (I used about 5 or 6 large shallots, peeled and minced). Add about 2 chopped serranos, and a bit of kosher salt and crushed black pepper (I will often use 2 or 3 roasted poblano peppers, peeled, seeded and diced, but today I opted tof the smaller serranos). When the shallots and peppers have cooked a minute or two, add some white wine to deglaze the pan and throw in the beet greens (or chard). The beet greens should have been de-stemmed (otherwise you'll get redish sauce). I destem the chard too. Chop it fairly well before adding.

The beet greens won't take long, so time this dish so the pasta (I prefer a long pasta for this dish) is ready about 2 minutes after you throw in the beet greens. Remove from the heat, add the scallops back in and toss with the pasta. Though it's considered gauche and a sin, I like to add reggiano parmesean after tossing. It's very good.

For the beets, I cleaned them and chopped off the heads and tails and braised them in white wine. I normally would have used a bit of chicken stock, but deferred to the vegetarian desires of my niece. I forgot, like a dumb-ass, to peel them.

For the squash, I trimmed them and had them cut into spears, soaked them in olive oil, salt and pepper, then threw them on the grill, turning them until nicely browned.

We drank Johannesberg Resiling from some Idaho vinter with it. Not too bad, for a white wine -- which I was sipping in the late afternoon and it lasted through to dinner.