Dinner At My House

Roast Beast, New Potatoes and Peas

Roast Beast, New Potatoes and Peas, originally uploaded by wickenden.

A delicious dinner. Carmelized onions in a wine and deglazed meat gravy (no roux or cream tonight). Peas with lotsa buttah, new potatoes (a red and yellow golden mix) with parsely and butter. The red were better, I think.

The meat, still not cooked as rare as I'd like, but for the cut, was probably correct. Good.

Finished Dinner - Veal, New Potatoes and Peas

Finished Dinner - Veal, New Potatoes and Peas, originally uploaded by wickenden.

Tonight, Veal chops (t-bones), new potatoes with fresh italian flat parsely and unsalted butter, baby peas with butter. All topped with a shallot, veal, white wine and cream white sauce.

Do I need to say how good it was?

Dinner with the Family

Dinner with the Family, originally uploaded by wickenden.

We had a great dinner last night.  My neice becca brought a friend she's dating, "Josh", aka sudweeks on flickr and provophoto on LJ.  Amy and Ben and Ayla showed up, after eating dinner number one at the other grandparents house.  You can't make out the yummies here very well, but it's risotto with parmesean and thyme, sautéed sliced brussel sprouts, chicken thighs that were fried in olive oil and then braised in carmelized onions in beer (they were marinated in beer and olive oil first), and a salad from a spring mix with gorgonzola, green applies, and slices of roasted red and yellow chilli peppers, with an olive oil and apple cider vinegar dressing.

Pasta with Roasted Scallops and Beet Greens

Tonight I made pasta with roasted scallops mixed with beet greens and parmesiano reggiano.  On the side we had beets baked in an onion cream sauce. The scallops and pasta were excellent, but the beets in cream didn't come out like they usually do, I think I didn't cook them long enough.  But they were still good, the sauce just didn't carmelize. As a dressing for the pasta sauce, I deglazed the scallops with white wine and then cream. It was trés good.

Dinner Tonight

Tonight I'm making dinner for tomorrow.  It's another pork loin, roasted with onions, garlic, sage, and parsely, in oil, butter and kosher salt and pepper.  Tomorrow I'll cut it up and make a couple more cubanos, vowing to get the bread more squished than last time.  Tonight, D. made us some crock pot chicken thights with tomatoes, onions, garlic, bay leaf and parsely in white wine, chicken broth, and kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.

I'm definately happier when I cook.  Cooking is me.

Cubanos!

Tonight we had a simple early dinner of Cubanos, cuban sandwiches, with a bit of salad. The sandwiches are made from a nice bread, buttered and layered with swiss cheese, boiled ham, roast pork and bread and butter pickes. One presses these and bakes them in an oven until everything melds together. A good night's dinner. Had a salad with it.

Pasta with Roast Beef and Gravy

A saturday night dinner. My lover made the penné and warmed a late harvest sauce from the freezer. I made the roast beef, but overcooked it a bit. It was good nonetheless, not dry at all since I braised it in red wine. Could have been worse! We weren't sure what cut we had, something we got at costco and froze a couple weeks ago. I guessed on the time and was by about 15 degrees. Oh well. The gravy was a nice wine/roux/cream reduction.

A Tasty Pork Loin on a Friday Night

Sofritto, originally uploaded by wickenden.

Made a yummy dinner tonight. Here is an image of the sofritto, and more pics of the meal below. It's basically chopped onions, fresh sage from the garden (tromp through the snow) and flat leaf parsely). We had fried yukon gold potatoes, steamed broccoli with butter, and roast pork loin with a cream and wine sauce. For the pork I made the sofritto first, then set it aside, pan seared the pork loin, especially on the fat side. I added the sofritto back to the roast (on top of it and surrounding it) and transferred it to a 300 degree oven for about an hour. Once it was removed, I deglazed the pan with white wine and added a touch of cream to make a light sauce. The potatoes were nice small yukon gold's that I nuked until they were a bit soft, then fried in olive oil and butter. Yummy.

Here is the pork loin just before it went in the oven Had to nuke these before frying to break down the starches And the finished product.  A very satisfying meal.