Kevin's Watch

Having been inspired by the specials from Menolly's belated Mothers Day feast, I picked up a piece of salmon this evening and made a horseradish-mustard glaze for it. Will be served with a cornbread dressing enhanced with pinto beans, peas and carrots.

Gee, has nobody else posted to this thread since my last?

Last night was a special dinner in honor of a houseguest. Alder-smoked a garlic and rosemary pork loin, oven-roasted some white corn, and made a field greens, chévre, craisin, sliced almond, tomato and avocado salad.

At the guest's suggestion, we had a cider to accompany the meal. Excellent choice, stellar meal, wonderful company.

Savor Dam wrote:Last night was a special dinner in honor of a houseguest. Alder-smoked a garlic and rosemary pork loin, oven-roasted some white corn, and made a field greens, chévre, craisin, sliced almond, tomato and avocado salad.

At the guest's suggestion, we had a cider to accompany the meal. Excellent choice, stellar meal, wonderful company.

...lucky houseguest!
Sounds yummy.

Savor Dam! Why wasn't I invited???

'Hard cider' ( ) I hope, SD!

This week I have been mainly eating salads (in fact, ONLY eating salads), as I've been drinking too much guinness and eating too much rubbish for three weeks now. Either my body's starved of certain nutrients, or British salad stuff is getting much more tasty, or I'm getting good at making them - I'm really enjoying it!

Since I'm on low carb/high protein it's been lots of salad and of course MEAT & EGGS these days.

Stonemaybe wrote:'Hard cider' ( ) I hope, SD!

Indeed. Specifically, the Spire brand of hard cider, produced here in Washington by the Fish Brewing Company. A bit drier than the Woodchuck that is more familiar to her, but it complimented the meal well.

Having spotlighted (upthread) the initial dinner prepared for my houseguest -- which readers of the How Do You Feel Today thread in General Discussion now know to be none other than Galley mod Menolly -- here's what I served last night for her final dinner here:

• Salmon, marinated with lemon juice, garlic and just a bit of hoisin sauce, then grilled.
  
  Couscous with shallot and mixed-color peppers
  
  Salad of field greens, chévre, craisin, tomato and avocado

In case you are generalizing from the first and last suppers to the conclusion that I fed her exclusively from the charcoal grill and her own salad recipe, that is not the case. While I want to leave opportunity for her to tell her own stories (if she chooses) after she gets back home late tonight, I will mention that I made a short rib ragu that she had specifically requested, and that my favorite of the restaurant meals we had was at Cafe Revo in West Seattle: Calamari, Canederli con Brodo, Polenta with Fontina, Pappardelle al Ragu Bolognese and Puttanesca.

She will be missed...and I need to diet to recover from these last couple weeks!

Y'know, I saw those damn craisins the first time you posted, SD, and immediately thought of Menolly's salad. Why I didn't put two and two together at the time escapes me. Sheesh.

aliantha wrote:Y'know, I saw those damn craisins the first time you posted, SD, and immediately thought of Menolly's salad. Why I didn't put two and two together at the time escapes me. Sheesh.

My thanks again to you and Dam-sel for hosting and feeding me so well the past couple of weeks, SD. I am so glad y'all enjoyed the key lime pie my last two nights there...

Tonight, Batty, Shara_Lunison and I tried the Texas Tavern in downtown Roanoke. It's apparently been reviewed a bunch of places, and came recommended by one of the attorneys at our firm. It's a tiny diner with a single row of maybe 10 stools. The menu is extremely limited -- basically hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs and chili (which, for some inexplicable reason, they insist on spelling "chile"). The chili is just beans and meat, the burgers are kind of small (tho not White Castle small!), and the three of us ate for less than $15. Dunno that I will go back, but it was worth sampling.

It is summertime. And for this girl from Texas that can only mean one thing: BBQ!

I have some (boneless) country style ribs in the oven right now, slowly cooking. I don't own a grill or a smoker (apartment regulations won't allow any on the deck, wisely) so that was out. I made my own BBQ sauce, because it is too easy to make, cheaper and tastier! We'll see how they come out tonight. If they're good, I'll post the recipe. I'm really excited about them.

Beorn had one of his wisdom teeth pulled yesterday. Two more are scheduled to come out in December, and the last is taking its sweet time erupting. All he wanted last night was egg drop soup noodle bowl with won tons added from Chopstix Cafe. Our server took one look at his swollen cheek, along with me ordering for him since he had a bit of difficulty speaking clearly, and suggested switching the won tons to steamed until pillow-y soft pot stickers and putting those in to the soup instead. Beorn agreed and enjoyed his meal.

Taking advantage of getting to go to one of my favorite restaurants, I over ordered as usual, but was extremely satisfied.

I started with a regular bowl, not a huge noodle bowl, of tom yum tofu, followed by a sashimi deluxe platter. I then had four out of five star heat rating panang curry with steamed tofu and mixed vegetables. I drank water with a slice of lime throughout the meal and finished off with a Thai Iced Tea. We arrived just as the sun was descending over Bivens Arm; we got to watch the sunset during the entire course of our meal. Hyperception chose not to accompany us; it was a pleasant mother/son outing.

Tonight I am making my first ever tri-tip roast. I finally found a butcher at Sam's Club who knew how to cut one.
I don't have a newer propane tank for my grill, so I am attempting to roast it in my oven following these directions for adding smoke. I rubbed it with Montreal Steak Seasoning and in to the oven it went. I hope it turns out as good as I have heard.

Menolly wrote:
Tonight I am making my first ever tri-tip roast. I finally found a butcher at Sam's Club who knew how to cut one.
I don't have a newer propane tank for my grill, so I am attempting to roast it in my oven following these directions for adding smoke. I rubbed it with Montreal Steak Seasoning and in to the oven it went. I hope it turns out as good as I have heard.

yum. I miss meat.

With the disappearance of my favorite Lime Pepper from the shelves of Sam's Club, I've been on the look-out for a substitute for awhile. We tried this for the first time last night, putting it on chicken even though the label says seafood. It still doesn't replace the Lime Pepper, but we all liked it for a change from my typical home made rub. The juices made a nicely flavored gravy, too.



Served with steamed broccoli and my typical salad of field greens, grape tomatoes, craisins, peanuts, chevre which was dressed with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, dried dill weed, and fresh ground mixed peppercorns.

Peanuts in the salad. You are capable of change!

Oh.

Well we always mix the nuts up, depending on what we have.
Could be cashews, walnuts, pecans, sunflower or pumpkin seeds, etc.

Wasabi-soy almonds, FTW!

mmm...
No.
Too overpowering for the salad, IMO.

Even if I am a proponent of The Urban Peasant's adage of "Use what you got!" when I have to be...

For first dinner,
I preheated the oven to 350 degrees while I cooked two sliced green bell peppers in olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder for six minutes on med ium heat, then added one sliced sweet onion and continued cooking for four minutes. Next I mixed in 8 oz of lean ground beef and cooked until the meat was done.

While the veggies and meat were cooking, I prepared one roll of store-bought crescant dough into four sheets of 4"x6" dough.

I placed one slice of Swiss cheese and a half slice of American cheese each onto two of the dough sheets. Next, I put approx 1 cup of meat and veggie mix on top of the cheese. The other two sheets of dough finally went on top.

I sealed the edges and baked for about twenty five minutes (until bread turned golden brown).

Deliciousity.

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