What I Had For Dinner Tonight

Entries tagged as ‘green onions’

Tri-Tip in Black Pepper Sauce

March 28, 2008 · 2 Comments

I marinated a tri-tip beef roast from TJ’s in an Asian black pepper sauce and slow cooked it in the oven, much like the Easter brisket, in stages, with onions and garlic, and then used the drippings from the marinade to further make a sauce. It was quite richly-flavored, with a sneaky pepper afterbite.

I also made brown jasmine rice (I thought I had grabbed the white basmati, but oh well) to go with, and a garden salad (baby greens, cucumber, arugula, cherry tomatoes, and green onions, as well as some left over hard-boiled egg and the remainder of the red pepper (see below)) with vinaigrette.

G&T came to dinner (it’s Friday again, yay!) and brought the fixings for stuffed red peppers (stuffed with ground beef, rice, onions and green peppers, as well as mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, sage and thyme and other yummy stuff) and T assembled and cooked and baked them here. Even better, they brought a chocolate cake (mmm…..) and red wine (a Gundlach Bundschu ’05 Pinot Noir, one of our favorites! And, as if the evening wasn’t festive enough already, L joined us, too, and we played a lot of Rayving Rabbids 2, while listening to some well-needed rain falling outside.

Categories: I Cooked · Someone Else Cooked
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Chicken and Yellow Rice

March 25, 2008 · 1 Comment

J’s been a fan of Cuban food since childhood, and has been jonesing for some since a new, but uninviting, Cuban restaurant opened near us, and took it on to prepare some properly at home tonight. We’ve been using saffron regularly since we bought some a couple of years ago to try and make yellow rice ourselves, but only recently did we figure out that the secret ingredient we were lacking was turmeric (yes, that r is supposed to be there, look it up). So J ground up both with some salt and black pepper in the mortar and pestle to create a base for both the chicken and the rice and then simmered the chicken with some onion, garlic, olive oil, Sriracha chili sauce and tomato sauce, and then combined them into one dish and baked for a while in the oven. Very nice, very soothing, and not entirely unlike Miss Neddy’s Congee!

I made some green and yellow split peas with some garlic in them to go with, which are always hearty and filling, as well as a light salad of tomatoes with green onions and fresh oregano from the garden, with a really simple vinaigrette dressing of just olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and black pepper.

Categories: I Cooked · J Cooked
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Steak Burgers with Mushroom Gravy

March 24, 2008 · Leave a Comment

A collaboration tonight: I made a garden salad with my vinaigrette, mixed lettuce greens, heirloom cherry tomatoes (all different colors and shapes), cucumber, green onions, and, because they are in season and totally buttery, delicious and CHEAP, a whole avocado for each of us!

By J’s request, I also made the oven crisped potatoes with rosemary, garlic, black pepper, salt and olive oil, I made last week, and reheated the butternut squash from last night. J sautéed mushrooms, onions and garlic in olive oil, fried up the steak burgers in the skillet, then made a gravy in which to further sauté the burgers and then serve over the top of them.

For dessert, another in-season treat: a fruit salad of just perfect fresh pineapple, slightly disappointing strawberries and a delectable little honey tangerine.

Categories: I Cooked · J Cooked
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Easter Sunday Brisket + Butternut Squash Tutorial

March 23, 2008 · 1 Comment

My father and my step-mother visited recently, and while she was here, I was able to wrangle her mother’s brisket recipe out of her, much to my great pleasure, having enjoyed when she made it on several occasions. So, since J considers Easter a valid reason to make a nice big dinner, I thought it would be a good excuse to try the recipe. G&T joined us as well and so did L. For appetizer/nibbly bits, G&T brought cantaloupe wrapped with prosciutto and blue corn tortilla chips and hummus, as well as some red wine and dessert.

The recipe calls for 4 lbs of beef brisket, sliced onions, black pepper, Heinz chili sauce and bay leaves, and it takes over 4 hours to cook altogether, so I started it early in the afternoon. It takes lots of steps, but it’s worth the effort- it practically melts in your mouth! As well, I made a big tossed garden salad (G helped!), with tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions and mixed baby greens, with my homemade vinaigrette dressing, and some brown jasmine rice, cooked in mushroom stock and then tossed with the mushrooms that made the stock, after they were sautéed in olive oil with some garlic and fresh thyme from the garden.

At the same time that I started the brisket, I also baked a butternut squash, which lately has become one of my favorite squashes, much less foods, to my great surprise. Of course, the way I make it, it’s pretty much irresistible:

Mini tutorial: Butternut Squash

  1. Peel and de-seed it and cut it up into small pieces
  2. Layer it in a Pyrex dish with a bunch of sliced pats of butter (almost a stick) and cover liberally with five-spice powder, salt and black pepper.
  3. Bake covered at 350°F for 45 mins or until it falls apart when poked with a fork
  4. Let it cool some, and blend it in a Cuisinart / food processor with a little milk or butter until it reaches the desired consistency
  5. Keep warm for an hour or two before serving… the longer you can let it stand before serving, the more the flavor develops. Reheat before serving if you can’t keep it warm the whole time.

YUM! For dessert, a big creamy peach Boston cream pie/cake concoction. Not the traditional Easter Ham by any means, but who’s complaining? Not like there were any leftovers!

Categories: I Cooked · You Cook It
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Lemon-Rosemary Pork Chops

March 22, 2008 · Leave a Comment

I marinated the chops in a sauce made of lemon, fresh rosemary and garlic, with a little Dijon mustard, black pepper and olive oil, and grilled them on the George Foreman grill. I know we have been eating a lot of rosemary lately, but there’s a ton of it in the garden, and it tastes so good with so many different things!

I prepared the micro-greens, endive and green onion salad that we like so much with my homemade vinaigrette and included the grated carrot again. For side dishes, I warmed up some basmati rice and lentils I had made and frozen previously, as well as a “Southwestern” mix of veggies, that includes corn, black beans, red and green bell peppers and onions. For dessert, we had the last of the pie. Simple and quick to prepare but tasty.

Categories: I Cooked
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Lamb, Potatoes, Artichokes & Salad

March 20, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Since we still had some tzatziki sauce leftover from the lamb burgers the other night with F, when I went shopping today, I bought some pre-seasoned, butterflied Australian lamb from TJ’s to go with it. I grilled it on the George Foreman grill without modifying it… it’s actually pretty good as is. Served with aforementioned sauce, as well as some potatoes I sliced and tossed in rosemary from the garden and garlic and olive oil and crisped up in the oven. A salad of baby spinach, sliced cooked beet(root for the Colonials)s, crumbled walnuts, green onions and the vinaigrette dressing, tarted up with a little extra lemon (the tutorial is going up tonight, I swear). And, as a treat, some artichokes with melted butter and garlic. Leftover pie (how we suffer….) for dessert.

Categories: I Cooked
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Southern Ham and Beans

March 19, 2008 · Leave a Comment

pressure cookerA treat tonight- one of J’s Southern family-style meals! Pan-fried ham steak with red-eye gravy, red beans and rice (a mix from a package, but they are damned good), and a pot of J’s family heirloom Virginia half-runner beans that have been passed down for at least four generations by now. They’re a little tougher than your typical haricôts verts, so J puts them in the old-school pressure cooker with some bacon (we’re out of salt pork) to tenderize and flavor them. They’re delicious and grew so well in the garden last year, we’ll be planting more soon.

cornbread J baked a skillet cornbread from scratch with onions and Sriracha in it. We started off with a California-syle green salad (lettuce, tomato, avocado, cucumber, carrots and green onions) with the vinaigrette dressing I made the other night. (Did I mention there’s a tutorial on making a vinaigrette salad dressing coming up?)

And to finish off, PIE! Blueberries, cherries and peaches mixed together, with Ben & Jerry’s cinnamon bun ice cream to top it off. Sometimes it really is better to be cooked for than it is to cook!

Categories: J Cooked
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