lots of great food going on in our house

SO much good cooking, I'm really going to have to go back on a serious diet shortly. Last night we had these luscious grilled lamb chops, with fresh broccoli sauteed with garlic and toasted almonds:

Click it, this tiny picture doesn't do it justice:

And that time of year: Clementines!

A little holiday baking - lazy girl's rugelach

chocolate crinkles, deep and dark

brown sugar shortbread. makes you want to slap your mama.

Hanukkah, night 2

Dinner tonight had my Hanukkah favorite, latkes. I suspect he makes them to humor me as much as anything, though we did light the menorah. I love latkes. So crispy, and good with applesauce:

Click the images to see them full size. Really so so good!

Happy Hanukkah!

Catching up

I've gotten behind and have a few meals to post! It's hard, when he cooks so many good meals.

Korean hotpot -- these are extremely heavy stone pots with lids. You heat them up like mad, in a 500 degree oven, then layer in white rice, followed by whatever you wish. Cover with the very heavy lids and bake for a bit. He made some great pork in Korean barbecue sauce, and added bamboo and water chestnuts and celery, and there was ginger mixed in, too. Amazingly good. The rice gets crunchy around the bottom and sides.


For New Year's Eve, we had standing rib roast, baked potatoes, and fried okra. The roast was amazingly delicious. Vegetarians, look away:

And finally, my plate:

Finally, no self-respecting Texan would let New Year's Day pass without eating blackeyed peas for luck. More peas = more good luck. You can either have a big pot of peas, or you can make something quite luscious called Texas Caviar. Lime, cilantro, jalapeno, tomatoes, celery, onion, and blackeyed peas, served cold with tortilla chips. You really should click all these photos to see them enlarged and close-up. Your mouth will water.

lovely ingredients for a lovely meal

Click to see the album of photos of his ingredients full-size, they're mouthwatering:

Shrimp and mushrooms

And the finished meal -- he was disappointed, but as our lovely A said, "bad food here is better than good food anywhere else." Amen, A. He may have been disappointed in his sauce, but all of us around the table were anything but disappointed:

broiled shrimp smothered in a velvety sauce of cream, marsala, onions,
chicken broth, and mushrooms (plus other secret ingredients), sprinkled with
parmigiano reggiano and run under the broiler so it's crunchy and delicious

our fantastic salad, of course

a glance at my plate -- the shrimp smothered in sauce and

indian red basmati rice with sauteed onions

Christmas dinner

Even though I don't think they were all that interested in latkes, he made some for me, because I wanted them. A lot of trouble, I think, but he did it so sweetly, and they were so good -- crunchy on the outside, potatoey on the inside, lots of salt and pepper:

and fresh green beans, which A and I prepared -- "the girl's job" --
and then he blanched and sauteed them in garlic and butter

a big ham, with a great bone for soup next week

My plate: green beans, a latke with applesauce, and some ham slices.
Merry OM Day!

Just another in a long line of wonderful meals he fixes for us. We'll finish up with some cranberry orange nut bread, and then start thinking about our New Year's Eve dinner.

Cabbage soup with pumpernickel

This wonderful wintry pot of cabbage soup, with brisket and soup bones in the stock (and for the sweet and sour, brown sugar and cider vinegar). Here's where we start:

And then it simmers all afternoon

And when we're good and hungry from all the delicious smell,
we serve it in our big white bowls

with a fresh loaf of pumpernickel, slices spread with butter

Peasant food deluxe -- I'll be a peasant any day, for food like this. And then carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. Oh my god, my pants are getting too tight.

Chicken and eggplant parmigiana

I'm not so crazy about eggplant, but M and A are, so he went to the trouble to make both eggplant and chicken parmigiana -- so good. First he prepared the chicken and eggplant:

On goes the spicy tomato sauce

And then lots of mozzarella with romano sprinkled on top,
baked until bubbly and golden (cliche! but it's golden, what to do?)

and here's my plate of chicken parmigiana with my favorite bread.
And we had a crunchy green salad with balsamic vinaigrette.

So delish. Wish you were here.

Lamb chops and sugar snap peas

How many different things do you eat? It's a challenge for my dinner chef to come up with different kinds of meals to satisfy the blog. Me, I'm easy to satisfy -- he's such a great cook. So tonight he did something a little different for us: pan-seared lamb chops, and fresh sugar snap peas.

First, the close-up view of the really luscious lamb chops:

See how beautiful they are?

And the sugar snap peas, blanched and then quick-sauteed in butter.
A generous sprinkling of salt and pepper and they were sweet and crunchy
and buttery and salty, so mouth-watering.

steak and brussel sprouts

SUCH a delicious dinner tonight: shell steaks smothered in a velvety mustard cream sauce with onions and capers, accompanied by buttered brussel sprouts, with my favorite bread, just because I asked so nicely.

Start with a great steak

Saute onions in lots of butter

And saute the brussel sprouts in butter and garlic

Then make the sauce, with mustard and cream and onions
and madeira and capers

et voila! The finished plate

Magret, fennel, and mashed potatoes

Our Thanksgiving feast, a day late thanks to our general malaise

(or was it ennui?) on Thursday. The star attraction:

The Moulard duck is a hybrid cross of female Pekin and a male Muscovy duck. The duck is corn fed several times daily in the three weeks before processing. The breast, called magret, is aged seven days on the bone to provide a red, meaty flesh. It is so big that it's sometimes referred to as a duck steak.

Then, our duck breasts with the fennel ready to roll:

And the potatoes simmering before mashing:

And here we go......

Fennel

Mashed potatoes with garlic and parsley

Our very luscious dinner. The sauce on the duck was a reduction
of red wine, orange juice, and chicken broth.

Ham and nouveau scalloped potatoes