What's for Dinner #108 - the National Sandwich Month Edition - August 2024

Four days into the birthday month and I had dinner at friends’ Friday night, dinner at my sister’s of charcuterie/cheese/bread last night after we had lunch in Tomales Bay at The Marshall Store (where I’m going again in a couple weeks for the annual bday Stinson Beach weekend), and tonight I finally cooked - Pork Gumbo! didn’t know it was a thing, but googled and found a few recipes and then winged it. I rubbed a small pork shoulder with kosher salt, pepper, smoked bourbon paprika, granulated garlic, a little cayenne, braised it for a couple hours, shredded it. Made a roux (stove top for 1/2 hour, oven for an hour), and added some oatmeal stout to the chicken stock after the veggies went in (and of course Tony’s Chacheres and more cayenne). Everything simmered stove-top for about half hour. Turned out great! Though I did miss the andouille… no okra to be found, fresh or frozen.

that cobbler does look amazing!

that is the most gorgeous thing I’ve seen in a while!

Honey garlic wings, a deep dish pepperoni, mushroom and green pepper pizza, and a regular Italian sausage, mushroom and roasted red pepper pizza from a pizzeria I hadn’t tried before, Formaggio’s in London, Ontario.

That is very kind to say. Thank you

Little meatballs (beef and pork), browned in the air fryer, then simmered in tomato with lots of my friend’s home-grown garlic and green beans, over farfalle, shredded pecorino romano.

Noice!

Just arrived in Milan and kept the first dinner quite “classic” with typical dishes for the region like cotoletta di vitello at Osteria Brunello https://www.osteriabrunello.it/ Overall really good start into our trip with excellent dishes (and service which knows how to not rush etc)

Amuse Bouche - house-made ricotto with sauce

Bread

Squash blossom tempura, stuffed with sheep ricotta cheese and Cantabrian anchovies, with zucchini pesto, mint and toasted almonds

“Mondeghili” meatballs, soft smoked potato puree and green sauce

Piemontese beef tartare, rocket salad and “Raspadura” lodigiana cheese

Plancha sea bass, saffron mashed potatoes and sauteed eggplants with basil

“Tagliatelle” pasta with veal ragout and Umbrian black truffle

La cotoletta di vitello alla milanese, breaded veal cutlet “Milanese style” with rocket mayonnaise, cherry tomatoes and oregano dressing

Seasonal vegetables sautéed with teriyaki sauce

Lemon tart, lemon mousse and Italian meringue

Cream ice cream cup with berries and mint

Barbajada, chocolate cream, coffee crumble, stracciatella ice cream, chantilly with coffee and Maldon salt

OMG, I love this idea!

That’s been in my recipe box for a while now. Did you like it? Would you make it again?

Last night’s dinner started with the last of the dolmades I bought last weekend then I has a fish curry with rice.

Yes, it was slurpy good. I made it for one so there was a lot of guessing of amounts. Meatballs were good but the broth was a little bland hence the chile crisp. I will make it again, making sure I use plenty of garlic, ginger and jalapeno next time.

Borracho beans and rice from the Amá cookbook. Beans were moro beans from Rancho Gordo. Rice was Carolina Gold. Beer was Dos Equis.

Lentil tacos on ww handmade tortillas (TJ’s) with the works and bagged salad/slaw. Quick and easy (filling from the freezer).

Already off track on my meal plan, oh well.

Dinner was frozen TJs veggie dumplings and noodles with oodles of added greenery and chili sauce

I was going to make my PIC cook a recipe I found going through my NYT recipe box, since I seem to keep adding recipes without ever actually making them. This coconut-miso salmon curry appealed bc I was in the mood for fish, the flavors sounded right down my alley, and I’d picked up white miso at TJ’s eons ago & have been meaning to use it in a dish.

As for not cooking today, well…. originally, I was going to ‘just do the mise’ to help a dude out, but the mise is really most of the work, plus I didn’t trust him doing a good enough job skinning the coho salmon filet we picked up at Aldi. My knife skills are simply better than his.

Checking some of the reader notes, I doubled both the ginger (frozen) and the garlic (fresh), but instead of slicing the onion HALF an inch thick (wut) I sliced it thinly, and I crushed the garlic instead of slicing it thinly. Naturally, I also added a fairly large bird pepper w/seeds, and chopped up another couple in case we wanted more heat (we did) than our pescatarian buddy, whom I spontaneously invited over for dinner — which is also a Thank You in part for his cat-sitting services in June. He’s the reason we kept the herbs (Thai basil, mint, cilantro) separate bc he’s one of those people. Subbed bok choy for spinach.

My dude made the rice, at least

Overall, a very nice dish. Coulda used more heat, obviously. Fresh pineapple with whipped cream for dessert if we’re up for it. Movie now.

Oh, app was a few slices of Wegmans baguette topped with TJ’s red pepper almond pesto and stracciatella.

Inspired by some recent articles in the NYT about the American pizza scene: Pizza Blanca with potato, bacon, and scallions. I used a parmesan bechamel for the sauce, and whole-milk mozz for the cheese. These were topped with scallion (white parts only) and very thinly sliced spuds. Having pre-cooked the bacon, I held it back along with the scallion greens for topping after baking.

This. Was. Excellent. If anything, next time I might try and oil the spuds very lightly before topping. It might crisp them up a little bit more, but going by tonight’s results this is not a deal breaker.

Delicious flavor and appealing texture all around.

A chopped veggie salad on the side for something acid.

Spuds, onions, toms and cukes from the garden.

Spetzofai

Lamb sirloin with oregano and lemon

Tzatziki

Spanakopita

Homegrown parsnips

The BF made himself chorizo and beef meatballs with rice last week and made sopa de albondigas. I tasted the soup, tasted great, but the albondigas themselves were out of this world. so tonight he made me a salad with three of them, and some pretty perfect avocado. Absolutely delicious.

Dinner tonight was ratatouille served over spaghetti.