Curry Red Lentil Soup

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Tonight my lovely wife asked for a light dinner, so here is the menu.

First will be a grilled romaine salad. Yes, I said grilled. The romaine will be placed on the grill for a few minutes and then dressed. There will also be some grilled scallions to go with it. It is really good made that way. And I know that it sounds very strange, but trust me on this. It is awesome.

The main course will be linguine with a tomato/grape tomato/caper sauce. To make the sauce first I put olive oil in a large skillet, got it hot, and then cooked some red onion and garlic in the oil. Then the capers went in. A few minutes later I took the onion and garlic out and added a big can of pealed Italian tomatoes (without the juice) and about two dozen grape tomatoes cut in half. I let that cook for a while and then added some freshly chopped mint and some freshly ground black pepper. The tomatoes were then smashed and the skillet was set to slowly simmer while covered. It should be ready in about 30 minutes.

I'm thinking that a pedestrian California Pinot Noir will go well with this. I have a "grocery store" Coppola sitting out as I type.

The sauce cooked down more that I thought it would. Good thing that I still had the "juice" in the can to add in.

Pasta water is getting hot, wine is open and breathing, grill is getting up to temperature, and Spawn 2 is happy with eating leftover chicken from last night. All is right in the world.

I had this in Asheville a few years ago. Grilled Romaine Ceasar salad. Unbelievable. Even my butchered version of it is pretty good.

I love simple (well simple for someone of your skill at least) dinners like this. My girlfriend and I do variations of this quite frequently. Simple lightly dressed salads, then some version of pasta with a ''fun'' sauce.

Last night we played around with Farro. Wonderful grain.

It's been a while since I've posted any food porn.



Soba noodles with baked tofu, cucumbers, carrots, and red cabbage. Topped with fresh cilantro and scallions. The sauce is fresh ginger, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, honey, cayenne, rice vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil, and toasted sesame oil.

Then I put half a bottle of Sriracha on it and it just tastes like burning.

Just finished blanching some pearl onions. Soon I'll be making some beef stew. I have 2.5 lbs of boneless Chuck that I will be cubing in a few minutes.

On a related note the love of my life and I dropped off Spawn1 and his gf at JAX yesterday morning and took the opportunity to visit a place that carries Wolf, Viking, etc., dual fuel ranges. We are getting close to pulling the trigger on a serious cooking appliance. I want to go 48" for the double oven, but we have no need for that much cook top real estate. We'll probably go 36" with 6 burners and maybe in the future get a small stand-alone convection oven.

postride/dinner

tuna salad sandwich with chopped almonds,apple bits,relish and mayo and Dijon on whole wheat ****ing tasty

When I got home I saw that my wife opened a bottle of a Corvina/Cab blend from Italy last night to have a night cap and most of it is still in the bottle. So I'm making pasta puttanesca tonight. The sauce is capers, garlic, olives (Kalamata (black) and Sicilian (green), sliced thin), anchovies, plum tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes (I still have a tiny bit from shovelhd ... totally awesome!), fresh basil, pinch of sugar (if needed, depending on the tomatoes), and some fennel seed (but not too much!). Yes, I did say garlic twice. It needs lots of garlic.

I've made this without the anchovies for "veggie" folks and it is still very good. I just added some salt. It is just a nudge better with anchovies instead,

Chicken tacos!

I thought about that for tonight ...

Yesterday I cooked (not everything, but the main parts) Easter dinner for family and a friend of my in-laws: two smoked chickens, rosemary/lemon/butter roaster potatoes, grilled veggies, etc.

There is some left over chicken so I need to make something with it. I did think about chicken tacos, but instead I'm making penne with shredded chicken, wilted arugula, crumbled feta, and oven roasted grape tomatoes. There is also a lot of garlic in this, too.

I just put a bottle of Anderson Valley (CA) Pinot Gris in the frig for later with dinner.

With last night's dinner we had a 2008 Gary Farrell Rochioli-Allen Vineyards Chardonnay. This is a very elegant wine and was perfect with the dinner.

Like you... refined, distinguished and very elegant bwahahaha

I just can't delete a double post, so I'll fill it up with mindless typing.

In the tradition of BF.

Hey, that wine was not "fat" like many California Chards.

Me, on the other hand, ...

No need to go there.

Never been a wine drinker though my wife is trying to get me to start - I like really sweet stuff.

I don't.

But if you do you should check this out: Chateau Yquem.

Not my cup of tea (or glass of wine), but it is the primo sweet dessert wine.

For me, I'd rather have some ice-cold grappa after a nice meal.

For both our sakes I never hope we meet, we could eat like hogs for days in complete euphoria

If it wasn't for training I might look like this:



And I love cooking and making other people happy that way.

such a sissy , you might as well just drink port instead

Ideally, i'd like to taste a few different Brunello di Montalcino wines, but they are way way above my price point.

Instead, the most i'd splurge for myself is an Altesino, which also makes both Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino wines.

Wine prices for the most famous growers is now totally insane. When I was a grad student making all of $400/month in the 1970's I could afford on very rare occasions to buy 2nd Growth Bordeaux wines and became a big fan of the St. Estephe chateaus (Montrose and Cos d'Estournel, in particualr). Sometimes these were from the 1960's and at their peaks. And I was paying $15 to $20 a bottle back then. Wow. Now add at least a zero.

I have had the luck to have some glasses of the First Growths over the years as well. Other people paid for it, though. Most of them have been outrageously nice.

I can no longer afford those wines even though I make a lot more money now than I did as a grad student, but I do have a 1989 C. Montrose in my cellar that I have owned for over 20 years. I hope that it is as good as the 1988 C. Cos d'Estournel that my wife and I drank a few years ago that we bought at the same time. It was VERY nice. It was like a party in your mouth. I saved the bottle as a momento.

I take it you aren't a fan of Tuscany wines? A lot of the Montalcino can be had for ~$50.

As a poor grad student (or rather, one who prefers to spend money on bike crap), i bought some "Black Box" Merlot from Whole Paycheck a month back. came out to be $24 total for 3L, and it's not bad, at least according to my undeveloped palette.

The Altesino, despite being moderately priced at $15, is something i'll be saving for "fancier" occasions, though I might splurge and get a Rosso di Montalcino when i graduate.

I drink a fair amount of Tuscan wines. Not so long ago (15 years ago or so by my old guy standards) you could get truly exquisite ones for not too much coin. But the really good ones are now outrageously expensive. There are deals to be had for some of the "everyday" wines, but I find a bigger bang for my buck with Spanish wines at that price point if I want to go European.

Unfortunately for me the world has discovered Argentinean Malbec. The everyday stuff is still cheap (Norton, for example), but now the better stuff is getting pricey. Rats.

I have had some stunningly good Oregon wines in the last year or two, especially Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, at very affordable prices. I expect this will change. By that I mean that the wine will still be great, but the price will skyrocket.

Yummy!

the food on this page sounds so good, all of it.

today we ate healthy/cheap and made a salad

arugula/spinach/red lettuce mix
baked tofu
sliced almonds
tomatoes
raisins
shredded carrots
red onions

simple balsamic/olive oil dressing

sprouted grain bread w melted sharp cheddar

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