Meat and Seafood | Monday Night Dinner

Posts Tagged ‘Meat and Seafood’

MND – Pink Chicken

June 27, 2014

Anyone else remember flying in the ‘80s? Back in the days before ebooks, and ipods, and ipads. Back in the days when your entertainment for the 7 – 9 – 12 – 18 hour flight was limited to one movie that was projected on a screen at the front of the cabin, and whatever books and games you brought on board with you? Back in the days when you confirmed your flight reservation by phone, and you wanted a seat as far forward in the plane as you could get because the smoking section was at the back of the plane? Back in the days when there was no baggage limit, and you could still go up to the cockpit to talk to the pilots?

Anyone remember the food? Or, more candidly, the substances which purported to be food, but were generally so unidentifiable and inedible that if you’d claimed they were soylent green nobody would much have disagreed with you. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Chicken, Meat and Seafood, Seasonal | Leave a Comment »

MND – Cravings

August 6, 2013

Do you ever get intense cravings for foods you don’t normally like, or is this just me?

I got through periods where all I can think about is eating a rich eggy potato salad, or a traditional creamy cole slaw. These are dishes that I normally pass over in a buffet because I prefer my potato salads dressed with lots of mustard and vinegar, or with a pesto sauce, and my cole slaws bright and tangy with vinegar and citrus.

Similarly I will take a no-thank you helping of pasta salad when presented with it in a situation where I have to take some to be polite, and skip it entirely if etiquette permits. I don’t like mayonnaise, and I’m not particularly fond of cold pasta, and I find that even the smallest serving sits leadenly in my stomach. I have, nonetheless, been day dreaming about pasta salad for the past three weeks straight. I don’t want a bowl of spaghetti dressed with rich tomato sauce, or a plate of fettuccini tossed with decadent alfredo sauce. I don’t want buttered and salted noodles to soak up the sauce from a braised stew. I want cold pasta. Go figure. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Chicken, Meat and Seafood, Pastas, Salad, Side Dish, Starch | Leave a Comment »

TND – Messy, but Tasty

May 9, 2013

I drove myself a little bit crazy last week in a quest for authenticity. I did research, crowd sourced my father and uncles, dithered, and fussed in search of an ‘authentic’ elegant Dutch meal to celebrate the Abdication/Enthronement of Queen Beatrix/King Willem-Alexander*. Then I went ahead and did things like roasting my Brussels sprouts with balsamic, and adding garlic and rosemary and orange zest to my Hazenpeper. I also threw in a splash of buttermilk to my Hete Bliksem for a touch of creaminess. I did this mostly because I couldn’t help myself, and because I thought they would enhance the dishes, even if the additions were inauthentic. This, however, begs the question of what we mean when we say ‘authentic’. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Meat and Seafood, pork, recipe-repeats, shrimp, Starch, Vegetables | Leave a Comment »

TND – Habemus Regem

May 1, 2013

On Tuesday, April 30, 2013 an era ended. After 33 years on the throne, her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands stepped down in favor of her son, Crown Prince Willem Alexander. It was the end of her reign, and it also marked the end of 123 years of women at the helm of the Netherlands. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Dessert, Meat and Seafood, Side Dish, Starch, Vegetables | 5 Comments »

TND – Not! Mardi Gras

April 10, 2013

Last Monday Google announced the beta release of GoogleNose*. I wish that it was live so that I could have shared with y’all how good my kitchen smelled last week. I kept walking back into the kitchen on Monday night to stand over the pot of simmering beans and just inhale deeply (okay, also to warm my hands up in front of the gas flame, because this is the winter that will not end, and it was cold). Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Meat and Seafood, pork, recipe-repeats, Side Dish, Starch, Vegetables | Leave a Comment »

TND – Problems I Have Never Had

March 28, 2013

Problems I have never had:

One
There was an article earlier this year in the NYT about the dangers of immersion blenders. I clicked on it curiously, and discovered that it wasn’t so much about the dangers of immersion blenders as it was the dangers of cooking while stupid. The gist of the article was that people who attempted to clean their immersion blenders while they were still plugged into the wall socket tended to get their fingers sliced up when they accidentally depressed the power button on the blender. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Chicken, Meat and Seafood, recipe-repeats | 1 Comment »

TND – Christmas in January

January 11, 2013

There’s a comment that Helene Hanff makes in one of her letters in 84 Charing Cross Road about visitors to England that has always stuck with me.

A newspaper man I know, who was stationed in London during the war, says tourists go to England with preconceived notions, so they always find exactly what they go looking for. I told him I’d go looking for the England of English literature, and he said:
“Then it’s there.”
(Helene Hanff – 84 Charing Cross Road – letter April 10, 1950)

My parents lived in London for nearly seven years when they were first married, and their London is a combination of half-forgotten trivia like what color the Bakerloo Line is on the London Tube Map, memories of places they used to go when they were young and fancy-free (as opposed to now when they are more mature and fancy-free), and surprise at how much London has changed in the last forty something years.

My London is an amalgamation of landscapes read about in Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, regency romance novels, Victorian murder mysteries, and urban fantasy novels, jumbled up with images gleaned from BBC police procedurals, Doctor Who (which admittedly is mostly actually Cardiff dressed up as London), and sweeping BBC historical dramas. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Chicken, Meat and Seafood, recipe-repeats, Side Dish, Starch | 3 Comments »

TND – Last Dinner of 2012 (recipes)

January 9, 2013

Last Dinner of 2012 – Dinner, December 11th

Chicken Carbonnade
(Fancy) Roasted Brussels Sprouts (with Chestnuts, Dried Cherries & a Maple Glaze)
Bread Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Chicken, Meat and Seafood, Side Dish, Vegetables | 2 Comments »

TND – End of Birthday Season 2012 (recipes)

January 9, 2013

End of Birthday Season 2012 – Dinner, November 27th

Pumpkin Chili
Creamed Corn Cornbread
Salad

Goat Cheesecake with Pistachio Crust Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Beef, Birthday, bread, chili, Dessert, Meat and Seafood, Side Dish | 3 Comments »

TND – Giving Thanks

November 29, 2012

It was Thanksgiving last week, and while I try to remember to be thankful for the good things in my life all the time, a little nudge to myself to actually appreciate those things never goes amiss.

As ever I am thankful for my friends who are my family – those who gather around my table every week, and those who are with us in spirit if not in actual fact due to their inconvenient insistence on living elsewhere (although we got one of them back for Dinner last week which was lovely). Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in *Petra | Tagged Meat and Seafood, recipe-repeats | Leave a Comment »

Monday Night Dinner