1641

That’s reason number one. Number two is that I almost never grill a single food item by itself.

1642

Naan is traditionally made in a tandoor (an Indian oven made of a heavy stone cylinder set above a charcoal pit), where it’s flung against the wall of the oven and cooks very, very quickly. It doesn’t have time to rise, so it ends up flat, like a puffy tortilla. After it’s sufficiently charred and starts to fall off the side of the tandoor, it’s retrieved with a special hook. It looks like you basically baked naan dough in an oven on a sheet tray or stone - yeah?

1643

Yup, on a sheet tray. I should at least get a pizza stone. My recipe was almost identical to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vow-kxTPatc , so I’ve got that part right, but I definitely need to crank up the heat.

1644

Made some more Indian today. Chicken filet with “chana dal”, a basic salad, and a fairly basic pan sauce. Yummy!

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1645

Some friends came over, and brought a couple of very fine looking steaks with them. Truth be told, I was concerned I’d screw it up and we’d be left with leather by the end of it, but everything, steak, hamburger, hot dog and vegetables, came off the grill perfectly. I was more than chuffed.

1646

Finally figured out the trick to making decent hollandaise. Now I’m kinda wondering why I had so much trouble with it before, 'cause there really isn’t much to it.

Oh well. Now I can have eggs benedict whenever I want. This, er, could prove to be a problem.

1647

What was the trick?

1648

Served this last night, tasted great and relatively quick and easy.

Grilled corn and asparagus risotto finished with truffle oil and toasted pine nuts, topped with grilled halibut.

1649

I’d always tried the blender method because it’s quickest, and apparently I’ve just never been getting the butter hot enough, so the eggs didn’t set right.

The trick turned out to be heating the butter longer and using a quick-read thermometer to verify that it was around 170 degrees before pouring it into the running blender.

Voila, thick creamy delicious hollandaise. Mmm.

1650

Buffalo sliders. I made the sliders using ground buffalo and some spices, grilled them and put them inside a sweet hawaiian roll with some blue cheese. Bloody delicious. I meant to fry up some onion to go inside too, but forgot in all the barbecue mayhem.

1651

Looks really tasty skedastic. I think I’ll make some risotto this week.

For today homemade burger with naan bread and spicy masoor dal (red lentils). Not in the photo Aass Gourmet Stout beer

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1652

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Salmon filet on basmati rice with “am chatni” aka mango chutney.

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“Gaja ka halva” aka carrot halva as dessert. Not like anything I’ve tried, but pretty good.

1653

Geez, you guys are getting lazy!

Chocolate eclairs with Bavarian cream filling.

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1654

Not showing my wife that. Nope. She would want to have sex with it.

No comment on how I feel about it. Nope.

So…yeah. I tried a new tuna salad recipe tonight. It was great. Tuna salad. Ho-hum.

Want to see some pics of that? Didn’t think so.

-xtien

1655

I roasted a chicken on the grill the other day, it came out really really nicely; today, I took what was left and made a big vat of chicken noodle soup. Don’t have a recipe to post, although this page is a pretty good description of what I did.

Only thing I did that’s not on that page is boil the carcass to make a nice chicken broth (…although I added a smidge of chicken base 'cause it was a little thin on flavor).

If you want a ton of tasty food for dirt cheap, you can’t beat homemade soup.

1656

Don’t I know it. As a wise man once said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. There’s still plenty of meat on that bone. Now you take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato. Baby, you got a stew going.”

I love homemade soups and stews that start with leftovers.

1657

So I’m on my first week of a CSA (community supported agriculture-- you buy a share of the produce and pick it up every week) with a local farm. This week’s bag o’ veggies included:

kale
collard greens
red leaf lettuce
radishes
scallions
broccoli
wax beans
a zuccini
these garlicy things that look like a bulb on a 3-foot stem that the lady said, “Just use them like a clove of garlic”

And I picked a pint of raspberries on Tuesday when it was 100 degrees. I am fat and out of shape, so this was not fun.

Since Tuesday I have made:

Fried rice with the garlicy things, scallions, broccoli, some kale, and some wax beans, as well as other stuff.
Pasta puttanesca with the rest of the kale, some tomatoes I had, artichoke hearts, black olives, and, since my wife wouldn’t have eaten it with anchovies, some canned tuna.
Collard greens using some smoked sausage I had. When I buy restaurant collard greens they have a bit of a bite, and Paula Deen’s recipe said to use a tablespoon of tobasco + a teaspoon of red pepper flakes. This caused them to become absolutely spicy hot, such that my wife wouldn’t eat them, but I really liked them.
Raspberry walnut muffins.

All of this was pretty awesome.

Last night I made a salad with the lettuce, radishes, and a green pepper, and I sauteed the zucchini with some onions and pepper. The wife and I both got the runs. The lettuce was dirtier than you’d get in the supermarket, but I washed the hell out of it, same with the radishes. The lettuce was pretty wilted though, and I probably threw about half the bunch away before allowing the other half. I’m guessing something was still on the lettuce, or the radishes (which I also washed really well, and cut off anything that looked not great).

So, cooked farm fresh veg. = awesome
Uncooked farm fresh veg. = not awesome.

1658

Garlic scapes?

1659

Google says you are correct, sir.

1660

Deer meat korma with samosas, which are deep fried buns with a potato / pea / stuff filling

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