This week in the kitchen

Monday/14-Oct-13: Leftover night. Sliced the remaining pork roast and warmed it with the rest of the broccoli parmentier. For a starter we had a simple salad of mâche and rucola topped with a bit on goat cheese on toast. That's all.

Tuesday/15-Oct-13: Anniversary lunch out today. For dinner there was popcorn, carrot sticks, plums, and cherry tomatoes in front of an old movie.

Wednesday/16-Oct-13: Yogurt on overday.

Shopping today. Found a package of "homemade" croissants, like biscuits. Will try in the next days. The brand is good, but there are a lot of questionable ingredients for something that should be essentially flour and butter.

For dinner I grilled swordfish and served with Thomas's Green Sauce for Poached or Grilled Fish (MrLatte, p178). I liked this OK, but Ed not at all. Have tons of the sauce left. Maybe will freeze it up to use by the drab in salad dressing or some such. Accompanied by some trio rice and some Perfect Pan-Roasted Green Beans (HandyBook) and a little salad made of grated broccoli stems, suggested by Dusolier in a box on the Broccoli Parmentier page—grated (peeled) stems with raisins, sunflower seeds, and a yogurt dressing. Used walnuts instead of sunflower seeds. Successful salad. Two squares of hazelnut-filled chocolate for dessert.

Thursday/17-Oct-13: Finally got some pasta made for dinner. Tagliatelle, to go with Porcini-Style Shiitake Mushroom Pasta Sauce (MarCuc, p152). Tonight's mushrooms were oesterzwamen (or pleurotes or oyster mushrooms) with cremini. Nicer with porcini and shiitakes, but those aren't to be found. Strange that it's the season for cêpes, but they are not to be found in our grocery. As a starter  we had Smoked Salmon Salad with Dill (BEFCC, p35), a nice little salad, quick to make. Neither of us are fennel fans, but fennel and cucumbers are a good combination.

Friday/18-Oct-13: For dinner tonight, there was Tom's Brick Chicken (CastIron, p63). I've done this before; a nice way to cook a bird. I actually started out to make a half recipe of Twin Roasted Chickens with Garlicky Bulgur Dressing (GreeneGrains, p90), but decided I didn't want to stuff a bird. Instead I just made the stuffing on the side. Good it was. And, using up the kumquats I bought last week, there was Broccoli and Kumquat Salad with Olives (Uncommon, p271). We finished off by sharing a classic Magnum. The chocolate on these just isn't as good as it used to me. Too bad.

Saturday/19-Oct-13: Yogurt on overday.

An unexpected dinner tonight, since we originally planned on going to the Fête du Vin at St Sornin tonight, but decided against it. So, we had a more or less half recipe of Shocking Pink Pasta (Dusoulier2, p115). Shocking pink, it was, too, beets and cream. I took the lazy way and used the staff mixer, but probably should have used the blender, since it was the sauce was a bit grainy. This is one of those things I'm glad I tried, but maybe don't need to make again. Although, it might make a nice starter or side dish if you needed a bit of color or a talking point at dinner.

Followed by a salad, topped with some blue goat cheese. For afters, a bit of Morbier. Both bought today at the Marché du Goût at La Rochefoucauld.

I have used quite a few seldom used cookbooks this week, but I haven't done separate posts for them. Sorry, just seems like too much trouble.

Sunday/20-Oct-13: Lunch at 4pm meant we didn't get to dinner till really late. I didn't really plan anything for today, since I thought we'd be eating out. Wrong. So it was a last minute, what-can-I-do-to-use-up-stuff-in-the-fridge sort of meal. I more or less made Spicy Eggplant Stew with Potatoes, Mushroom, and Chickpeas (WorldVeg, p196). A really tasty recipe. We split a Magnum classic for dessert.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 IHCC/COOKBOOKS: yes, #2 VEG/FISH: 4
This month: #3 PASTA: yes, #4 BREAD: no

From-Scratch Buckwheat Noodles

The Grains Cookbook
Bert Greene
Workman Publishing Company (1988)
ISBN 0894806122

The Leftover Queen's Buckwheat Noodles with Mushrooms and Sour Cream was on the menu for tonight. The recipe calls for soba noodles and I hadn't been able to find them at the grocery store for the last several weeks, so I decided to make the buckwheat noodles myself. (Buckwheat flour is readily available, being used to make crêpes throughout the lenten season.) I searched through many of my books that might have a recipe for these, and settled on the recipe for From-Scratch Buckwheat Noodles from Bert Greene's The Grains Cookbook. This is a book I've had a while, and enjoy browsing, but have used only once so far.

Since I was serving only two of us, I made a half recipe of the noodles. Elsewhere, I read that buckwheat noodles are typically three parts buckwheat flour to one part white flour, so I used that ratio in my cut-back recipe (3/4 cup buckwheat flour and 1/4 cup tipo 00 flour), rather than half buckwheat flour that Greene prescribes.

As Greene suggests, I mixed the dough in the food processor, although I really don't see the problem with mixing by hand. When I started making pasta myself, I did use the processor for the mixing, but I've stopped as I've gotten more experience. There are so many bits of the processor to be washed, whereas if you mix by hand, there's just a big bowl and maybe a fork to get things started. Either way you're going to get doughy hands.

Also, using the processor, I've never had the dough come together in a ball all by itself as Greene and others report. I usually have to dump it out and make a ball. If I then put it back in the processor, it stays together and cleans the sides as it should.

Using my cut-back recipe, I should have needed no more than 1-1/2 tablespoons of water. I added about twice that, and it could have used a bit more.

Nevertheless, the noodles were very tasty and I'd definitely do this again when the earthy kind of taste that buckwheat adds is appropriate.

This post is linked to this week's Cookbook Sundays. This is my second Cookbook Sundays post for this week, one that not really planned, since it came from needing to make a substitute in a planned meal.

This week in the kitchen

Monday/9-Jan-12: Because we went to a movie this evening, we had our main meal at midday (yay!). We had most of the leftover carrot clafoutis and a big salad. Ed chopped up our usually lunchtime fruit and added a handful of broken walnuts. I tossed in some dried cranberries for color and added a squirt of lime juice. Good stuff.

Stopped at the boulangerie in Massignac on the way to a movie in Limgoes; picked up a pain ordinaire and a small, plain Three Kings cake—still in the shops even though Three Kings' Day has past.

Tuesday/10-Jan-12: Dinner was Chipotle Meatballs (from the web; cookbooker), served over polenta. Have 6 meatballs left for another meal (into the freezer). Followed by a salad. Then a slice of the Three Kings cake I bought yesterday. Where does the luck go when you find the charm on cutting into it? The crown was too small for either of us.

Wednesday/11-Jan-12: Tonight was one of those dinners where you spend a bit of time on prep and then everything gets done in ten minutes at the end. For a main, there was Saumon mariné à l'indienne (from the web; cookbooker), a French interpretation of Indian food, which was better than expected. Accompanied by about a half recipe of Cabbage with Peas (MJ1, p105) and of Potatoes with Sesame Seeds (MJ1, p114). The cabbage should have served two, but I've got another serving in the fridge; maybe for an Indian-biased cabbage slaw? Finished off the Three Kings cake. Good thing that's a once-a-year treat.

Thursday/12-Jan-12: Lunch at Lèsignac today, so nothing much happened in the kitchen this evening. The meal was steak-frites, good, but not our usual sort of thing. One of the bowls in which the frites were served was from the same pattern as our "new" salad plates and soup plates from the charity shop!

Friday/13-Jan-12: Dinner was Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon and Walnuts (KnowHow, p383), the first of the tagines I've made from this book. (Only one preserved lemon left. Do I make more, I wonder?) Served it as a stew, rather than over rice. Very tasty. We already had birthday cake next door before hand, so it was kind of a backwards dinner.

Yogurt on overnight.

Saturday/14-Jan-12: Dinner was Curried Roasted Squash Soup (RoastedVeg, p83; cookbooker). Butternut squash isn't my favorite, but this wasn't bad. And a salad for after. Simple dinner.

Sunday/15-Jan-12: Sunday morning, nobody wanted to go to the boulanger yesterday afternoon or this morning. Buckwheat Bread (BigGerman, p38) in the ABM.

Continuing with the buckwheat theme, there was Buckwheat Noodles with Mushrooms and Sour Cream (web, cookbooker) for dinner. No soba noodles to be found in the shops, so I made buckwheat noodles instead, very loosely following From-Scratch Buckwheat Noodles (GreeneGrains, p74; cookbooker). Then a salad. Then some chevre.

Progress on goals
This week: #1 COOKBOOKS: yes, #2 BREAD: yes, #3 SOUP: yes, #4 MIDDAY: yes, #5 VEG/FISH: 4
This month: #6 PASTA: yes

This week in the kitchen

Monday/23-Aug-10: Made up a whole recipe of Homemade Sausage (30MinPasta, p161), expecting to use it for dinner tonight, but finally noticed that it should sit in the fridge overnight to blend its flavors. Oops, we won't be having the planned dinner tonight, but I've got one lump in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner and one in the freezer for whatever. Yesterday there was sweet corn at Intermarché, for the second time this summer. (The label says sans OGM, without GMO, but one doubts if there's anything left in the world untainted by GMO nowadays. And the EU is getting read to cave in to the US on this. Boo.) We had that for dinner along with a big salad that included the rest of the grilled veggies that didn't get used on last night's pizza. For afters, there was a bit Reblochon.

Tuesday/24-Aug-10: This evening we had Cornmeal and Italian Sausage (GreeneGrains) made with Giuliano Hazan's sausage, accompanied by a big salad of rucola. The polenta pie was good. I froze half of it to cook another time. This was the last (I hope) recipe for the CookbooksEtc contest.

Wednesday/25-Aug-10: Tonight was Havana Prawns (MC 2BTried, not a keeper) and Hot Jamaican Rice (MC). The shrimp were tasty, but the sauce of rum and brown sugar was not. Too sweet, but what should I expect?

Thursday/26-Aug-10: Put the lamb for Tandoori Lamb Chops on to marinate before were were off to visit to the gardens at l'Abrègement. We lunched at Nanteuil, so we had rewarmed leftover pizza with our fruit in the evening.

It was hot today. 36C. I'm melting.

Friday/27-Aug-10: For breakfast there was Scrambled Egg Burrito (CtryCityEgg, p53). This was meant for camping, I guess, so definitely under "elaborated". But the idea of warming the tortillas right on top of the eggs was a nice one.

Lunch started with Onion Bhadji (Q&E, p20) and a half dose of the Fresh Green Chutney (Q&E, p113). I made the bhadji with the chopped onions as Jaffery asks, rather than the strips as they do at Anmols. We decided that we preferred the strips. The chutney was good as always. I used the frozen cilantro, which worked ok.

The Tandoori Lamb Chops (BH&G? mag clipping, soon to be MC) were quite good, a rub worth keeping. Served these with Zucchini in a Yogurt Dressing (MC, SpiceKitch, p58) and Rice with Peas and Dill (Q&E, p103), both recipes we've had before several times. Yum. A nice meal.

Yogurt on overnight.

Saturday/28-Aug-10: Late lunch was a loose interpretaton of Courgette met Tijm en Bieslook (Allerhande, soon to be MC), zucchinis stuffed with goat cheese and herbs. Accompanied by a salad of romaine. Ended with mini-Magnums.

Have some plum ice cream ready to freeze tomorrow. Looks like the results of the CookbooksEtc ingredient contest won't be announced till the middle of next week.

We have a bumper harvest of assorted cherry tomatoes from the garden.

Sunday/29-Aug-10: We lunched at the Chateau de la Redorterie today, prior to a concert in the church in Lésignac. Only a bit of fruit in the evening.

CookbooksEtc Ingredient Contest 2010

1. 23-May/28-May: strawberries — Balsamic Strawberries with Arugula and Goat Cheese
2. 29-May/4-Jun: cheese — Spinach-Stuffed Anchos
3. 5-Jun/11-Jun: whole wheat flour — Ned and Crescent's Favorite Multigrain Pancakes
4. 12-Jun/18-Jun: ground pork or pork sausage — Curried Rice Noodles with Ground Meat
5. 19-Jun/25-Jun: blueberries — Tarte Amandine à la Myrtille
6. 26-Jun/2-Jul: salmon — Almond-Crusted Grilled Salmon with Garlic Sauce
7. 3-Jul/9-Jul: potatoes — Potatoes and Peas in a Yoghurt Sauce
8. 10-Jul/16-Jul: elbow macaroni — Macaroni Salad
9. 17-Jul/23-Jul: tomatoes — Eggs Baked in Tomatoes
10. 24-Jul/30-Jul: dates — Date and Onion Salad
11. 31-Jul/6-Aug: butterscotch chips — Chocolate Chip Cookies and the oven disaster
12. 7-Aug/13-Aug: pecans — Peppered Pecans
13. 14-Aug/20-Aug: mango or peaches — Grilled Shrimp with Green Mangoes and Red Lime Sauce
14. 21- Aug/27-Aug: cornmeal or Italian sausage — Cornmeal and Italian Sausage