July Meals

July 21: Steak and caprese.

July 14: Dinner with guest R. to see Isle of Dogs

Melissa Clark’s harissa chicken

Asparagus (https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12420-asparagus-with-mustard-vinaigrette)

Cauliflower rice

July 7 weekend:

Farro grain bowl with cilantro cream dressing (1 bunch of cilantro, Greek yogurt, garlic, olive oil, lime juice, salt, pepper), black beans, romaine lettuce, sweet corn, etc.

How to Cook a Steak (a work in progress)

Although I’m trying to limit my consumption of animal proteins to a moderate amount, I enjoy the occasional steak. One of my ongoing goals is to cook a medium-rare steak consistently, using the stove-top and oven. So far, I’ve achieved medium and rare, but not yet in-between, so this still remains an elusive achievement.

Simple Marinara Sauce

While living in New York, my roommate’s visiting mom made a marinara sauce that was delightful and memorable in how light and bright it tasted, relying primarily on the sweetness of the tomatoes themselves and the rich texture of the olive oil for flavor. While very simple, that was a very memorable meal and the best marinara sauce I’ve ever had.

Tuna Pasta Salad

I made this out of the blue over the weekend after we had our typical green smoothie breakfast (more on this later) and spent some time walking around junk stores trying to find crap for our place while I simultaneously ate all the M&Ms I had in my purse.

Roasted Squash and Winter Vegetables

We were hosting family for a Christmas Eve dinner, and we needed to make some dishes that would taste good without having meat and garlic/onions as ingredients. This dish fit the bill and let the natural sweetness of the winter vegetables provide the flavor.

Pesto

Last weekend, we bought a basil plant.

(Amazing) Ham Soup

My cooking generally turns out fine, nothing mind-blowing.  Just pretty good for a regular day.  BUT this ham soup turned out AMAZING, there’s no getting around it.   I used the remains of a honey/sugar-glazed ham from Thanksgiving, and it was the best use of leftovers, like, ever.  I advise making as much of this amazing soup as possible because it goes really fast.  I ended up making it twice because it was so good and nobody got enough.  Plus, it isn’t often one has a ham lying around just clamoring to be used.

Asian Green Beans and Kale Chips

Dungeness crab season recently started, so there was no better idea than for the Potrero crew to get together for a meal of crab, garlic noodles and other PPQ-inspired dishes — and some other delights (like bacon-wrapped mochi) — on a day that started out quite blustery and ended up being quite nice (and us gleefully drenched in champagne). To help the cause, S and I brought the sides of greens (Asian green beans and kale chips) and a giant bottle of this year’s Anchor Steam Christmas and New Year’s Ale.

Cauliflower Soup

This soup was inspired by the fact that the refrigerator is broken and I wanted to use up the produce before it goes.  Los Angeles weather has been bipolar but I had both a cold and a head of cauliflower, and I had recently seen a recipe for cauliflower leek soup on this awesome blog.  Soup it was.

Versailles-Inspired Cuban-Style Garlic Chicken

After yesterday’s meal, there was a lot of yellow rice left, but nothing else left-over to go with it. So, I decided to make my own version of Versailles‘ “#6 Famoso Pollo Versailles” (Famous Garlic Chicken).