This weekend has been a whirl of menu planning (yes, ever more food porn) which is actually a very good sign: I finally have energy enough to contemplate making food and entertaining, albeit on a tiny scale (1-2 guests max).
Friday night I made dinner for my sweetie with major shopping assistance from FreshDirect. The photo above is of wild Alaskan Sockeye or "Red Salmon" buried under a mound of fresh dill. That vividly red color (almost toro/tuna-like) is not a trick of my camera, but the color of the fish, which remains this bright shade after cooking, and does not turn pale orange as with other salmon. Since this is the first tiem I have had wild (vs. farm-raised) salmon, I can now see why people rave about the difference in flavor. I can't figure out how quite to describe the difference, but it is distinctly different. (Not helpful, I know -- sorry.)
The sockeye is on a piece of foil because my engineer showed me how to cook it inside an aluminum "envelope" seasoned by fresh dill. Yes, those are the only 2 ingredients: fish and dill. Well okay, some salt and freshly ground pepper too, with fresh lemon squeezed upon serving.
I also made baked potatoes -- yes, really baked for an hour and not microwaved, another case where now I get why people make a distinction between the 2 types of "baked" potato. The oven-baked potato seems almost creamy in texture, whereas the nuked potato is more chunky.
Oh, and salad with mixed greens, really good on-the-vine tomatoes, carrots, scallions, celery, and vinaigrette. Since restaurant salads may be still be dicey until after chemo ends (just because I'm feeling better doesn't mean I should be reckless!) the only solution is to have homemade salads.
Speaking of which, a fortuitous discovery made a while ago: the squeeze bottle of wild Alaskan honey given to me by my friend Jane now makes an excellent salad dressing bottle -- great for shaking the balsamic, dijon mustard & olive oil together, and restrained in its dribbles over the salad.
Saturday night, my engineer and I and his best friend had dinner in Jersey City at Skinner's Loft. While we had a delicious trio of meals, with excellent appetizers, only one photo really stands out using my tiny cellphone camera: one of that night's specials, crab, shrimp & scallop pasta with a spicy sauce, which my sweetie ordered.
And the weather also cooperated, with a beautifully balmy and breezy evening which encouraged us to sit on the rooftop patio for dinner.
In between the bouts of this weekend's foodfest, I also did 5 hours of filing, in preparation of setting up my new bookcase/console table -- so how can I still have more stuff to file?!? My plan is to unearth the area where the table will go, before I (can) assemble the table and place it in its intended spot.
You can understand why food was such a welcome distraction now, can't you?
And so, during my online wanderings, I found this interesting New York Magazine article on the molecular shenanigans involved in exotic new ice cream flavors: Chemistry in a cone. This was while I was looking at reviews of the restaurant where my friend Jane and I will be celebrating her belated birthday dinner (her birthday is actually in early August, but due to our wildly conflicting schedules, the dinner will have to be on the 18th!) We will be going to Robert De Niro's new and glowingly reviewed West Village restaurant, Locanda Verde. (Oh and Jane spent a lot of time in Alaska during her engagement, so I thought it would be appropriate to include her under tonight's blog title.)
Tomorrow night I plan to make Moroccan chicken with couscous for my friends Ellen and Jackie (and following the advice of one reviewer to double all of the spices, Americans being the spice wimps that they are) -- they're coming over here for knitting night. Since it will be a school night, I did all of the prep work tonight: chopping carrots, celery, chicken, fresh ginger, rinsing the chickpeas, etc. And I now leave you with a photo of some blueberry yogurt muffins I made tonight, also for tomorrow:
Friday night I made dinner for my sweetie with major shopping assistance from FreshDirect. The photo above is of wild Alaskan Sockeye or "Red Salmon" buried under a mound of fresh dill. That vividly red color (almost toro/tuna-like) is not a trick of my camera, but the color of the fish, which remains this bright shade after cooking, and does not turn pale orange as with other salmon. Since this is the first tiem I have had wild (vs. farm-raised) salmon, I can now see why people rave about the difference in flavor. I can't figure out how quite to describe the difference, but it is distinctly different. (Not helpful, I know -- sorry.)
The sockeye is on a piece of foil because my engineer showed me how to cook it inside an aluminum "envelope" seasoned by fresh dill. Yes, those are the only 2 ingredients: fish and dill. Well okay, some salt and freshly ground pepper too, with fresh lemon squeezed upon serving.
I also made baked potatoes -- yes, really baked for an hour and not microwaved, another case where now I get why people make a distinction between the 2 types of "baked" potato. The oven-baked potato seems almost creamy in texture, whereas the nuked potato is more chunky.
Oh, and salad with mixed greens, really good on-the-vine tomatoes, carrots, scallions, celery, and vinaigrette. Since restaurant salads may be still be dicey until after chemo ends (just because I'm feeling better doesn't mean I should be reckless!) the only solution is to have homemade salads.
Speaking of which, a fortuitous discovery made a while ago: the squeeze bottle of wild Alaskan honey given to me by my friend Jane now makes an excellent salad dressing bottle -- great for shaking the balsamic, dijon mustard & olive oil together, and restrained in its dribbles over the salad.
Saturday night, my engineer and I and his best friend had dinner in Jersey City at Skinner's Loft. While we had a delicious trio of meals, with excellent appetizers, only one photo really stands out using my tiny cellphone camera: one of that night's specials, crab, shrimp & scallop pasta with a spicy sauce, which my sweetie ordered.And the weather also cooperated, with a beautifully balmy and breezy evening which encouraged us to sit on the rooftop patio for dinner.
In between the bouts of this weekend's foodfest, I also did 5 hours of filing, in preparation of setting up my new bookcase/console table -- so how can I still have more stuff to file?!? My plan is to unearth the area where the table will go, before I (can) assemble the table and place it in its intended spot.
You can understand why food was such a welcome distraction now, can't you?
And so, during my online wanderings, I found this interesting New York Magazine article on the molecular shenanigans involved in exotic new ice cream flavors: Chemistry in a cone. This was while I was looking at reviews of the restaurant where my friend Jane and I will be celebrating her belated birthday dinner (her birthday is actually in early August, but due to our wildly conflicting schedules, the dinner will have to be on the 18th!) We will be going to Robert De Niro's new and glowingly reviewed West Village restaurant, Locanda Verde. (Oh and Jane spent a lot of time in Alaska during her engagement, so I thought it would be appropriate to include her under tonight's blog title.)
Tomorrow night I plan to make Moroccan chicken with couscous for my friends Ellen and Jackie (and following the advice of one reviewer to double all of the spices, Americans being the spice wimps that they are) -- they're coming over here for knitting night. Since it will be a school night, I did all of the prep work tonight: chopping carrots, celery, chicken, fresh ginger, rinsing the chickpeas, etc. And I now leave you with a photo of some blueberry yogurt muffins I made tonight, also for tomorrow:
Yum. I look forward to tonight!
ReplyDeleteoooh, sockeye is the best! I always grill my salmon with dill, lemons and oranges.
ReplyDeleteJudy
Sadly, I own not a grill, as I live on the 12th floor, but I have been ogling the indoor, stovetop option...
ReplyDelete