Dinner tonight - or last night.

Please report on din din - -

Tonight, thawed pork adovado, thawed slow cooked pinto beans, 4 chipotle chiles and some previously made tomato sauce, some chicken stock, and, sob, my last three dried porcini mushrooms; brown rice.

Will do, daddy is home getting dressed for din din. Have a lovely evening Osso!

chicken makhti and those curry lattkes (forget what theyre called)
Boiled spinach in a light vinegar and cardamon sauce.
IM STUFFED

We had a nice sushi dinner downtown last night. I was going to make something fancy tonight for dinner but Antonio’s little buddy Justin is spending the night and I asked the boys what they wanted for din din and they both said spaghetti with meatballs, so that’s what I’m making tonight.

hint: buy- in spaghetti by the ton, kids will always default to it, (Either that or mac and cheese).

I seem to recall that these two food groups are genetically implanted

I agree! Kids love spaghetti and even my teenager would it it 7 days a week if I let her...

They sure do, in fact I still love spaghetti lol. They're both napping now, thank god! those two wore out the three dogs as well!

I fell asleep and didn’t have time to cook tonight. Antonio’s little pal Justin never had sushi before so we went to Tsunami Japanese Steakhouse. We didn’t tell him what it was until afterwards but he enjoyed the food.

This evening I had steamed bread, fried hairtail, quick-fried shoestring potatoes and sour & chilli soup. Yummy

Some friends of ours invited us over for dinner. They’re putting steaks on the grill, Marco is making a pasta salad to bring with us.

I love fried hairtail, haven't had any since the last time I was in China Town in San Francisco.

For those of us who don't know the fish -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/applesister/3977192462/
It's also known as galchi-gui on that link.

How-to recipe here, saying it is one of the most popular seafood dishes in China:
http://www.chinesefood-recipe.com/deep-fry-hairtail.html

Dinner tonight, something easy - I'm going to be tired from doing a lot of yard work and then I'm going to make almond butter cookies.
So,
I'll thaw some leftover pasta with clam sauce, heat up some pureed tomatoes as a soup starter, then heat up the pasta in the micro and put it in the tomato soup base... the idea being not to let the clams already mixed with the pasta to overcook. Will probably add more garlic and chili and even snap off the tip of a fish oil capsule and add the oil, since there'll be all that tomato, etc., adding volume to the soup.

If I have any energy left I'll start up the dough for the overnight rise on what I call Jim Lahey bread. That's an easy to bake sort of hearth bread that uses a long time rise in lieu of eight or ten minutes of kneading. That and another few breads mean that I've been able to stop buying grocery store bread - yay for me as it usually means better tasting bread, no manufacturing additives, and less cost. I play around using some different flours instead of all unbleached white. Apropo of that, I'm just starting to get more involved in The Fresh Loaf website - from which I see I have a huge amount to learn/explore.

Re Jim Lahey's bread, there are a zillion references to it online. The one I ended up with as my go-to link is

http://www.thewednesdaychef.com/the_wednesday_chef/2006/11/jim_laheys_nokn.html

This week in my cooking class we are learning how to bake desserts. Today I made an upside pineapple cake to take to our friends house to have after dinner.

Upside down cakes are fun. I've not made one in a long time, but used to use my old big cast iron skillet. You can change the fruit(s) used with the season.

My instructor said she is certain my cake will be fabulous!

Next week we will be learning how to cook different kinds of seafood.

Day one will be bacon wrapped scallops.

Scallops are an art, they take timing but not all that complicated. My favorite scallops ever were some at a chinese restaurant in LA, Fortune, somehow double cooked. 'Course, it's good if they're spiffy fresh in the first place.

I never thought in a million years Morgan would be cooking and actually enjoying it!

I owe my sister a hundred dollars.

It's wonderful to see happening. Smiles for your sister.

Looks awesome Morgan!

Has your sister been served one of Morgan's new recipes yet?

It sounds like the teacher is following a Mad Men cookbook. Very entertaining to see those recipes appearing again. Very nice.