[homevintner]

The last few nights weren't anything to wright about, but New Year's Eve dinner was amazing.It started with a cup of corn & crab chowder, the main was a duck breast cooked to medium rare with an apricot glaze, and a heaping side of wild rice. There was plenty of warm, fresh bread to go along with it.

[Palomine]

It's not much, but when a gal pal's "in the mood for dinner and a movie" and she lives within walking distance, this is what I could come up with, having literally less than three minutes' notice.

Birdm@n was pretty great btw.

[Palomine]

Dining alone, a quick fish dinner. A nice hunk of salmon (the skin made extra crispy thanks to a very hot pan), rice with Teriyaki and furikake, a mixed salad with butter lettuce, endive and almond-stuffed olives in a soy vinaigrette, and some of that root vegetable puree (parsnip, potato and carrot) from the other night. All quite tasty.

Photo to be added once the 1-1-1 rule permits.  

[gOOber]

Stuffed vine leaves, marinated artichoke hearts, brown tomatoes, Monterey cheese spread with Marmite, and rum cake. Pretty good for a cold supper.

[pedonbio]

Stuffed vine leaves, marinated artichoke hearts, brown tomatoes, Monterey cheese spread with Marmite, and rum cake. Pretty good for a cold supper.

Are you turning vegetarian on us?   

[gOOber]

Are you turning vegetarian on us?   

No way! Just an aberration.

[Palomine]

Chipotle chicken meatloaf w/garlic mashed potatoes (w/homemade gravy) and a roast carrot recipe from the Times (w/citrus, cilantro and avocado). Salad and Pinot Grigio not pictured. We ate well and didn't manage to leave room for dessert.

[Ninjaturtle]

Tried my hand at making pasta carbonara. Turned out just the way I wanted it to. Had it with a salad.

[homevintner]

Last night was home made potato cheese soup. Tonight, maybe a large salad.

[gOOber]

 

[homevintner]

Last night was fried rice with beef and shrimp.

[Palomine]

I had two gal pals and two large (but very well-behaved) dogs over for a casual dinner tonight. I grilled burgers with sharp white cheddar and served them on Telera rolls. I also grilled an Anaheim chile and skinned/chopped it for condimenté. The beef was from Trader Joe's (80/20) which I hadn't used before, but was really tasty, and not outrageous at $4.50/lb. Aside from a cheese plate, two California white wines, Korean pickles, spicy olives and other culinary accouterments, the main thing I made to go with the burgers was an Asian red cabbage slaw, which was put together mainly by using things sourced from the door/shelves of my fridge.

Pic attached: it contains red cabbage, daikon, carrot, ginger, cilantro, shallot and a tiny bit of caramelized red onion (that I made for the burgers). The dressing was mayo (just a tad) with two kinds of vinegar (pineapple and pear), lime, sesame oil, sesame seeds, wasabi and salt/pepper/chile.

It was very good. As per usual I made way too much. Luckily, one pal took some home for lunch tomorrow.

Musical accompaniment consisted of mostly Aimee Mann, Amy Winehouse and Arcade Fire (my iTunes is proceeding alphabetically). Both dogs were great: very little barking or begging and no peeing or chewing at all. They are great dogs and they smell so good like 95% of the time.

During dinner, we had to close the front door for a bit due to the indie film crew shooting a low-budget feature 20 feet away (on my property; they're still out there right now as I type this). Since I've been involved in dozens of such shoots myself, and am now well past that, it was no problem to close my own door/windows to keep the music and laughter down to a dull roar rather than get pointlessly indignant about it.

All in all, a fine night.

PS: apparently, this is my 22,121st post since the forum crash in the summer of '01 or whenever it was that we started over.   I know that sounds like a lot, but it's less than 4.5 posts per day.

[Palomine]

My sister and I went to The Melt https://themelt.com/menu on Sunset Blvd. for the first time and it was actually pretty great. I had the Mission burger cooked medium and the regular fries. Everything tasted good and the place was clean and it was only a couple bucks more than you'd spend at In'N'Out. If you've got a The Melt near you and haven't tried it yet, I recommend it without reservation.

[solvegas]

My sister and I went to The Melt https://themelt.com/menu on Sunset Blvd. for the first time and it was actually pretty great. I had the Mission burger cooked medium and the regular fries. Everything tasted good and the place was clean and it was only a couple bucks more than you'd spend at In'N'Out. If you've got a The Melt near you and haven't tried it yet, I recommend it without reservation.

Perhaps one will open here in Sin City so I can try it out. I think I remember seeing this burger joint on the Travel Channel. I keep thinking it was on the Man vs Food show. It was a couple of years ago.

[pedonbio]

I think The Melt is only in Southern California.