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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Cooking / Open Thread: Thursday Night Menu

Open Thread: Thursday Night Menu

by Anne Laurie|  August 26, 20109:40 pm| 51 Comments

This post is in: Cooking, Garden Chats, Open Threads

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Take it (us) away, TaMara:

Since it’s been such a crazy week I wanted something simple for the menu tonight. But, just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not tasty. And we gotta get those last few weekends of grilling in before summer ends. If you’re up for adventure, you can try grilling the sweet potatoes on the grill, wrapped in foil or placed in a grilling basket. Also, for those who have requested it, I am working on a Tapas menu, just needs some testing before it goes up. Maybe in the next two weeks or so I’ll post it. Something to look forward to. If anyone else has other requests for menus, let me know, it’s always more fun if I have to go on a scavenger hunt to prep a menu. And a final update: my tomatoes are still not ripe. They sit there, abundant and green, mocking me.
__
On the board tonight:
__
__
1. Cheesy Burgers
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2. Kaiser Rolls
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3. Cajun Sweet Potato Fries
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4. Raw Vegetable Tray
__
5. Plums

Recipes and shopping list can be found at the link.

***********
There are worse fates than ‘abundant and green’ tomatoes… After almost two months of not-officially-drought, we got 5 inches of rain over a 4-day period. So today I got to pick, and discard, a whole lot of split, mildewed, blighted tomatoes that were hard green balls last weekend. And some of the gro-bagged potatoes (my new experiment for this summer) seem to be dying back, which can’t be a good sign. Days like this, I’m very grateful that my grandparents had the sense to decamp from their ancestral farms in Connemara! — Anne Laurie

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51Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh32

    August 26, 2010 at 9:46 pm

    Hope this is not a downer, but I’ve had visitors for the past 2 – 3 weeks. My cuz was here last week, my sister is here til tomorrow.

    I planned to go home to NOLA tomorrow, cause my Aunts an Uncles are having a party. I was wishy-washy for a minute, but then I’m just now watching the HBO documentary by Spike Lee “If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise”. Being in DFW, away from Nola since Katrina, I missed all the damn corruption that occcurred. The documentary is 4 hours long, but it is worth your time to watch it. It’s illuminating! It seriously almost made we weep a number of times.

    All I can say is damn!!! It’s a truth, that many don’t wanna see now, and didn’t wan to see then.

    Spike Lee did good!

    I gonna go home after I drop off my little sister. I’m gonna drive home. I’m gonna pray and let God lead me back safely. But I’m going regardless.

    One guy on the doc, said, that people from New Orleans, who may now be living somewhere else, even if where they are now has less crime, less poverty, higher income, they would all still if they could, pick up and move back to NOLA, if they could keep all the good! That is definitely true.

  2. 2.

    Violet

    August 26, 2010 at 9:52 pm

    I grill sweet potatoes by slicing them in relatively thin diagonal slices, coating with a tiny bit of oil and placing on the grill. It’s sort of like sweet potato chips. You have to watch them or they’ll burn, but they’re easy to cook this way.

  3. 3.

    Sue

    August 26, 2010 at 9:52 pm

    I live in Alabama, and green “maters” are worth their weight in gold here,

    Two of my favorite ways to use the excess:

    1. Cut them into chunks, dress with salt, pepper, and olive oil, and roast on a sheet pan for about an hour at 350.

    2. Make green tomato relish. No need to post a recipe here because there are plenty available on the innertubes.

    I doubt you’ll have to preserve much once you make these recipes. I eat them with a spoon as they come from the oven or cool from the stove.

  4. 4.

    TaMara (BHF)

    August 26, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    Speaking of NOLA, I’m going there for a long weekend in October. We wanted to spend our limited vacation dollars somewhere that it might make a difference. And I’ve never been there before and I’ve always wanted to go. So any suggestions for food, music or sights to see are welcome.

    @lamh32:I hope your trip is everything you need it to be. Safe journey!

  5. 5.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 26, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    @lamh32: That was a great documentary. Very sad, very moving, but great nonetheless.

  6. 6.

    asdf

    August 26, 2010 at 9:57 pm

    “I planned to go home to NOLA tomorrow, cause my Aunts an Uncles are having a party.”

    Are you kidding me?

    “I gonna go home after I drop off my little sister. I’m gonna drive home.”

    lamh32, you’ve got folks, you have people in your corner.

  7. 7.

    TaMara (BHF)

    August 26, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    @Sue: I would at least like to have some red tomatoes before I have to pick the green ones to avoid frost. But nice to know I have green options. Sigh.

  8. 8.

    jeffreyw

    August 26, 2010 at 10:02 pm

    Cherry crumble with ice cream.

  9. 9.

    Warren Terra

    August 26, 2010 at 10:06 pm

    Two things for the Open Thread:
    1) Apropos of last night’s Netflix Streaming Open Thread, Netflix released its WiFi streaming app for the Ipod and Ipad today.

    2) I posted this (off topic) in the last thread, the art thread, but William Donohue is being eminently mockable again – and doing so with a Religion In Lower Manhattan connection.

  10. 10.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 26, 2010 at 10:11 pm

    @Warren Terra:
    I’ve been using the Netflix app for iPad for several months now (wi-fi). Is this something new?

  11. 11.

    Southern Beale

    August 26, 2010 at 10:12 pm

    I just have to say I made Cajun red beans & rice for dinner tonight and it was fab-fucking-tastic. GLOATgloatGLOATgloatGLOATgloatGLOATgloatGLOATgloat

  12. 12.

    Southern Beale

    August 26, 2010 at 10:12 pm

    I just have to say I made Cajun red beans & rice for dinner tonight and it was fab-fucking-tastic. GLOATgloatGLOATgloatGLOATgloatGLOATgloatGLOATgloat

  13. 13.

    TaMara (BHF)

    August 26, 2010 at 10:15 pm

    @Anne Laurie – sorry to hear about your tomatoes, potatoes and Morning Glories. It is heartbreaking to watch all that work go to nothing. But somehow we plant again each spring, full of hope and expectation.

  14. 14.

    jacy

    August 26, 2010 at 10:17 pm

    @TaMara (BHF):

    The Aquarium of the Americas, Audubon Zoo, and the Insectarium are all great. You can walk from the Aquarium to the Insectarium in the French Quarter, and you can take a streetcar to the zoo. Make sure to check for local festivals, there is always something, and I mean always. City Park has ducks and a botanical garden, and the art museum is there. (Can you tell we have little kids?)

    If you like Middle Eastern food, there’s a swell place called Mona’s at the edge of the Quarter, very low key. Has a hookah bar next door. Ninja Sushi off Oak, and there’s also great little shops in that area. Magazine Street for shopping.

    There are enough restaurants in the Quarter alone that you can get anything, but if you want a real New Orleans unique experience go to Galatoire’s. It is an institution. Make sure you order the Oysters en Brochette.

    Lots of historical type stuff — my mother-in-law lives in the Quarter and volunteers as a tour guide at the Pontalba and St. Louis Cathedral. Suffice to say, you won’t get bored.

  15. 15.

    Kristine

    August 26, 2010 at 10:18 pm

    @Sue: Is there any such thing as “too green”? There’s the green that will ripen eventually, and the early green that will rot, not ripen. Does it matter which?

  16. 16.

    Warren Terra

    August 26, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts
    I guess only the iPod/iPhone compatability is new – I hadn’t known there was already and iPad version. Still, as I have an iPod and not an iPad, it’s nice for me.

  17. 17.

    Sue

    August 26, 2010 at 10:24 pm

    @Kristine:

    Kristine:

    My experience, if you want to use the green ones, use them anytime. Green ones don’t rot, red ones. do.

  18. 18.

    Platonicspoof

    August 26, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    Hi Anne,
    Just speaking to gardeners generally, tomatoes and potatoes are both hosts for two common diseases.

    Alternaria solani , early blight of both, can survive overwinter in host refuse in the soil or potato tubers that don’t get dug. Infected soil requires rotating with nonhost plants for three to four years.

    Phytophthora infestans , late blight of both, usually doesn’tt overwinter in plant refuse, but can in tubers that get missed.

    Hope you let us know what yield you get with the bagged potatoes.

  19. 19.

    DougJ

    August 26, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    Days like this, I’m very grateful that my grandparents had the sense to decamp from their ancestral farms in Connemara!

    I almost wrote “how are things in Connemara” before I realized it was Glocca Morra.

  20. 20.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 26, 2010 at 10:27 pm

    @Warren Terra:
    Got it. The iPad version has always been very stable for me. Used it when the kids were here for them to watch the shows that kids watch.

  21. 21.

    James Hare

    August 26, 2010 at 10:34 pm

    @lamh32:
    Strange you mention New Orleans — I just read this:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27racial.html?hp

    I don’t even know anymore. I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to be a part of this country anymore. I’ve lived in the Northern Virginia area almost my entire life and I just didn’t believe this kind of shit was America. I spent some time in Prince Edward county in college and thought “oh these are backward hicks — the rest of the country isn’t racist.” I was wrong as hell. The last 2 years have really made America feel like a foreign place.

  22. 22.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 26, 2010 at 10:37 pm

    @TaMara (BHF): Coop’s Place, for good Cajun. Olivier’s, for good Creole. My wife and I absolutely loved Coop’s; it is sort of dive bar deep on Decatur. Good traditional Cajun, cheap, great bloody marys. Olivier’s is less expensive than many of the more famous places; it’s been in the same family for a few generations.

    Also too, go to Preservation Hall; stand in line as long as necessary.

    ETA: Coop’s has a house cat named Stella.

  23. 23.

    Comrade Kevin

    August 26, 2010 at 10:41 pm

    I just saw something surreal on Travel Channel. David Blaine doing magic tricks with some hillbillies.

  24. 24.

    ruemara

    August 26, 2010 at 10:55 pm

    Just poked my head into GOS. Good lord, it’s awash with slashed wrists and primary in 2012 and general abandonment issues. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked as Obama has totally thrown all progressives and women under bus by not publicly firing Alan Simpson and also slapping him across the face. I’m only 40, are progressives always so emo?

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 26, 2010 at 10:56 pm

    @Southern Beale: I hate you. There, did you get the response you wanted?

  26. 26.

    Violet

    August 26, 2010 at 11:03 pm

    Oh, jeez. Firebagger alert. I just skimmed the diaries over at the GOS and there’s a diary at the top of the rec list by someone who is practically rending her garments and wailing at how much Obama has let her down. She’s calling for someone to primary him.

    I get that he isn’t perfect, but he’s a damn sight better than any Republican would be. WTF is wrong with these people? They really think a firebagger-approved candidate is going to win a primary against Obama? Honestly.

  27. 27.

    jeffreyw

    August 26, 2010 at 11:05 pm

    @Southern Beale:
    Gloat gloat gloat.

  28. 28.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 26, 2010 at 11:09 pm

    @ruemara:
    Yes. SATSQ. although, I suppose the recent popularity of Twilight could explain some of it.

    ETA: Violet Don’t read the diaries. The FPers are mostly sane, fwiw. ymmv.

  29. 29.

    Yutsano

    August 26, 2010 at 11:14 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts: You could also opt for not patronizing the GOS at all. I find this increases my sanity greatly. Hell half the time I don’t even go there when linked. Firefox is such a blessing for things like that.

  30. 30.

    slag

    August 26, 2010 at 11:16 pm

    @Violet:

    They really think a firebagger-approved candidate is going to win a primary against Obama?

    Apparently, we haven’t learned enough from the 2000 election or the eight tragically long years subsequent to that. Time for another go-round, it seems. Maybe this time the lessons will stick. Ha!

  31. 31.

    ruemara

    August 26, 2010 at 11:18 pm

    @Violet:
    It wasn’t so much that they think they would win, it was that Obama is cutting their SS and the catfood commission is his sneaky way of back stabbing the elderly and he wouldn’t fire Alan Simpson, which means he hates the vagina and the olds and he didn’t include the public option, because he’s a corporatist. Ergo, he should be primaried because we need to challenge him, because, we just should. Not sure if he would see, so then there too! Maybe if we send flowers to ourselves, Obama will have the scales fall from his eyes, or if we got a new hairdo. He was also at fault for prop 8 in one of the comments and did you know he personally called for the firing of Sherrod? The diarist was certain
    It was like a bad breakup.

    I’m often more left than people, even on the left and I’m channeling Gibbs on this. What the hell are these people smoking?

  32. 32.

    burnspbesq

    August 26, 2010 at 11:21 pm

    Anybody seen Randinho? We need a Champions League thread tonight.

    I was pleased to see that Real got put in the group of death with AC Milan, Ajax, and Auxerre.

  33. 33.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 26, 2010 at 11:22 pm

    @burnspbesq: Tonight was for the watching of the Packers.

  34. 34.

    Comrade Kevin

    August 26, 2010 at 11:25 pm

    @burnspbesq: He posted on his own blog yesterday.

  35. 35.

    Little Boots

    August 26, 2010 at 11:27 pm

    Did I miss something? Has Obama started cutting Social Security? Really? Or is this the usual bedwetting?

  36. 36.

    Yutsano

    August 26, 2010 at 11:32 pm

    @Little Boots: Much ado about nothing. Alan Simpson acted like a major dumbdonkey and the professional left is engaging in the usual pantswetting because, well, it’s all Obama’s Fault!

  37. 37.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 26, 2010 at 11:39 pm

    @Yutsano: Well, to be fair, Simpson has always been a douche. Why he was put on the commission instead of someone like a George Mitchell is a mystery.

  38. 38.

    Yutsano

    August 26, 2010 at 11:44 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts: That selection did strike me as rather…interesting. As far as I can remember he wasn’t any sort of expert on SS in the Senate beyond the whole ideological Republican objections. I’m not sure what the logic was behind that unless it involved some sort of lobbying on Simpson’s behalf.

  39. 39.

    Warren Terra

    August 26, 2010 at 11:45 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    From the little I know George Mitchell is a perfectly nice guy, but he’s hopefully keeping busy in the Middle East, and he’s a Democrat; Obama’s goal was a bipartisan committee. Alan Simpson is a Republican who’s willing to be seen in public with Democrats and isn’t an unthinking goon (his ideas aren’t good ones, but at least they aren’t Palinesque reflexive empty slogans). Sadly, the number of Republicans who meet those criteria is pretty small, so there weren’t a lot of options.

    Mind you, I don’t think the Social Security Commission has any real chance of making good policy, and I doubt it’s even good politics, so I’m not enthused that anyone was named to the Commission seat he occupies – but if there’s going to be a Commission, someone like him will occupy that seat.

  40. 40.

    Comrade Kevin

    August 26, 2010 at 11:48 pm

    Would someone please explain where this strange “cat food commission” name comes from?

  41. 41.

    ruemara

    August 26, 2010 at 11:51 pm

    @Comrade Kevin:

    OMGTHEYWILLCUTEVERYTHINGSOWEALLHAZTOEATKATFUUUD!

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 26, 2010 at 11:52 pm

    @Comrade Kevin: If you cut SS, old people will need to eat cat food to survive. Make sense?

  43. 43.

    slag

    August 26, 2010 at 11:53 pm

    @Comrade Kevin: In a civilized society, we prefer not having our senior citizens live off cat food in their twilight years. So, we create this thing called Social Security to provide them with a bit of a living during that time. And the idiots in the idiotic Deficit Commission seem to have a thing against Social Security (What can I say? They’re idiots). Ergo, Cat Food Commission.

    Or really, what they said.

  44. 44.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 26, 2010 at 11:55 pm

    @Warren Terra:
    Hmm. I’m getting Mitchell confused with someone else.

  45. 45.

    abscam

    August 26, 2010 at 11:57 pm

    @Comrade Kevin: Your answer is in 39 above.

  46. 46.

    Yutsano

    August 27, 2010 at 12:00 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: I was trying to think of who you meant that was similar to George Mitchell on the Republican side, and I drew a blank. Hopefully it’ll come to you.

  47. 47.

    Little Boots

    August 27, 2010 at 12:08 am

    A commission is just a commission, and one of the oldest tricks in the book. When it’s legislation, we should be worried, and come down on them like a ton of bricks. Til then, it is just a commission.

  48. 48.

    slag

    August 27, 2010 at 12:12 am

    @Little Boots:

    A commission is just a commission

    Somebody needs to send Freud over to Dkos. Explain the cigars and the commissions to them.

  49. 49.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 27, 2010 at 12:17 am

    @Yutsano: Maybe I’m thinking Lee Hamilton? It’s stumping me at the moment.

  50. 50.

    Little Boots

    August 27, 2010 at 12:20 am

    @slag:

    Now THAT’S funny.

  51. 51.

    asiangrrlMN

    August 27, 2010 at 3:06 am

    @Yutsano: Agreed. I visited it briefly during the silly season, but no more. You still around? How are you?

    @lamh32: Safe travels to you.

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