So what have you cooked lately? (Year three!)

dice the pork to about !/4 inch on a side.
coat it with white pepper, salt, ground coriander, brown sugar, and fish sauce. soak about a half hour.
while soaking...
cut up vegetables for stir fry. I used red and yellow pepper, onion, and snow peas. also a little garlic.
dump the pork cubes into a hot pan. let them get very crispy on a side or two. you could cook it all through and set it aside, or you could cook the veggies with it if you have the space. I set it aside.
cook the veg for minute or two, and add some hoisin sauce, chile sauce, peanuts, and a more fish sauce to taste. cook until veg are to desired doneness.
combine meat and veg.
add some torn basil.
serve over rice if you want.

You can make this to varying degrees of hotness, sweetness, savoryness, any kind of -ness. I especially like the meat treatment, keeps it moist while crispy on the outside. The whole thing could be adapted to chicken, tofu, etc easily. I enjoyed it very much.

Caramelised pear, walnut and Lanark Blue filo tart (half-eaten on return from said pub trip, remainder for lunch yesterday)
Chicken and white pudding pie (shortcrust) (half-eaten last night, other half tonight)
A sort of scotch egg type contstruction, black pudding coated with lamb mince, breadcrumbed and fried (to be eaten at some point in the next couple of days, I have a bramley and mint chutney that I think will go well with them)

http://static.flickr.com/90/252745835_9f5928a45d_m.jpg

I just stuffed some crusty rolls with mussels and leeks for lunch. That was all right.

i really want to try mark bittman's sausage/grape thing, but i fear the cholesterol.

all this while cooking up an Uber-lasagne veggie lasagne for tomorrow. Cooking really helps me completely forget work troubles (even if I am actually cooking some up)

also, marinated tofu with soba noodles and mixed veggies, which is a regular thing to make chez moi, because it's awesome. (soy sesame marinade)

oh, we made this great salad last week too--mixed greens with cucumbers, shredded carrots, goat cheese, dried cranberries, and slightly-candied almonds (you toast slivered almonds up with a bit of sugar so they stick together in little crunchysweet clusters). and easy homemade vinegrette.

Tomorrow: cuban sandwiches.

boil some lo mein noodles

then in a big frying pan:
fry some chorizo, then add - thin sliced onion, sliced garlic, a couple of teaspoons of taiwanese bbq sauce, an eighthed tomato, some soy sauce. Let that fry for a bit. after a wee while add to the pan a tin of smoked tuna slices and some ketjap manis.

Add the noodles to mix.

Top with a fried egg.

If I hadn't spent the weekend in San Sebastian, it would have been the tastiest thing I'd eaten in a long while.

I'm drinking a pretty bloody good Chilean cab sauv with it too, ahhhh bliss.

Had to come up with a starter special at short notice, and the walk-ins were nearly empty. Ended up cooking some lasagne sheets and cutting circles out of them, blitzing up a dressing of chilli, thyme and rosemary and making a sort of lasagne with slice of black pudding, layer of pasta, dressing, slice of goats cheese, layer of pasta, dressing, repeat. Quite nice, actually.

I'd make the Dipsea Cafe's eggs benedict tomorrow, but I've suddenly gotten paranoid in the last few days about my heart blowing up.

seven-grain pancakes with pomegrante sauce and a reduction of pear syrup
turkey-rice soup w. ginger & lemongrass
chocolate mint "frog" tort (aka I know how to use a cookie cutter)
congo bars
apple spice cake with molassas-bourbon frosting
apple-cinnamon cobbler
clementines and meyer lemon lemonade
christmas puddings with non-alcoholic brandy-butter (earl grey tea, spice sachet, lime juice makes a decent sub)
corn and cherry scones
cranberry clafouti
banana cream pudding in chocolate shells
cherry and sweet-cream blintzes
lebeküchen

at home i've been on a fake Poly-chinese kick, trying to emulate all the '60s vintage Tiki restaurant menus of my culinarily-deprived youth. So far I've done a decent (improved on citrus chicken) blood-orange squab with chow mein, a creamy, cinnamony, rendition of American strip-mall sweet-and-sour soup, some phony pork curries.

For Christmas presents, I made three types of catsup (Amish apple, smoky pepper, cardamom brown) two whole-grain mustards, and a vinagery BBQ sauce. They were mostly well-received, but apparently I made the mustards too spicy for my midwestern friends.

Tomorrow I'm gonna try to do a whole menu from Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite books.

I made a reasonable attempt at chocolate mousse for dessert on New Years Day. It followed Bream roasted on top of peppers and and potatoes tossed with thyme, the pan then swilled out with white wine and saffron water before being severely reduced for sauce.

But there was Sandbox ILC!

pasta with kale and beet greens. i boiled the greens for a bit with some herbs, then sauteed them with onion, smoked bacon, and garlic and tossed everything together with balsamic vinegar.
the beets themselves are delicious. i roasted them on monday and have been eating them cold with various dressings. i think tonight is going to be sesame-orange-ginger.

Flan update: pumpkin flan was definitely not cooked through, dewatering the pumpkin would have helped. Both tasted great, but I think needed more eggs (recipe called for 1 egg + 1 yolk per cup of milk/cream - that makes a fairly light custard and I like my flans heavier and eggier to stand up to the intense caramel).

This evening I'll be attempting poulet au pot du bearnaise, basically a stovetop casserole with a soft-boiled egg vinaigrette.

My cooking has taken on a bit more of an agenda of late, as I'm gearing up to open my own gaff at the end of october (planning permission notwithstanding). So pretty much everything that gets cooked at home is fine-tuning dishes I'll be knocking out at the deli when it opens.

Matt, that's awesome! I will come eat at your place every time I'm in the UK :) Are you focusing on any particular stuff?

It's falling into place? that's great news, well done mate

Wow, Matt, that's awesome, congrats! Where's it gonna be?

Thanks chaps. I expect a visit next time you're north :)

Um, it'll be in Ormskirk ("A hotbed of nothing" - R. Fowler). It's been a couple of years in the planning and getting stuff into place but we're now just the stroke of a council official's pen away from actually opening (do not get me started on planning committees, they thought we were planning to be a wine bar so we've just had to restart the whole planning permission process). Once the change of use goes through then the lease on the site will be signed, we'll quit our jobs and get busy with sledgehammers.

The focus is on local as fuck, fish landed at Fleetwood, smoked stuff from Port of Lancaster, local meats and cheeses. It's a delicatessen with kitchen, so my business partner will be selling stuff in the shop whilst I'm knocking out meals upstairs. Platters constructed from the shop's stock, daily changing hot specials (for takeout also), cakes and what have you for afternoon tea (as a proud cornishman, I fully intend introducing a proper Cream Tea to the local heathens). Emphasis very much on the english though (admittedly my background is mostly in French/Italian so doubtless that'll creep in).

congratulations! i was going to say that i made a very nice beet and goat cheese thing last night, but that pales in comparison with your news.

Matt, that's so exciting!

Wow! ILCooking FAP/M (pint/meal) in Ormskirk, anyone? Good luck, Matt!

Woohoo! Matt, that's awesome! When will you know for sure?

I'm already considering how one might rig the OFM awards next year :)

Aw, you'll make me blush.

Basically all we're waiting on is the council's change of use coming through from the planning department of the local council. The licence is fine, the police are happy, the fire officers are happy, the disability access people are happy. The suppliers are ready, the contractors are ready, the staff are trained and waiting to go. The planning department were concerned about losing retail sites until we pointed out that we ARE retail. At which point they said "oh we've got you down as a wine bar". We said "eh? What on earth are you talking about? Wine merchants, yes, wine bar wtf?" and they said "well you'll have to start the change of use process again. So ner" and we smiled politely and said "of course" and plotted dark murder behind our smiles.

End of October, with a bit of luck.

fingers x'ed Matt!

Company pitch-in today, so whipped together greek potato salad (redskins, feta, chopped green olives, w/ olive oil/lemon/black pepper dressing), parsley/tomato/mint/couscous dressed w/ olive oil/lemon/sea salt, and a pan of brownies.

Marinated some top sirloin in lime juice, sriracha, and toasted sesame oil (no chipotles in the house and wanted some kind of spicy smokiness w/ the lime) for about 15 min, stabbing with a fork all over and flipping around 3-4 times. Dried off and grilled and was very spicily excellent.

smoked bacon & kale over pasta. the smokiness of the bacon is very overpowering, i may have used to much! hahaha like that's possible.

Mrs Coastaltown has just cooked plum crumble, which was throroughly fabulous. I'm susbsisting on butties at the moment, long work stint.

Happy culinary new year!

Oops look here instead. Stupid cut and paste.