What's for Saturday's Dinner?

[cjs]

What's everyone up to tonight?

When we stopped at a grocery store in 'Meatball' Oregon, Billy's town (Roseburg), they were offering beautiful lobster tails for $4.99 lb. (I missspoke - the lobster tails were $4.99 each - just nice small ones. ) wish we could have picked up more than just two, but being the beginning of the trip, the freezer was really full.

We're having Surf & Turf tonight with one of the tails and a T-bone steak. And some pomme frites! Lookin' forward to this one!

[Old Bay]

We're trying a new marinated rack of lamb. If it works we are going to serve a 4 rack version to guests next Saturday nite for "Open That Bottle Night". We are serving half a rack per person.

[Gourmet_Mom]

It's a toss up...I really want to make the Bahn Mi burger with Daikon Slaw, but since I'd need to go to town to get the daikon AND the ground pork, I'll probably save that one for tomorrow. The other thing I've wanted to make ever since I saw it is the Spicy Garlic Chicken w/ Lemon Glaze that Vicci reviewed. That or Erin's review dinner will probably be dinner tonight.

[HomeCulinarian]

Not cooking tonight. We have plans for dinner with friends and then going dancing.

[Vanquisher]

Thomas Keller's Butternut Squash Soup from Bouchon.

[chef_Tab]

I became so jealous of Jean's lobster (and Cis is having it in Mexico) that I had to console myself with Shrimp Scampi and Ceasar salad. I made the scampi with cilantro instead of parsley and it was the best ever. The Ceasar salad has been on my mind since I made it a few days ago. Oh my is that fabulous! We may be having this at least weekly for a while.

[labradors]

Tonight was the night for my chicken experiment.

Yesterday, I put one pound of peeled tamarind into a saucepan, added enough water to cover it, boiled that until reduced by half, then let it cool to room temperature. I didn't strain the tamarind, since it wasn't going to be used in a way where that would matter.

Then, peeled, seeded and diced one pound of papaya and added that to the tamarind, followed by a sliced large onion and some salt and pepper.

After stirring that mixture together well, I put it into a ZipLoc bag, added some chicken, zipped it shut, and let the chicken marinate in the fridge for 24 hours.

Tonight, I removed the chicken from the marinate, cleaned off any stray bits of tamarind, then baked the chicken until done.

For a first attempt, it was VERY good, but I thought it could do with maybe one more flavour. In this case, I wouldn't use pineapple, but I'm debating which to add: orange juice or diced mango. Since the tamarind was what I had really wanted to use, I think I may use less papaya (maybe half a pound), and small amounts of both orange juice and mango. That would give it some additional flavour without taking away from the tamarind.

So, this is still a work in progress, but it was still very tasty.

[DFen911]

Chicken for me too. Going to try doing the whole chicken in a pressure cooker with some lemon, herbs and garlic. Wish me luck

[chef_Tab]

Denise, I miss my pressure cooker. I think it is difficult to miss with those flavors. I am sure it will be awesome.

Rob, I sure envy the produce you have available. Wish I could join you for dinner.

[esgunn]

I have no idea, but seeing as it is 5:45 and dinner is usually at 6:30, I had better getting it decided on!