1. It took me a while to get going this morning, but once I did, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. First cleaned the stove surfaces and the counters and took care of dishes. I poured water over a turkey carcass and some celery and onions with seasonings and got another batch of stock going. I was tonight's host for family dinner. My first move was to steam broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. Then I steamed mushrooms and zucchini. Lastly, I steamed red pepper slices. In a large bowl, I combined olive oil, minced garlic, and seasonings and poured the vegetables in the bowl and mixed it all together. Later, I would add vinegar and some fresh squeezed lemon juice and I let this vegetable marinade cool and it was our salad tonight.
2. Meanwhile, on the stovetop griddle, I fried fillets of cod and salmon. At the same time, I thawed out pieces of mahi-mahi -- which I later fried in a cast iron pan. I let this bowl of fish chunks cool while I sauteed onion, carrots, celery, and later minced garlic in the Dutch oven. Once the onion was translucent, I poured flour over the vegetables and combined it all until pasty. I poured two quarts of my crab stock over them, brought the liquid to a boil and, instead of potatoes, added over half a head of cauliflower chopped up. I seasoned this emerging chowder with salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning. Once the cauliflower was tender, I poured over a cup of half and half into the pot and all those fish chunks. I tasted it and it seemed a little too crabby, so I added a bit more half and half and the juice of half a lemon. Then it was, I thought, just right and I let the chowder sit on the lowest heat possible to stay warm. The recipe that guide me is here. (I didn't use the seafood stock part of the recipe.)
3. Around six, Christy, Everett, Carol, and Paul arrived. I served them each a cocktail of two parts brandy and one part Amaretto with a wedge of lemon. It was a simple drink and tasted good. After we all yakked in the living room for about a half an hour, we gathered around the dinner table and I served up bowls of chowder and a little bowl of the marinated vegetables salad.
I was particularly keen on having this dinner succeed. For starters, the salad recipe came out of The Moosewood Cookbook. Cheryl, a blogging and Facebook friend from New Mexico, sent me a copy a short time ago after I had lamented in my blog no longer having a copy of it. I was surprised how badly I wanted my return to the Moosewood to work out. (By the way, Cheryl also sent me a copy of New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant.)
I wan't surprised, though, that I wanted the fish chowder to succeed. I had come up with the idea about a year ago of taking home crab shells from the Elks Crab Feed -- with Harley's permission -- and making stock with them and this was the first time I served a family dinner using this stock. In addition, I love fish chowder, but usually I've had clam or shrimp chowder and tonight I wanted to see how it would work to not have shell fish chowder, but to try salmon and the two types of white fish.
The dinner's success made me very happy. The chowder not only tasted good, but it was a perfect dish of food on a chilly and dark December evening.
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