Home Cooking Dish of the Month (March 2013) - Nominations

[L.Nightshade]

It's time to think about what we'll be cooking together in March. (Actually, it's slightly past time, but I just got my computer back from being in the shop!) In February we've been cooking Risotto, and it's been an active, interesting, and informative thread. If you haven't seen it, and you'd like to take a look, click here:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/888780

While we continue to cook risottos, let's consider some dishes for next month. Remember that a dish is defined as an ingredient, and a method of preparation.

Nominations will be open until February 24th at 8pm Pacific time (11pm Eastern time, and 3am February 25th GMT). Please nominate your dish by writing it in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. You may nominate more than one dish, once we move into voting, each person will only get one vote.

As always, if you haven't participated before, please feel free to join in!

[L.Nightshade]

The voting thread for March is now up here:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/891851

[L.Nightshade]

Nominations for the March Home Cooking Dish of the Month are now CLOSED!

What a great list of possibilities. I am in the middle of a wonderful dinner right now, but I will post the voting thread tomorrow morning.

Thanks to everyone for participating!

[delys77]

VEGETABLE SOUP, I believe earlier i just said soup.

[Dirtywextraolives]

I'm not even sure I'm doing this right.....

SOUP - VEGETABLE, BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY VEGETARIAN, CHUNKY OR PURÉED

BRAISED CABBAGE
ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS
BRAISED SHORTRIBS
STEAMED MUSSELS
SAVORY OR SWEET SOUFFLÉS

[jpr54_1]

ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS

[L.Nightshade]

Dish of the Month reminder!
The nominations close in about five hours.

If you've typed your nomination in lower case, please come back and type it in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

If you've nominated a broad category, such as soup, please come back and refine your nomination to something more specific.

If you've nominated an ingredient, such as cabbage, please come back and name a preparation that would make that ingredient into a dish.

And, if you haven't nominated anything yet, now is the time!

[gingershelley]

You go girl, well said!

Excellent job of herding cats:)

Of course, wonderful, great, sophisticated CH cats, but we can be cats nonetheless when we don't listen to the intonations of NOT an ingredient, or - well, "soup" is just too broad.

I am guessing this will get easier for folks to get clear on the criteria as we have this category longer.

Thank you, brave leader.

[blue room]

Ah well, my beef braises can wait, VEGETABLE SOUP is a

win-win suggestion! Beef can play a part in many many vegetable soups.

[juliejulez]

CHILI

[Berheenia]

HUMMUS
GRANOLA BARS
TIKKA MASALA

[Musie]

TIKKA MASALA

or

SEAFOOD CURRIES

[juliejulez]

Question, would vegetable soup include things like pureed soups, or something like tomato soup? I'm not a big fan of chunky vegetable soups but I like pureed type soups.

[mariacarmen]

i'm with you jj, and i'm sure it would include those as well. but i'll wait until L.Nightshade confirms. If yes, i may just put my vote in for veggie soups.

[ItalianNana]

L. Nightshade

*poke*

I think any vegetable based soup, from vegetable beef to a cream of artichoke (which I can't seem to perfect) ought to be considered.

[sedimental]

I would think so. Creamed or puréed vegetable soups are my favorites too. Especially with creative toppings!

[L.Nightshade]

OK, I've been thinking about this. In reply to juliejulez, mariacarmen, ItalianNana, and anyone else wondering about vegetable soup...

I think the more well-defined a dish is, the more we are working together, perfecting, and sharing a dish. And that is really the idea behind this thread. When I think about what makes a dish, I think about whether I could order it in a restaurant. If I ordered vegetable soup, and received cream of artichoke, I'd be pretty surprised. I'd really love to see a vegetable soup thread, and one day, some kind of cream/puree soup thread. The broader the category is, the more we eliminate future categories. I'd actually like to see something very specific here, for example a month of minestrone.

All that said, I would probably do what I have done in the past. If vegetable soup makes it into the voting round, I will ask people voting for it to say something about what they consider to be vegetable soup, and go with the consensus.

Does that seem reasonable?

[blue room]

I'd like to see cream soups as a separate month. Soups with a broth or stock base should be apart.

[gingershelley]

+1 on the separation - tho I would add that a cream soup could easily have a stock or broth base + cream/potato, etc. added.

The defining thing is one is pureed, or at least it's base is; the other is a brothy chunky soup category.:)

[jpr54_1]

sounds reasonable

[ItalianNana]

You make a good point. I'm on board.

[gingershelley]

Thanks spr54 & Italian Nana - I hope that helped people clarify their interests for March.

[Dirtywextraolives]

I like the idea of SOUP, but would like it to be broadened, so meat can be added......

BRUSSELS SPROUTS
CABBAGE
MUSSELS
SHORT RIBS
SOUFFLÉS

[jpr54_1]

I was confused by titles of home cooking dish of the month and San Diego board. I think there1 or 2 others.

CORNED BEEF
HUMMUS
VEGETABLE SOUP

[L.Nightshade]

There are Dish of the Month threads in some of the regional categories, that are about trying certain dishes at local restaurants. This thread under Home Cooking board is about all of us cooking the dish during the month. I think you've got the idea with these and your previous nominations.

[ItalianNana]

VEGETABLE SOUP (not necessarily vegetarian)
This appeals to me because:

1. The technique of making a superior stock is a skill many modern cooks consider unnecessary.
2. This is a dish that can happily be eaten weekly and can really take advantage of regional produce.
3. Soup is economical
4. Vegetable soup can be the perfect vehicle for introducing picky eaters to new veggies
5. Making soup is like cutting your own firewood. (which warms you twice). Both the creation and consumption is nourishing and soul satisfying.
6. A decent vegetable soup can be prepared by a beginning cook but refined to liquid bliss by a talented chef.

CHILI
RED MEAT STEW

[L.Nightshade]

What a great post ItalianNana! I love each and every one of your points about vegetable soup. So well thought out!
You've inspired me to put in one of my nominations for:
VEGETABLE SOUP.

[ItalianNana]

Why thank you for your kind words. I am delighted to have inspired you.

I might add that making and eating a delicious soup with a full flavored, multi-layered stock is a very sensuous experience too!

:-)

[gingershelley]

I am sorry I have 'fallen of the wagon' of DOTM - extreme illness (protracted) and an intense work project got in my way; trying to get back on board with some late breaking-risotto's still this month...

For March, still being chilly, to very nippy, to downright freezing in most of the country - and a lot of great produce will have yet to come on for most of us (I hope alot of us are trying to cook more seasonally and NOT eat scads of produce flown thousands of miles:)

I vote for CHILI!

This is a wide-ranging topic, but specific too. It could be veggy chili, chicken, chili verde, or a good ol' bowl-o-red.

Lot's of options to see peoples creativity and get some new ideas for my kitchen!

[herby]

+1 CHILI

[herby]

COOKED VEGETABLE SALAD

[Frizzle]

COOKED VEGETABLE SALAD

I also love the vegetable soup nomination however I feel I already know plenty of recipes for soup but my cooked vegetable salad repertoire is lacking. It would be great to learn a few more.

[ptrefler]

SOUP. So many possibilities that can help transition through the often gloomy weather of March to April when the idea of spring begins to seem real.

[Breadcrumbs]

Tikka Masala

Chili

[Kontxesi]

Mmm. I second both of those.

[L.Nightshade]

Kontxesi - if you are nominating the dishes in Breadcrumbs post, you need to write the dish names in capital letters.

[Breadcrumbs]

I'll make my suggestions official since there's some interest:

TIKKA MASALA

CHILI

[sedimental]

VEGETABLE SOUP

I can't do more carb centric dishes, says my sluggish winter metabolism! ;) I think there would be a wide variety of styles of vegetable soups to keep it interesting all month, maybe?

"Soup" has been nominated before and I am just fine with that too. I love all kinds of soups. I am nominating specifically vegetable soup to see if others think it could keep it more focused on the vegetables -although meat, beans, etc could also be included, it would be nice to get a lot of fabulous vegetable focused soups to try for March!

[Dave MP]

I like the idea of VEGETABLE SOUP.

As I've mentioned before, I do think this project works better when we're more specific about a dish, as opposed to an ingredient or a broad category. I think discussions about the best dishes to make with (insert ingredient here) are great to have on Chowhound ... but it's not dish of the month.

Other nominations that sound good to me so far are:

TIKKA MASALA
CHILI
(RED) MEAT STEW

Some other ideas:

OMELETS
MOUSAKA
HUMMUS

[aching]

VEGETABLE SOUP

[herby]

I am not nominating yet, just thinking out loud.

Through this thread I realized that I do not want to cook most dishes more than once a month. And if I do or make several servings of one dish, it inevitably goes into that big black hole that is the bottom part of my frdge aka freezer. At the moment there are two types of risotto and rice & orzo dish from Jerusalem among other dozen or so prepared things. There is still 1/3 of risotto month left but I am not making any until the frozen ones are consumed and that would take me to April, at least.

I could get behind soup; have two kinds in the freezer but even so. Things that I make a couple of every week are salads. In the winter these salads could be grain based or made of cooked vegetables. When I lived in Albania my favourite salad during the winter was what they un-appetizingly called "boiled vegetable salad". Made of nicely cooked vegetables, dressed with butter and lemon juice it was delightful.

Maybe we could try cooked vegetable salad in March? For most of us it will still be winter, too early for nice fresh greens. Cooked salads could be made of a single vegetable (potatoe, beet, carrot, etc.) or a mixture; boiled or roasted or baked; dressed with a vinaigrette, mayo-based, asian inspired, etc.

Another dish that I would make more than once a month is frittata. The method is to bake in the oven and one "must' ingredient is egg (custard); the other ingredients vary from one to many veggetables, cooked or raw, any kind of protein or not, herbs and spices.

One more dish comes to mind and that is dumplings. I'll make dumplings more than once a month because there are so many different kinds.

Curious to hear what the DOTM community thinks of my suggestions :)

[HillJ]

They are all great ideas. I just want to avoid another starch after the delicious risotto thread. I also have risotto in the freezer....and new recipes galore thanks to the posters and links!

Any winter vegetables I'm on board with. I love red meat stew but I make it all the time.

FWIW, I'd like to see a vegetable for March.

[Frizzle]

I like the cooked vegetable salad idea. I could definitely do a few of those.

[delys77]

I'm not sure if this would count, but how about soup. It is a type of preparation, and typically involves some time of broth so I would guess it would meet the criteria. So if it does my nomination would be for SOUP.

[eLizard]

since it's lent maybe something meatless.... EGGPLANT dishes

[Cinnamonster]

I've been meaning to make more eggplant dishes, so EGGPLANT for me as well.

[juliejulez]

I'm going for it again... RED MEAT STEW!

[ludmilasdaughter]

I second Julie, but I don't think we're going to win. RED MEAT STEW.

[HillJ]

ludmil, it's still super early in the nomination. Last month red meat stew was a popular idea.

[juliejulez]

Probably not, but I figured it was worth a shot. That's why I voted for chili too though :) I still have that 3lbs of beef stew meat in my freezer to use up!

[HillJ]

CABBAGE dishes