Sunday Nite Dinner (SND) was at Jane and Mark's place this past week. Jane texted me Sunday morning and asked if we wanted to have SND at her place. This is usually how SND happens. Typically, someone wants to cook dinner and calls around to see who is available to come over.

Jane was planning on making Peruvian roast chicken and guacamole. I told her Hungry Bear and I would go to the store and pick up vegetables and make a veggie dish and surprise, surprise -- a chocolate dessert.

So this week's SND menu was created...

• Fresh Guacamole and Chips
• Peruvian Roast Chicken with Aji Verde Sauce
• Stir Fried Broccolini with Olive Oil and Garlic
• Chocolate Pudding Cake topped with Dr. Bob's Tahitian Vanilla Ice Cream

When Hungry Bear and I arrived at Jane and Mark's place, they were in the process of prepping the chicken. The recipe for Peruvian chicken with aji verde can be found in the Food Network Kitchens Cookbook. The recipe requires one whole head of garlic. Thankfully, Mark is the ultimate prep chef and his garlic mincing skills have become legendary.

The chicken is stuffed with garlic and seasoned with salt and pepper. A paste consisting of garlic, cumin, red wine vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and vegetable oil is applied to the chicken before it goes into the rotisserie oven. The chicken can also be roasted in a regular oven, but we prefer it rotisserie style.

The Serramonte Farmers' Market in Daly City is one our favorite markets in the Bay Area. We like the Serramonte market because it's relatively small but has a good selection of vendors and plenty of parking. The market can get busy, but it's never a mob scene like other markets in the area. The farmers' market is not a tourist attraction and has a more homey feel, where the locals do their everyday shopping. That's the primary reason Hungry Bear goes there on a regular basis.

We took a trip down to the market this past Thursday and returned with a bounty of fruit and food. Hungry Bear has had a regular strawberry vendor for the last several years, but tried a new one several weeks ago. After tasting the strawberries from several vendors, we have decided to switch to the new one, Rodriguez Farms, for the foreseeable future. Their organic strawberries were the sweetest and juiciest.

This past Thursday, the mountain grown blueberries from Rainbow Orchard were very delicious. Likewise, the apricots from CMC Farms were quite good. We also picked up some chicken and beef piroshkies. We enjoyed the piroshkies (Russian meat filled pastries) but since this was our first time trying piroshkies, we have no basis for comparison. Another new find was the purple Thai chili peppers. I've had red and green chilies, but I had never seen purple ones.

A popular vendor at the Serramonte market is Roli Roti Gourmet Rotisserie. You can't miss this stall. Just follow the wonderful aroma of rotisserie chicken to his stand. He also had rotisserie pork knuckles on Thursday. It looked really good with sizzling pork fat dripping down from each knuckle. I had to pass on getting it because we just had BBQ flank steak the previous day... next time!

Another busy vendor is Gold Rush Kettle Korn, which is next to Roli Roti. We have never tried his kettle corn but there's always a line of people waiting. If nothing else, it's interesting to watch the kettle corn making process.

No shopping trip is complete until something chocolate is purchased. We achieved this goal by getting a big chocolate brownie that was shaped like a muffin. The brownie was good, but I could have used a little more chocolate flavor. As always, it was another successful shopping trip at the Serramonte Farmers' Market.

Location & Hours:
Serramonte Mall Parking Lot
3 Serramonte Center
Daly City, CA 94016
Thursdays & Saturdays 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Map It

Braised pork, tofu and mushrooms is my favorite dish prepared by Hungry Bear. I love this dish because of the ground pork and shiitake mushrooms. We usually eat it with stir fried water spinach/hollow greens and jasmine rice.

The recipe is based on one found in the cookbook, The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore. Hungry Bear followed the recipe the first time she prepared it but has since altered it to our tastes. The primary seasonings in the recipe are soy sauce and oyster sauce. We have enhanced the dish by adding Vietnamese chili garlic sauce for a spicy kick. Additionally, shiitake mushrooms with its great flavor and texture has replaced the plain button mushrooms.

I really like the flavor combinations of the pork, soy, oyster and chili sauce. The dish also has a nice complement of textures from the ground pork, pan-fried tofu and shiitake mushrooms. The dish is wonderful on a bed of rice and a side of stir-fried water spinach.

Water spinach has many names such as hollow greens (due to its hollow stem), rau muong (Vietnamese), on choy (Cantonese) and kongxincài (Mandarin), which literally translates to "hollow heart vegetable." Hollow greens is one of our favorite vegetables and we simply stir fry it in a little oil with garlic and salt.

If you click through the pictures, you'll see a bowl of rice with chili sauce mixed together. I call this "red rice." I like adding the chili sauce to flavor my rice. It's not for the heat, because I'm immune to its spiciness. For heat, I'll eat a fresh chili pepper, usually a Thai red chili, with each meal.

I love braised pork, tofu and mushrooms so much that I'm having a major craving for it as I write this post. It's a really simple home cooked dish and is considered a comfort food by Hungry Bear.

I could eat this meal once a week but I'm limited to having it once a month. Hungry Bear doesn't want me to grow accustomed to eating it so I will think of it as a special meal when she prepares it. I think I have to wait an agonizing three more weeks until I can have it again.

Update 03.04.2008: Better pictures and the recipe can be found at Braised Pork, Tofu and Shiitakes.

My girlfriend, a.k.a. Hungry Bear, and I hosted Sunday Nite Dinner (SND) today. I had a craving for a big hunk of braised meat so we decided to make pot roast. Our friend, Jane, can devour a lot of red meat, despite being a small 5'5" woman. The last time I cooked a pot roast, Jane and I downed 4 lbs of roast between the two of us.

(We documented the making of SND. Just click on the large picture to advance to the next one.)

Since there were going to be 7 people at SND, I picked up 8.5 lbs of chuck roast from my butcher, Antonelli's in Cal-Mart. Yes, that's a lot of roast but I had to account for Jane's freakish red meat eating capabilities. I originally planned on going on a bike ride while the chuck roast braised in a crock pot, but there was no way the crock pot could accommodate an 8.5 lb roast. So I had to braise the chuck roasts the traditional method (stove top then oven).

The menu for today's SND was...

• Pot Roast with potatoes (fingerling and red), carrots and peas
• Stir fried Chinese long beans with shiitake mushrooms and garlic
• Fresh corn salad with red onions and basil
• Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting

The pot roast recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, The New Best Recipes cookbook by Cook's Illustrated. I liked the results of recipe but I would use all beef stock instead of a combination of stock and water in the future. I think the pot roast would have been a little bit more flavorful with all stock.

The long beans were a simple stir fry with a little oil, garlic, shiitake mushrooms and salt. Jane made the corn salad, which is always light and refreshing. It's a simple recipe with fresh corn off the cob, red onions, basil, extra virgin olive oil and cider vinegar. The fresh corn salad recipe is by Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa.

My favorite part of the meal was dessert. Hungry Bear and I were watching the Barefoot Contessa and saw her make chocolate cupcakes and peanut butter icing. The peanut butter icing was something different than the traditional chocolate or vanilla frosting.

After looking at Ina's recipe, we decided to use Gale Gand's chocolate cupcake recipe instead. Gale's recipe has fewer ingredients, particularly no butter or buttermilk. We did use Ina's peanut butter icing recipe, but reduced the sugar and heavy cream.

I like reducing sugar whenever possible. I prefer tasting the main ingredient, in this case peanut butter, in the icing instead of sugar or sweetness first. I really hate it when I buy a chocolate brownie and it tastes like pure sugar without any chocolate taste. Everyone really enjoyed the peanut butter frosted cupcakes. It's definitely something different to try.

Overall, SND was very good and we had a lot of leftover pot roast. Hungry Bear and I love eating leftovers, so we were pleasantly surprised. This was also the first Sunday Nite Dinner in over a month so it was good catching up with everyone.

SNDsters: Chuck, Hungry Bear, Jane, Mark, Garry, Karen, Ed