March 29, 2012 Lunch – La SalitaDinner – Stir Fried Spaghetti
Mike and I went to La Salita for lunch and this time I
decided to order only one Chile Relleno and refried beans off the Lite Bites
section of the menu ($6.85).
This time the chile relleno was tough and left me with an
upset stomach that lasted into the night.But perhaps the stomach ache was also caused by being on deadline to
file two pleading in the Lower Rio Grande
adjudication.I finished drafting and
editing the pleadings and filed them and sent copies to my client for mailing
to the distribution list at around 6:00 p.m. when Suzette called me to the
dinner table, where I was pleasantly surprised to see a plate of her famous
stir fried spaghetti.
What Suzette had prepared was a combination of PPI’s.A bit of two PPI’s: I spaghetti with
mushrooms and the Spanish tapa of artichoke hearts and fresh peas and pork
lardoons.She fried the two PPI’s together with some PPI spaghetti in alarge skillet with Spanish olive oil. Viola, stir fired spaghetti.A magical five minute meal that we ate with
an interesting and lovely soft smooth tasting bottle of Spanish wine made from
several Spanish grapes and Gewürztraminer.
After dinner I went to the Last Thursday Book Club meeting
discussion of “The Good Soldier” with Charles Palmer.A very full day.
March 30, 2012 Breakfast – Tia Juanita’s Lunch Oyster Stew and Dinner Joe T. Garcia’s
We left home for Dallas to attend the wedding of my nephew-in-law, Nick Goggans, and Brooke Botello at 7:15 a.m. and arrived at Tia Juanita’s food booth in the main concourse of the arrival/departure area at around 8:00 a.m., our new favorite breakfast burrito restaurant. We ordered a carnitas breakfast burrito without any chili or potatoes ($7.16) and asked them to cut it in half. After we boarded the airplane for Dallas and I was served a glass of orange juice I went back to Suzette’s seat and fetched my half of burrito. It was perfect, a round tube of scrambled eggs around a tube of mildly seasoned stewed pork. I order a hot tea and poured some of my orange juice into it to give it a slightly sweet citrus flavor and gobbled down my one-half burrito.
When we arrived at Dallas, we picked up our rental car and drove to Billy’s house where he was waiting for us with fresh mushrooms, fennel and oysters. He started milk cooking and sliced mushrooms and added them to the stew pot, then I sliced fennel and he added that. I then went to the garden in the back yard and picked a handful of lemon thyme and plucked the leaves and chopped about 1/1/2 tsp. of fresh thyme leaves and we threw that into the stew. Billy had bought a fresh loaf of French bread that he sliced and brunched with olive oil sautéed in olive oil that he put into the small electric toaster oven. Then Billy opened a quart container and pint container of fresh Gulf oysters he had purchased at Central Market and added them to the stew. Then he and I went to the wine fridge just off the kitchen and we selected a Laxas Albarino to drink with the stew. I opened it and poured a little bit for Suzette to taste and she immediately screwed up her face into a puckering way and said that I needed to try the wine. I took a sip and instead of that light citrusy flavor I expected, got a slightly sour flavor I associate with oxidized wine. So we looked at each other decided to try another bottle. Billy said he would use the wine for cooking and said to open another bottle. We went back to the wine fridge and picked a bottle of Crémant du Bourgogne sparkling wine and opened it. I was instantly hit with its clean French chardonnay flavor and lightness due to the champagne fermentation.
Suzette wanted to sit outside, so Billy fetched the electric blower and blew the tree buds off the porch and table and chairs, while I poured glasses. We each ladled a bowl of oyster stew and poured glasses of Crémant and had a delicious meal at the table on the raised patio overlooking Billy and Elaine’s lovely back yard with slices of the garlic bread.
After lunch we napped for about an hour and then dressed and made the one hour drive to Fort Worth and arrived at the Kimbell Museum. When we got out of our car, we saw Vhal Jackson, my ex-wife Amy’s husband, and his son Aaron were leaving the museum. We expressed our delight at seeing each other and said we would see them at 7:00 p.m. at the rehearsal dinner and went into the Kimbell at 5:00 p.m. for its Friday evening opening. As we entered the Clark Museum Exhibit we were again surprised to see Marta Gaines, Amy’s mother who had driven into Fort Worth with Amy for Nick’s wedding. We said hello to her and her friend, Cathy?, and then wandered around the exhibit. The Clark’s collection, housed in Williamstown, Massachusetts, included mostly French Impressionist art. There were many Monets and Renoirs, but there were also a goodly number of other artists’ works starting with Jean-Leon Gérôme’s great “Snake Charmer”, a lovely nude by Bouguereau, and Camille Corot’s “Bathers of the Borromean Isles” from the Academic period through Paul Gaugin’s post-impressionist “Young Christian Girl” (1894). My favorites included a Monet painting of a boat on a stormy sea and his great “The Cliffs at Eretat”, an early Renoir painting of a sea in reds and blues that preceded Fauvism by thirty years and two self-portraits of Renoir, and lots of other great paintings by artists such as Morrisot, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cassatt, Sisley, and many others.
We did not finish until 6:30 and then it was time to go to the rehearsal dinner. We arrived the small converted chapel at Joe T. Garcia’s on north Commerce at around 7:00 p.m. Joe T’s is a Fort Worth institution. The restaurant was started by Joe T. Garcia and his wife, Jessie, in 1935 and has grown from a seating capacity of 16 to 1600 seats over the last 75 years, as more and more buildings and patios have been added. The best items on the menu as far as I am concerned are the cheese enchiladas and refried beans. I remember my first trip to Joe T.’s, a field trip for my McLean Junior High School Spanish class with Miss Poindexter. The enchiladas bathed in red chili sauce and smothered in cheese and baked until softened to a pastry like consistency and creamy refried beans, creamed with lard, were the same tonight as they were 50 years ago. That is the secret of Joe T’s consistency of great recipes. The other secret of Joe T’s is the hospitality. Joe T was famous for his hospitality and after his death in1953, his children and grand children and great grand children have carried on that hospitality. Almost every table was filled with pitchers of margaritas and lots of happy, laughing people.
It is amazing to me how a simple formula of consistently good simple food like enchiladas and beans and friendly hospitality can create such a huge success.
But back to the party, when we arrived, we were greeted by Amy and Vhal. Me met Carter Llewelyn and his wife, Mary and soon lots of other folks started arriving, mostly thirty year old children of old friends who I did not know, who grew up or were friends with or worked with Brooke and Nick. I did meet Nick’s aunt, Tinker Goggans Ross?, who now has two children and lives in Plano. I talked to and sat beside Lindsay Holland, who I had remembered from poetry readings at the Fort Worth Art Museum days and Ted Gorski who is still a staff attorney for the City of Fort Worth and doing land use planning law. I talked to Rick Goggans, Nick’s dad, for a while, who is still very busy as a psychiatrist in Maine and engaging conversationalist while maintaining his low keyed psychiatrist demeanor. But mainly we sat and watched the younger folks swirl around the room re-connecting. I spoke to H.O., who is from San Miguel de Allende and works with Nick at @Umbel and found out that in the ten years since I last saw Nick in New York, when he had recently quit working as an assistant for Charlie Rose and was then working in an art gallery, that he has become the C.E.O. of a hot new digital media startup that assists advertisers target their ads and utilize social media information the way Neilsen monitors television viewing.
Finally at 10:00 p.m. we said goodbye to Amy’s sister, Cissie, who is Nick’s mother and Rick and took off for Dallas. Thank god we had Suzette’s GPS trip app, because I made two wrong turns in the network of freeways that link north Fort Worth to north Dallas. Adios.
We went to the Palmers for dinner tonight.Susan cooked a five pound roasting chicken in a large covered clay pot with a medley of leeks, yellow Yukon and pomme de terre potatoes, and carrots.As she described it you soak the large casserole in water until it absorbs a lot of moisture and then you start cooking at a high temp and then lower the temp and cook for a long time and during the last thirty minutes the liquid from the pot and the vegetables evaporates and the chicken and vegetables brown.Susan made brown gravy from the deglazed cooking solids and liquids left in the casserole and blanched string beans while I made a Béarnaise Sauce, a la Julia Child, but with a White Balsamic that was sweeter than regular white wine tarragon vinegar. Not being familiar with the Palmer’s electric stove and not wishing to have the sauce fail, I kept the heat very low and the sauce did not get drive off much liquid and did not get as thick and creamy as normal.
Susan and Suzette worked together to sauté a pile of halved Brussels sprouts in a skillet until slightly brown. We brought a bottle of Jacques Bourguignon Chablis 2009 from Trader Joe’s ($8.99) that was light and fruity but without much elegance.The minerality and lightness did go well with the browned roasted chicken and vegetables though.
After Susan made strawberry short cake for dessert with fresh strawberries and angel food cakes from Costco and whipped cream, which I dowsed liberally with blackberry liqueur and ate with sips of Triple sec.
The other chicken refers to the new Sou Bite cooker Charlie had just purchased from Costco (about $300.00) in which he cooked several slabs of chicken over a one to two hour period.The Sou Bite cooks sealed bags of food at a constant temperature in a water bath basin.The flavor of the Sou Bite cooked chicken meat was very tender when it came out of the water bath but it soon lost its succulent texture after it cooled or was sautéed in butter.The meat seemed to have a more tender texture than other methods of cooking that apply heat to the surface of meat, such as sautéing or grilling.
Charlie says he is going to try a steak next.I left a pitcher of Béarnaise Sauce to eat with it..
March 24, 2012 Dinner – Shrimp Scampi in a Tomato Mushroom Sauce on Linguine
We met Amy at Farm and Table for lunch and Amy and I both ordered cheese enchiladas, with cottage fry potatoes and pinto beans. The enchiladas were really clean tasting and the warm flour tortilla tasted as if made fresh. Suzette ordered a quinoa salad with a round of sauteed goat cheese coated with panko that was also lovely. Farm and Table is our new favorite restaurant for fresh vegetable oriented food. We can hardly wait until its garden is in full production.
Since we had gardened and shopped and went to an auction and ate a big lunch at Farm and Table, we did not want to cook a big meal for dinner.Since we had a lot of PPI Shrimp Scampi left from our March 23, 2012 dinner, we decided to add tomato sauce and mushrooms and make the scampi into a shrimp into a Marinara sauce.So we poured some PPI Tomato Sauce into a skillet and heated up the scampi and threw in about five or six sliced baby portabella mushrooms and about 1 cup of cleaned fresh baby kale from the garden.Suzette then added the PPI Shrimp Scampi and about ½ cup of PPI cream sauce made with the salmon and scallop poaching medium several nights ago.This gave the tomato sauce a little creamier consistency and flavor. When the sauce was hot, we served the sauce over heated PPI linguine with a bottle of D’Aquiino Chianti Riserva 2006 from Trader Joe’s ($5.99?).The dry chianti with a hint of tannic after taste was great with the shrimp in the creamy tomato sauce.
March 23, 2012 Shrimp Scampi on Linguini and Broccoli
We were hungry and tired tonight.We had thought of going to the Chocolate Fiesta, but ended up making an easy dinner instead.
I thawed out a pound of shrimp that had been sliced along the top of the shell to open the vein in which the black vein of refuse was removed.I love this food product (Sunflower Market ($3.99/lb.) because it is easy to strip the shell off the shrimp and the shirimp are already scored so they flare out when heated in a sauté pan.
Suzette started water boiling for linguine and crushed garlic into a large skillet, then I fetched a bottle of Cutler Creek Pinot Grigio and she added butter and a generous 1/3 cup of Pinot Grigio and about the same amount of water to the skillet and then added about ten broccoli flowerets and sautéed the mixture for a minute or two and then we threw in about six stalks of parsley chopped and the leaves from about four or five sprigs of thyme.We then heated an end of a sourdough French loaf from Costco (2 16 oz. loaves for $4.99) in a 375° oven for about ten minutes.
When the pasta was cooked a little past al dente we strained off the water and plated up the pasta and threw on some of the shrimp scampi mixture and poured a glass of A to Z Oregon Pinot Gris and enjoyed the pasta dish and dipped bits of bread into the sauce.
After dinner, Suzette wanted me to test whether a ½ loaf of St. Andre left over from Christmas was any good.I dug into it and removed the hardened edges and spread the soft center onto pieces of the still warm French Sourdough bread and ate it with a glass of PPI Garnet Cabernet Sauvignon.Pretty tasty for old wine and cheese.
March 26, 2012 Dinner -Grilled Lamb Chops with Asparagus and Roasted Potatoes and Fresh Green Peas
Suzette did a meat run to Costco on Sunday and purchased a package of 8 lamb chops and pork tender and two chickens.On Sunday evening we roasted one of the Chickens and roasted the potatoes and blanched the fresh green peas we had purchased at Trader Joe’s.
On Monday evening I made a Mint Sauce, adjusting a recipe from the “Joy of Cooking” (Sugar, water to make syrup, then adding chopped mint and apple cider vinegar to taste).Suzette basted the lamb chops with the mint sauce and grilled them to rare while I heated the PPI Potatoes and Green Pea medley and steamed the asparagus.We plated two chops and the vegetables and drank the rest of an open bottle of D’Aquino Chianti Riserva 2006 from Trader Joe’s ($5.99?). A simple meal, but the fresh lamb was delicious with the potatoes and peas and asparagus.
Sometimes simplicity is deceptively pleasant.
Cognac mixed with Cointreau along with French chocolate Truffles after dinner capped off the food experience.
March 25, 2012 Dinner – Roasted Chicken and minted potatoes and peas.
Tonight, our friends, Cynthia and Ricardo came over with some drawing for the modification of our garden and dinner.Suzette went to Costco for a chicken and we skewered one chicken on a Spandex rack and stuffed slices of lemon, butter and sprigs of fresh tarragon from our garden under the skin and roasted the chicken in the oven for 1½ hour at 350°.In addition, we quartered and cubed Yukon Gold potatoes we had purchased at Trader Joe’s on Saturday (3 lb. for $1.99). Suzette tossed the potatoes in Spanish olive oil, pepper and coarse Maui salt and roasted the potatoes for 1 hour at 350°.When the potatoes were finished roasting, we chopped about 1/2 cup of fresh mint from our garden and we then blanched one 10 oz. package of fresh shelled green peas (10 oz. for $3.29) in minted water and strained the peas and poured them onto the potatoes .Cynthia and Ricardo brought a bottle of Clos de Bois Russian River Chardonnay and a salad that went nicely with the chicken and potatoes and peas.We served a bottle of Fumé Blanc from Trader Joe’s ($12.98).For dessert we ate Belgium Butter and almond cookies from Trader Joe’s in the garden.
A lovely evening with temperatures around 68° and the first meal cooked with tarragon fresh from the garden. Thank goodness we are finally starting to have fresh spring produce in our garden.
Cynthia is designing a modification of the back yard, so we talked for a while about that. Ricardo is designing sets for the Disney Lone Ranger films. We sat in the gardne until 9:30 with a small fire in our outdoor ceramic fire pit Yeah, it's spring!
March 21, 2012 Lunch – PPI Noodle Soup;Dinner – Poached Seafood in Cream Sauce
In the morning on the way home from my Business Water Committee meeting I stopped at Pastians’ Bakery on 2nd St. for day old bread and bought 6 plain bagels, a loaf of German Sourdough Pullman, and three French baguettes (two of whole wheat and one of white flour) for $2.81 or ¼ of retail.
I do not usually mention lunch, but I really enjoyed the PPI amalgamation today.In the spirit of not wasting anything, I threw the cooking medium from the Cream of Asparagus soup that included about one pound of asparagus and four or five stalks of celery from Sunday’s dinner into the pot of mixed bean thread and vegetable noodles with ham, shrimp and PPI teriyaki mackerel.So, today I added some water to thin the soup (as noodles sit in water they absorb water and swell up) and heated the soup for lunch.The wonderful vegetable flavor of the asparagus mixed with the meats was delicious and very invigorating. After lunch I took a few vitamin and ibuprofen tablets and at I rode 18 miles in a rather heavy wind.
I love poached seafood in a cream sauce made with the poaching medium, after lunch I took two small filets and four scallops from the freezer and let them thaw in the sink.I spoke to Suzette at around and told her my idea for dinner and mentioned that I wanted to put some craisens (dehydrated slice cranberries) into the sauce because we both like cranberry sauce with salmon.
At around , after my ride and a shower, I sliced six (1 cup) baby portabella mushrooms and removed about 1 cup of broccoli flowerets from their stalks and left those on the kitchen counter and went to meditate.When I returned home from meditation at Suzette was sautéing butter and garlic in a large skillet and placed the steamer on the stove with water and the broccoli flowerets.
I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of Cutler Creek Pinot Grigio (Jubilation or Sunflower Market $3.33) for the poaching medium.Suzette made the poaching medium in the same skillet by adding about ¾ cup of wine and about the same amount of water and the sliced mushrooms (usually Court Boullion calls for thyme and parsley, but tonight we did not add them) to the butter and garlic. We both agreed that we should throw the craisens into the poaching medium to allow them to re-hydrate, so I fetched a handful and tossed them into the skillet as Suzette placed the salmon and scallops into the skillet, covered it with a wok lid, and turned up the heat to allow the poaching medium to develop steam and poach the ingredients.
While the salmon and scallops poached, I fetched some butter and put 2 Tbsp. of it into a steel mixing bowl to which Suzette added 2 Tbsp. of flour and mashed the two ingredients together into a buerre marie.After the salmon and scallops had poached for about ten minutes, Suzette started the broccoli steaming in the steamer and I wrapped ½ of one of the whole wheat baguettes in aluminum foil and placed it in an oven heated to 350° and Suzette removed the salmon and scallops to a baking dish and put the salmon and scallops into the oven to keep them warm while we made the cream sauce.
Suzette asked if I wanted some rice and I said yes and fetched the last cup of PPI rice from the fridge and heated it in the microwave and cut a lemon in half and halved that and placed a ¼ lemon wedge on each plate that Suzette had placed on the kitchen table ready for plating dinner and she put napkins and forks and knives on the dining table in the TV room.
The cream sauce prep was easy.Suzette spooned about five tsp.s of the poaching medium into the buerre marie and whisked it vigorously to blend it into a smooth paste.She then spooned the thick paste into the poaching medium that had been reduced to low heat and I whisked the paste and liquid; and in about two minutes we had made a smooth creamy sauce.Voila!
We then turned off the steamer, took the salmon and scallops out of the oven and Suzette plated up each plate with a pile of rice on which she placed a salmon filet and two scallops and four of five flowerets of steamed broccoli on the side and drizzled ladles full of the cranberry and mushroom and garlic cream sauce onto the seafood and rice while I fetched glasses and the bottle of A to Z Oregon Pinot Gris 2010 that Dan Stoddard, Suzette’s partner in her Santa Rosa facility, had brought us for last Friday evening’s dinner from the fridge.
The A to Z tasted a little light and not as concentrated or as minerally as the Trimbach from Tuesday’s tasting, but that is to be expected, because Trimbach’s Pinot Gris is probably one of the best in the world and grown on limestone rich soil.I guess the limestone (old reef) structure that extends across southern England and the champagne district of France extends into Alsace.The A to Z Pinot Gris’ mildness complemented rather than interfered with the subtle flavors of the meal, especially the woody mushroom, sweet craisen, and garlic flavors in the cream sauce
The dinner was delicious, even if the fish was not fresh.If the fish had been fresh the texture of the fish and scallops would have been softer and their natural juices would have combined into an aromatic mélange of flavors and textures with the cream sauce.Fresh is always better than frozen, but there is a blessing and a curse with having PPI’s.They provide the ready ingredients for a quick easy meal.I remember taking a cruise in the Caribbean with Mother, Suzette and Luke in 2000 and the P&O cruise ship served only frozen fish that had been cut into individual portions before the cruise.Ease of preparation sometimes trumps fresh, unfortunately.
The two real surprises of the meal were how mildly sweet the craisens made the cream sauce.With the addition of garlic and mushrooms, the herbs became unimportant.Second, how tender the whole wheat baguette was.It was steamy and soft in the middle and had a tender crust that made it perfect for eating with and dipping in the cream sauce because it did not interfere with the creaminess of the sauce, but, instead, complemented the sauce’s creamy texture.I loved the bread and it made me feel healthy.
March 21, 2012 Lunch – PPI Noodle Soup;Dinner – Poached Seafood in Cream Sauce
In the morning on the way home from my Business Water Committee meeting I stopped at Pastians’ Bakery on 2nd St. for day old bread and bought 6 plain bagels, a loaf of German Sourdough Pullman, and three French baguettes,(two of whole wheat and one of white flour) for $2.81 or ¼ of retail.
I do not usually mention lunch, but I really enjoyed the PPI amalgamation today.In the spirit of not wasting anything, I threw the cooking medium from the Cream of Asparagus soup that included about one pound of asparagus and four or five stalks of celery from Sunday evening's meal into the pot of mixed bean thread and vegetable noodles with ham, shrimp and PPI teriyaki mackerel. So, today I added some water to loosen the thickened soup a bit (as noodles sit in water they absorb water and swell up) and heated the soup for lunch.The wonderful vegetable flavor of the asparagus mixed with the meats was delicious and very invigorating, especially after taking a few vitamin and ibuprofen tablets. At 4:00 p.m. I rode 18 miles in a rather heavy wind wthout feeling any tiredness.
I love poached seafood in a cream sauce made with the poaching medium, so after lunch I took two small filets and four scallops from the freezer and let them thaw in the sink.I spoke to Suzette at around and told her my idea for dinner and mentioned that I wanted to put some craisens (dehydrated slice cranberries) into the sauce because we both like cranberry sauce with salmon.
At around , after my ride and a shower, I sliced six (1 cup) baby portabella mushrooms and removed about 1 cup of broccoli flowerets from their stalks and left those on the kitchen counter and went to meditate.When I returned home from meditation at Suzette was sauteing garlic in butter in a large skillet.I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of Cutler Creek Pinot Grigio (Jubilation or Sunflower Market $3.33) for the poaching medium.Suzette made the poaching medium in the skillet by adding about ¾ cup of it to the skillet and about 3/4 cup of water to the butter and garlic. We both agreed that we should throw the craisens into the poaching medium to allow them to re-hydrate, so I fetched a handful and tossed them into the skillet as Suzette placed the salmon, mushrooms, and scallops in the skillet (Court Boullion also requires thyme and parsley, but tonight we did not add them), covered the skillet with a wok lid, and turned up the heat to allow the poaching medium to develop steam and poach.
While the salmon and scallops poached, I fetched some butter and put 2 Tbsp. of it into a steel mixing bowl to which Suzette added 2 Tbsp. of flour and mashed the two ingredients together to blend into a buerre marie.After the salmon and scallops had poached for about ten minutes, Suzette started the broccoli steaming in the steamer, I wrapped ½ of one of the whole wheat baguettes in aluminum foil and placed it in an oven heated to 350°, and Suzette removed the salmon and scallops to a baking dish and put the salmon and scallops into the oven to keep them warm while we made the cream sauce.
Suzette asked if I wanted some rice and I said yes and fetched the last cup of PPI rice from the fridge and heated it in the microwave and also cut a lemon in half and halved that and placed a ¼ lemon wedge on each plate Suzette had placed on the kitchen table ready for plating dinner after she put napkins and forks and knives on the dining table in the TV room.
The cream sauce prep was easy.Suzette spooned about five tsp.s of the poaching medium into the buerre marie and whisked it vigorously to blend it into a smooth paste.She then spooned the thick paste into the poaching medium that had been reduced to low heat while I whisked the paste into the liquid. In about two minutes we had made a smooth creamy sauce.Voila!
We then turned off the steamer, took the salmon and scallops out of the oven and Suzette plated up the plates first with a pile of rice on which she placed a salmon filet and two scallops and laid four of five flowerets of steamed broccoli on the side and drizzled the cranberry and mushroom and garlic cream sauce onto the pile of seafood and rice while I fetched glasses and a bottle of A to Z Oregon Pinot Gris 2010 that Dan Stoddard, Suzette’s partner in her Santa Rosa facility, had brought us for last Friday evening’s dinner from the fridge.
The A to Z tasted a little light and not as concentrated or as minerally as the Trimbach from Tuesday’s tasting, but that is to be expected, because Trimbach’s Pinot Gris is probably one of the best in the world and grown on limestone rich soil.I guess the limestone (old reef) structure that extends across southern England and the champagne district of France extends into Alsace.The A to Z Pinot Gris’ mildness complemented rather than interfered with the subtle flavors of the meal, especially the woody mushroom, sweet craisen and garlic flavors in the cream sauce
The dinner was delicious, even if the fish was not fresh.If the fish had been fresh the texture and juices of the fish and scallops would have combined into an aromatic, mélange of flavors and textures with the cream sauce.Fresh is always better than frozen, but that is the blessing and the curse of having PPIs. PPIs provide the ready ingredients for a quick easy meal.I remember taking a cruise in the Caribbean with mother in 2000 and the P&O ship served only frozen fish that had been cut into individual portions before the cruise. So, ease of preparation sometimes trumps fresh, unfortunately.
The two real surprises of the meal were how mildly sweet the craisens made the cream sauce.With the addition of garlic and mushrooms to the poaching medium, the traditional addition of herbs became unimportant.Second, how tender the whole wheat baguette was.It was steamy and soft in the middle and had a tender crust that made it perfect for eating with and dipping in the cream sauce because it did not interfere with the creaminess of the sauce, but complemented the sauce’s creamy texture.I loved the bread and it made me feel healthy.
March 20, 2012 Trimbach Estate wine tasting and Dinner - Chicken Salad Salad
We attended a very special event today; a wine tasting of the offerings of Trimbach Estate at Zinc.Trimbach Estate is probably the most famous vineyard in Alsace, dating back to 1626.
It is now in its 13th generation of ownership by the Trimbach family and Anne Trimbach, the oldest member of the 13th generation, was pouring and discussing its wines.The venue and appetizers were provided by Zinc.
Trimbach is probably among the 20 greatest wine houses in the world and surely among the top 10 in France, which is rather rarified company.It specializes in the northern white grapes: Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Sylvaner, Pinot Gris, Muscat, and Gewürztraminer.
It also specializes, if I may use such a word, in cultivating the noble rot on grapes and what Trimbach is quite good at matching the timing in growth of the noble rot to the peak sweetness of the grapes.When this occurs there is a fine balance in the taste of the wine between citrus overtones from the noble rot with the wine's balance of sweetness, dryness, mineral and tannin flavors. When all these components converge, the result is heavenly. There were 12 or 13 different wines offered for tasting ranging through Trimbach’s entire range of wines from the lowest to the highest priced wines.The intensity and flavor of the higher offerings of Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Gewürztraminer from Trimbach Estate’s Late Harvest (think noble rot) are truly amazing, huge intense wines with lots of flavor and a botrytis bite.Its most famous wine, Clos St. Hune, is a beautifully balanced Riesling wine raised in a limestone soil that gives the wine a strongly mineral flavor.Words can not describe this type of an experience.
But there is a story behind the surface story here.One must ask oneself, “Why is the head of the 13th generation of one of the most famous French estates pouring all of her family’s best wines in Albuquerque?”The answer to this question reaches from the routes of the international wine trade to you.A large part of the answer lies in economics; it is more profitable to make and sell beer and whiskey than wine.The long time exporter of Trimbach’s wine has been Diageo.Diageo is the largest seller of spirits in the world. Its brands include: Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Windsor, Buchanan's and Bushmills whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One vodkas, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray and Guinness.For example,Diageo sells 11 million 9 liter cases ofGuinness eachyear and makes more money on each sale than it does on the sale of Trimbach’s wines.So Trimbach is the orphaned child in Diageo’s exalted pantheon of international super stars.
Recently Trimbach’s fortunes have changed.Esprit de Vin took over U.S. distribution of Trimbach’s wine and intends to make Trimbach a star or place it in its rightful place as one of the great wine estates in the world market.The New Mexico distributor of Trimbach is Southern/Bacchus Wines.Southern is one of the largest distributors of wines and spirits in the U.S.Esprit de Vin and Southern have organized tastings of Trimbach’s wines across the country to re-introduce Trimbach wines to the U.S. market.Anne Trimbach, a woman about 30 years of age, is head of marketing for the 13th generation of Trimbach, so she is its point person in this effort.Southern organized the tastings in it distribution area and invited its restaurant clients to attend this special tasting in New Mexico.Suzette has developed a special relationship with Bacchus because Jim and Kelly at Bacchus are supporting Suzette’s effort to introduce good wines into the ValenciaCounty market at her well respected restaurant, the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery.That is how we were able to attend such a formidable wine tasting.Surely, a once in a lifetime experience.
The appetizers were up to the quality of the wine also.Sea bass and scallop sausage slices served on beet chips, a Northern char mouse and sautéed spinach wrap was wonderful, as were others, such as a round of carrot cake garnished with a piece of poached pear, a dumpling skewered with a mussel and a piece of Serrano ham, chicken sate, pork belly on pumpernickel and Brie on bread.
So dinner was really simple, the last of the PPI chicken salad on a bed of organic greens dressed with a lemon, tomato salad dressing mixed with the PPI green pea puree and chopped eggs, slice of sourdough bread toasted, and the last of the Garnet Sonoma Coast Chardonnay. A wonderful day of food and wine.
March 17, 2012 Dinner – Chicken Salad Sandwiches and Bread and Butter Pickles
In the morning I went to Costco and Sunflower Market to do some shopping for the Sunday dinner and to replenish some basics.I went to the Spa for a treatment at while Suzette worked.When we arrived at the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery at we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was filled with reservations for St. Patrick’s Day.And why not?The Bistro was offering a Corn Beef and Cabbage and Irish Soda Bread special and a bottle of beer for $10.00.So we happily went home.
After we looked through the fridge,Suzette found the bowl of PPI roasted chicken from the Greenhouse Bistro.Since I had just bought a loaf of Sourdough bread, a large bag of Nacho flavored Doritos, and a box of Organic Greens at Costco, Suzette decided to make chicken salad sandwiches with pickles.I asked her if she wanted dill or bread and butter pickles and we decided that Bread and Butter pickles would be best.So I fetched a large bottle of bread and butter pickles in the fridge and the organic greens and opened the Doritos.
When Suzette had finished the chicken salad, she sliced four slices of sourdough bread and toasted them and we then made sandwiches with mayonnaise on the bread and built our sandwiches, filled our plates with pickles, salad and Doritos and had a lovely light dinner.
March 18, 2012 Dinner -Northern California Cuisine: Crab cakes on a bed of English Pea Purée garnished with Cucumber and Coriander Slaw and a Cream of Asparagus Soup.
Lisa and Mike stayed in town this weekend to attend the Reception for Lisa Randall, this year’s Albert Einstein World Award for Science recipient and fund raiser for the NationalMuseum of Nuclear Science and History.The award is a really special thing in the world of theoretical physics and Mike is a passionate supporter of Lisa Randall, who he believes may make a breakthrough to decouple the world economy from its dependence on fossil fuels.
When I heard that they would be in town, I invited Mike and Lisa for Sunday dinner.Suzette decided to test one of her Northern California recipes for the Greenhouse Bistro’s April through June Special Meal menu, so, as far as I was concerned, we hit a trifecta: excellent foodie tasters, two of our favorite friends and a new recipe to try.
All the recipes for the Northern California Menu at the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery are taken from the California Wine Country Cookbook by Janine Saine.The Crab cake recipe is on page 79 (See attached recipe).On Saturday I went to Costco and purchased a 1 lb. container of Phillips’ Lump meat crab meat ($18.99), two loaves of Sourdough bread ($4.99) and English cucumbers (3 for $2.99) and went to Sunflower Market to buy more fresh organic English peas.
On Sunday morning we hulled the peas in the morning.Suzette returned around 3:30 pm. from work, with some Half and Half and milk and several quart containers of prepared chicken stock.Suzette started cooking around and I started around Suzette made the stock for the asparagus soup, when I arrived in the kitchen and She then got out the Waring Blender and made the pea puree with the fresh peas and a little chicken stock to emulsify the purée
While I sliced four or five stalks of celery and 1 English cucumber into thin 3 inch long slices and chopped about 40 leaves of fresh cilantro for the slaw, Suzette made a Dijon mustard vinaigrette with fresh ground coriander seeds and I tossed the dressing into the slaw and put it in the fridge to meld flavors.
Suzette then dumped the crabmeat into a steel bowl and brought it to the table where I was chopping and watching NCAA basket ball finals.I minced finely 1/4 cup of red bell pepper and fetched fresh parsley and thyme from the garden and plucked six or seven stalks of fresh chives and chopped them into about 1 ½ Tbsp. of chopped herbs and threw that all into the crabmeat.Suzette then added 3 Tbsp. of mayonnaise, 3 Tbsp. of the fresh bread crumbs and salt and pepper to the crab meat and set it aside to meld flavors
We then turned our attention to the Cream of Asparagus Soup (page 157 from the “Joy of Cooking” by Rombauer and Becker, 1967 Ed.).
Suzette had already removed the tips from 1 lb. of asparagus and steamed them and started a stock with the remaining stalks of asparagus plus 6 cups of chicken stock and ¼ cup each of chopped onion and celery and it had been simmering the stock covered for about 1 hour when I arrived in the kitchen after finishing the chopping at around 5:45 p.m.Suzette then pushed the stock through a sieve to separate the broth from the solids and melted 3 Tbsp. of butter in a large enameled sauce pan to which she added 3 Tbsp. of flour.After that had thickened and cooked into a thick roux, we began adding½ cup of half and half but that did not thin the roux sufficiently to eliminate all of the lumps of flour, so we added a couple more Tbsp.s of half and half until it became smooth.We then slowly added the asparagus stock over low heat stirring constantly to eliminate all lumps. This took several minutes. We had a small dispute because Suzette wanted to use a wooden spoon and I wanted to use my large French whisk, so I use my whisk and the spoon and we traded stirring the soup until it thickened (about twenty-five minutes).The soup had a lovely light creamy consistency but lacked flavor, so we decided to add the seasonings of paprika, salt and white pepper and that helped a bit but we saw that the recipe called for a garnish of hard cooked egg, Suzette started three eggs cooking over medium high heat.
At a bit after Lisa and Mike arrived with a bottle of Trahan Pinot Noir (Carneros, 2008) that Lisa had bought at the Winery with Ray Vigil in St. Helena, CA, a bunch of large red grapes, a bottle of G. Chevalier Sauternes 2009 and a wedge of Valdeon Blue Cheese (Queso de Valdeón (Queisu de Valdión, in Leonese language) is a Spanishblue cheese from León. The cheese is made in Posada de Valdeón, in the northeast of the province of León, and is wrapped in sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus), or chestnut leaves before being sent to market. The cheese has a very intense blue flavor, but is not as yellowed or as biting as its cousin Cabrales [Cabrales is from near Santander in Asturias], from Wikipedia).
After we discussed the order of the meal and wine, we decided to open a bottle of young pinot noir to start the meal, so I went to the basement for a bottle of Pennywise Pinot Noir (Costco, $8.79?), which I poured for Lisa, Mike and Suzette and I poured a small glass of Garnet Sonoma Coast Chardonnay for myself.We decided to uncork the Trahan Pinot and let it breath, so I did that.
We decided to drink white wine with the crabcakes, but eveyone was happy with their first glass of wine for the Asparagus soup.Then Lisa took the shells off the boiled eggs and pushed them through a egg slicer both ways to dice them into small pieces and Suzette wrapped a loaf of the Costco Sourdogh bread in foil and put it into the oven to heat.I fetched the Spanish Pimenton Paprika and put on the kitchn table beside the chopped egg and steamed asparagus tips.In a few minutes we re-heated the asparagus soup and laddled it into bowls and each person garnished their own bowl with egg, paprika and asparagus tips and I served the warm bread.
After finishing our soup, Mike asked for more, which I took as a good sign.While we were eating our soup and dipping warm sourdough beard in the lat bits of soup, Suzette went to the kitchen to make the crabcakes.After we cleared the soup bowls I brought the three opened bottles of white wine, we had tasted for the Greenhouse Bistro Northern California menu last Tuesday to the table: the Garnet Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, a Raymond Reserve Selection Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2009, and an Educated Guess 2008 Napa Chadonnay.Suzette poured a puddle of the light green pea purée on each plate, while I quartered a half lemon and put a wedge on each plate and we plated up the crab cakes (7) and we then piled a mound of the cucumber, celery and cilantro slaw on garnished the crabckes and garnished the puree with fresh green peas Suzette had reserved.We each took tastes of each of the wines with the crabcakes.Lisa loved the fresh peas and the purée and so we each gave her some of our resh peas.Lisa thought the crabcakes and slaw needed more citrus flavor.Lisa thought the Educated Guess had an interesting smoky and was less oaky than the Garnet Chardonnay. We all thought the Raymond Reserve Sauvignon Blanc was a really solid enjoyable wine without being overly grassy.
After dinner we all agreed that the meal had filled us up and we needed to rest our palates for a few minutes.So we discussed how to attack the cheese course.We all agreed that thin slices of toasted sourdough bread would be prfect. Lisa suggested that we spray the slices of bread with olive oil and grill or broil them in the oven. So she went to the kitchen and sliced thin slices of bread and sprayed them with olive oil and put them in a 400° oven set on convection for a fe minutes until the took on a little color.While she was preparing the bread slices, I put ½ log of California Goat Cheese (Costco), 1/3 wheel of Rouge et Noir Classic Brie made by Marin French Cheese Co. for Costco (Costco $9.99? for a 1 lb. wheel) that I had put out to come to room temperature when Lisa and Mike had arrived, and the wedge of Valdeon Blue Cheese and placed it on the table with the Trahan Pinot and the grapes.When Lisa brought the toasted bread slices to the table we started spreading the super creamy Brie, the tart flakey Goat and the Valdeon blue cheese on bread and washing it down with gulps of wine.As soon as Lisa tasted the Valdeon cheese she looked at me and said, I think the Sauternes would be perfect with this blue cheese, so I opened the Sauternes and fetched four Baccarat white wine flutes Mother had bought in France in 1960 and poured a bit of sauternes into each.
Lisa and Mike immediately noticed how thin the flutes were.I think I put them off a bit when I mentioned that they were hand blown French Baccarat crystal.
We all loved the Sauternes and the Valdeon cheese and finished the meal with bits of it and sips of sauternes and the rest of the grapes.Lisa said whe had bought the Sauternes at Trader Joe’s.
After dinner Lisa said the Emil Bistram on the mantel was her favorite painting.We agreed with her and I discussed Bisttram and the Transcendental Painting Group painters and showed a few more pictures to Mike, who also liked some of the watercolors, especially the small Kenneth Chapman “Near Las Vegas” and we finished our wonderful California meal by 10:00 p.m.
March 19, 2012 Dinner - Sautéed Chicken Sausages with Braised Cabbage
This is was a quasi French Alsatian dinner night.When I received no answer from Suzette at around 4:30 p.m. I assumed that she would be late for dinner, so I took four chicken sausages out of the freezer to thaw (fresh made at Sunflower Market, $1.99/lb. on special), two Mild Italian and two Basil Chicken.
At around I finished work and fetched a head of green cabbage from the garage fridge and sliced it in halves and then sliced one half into long strips and put the sausages in a large pot of water to cook.
Finally Suzette called around to say she was on her way home, so I then heated 1 Tbsp. each of olive and grape seed oil in a large iron skillet and put the cabbage slices in and then added 1 Tbsp. of ground cumin, ½ diced brown onion (Pro’s Ranch Market 5 lbs/$.99) and five slices of chopped up chopped up dehydrated apple. After that had cooked a few minutes I put enough water in a large pot to float the four sausages and put the pot on at medium heat to cook.
I then checked my stock portfolio because Apple announced its first dividend and a large stock buy back aggregating $45 Billion today and good sales of its new I Pad over the weekend and found that AAPL was up $15.00 to a new high at over $600.00 per share and my portfolio had increased over 17% year to date for 2012.A great day in the stock market for me and as the commentators say, an NBA dominated Day (Nothing But Apple) in the day’s financial news.
When I got back to the stove, the cabbage had scorched a bit on the bottom, so I turned down the heat to medium and added 1 cup of water to the cabbage and covered the pan with a wok lid.
Soon after I sat down to watch the news at around Suzette walked in after a 12 hour day at work dead tired or scorched also.
Since she did not want to work on an elaborate dinner we decided to steam the bag of green beans I had bought at Sunflower Market.I asked Suzette to season the cabbage and she offered to finish the sausages.So she added apple vinegar and sugar to the cabbage to taste and we plucked and stemmed the ends off the string beans and started water in the steamer and heated it to a boil and threw in the beans and got a skillet out to sauté the sausages.I removed the sausages from the pot of water and air drained them and slid them into the skillet and after a minute to let the water logged sausages expel some of their moisture, I added a bit of olive oil to the skillet and Suzette turned the heat up to medium high under them.
After a few more minutes of turning sausages to brown them over medium high heat and cooking the cabbage at a low heat and steaming the beans, we were ready for dinner.So I fetched two beers (Costco Kirtland German style beer 24 for $18.99) and opened bottles of horseradish from Trader Joe’s and Grey Poupon Dijon mustard and put them all on the table. We then each plated two sausages, some braised cabbage and ½ of the string beans.
We were watching Rachel Maddow’s documentation of the removal of highly enriched uranium from Mexico; ending Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” era; by about By were both so sleepy, that we went to bed.
This recipe illustrates that you can improvise and create a pleasing dish.I did not have my usual fresh apple to add to the cabbage, so I chopped up dehydrated apple slices and added them.They caramelized and gave the cabbage dish a slightly different, pleasing texture and taste than fresh apple, which tends to simply disintegrate into a mush.So the cabbage dish this evening had a more complex taste and texture with its bits of caramelized onion and apple sautéed with the cabbage.I liked it, kind of like cabbage Muesli.Very Alsatian, I imagine.
March 14, 2012Lunch – PPI Ma-Po Do-Fu Dinner - Salmon Medallions with Asparagus and Orange Hollandaise Sauce
Peter Eller came by for lunch and when I showed him the bucket of PPI Ma-Po Do-fu and rice in the fridge, he said that looked good, so we heated plates of rice and Ma-Po Do-fu and took the plates outside to the pavilion in the garden and sat in the warm sun light and talked about his recent decision in the Court of Appeals in Hicks v. Eller and the world of art in general.
When I arrived home after meditation, I suggested to Suzette that we use the two small medallions of fresh salmon I had cut off the larger medallions we used to cook Tuesday (March 14, 2012) evening’s Northern California Salmon and Grilled Tomato wedges and sliced asparagus dish, but to make a more classically French meal.Suzette agreed and said she would help. To save time we decided, rather than poaching the salmon and reducing the poaching medium to a fumè to enrich the Hollandaise sauce that we would sauté the salmon in the skillet with the PPI olive oil and some of the sliced asparagus from Tuesday evening’s meal.So I opened my “Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1” to the page on Hollandaise sauce and got an eight ounce stick of butter from the fridge.Julia Child’s recipe for Hollandaise Sauce is a little tricky, but works beautifully.I melted 6 ounces of butter in a pyrex measuring cup in the microwave and after it melted, put it aside to cool.Then I got an enameled sauce pan and we put three well beaten egg yolks and 1 Tbsp. of lemon juice in the sauce pan and then 1 ounce of the remaining cold butter and Suzette started heating the mixture over very low heat to melt the butter into the egg yolk/lemon mixture. When the butter has melted we took the pan off the heat and added the remaining 1 Tbsp. of butter to cool the mixture down.Then we put the mixture back on the stove and added some orange zest and a dash of salt and white pepper and began dripping the melted butter into the mixture at a rate of about ¼ tsp. at a time and then stirred in the butter until the mixture was smooth.After a few drips of butter the sauce began to thicken.I added about ½ Tbsp. of tomato paste and stirred it into the sauce.We drizzled more butter and stirred the sauce until we had added all of the melted butter (about four or five Tbsp.) but none of the thick white butter fat at the bottom of the cup.Then I added about ½ Tbsp. of fresh orange juice instead of the finishing lemon juice the recipe called for.Suzette wanted some color and asked me to chop some chives, so I fetched five or six chive stalks and chopped them into short pieces for garnish.We heated PPI basmati rice and steamed 10 stalks of asparagus.
Suzette then plated up the dishes and drizzled Hollandaise sauce onto the grilled fish and asparagus and we got the open bottle of Raymond Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc from the Tuesday evening tasting from the fridge.I loved the dish and felt comforted by it, but Suzette found it too heavy and said it gave her indigestion.
I need to make a statement here because in this evening and last evening’s meals, we have in front of us a clear example of the distinction between Northern California Cuisine and French Cuisine. Tuesday evening’s recipe did not have any sauce and Suzette felt compelled to make a simple sauce out of the left over tomato pulp and liquid from inside the tomato and a bit of balsamic vinegar.The dish as written in the Wine Country Cookbook had no sauce.Northern California Cuisine emphasizes the freshness of the ingredients.The California recipe garnished the dish with a mound of micro greens instead of a sauce (the recipe photo showed what appears to be baby red kale leaves).The French would never serve an entrèe without a sauce and Hollandaise sauce is a classic accompaniment to sautéed fish and asparagus.I tried to soften the sauce and giving it a California sensitivity by adding orange juice instead of lemon juice, but Suzette said she preferred the sharper tanginess of lemon in Hollandaise, so that was not a great modification.But the contrast between the thick creamy sauce and the grilled fish and fresh steamed asparagus was pleasing to me and I thought that the absence of a sauce in the Northern California Cuisine recipe left the recipe lacking a necessary dimension, as did Suzette, apparently.Perhaps the problem with the California recipe, as we prepared it, was that we lacked the micro greens; so Suzette had garnished the dish with finely chopped romaine lettuce, which is not as interesting or delicious as micro greens.I can imagine the combination of the salmon flavored olive oil from the grilled salmon combining with the micro greens to make a pleasing mélange.
So where does that leave us.I think it indicates to me that it will be interesting to eat several meals at the Green House Bistro and Bakery during the period it serves Northern California Cuisine from April through June 2012 to see how the Bistro chefs interpret and present Northern California Cuisine.Perhaps they can encourage me to adjust my taste to accept its simpler style of cuisine.
March 15, 2012Lunch – La SalitaDinner- Stir Fried Chicken with Mushrooms and Bok Choy with Mu Shu Sauce.
I have been wanting to go back to La Salita 1217 EubankNE to try its Chile Relleños ever since I tasted its green chili sauce at lunch with Mike Verhagen several months ago.So when Mike said, “You choose where to go for lunch.” today, I said La Salita.Even though he said had been there yesterday, he gladly said, “Sure”.
I ordered the 6) CHILE RELLENOS ”LOCAL FAVORITE”
Our chile rellenos are stuffed with cheddar cheese and
hand dipped per order in our “signature” batter and fried
until they are crisp golden brown. .....................$11.85
The Chile Rellenos are a house specialty and are served with beans and rice, one sopaipilla and your choice of red or green chile.You can substitute papas for beans or rice. Lettuce and tomato garnish upon request.
The Number 6 with two rellenos and a double order of beans, turned out to be more than I could eat but I finished the two chile rellenos and most of the beans and lettuce and tomato garnish.In my opinion, La Salita’s Chile Rellenos are the best I have ever tasted.They are fixed fresh to order, so their “signature batter” is thick and has a panko like crispness.Their delicious green chili sauce is served in a puddle under the Chile Relleño, so it does not dampen the rellenos’ crisp fried batter crust.The chiles were deseeded, so there were no seeds to deal with, just chile flesh, cheddar cheese and batter for a more uniform texture.La Salita’s chicken stock based green chile sauce is the perfect sauce for a chile relleno.La Salita’s motto is simple is better and I could not discern much more than green chile and chicken stock and a little garlic and salt in the sauce.
La Salita has formed a company named In the Mix Foods, LLC to market its artisanal red and green chile sauces and its salsa.The salsa tastes like a combination of the green and red chile sauces.Although I was completely full after plowing through two rellenos, I had to try the sopaipila, which is also highly recommended.The sopaipila was also among the best I have ever tasted; fully inflated with a thicker wall of soft pasty like dough on one side and a thinner crisper wall on the other. The sopaipila held its shape when I added honey to it and was as close to a true pastry like experience as I have had with a sopapila in a long time. La Salita was full of people with folks in its small waiting area when I arrived a little after , so it is not a hidden secret. A quick survey of the internet indicates a multitude of glowing reviews. La Salita is my new favorite Mexican restaurant in Albuquerque and the best for chile rellenos ever.
After lunch and an appointment I went shopping at Ta Lin and Sunflower market on my way home at At Ta Lin I bought a gallon of Japanese naturally fermented Soy Sauce, oyster and enoki mushrooms, fresh ginger, hoisen sauce and baby bok choy.At Sunflower Market I bought portabella mushrooms and organic English peas for a pea puree that Suzette has mentioned recently.
I usually shop for ingredients a day or two ahead of the meals we cook, but tonight was an exception, because I wanted to use up the PPI roasted chicken Suzette had brought home from the Green House Bistro and Bakery last week.When Suzette came home around , we discussed dinner and I said I was thinking about making stir fried chicken with some of the bok choy and mushrooms I had bought in a Mu shu sauce like we made for the Mu Shu dish last Saturday night.She said “Okay, I will help cook.”This is one of the first times Suzette has cooked a stir fried dish.So I started removing the chicken from the carcass and chopping it.After about ten minutes as I started chopping the bok choy, Suzette wanted to start the stir fry so, she said she would chop the garlic, fresh ginger and mushrooms and she took some PPI boiled basmati rice out of the fridge and put it in a bowl and into the microwave for re-heating. .After she had cooked a few minutes, I threw in the chopped and rinsed bok choy pieces and made the mu shu sauce with dark soy, rice cooking wine, hoisen sauce, cornstarch and little water and threw it into the wok and turned on the microware to e-heat the rice.
Viola.After about twenty minutes of chopping and cooking together we had made a wok full of stir fried chicken with bok choy and three mushrooms in a Mu Shu sauce, which we were enjoying with a beer in front of the TV.
March 13, 2012Northern California Wine Country Dinner – Medallions of Salmon Ripened Tomato and Roasted Asparagus
I am not sure how we acquired the “California Wine Country” Cookbook by Janine Saine, but we use it and like it and Suzette selected her menu for the April through June 2012 special meals at the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery from it.
We went to taste wine at Vivace with Jim from Southern and after saying hello to Gordon, the owner, we sat with Ann Setser, the Bistro's Executive Chef, and tasted and discussed and selected 8 wines from among 12 northern California varietals.Even though Jim was kind enough to order a melted fresh mozzarella cheese in marinara sauce and frito (fried babybay scallops, shrimp and calamari) with a green aioli mayonnaise, I was drunk when I got home.
Thank God Suzette took over to test her recipe.I took the one lb. filet of salmon (Ta Lin $5.99 per lb) and cut it into two equal ½ lb. pieces and then sliced the hump off the salmon to leave a flat filet, which Suzette rolled into a tight roulade (medallion) and secured each medallion with a bamboo skewer and salted and peppered them.
I took about ten stalks of asparagus and cut the tender portion of the stalks into diagonal slices so that the slices were flat and thin.We then heated water to remove the skin from the tomato and I removed the hard stem area and sliced a large slicing tomato in two halves with a knife.Suzette then dunked the tomato halves into the boiling water and removed the skin and then removed as much of the seeds and liquid and pulp from the insides of the tomatoes and cut the tomato halves into 6 or 8 wedges and reserved the tomato pulp to a bowl to which she added salt and pepper and about 1 Tbsp. of Balsamic Vinegar to make a sauce for the dish.
Suzette then sautéed the salmon and asparagus slices in olive oil, while I re-heated the PPI paella from Sunday night’s dinner at Lucia in the microwave and fetched the three white wines chosen for the Bistro tasting, Garnet Sonoma Cost Chardonnay, Educated Guess Napa Valley Chardonnay, and Raymond Reserve Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc and put them on the table with two glasses so we could try the different wines with the meal to see which wine complemented the salmon dish the best.We did not have any micro greens so Suzette took a head of heart of romaine from the fridge and sliced it into thin slices and then plated the dish in the manner shown in the picture of the dish on page 81 of the cookbook and garnished the salmon with the sliced romaine and poured the balsamic/tomato sauce over the fish and we sat down to try our new recipe.
I was still a little drunk and did not taste the dish accurately or enjoy the pairings of wine but the salmon tasted very tender and the asparagus were a little crisp.I think I prefer classical French Cuisine to California cuisine (See March 14 dinner for my French take on the recipe).But Suzette loved the dish and thought it was a keeper and that the wine worked well with the dish. I look forward to trying the dish at the Bistro to see how the dish is prepared by the Bistro chefs.It definitely is a classic California Wine Country dish that should be wonderful with the Northern California wines.
