Suzette was late in getting home because she had errands to run to get ready for her trip out of town over the weekend, so I prepared dinner. As you will see, the use of available ingredients and PPI make it possible to start cooking at around and have a delicious dinner ready in about ten minutes.
As it turned out I made the best cous cous I have ever made this evening. I picked 4 cups of fresh leaves of kale from the garden and sliced the green portion of the leaves from the white stalk and sectioned the green leaves into about 1 ½ inch across pieces. I then sliced and chopped about 3 Tbs. of red onion and put it in a pot large enough to hold the cous cous and kale with 2 Tbs. of butter and heated it until the butter became frothy and the onion started to change color to white and softened (about five minutes). Then I added about two cups plus two oz. of water to the pot and about 1 tsp. of dehydrated Knorr chicken stock, instead of salt, and let the liquid come to a boil and then added the 10 oz. of cous cous and the 4 cups of Kale segments and covered the pot with a lid and put it on medium high heat to steam and then turned the heat down after a few minutes.
I then heated the sealed plastic bag with the PPI grilled Rack of lamb from the dinner on April 24, 2012 in the microwave at moderate heat for about 3 minutes until were hot. I then sliced the rack into chops and we served the chops with the cous cous/kale combination. The cous cous was moist and fluffy and the kale soft and cooked into soft mounds with threads of it throughout the cous cous. My impression is that the butter and sautéed onion combined with the kale and cous cous tasted far better together than if the kale and cous cous had been prepared separately.
We often combine tomatoes with cous cous. Cous cous is like tofu. It has very little natural flavor and is more about texture and its flavor is improved by the addition of other ingredients that add flavor to it. It just so happened that the steaming cooking method for fresh kale perfectly matched the steaming cooking method for cous cous to produce a perfect marriage of texture and flavor in this case. Ah, visions of Marrakesh
We served the PPI Pinot Noir and Cutler Creek Cabernet Sauvignon for a delightful meal with bright conversation. After our simple dinner, I toasted two slices of whole grain bread from Costco and brought out the French brie (Costco) and Celebrity fig flavored goat cheese (Costco) and we finished the wine with bites of bread smeared with thick globs of the cheese. We shared our respective professional travails with each other; giving the other advice and new perspective based upon our years of experience in our respective professions. The sharing of ideas and support for each other’s careers plus both being able to create great food together are two of the reasons I think we have such a wonderful relationship.
This meal illustrates another benefit from cooking simply with PPI and available fresh ingredients. The food is simple but exquisite and does not get in the way of conversation.
Bon Appétit
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