March 3, 2013 Dinner for Johal Penne Pasta with salmon, scallops and BBQ shrimp in Cream Sauce with salad and Fruits Romanoff

March 3, 2013 Dinner for Johal   Penne Pasta with salmon, scallops and BBQ shrimp in Cream Sauce with salad and Fruits Romanoff

We gardened today and then went shopping at Costco, we bought sugar snap peas and a big bottle of sundried tomatoes in oil that looked good.

At 5:30 p.m. we started cooking dinner. My friend and business partner, Mohan Johal is in town and we had invited him to dinner at 6:00 p.m.

This was a very simple meal.  I started by adding some grape seed oil and balsamic vinegar to the PPI balsamic dressing we had been given at the B.J. Jones luncheon at the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery a couple of weeks ago.

Then I de-stemmed and halved 2 cups of sugar snap peas and wrapped up four Italian bread sticks in aluminum and put them into the oven at 400˚ to heat.

While Suzette was heating the PPI BBQ shrimp with the scallops, sugar snap peas and salmon in a skillet with Selman’s olive oil from Chile and ¼ cup of dried tomatoes in oil we bought at Costco ($8.75 for a 32 oz. bottle and boiling penne pasta, I cut up two heads of romaine lettuce and tossed the lettuce  in our salad bowl with ½ cup of the creamy balsamic dressing.

After the shrimp dish was heated and the pasta cooked Suzette wanted to add cream to the skillet and I asked that she make a Sauce Béchamel with some of the cooking liquid from the seafood and add less cream rather than all cream because I am lactose insensitive, which she did by cooking a Tbsp. of flour in a Tbsp. of butter and then added about one cup of stock from the pot and then about ½ cup of cream to make a cream sauce in about five minutes.

I fetched and opened a bottle of Gladiatore 2008 Frascati Superiore – Secco - Denominazione Di Origine Controllata, bottled by Cantini San Marco, Frascati, Italy and imported by Santini Fine Wines (www.santiniwines.com).

We served the salad on salad plate and the seafood in cream sauce over the penne.  The Frascati was just as it should be light and dry with a hint of fruitiness.

A simple and easy dinner to fix but delicious.

We had lots of strawberries and blueberries, so after dinner I suggested that Suzette make a Romanoff sauce for the fruit.  Mohan de-stemmed and cut up about 1 ½ cup of strawberries and we poured about 2/3 cup of blueberries into the strawberries while Suzette made a Romanoff Sauce with Greek yogurt, sugar and cream and dolloped it over the blueberries and strawberries and served them in small bowls for a tasty and healthy dessert.

Mohan has travelled all over the world several times and was born and lived in Punjab, India and Vancouver, Canada, so he discussed traveling with Willy for most of the meal, since Willy is planning to travel around the world in a couple of months.

Bon Appétit