Sunday, June 16, 2013

June 15, 2013 Lunch- Posole Dinner- Salmon Two ways

June 15, 2013 Lunch- Posole   Dinner- Salmon Two ways

 
I went shopping in the morning.  I bought tomatoes ($.69/lb.), oranges for $.25/lb.  and Mexican squash $.50/lb. at Pro’s Ranch Market, but they were out of mangoes for 5 for $.99.  Then I bought Rib Eye steaks at Smith’s ($7.99/lb.) and then to my main destination, Albertson’s  where I bought Steellhead/Keck salmon for $3.99/lb. I took my food home and returned to Pro’s for its Saturday Posole lunch.  There was a lady standing behind three large buckets filled with posole and menudo.  I ordered and paid for a medium bowl (chica) for $3.69 and said posole.  When I got to the table where the food was served   there was a bowl filled with posole and pork I ate a few bites and asked for some menudo and the lady took a large ladle and added a small mound of menudo to the top of the already filled bowl of posole, which made the bowl over flow and forced part of the liquid back into the pot.  I then added lime juice, onions, fresh cilantro and oregano to the posole and enjoyed a wonderful bowl of posole and menudo.   The color of the posole was dark red, which made me think that there was a lot of tomato paste in the posole.

I went home happy and made a recipe of teriyaki sauce with 7 Tbsp. each of sake, aji mirin and soy sauce and 1 Tbsp. of sugar and poured it into a freezer bag with the fish and placed the bag in the fridge to marinate.
We started cooking dinner at 4:30 p.m. by cutting and picking baby greens from the garden for the salad.  Suzette also picked a bunch of turnips and black giant leaves and a small basket of pea pods.  I then shucked the peas and added the peas to cut the peas we have been picking for the last few days to make about 1 cup of peas.  Then I de-stemmed the kale and black giant mustard greens and diced the turnips into small cubes and sliced several  garlic scapes into long thin slices.   I picked a handful of basil leaves and Suzette added orange juice and the basil and a bit of honey to mayonnaise to make a dressing for the salad, while I sliced and the cut the gravad lax salmon into bite size pieces.    Suzette organized the salad onto glass salad plates and put them into the fridge to keep cool. 
We then made 1/ ½ cups of rice and picked kale and mustard greens to cook into the rice. After Suzette finished the salad dressing , she cut cedar planks for the fish and soaked the planks in water and I de-stemmed the kale and was dicing the small white turnips at around 5:45 when Darryl and Dorothy arrived.  We then got a call from Jennifer and Dale saying that they were running late because they were waiting for Costco to install new tires on their vehicle.  Darryl and Dorothy brought a lovely chocolate cake from Flying Star and a bottle of Kendall Jackson 2011 Grand Reserve chardonnay.  They said they loved chardonnay so Suzette went to the basement fridge and fetched a bottle of 2000 Domaine Luc Pirlet chardonnay from Languedoc.   The wine had a deep golden color that tasted of age, which Darryl loved and I thought was pretty special, but Suzette would not drink her glass, because the wine had that decidedly chardonnay flavor.  So she suggested that I fetch the Murphy-Goode Fumé Blanc and I went to the basement and got it and the cobbler.
By this time Jennifer and Dale had arrived with a bottle of 2010 La Crema Chardonnay and a ½ gallon of vanilla ice cream.   The Murphy-Goode turned out to be a 1999 Reserve Fumé barrel fermented Sauvignon Blanc from Alexander Valley that tasted fabulous that also was a deep golden color.   I am beginning to think that golden color is a good thing for old wine.   We talked and drank for a while and then sat around the table on the patio and Suzette served the salads and I poured more chardonnay.   
 






 

After a few more minutes I went to the kitchen to sauté the turnips in the wok.  I added about 1 Tbsp. of peanut oil and 1 tsp. of sesame oil and as it heated I chopped ½ of a large shallot and threw that in with the turnips when the wok had heated.  Then I cut up about 1 tsp. of pickled ginger.  Suzette came in with several salad plates as I was throwing in the ginger and said, “It needs liquid.”  We decided to add aji mirin and I suggested that we add the PPI pickled red onions that Rose had given to us with the Cochinita Pibil and we did that and then added the greens and covered the mixture to cook and steam.  After a few more minutes we added the peas and heated them for a minute and then I added three large scoops of rice to the mixture and turned and mixed the rice and peas into the vegetables to give it a fried rice effect.  I then plated a large scoop of the stir fried rice on each plate and Suzette cut large pieces of salmon off the planks of grilled teriyaki salmon and laid them on the piles of stir fried rice.  


I poured glasses of La Crema and we ate our entrees.  All were good drinkers, so I opened the 2011 Kendall Jackson Grand Reserve and poured it and more of the Murphy-Goode for Suzette and me and a bit for Jennifer to taste.
After a while the wind started blowing but we decided to brave the outdoors and remain on the patio.   

About 20 minutes after we finished our dinners, all the chardonnay was finished and we started talking about dessert and I said, “Since you are all good drinkers, I am going to get a bottle of sauternes for dessert.”  I went to the basement and found a ½ bottle of 2005 Kendall Jackson late harvest chardonnay from its Arroyo Seco vineyard.  It had a syrupy sweetness and a nutty flavor that was very pleasant.  I fetched a ½ bottle of Chevaliers sauternes.   Suzette and one or two of the guests had gone to the kitchen and heated the mango, blueberry and nectarine cobbler and cut mall pieces of the chocolate cake and put scoops of vanilla ice cream on dessert plates and served those while I opened and poured the Kendall Jackson Late Harvest chardonnay. 
Darryl said he had been to a tasting where they served this wine and everyone approved of the wine and drank it.   When we finished the chardonnay I opened the sauternes and served it.   Finally at around 10:00 we were all done and said good night to each other after 4 hours of drinking and eating wonderful food d wine.   Amazingly, I was not stuffed.   We are enjoying the food we are picking from our garden and the dishes we are preparing that are so satisfying and light on the tummy.

Bon Appétit       

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