July 28, 2013 Dinner party – Grilled Steak with salad, a turnip/mushroom duxelles, pasta with pesto and Clafoutis

July 28, 2013 Dinner party – Grilled Steak with salad, a turnip/mushroom duxelles, pasta with pesto and Clafoutis

Cynthia and Ricardo came over for dinner tonight.  I had thawed out two rib steaks and we were going to make a turnip duxelles with the white turnips we picked from our garden.

On Saturday we went to the Downtown Farmer’s market and bought a small tub of oyster mushroom hummus and a loaf of Rosemary/Olive bread at Costco.

I pulled a frozen tub of guacamole out of the fridge at 4:00 and let it come to room temperature and then I added lime juice, Cholulu, a minced shallot, and bit of crema con sal to revive it.

At around 5:00 Suzette began chopping the mushrooms and turnips and sautéing them in a large skillet.  It became immediately apparent that the turnips had gone stalky and toughened to the point that they were nearly inedible.  Suzette and I added liquids and honey and wine and other things but nothing forced the turnips to soften; living proof that one had better pick their turnips early in the spring when they are tender.  When they become stalky they become indelibly tough.  Suzette also tossed a bag of PPI Casarecce pasta with about 3 Tbsps. of Suzette’s homemade pesto.  

At 6:00 Cynthia and Ricardo arrived with bag of stuff, like fresh salad greens from their garden and a tub of hummus, a wedge of Mozzarella Salada, a baguette from Bosque Bakery, a bunch of lemon verbena and an avocado for the salad.  

Ricardo also brought a cocktail recipe he made and all the fixings in bottles and jars and bags of ingredients and commenced to make a truly delicious cocktail with 2 oz. mescal, 3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice, 1 Tbsp. of thyme infused simple syrup and 2 tsp. of St. Germain liquor shaken in a shaker with ice and then strained into a margarita glass and garnished with a twist of lemon peel and a crushed sprig of thyme.  

We started the meal at the table on our patio under the awning because we were still traumatized by the big storm on Friday night and fearful of more rain.   We ate pita chips brought by Cynthia and Ricardo with their hummus and the re-constituted avocado and slices of baguette with Mozzarella salada cheese and sipped Ricardo’s lovely cocktail concoction.  Willy arrived while we were sitting and sipping cocktails and munching appetizers and he joined us for a cocktail and appetizers and dinner.  

 

 

 Cynthia and I then went to the garden to pick some additional greens and then I assembled the salad while Suzette grilled the steaks.  I sliced tomatoes, and a Japanese cucumber and the avocado and  Cynthia dressed the salad with lovely basil vinaigrette she had made.  I fetched a bottle of Wellington Vineyards 2009 Old Vines Noir de Noirs, Sonoma Valley, Alicante Bouschet.  Unfortunately, we opened the wine just before dinner and it really needed to be open for at least an hour before drinking because it had a delicate complexity that only showed after it opened up.  When the steaks were cooked to medium rare, I sliced them and Suzette plated up the dishes with all the salad, steak, duxelles, and pasta.   I poured the wine and we ate under the newly reconstructed gazebo by the pond.   I also brought out a container of béarnaise sauce to smear on the steaks.

After dinner we sat and for a while and then I fetched the clafoutis and the bottle of Champagne Baron-Fuenté Brut “Rosé Dolores, bottled in Charly sur Marne, France, that my brother Billy brought us last weekend and glasses and we ate clafoutis and drank the dark slightly smoky pinot noir flavored champagne, a rather unusual champagne that reminded me of the Marne side of the hill in Champagne where pinot noir grapes and rosé predominates.

Finally at around 9:15 we said goodnight and watched “Endeavor”.

 Bon Appétit