August 5, 2013 Anatolia- Lunch  Salad Nicoise – Dinner

Suzette came home from a morning appointment in Albuquerque at around 11:00 and asked if I wanted to go to lunch.  I said sure and asked her where she wanted to go. She said the Turkish place, so we drove the seven blocks to Anatolia.  The daily specials included a spicy beef kebab ($6.49) and a lamb shish kebab ($9.95).  I ordered the spicy kebab and Suzette ordered the lamb shish kebab.  I love the menu.  I catches the essence of kebab.  Someone told me it was invented by soldiers who cooked their meals on their swords over open camp fires.

 

The daily specials are blue plate specials with your choice of meat or entrée served on a bed of rice studded with peas and carrots on one side of the plate and on the other side a salad dressed with light vinaigrette dressing and garnished with pickled red onions.  Also on the plate is a warm pita cut into four triangles and a small plastic cup of Tzatziki (Chishak) yogurt sauce.  A new addition to the plate is a grilled green chili.

 

We chose to drink a Dimes Turkish sour cherry juice ($2.75). 

 

Just in case you did not think Anatolia is a real Turkish shish kebab restaurant, here are pictures of them preparing and putting my spicy kebab onto the grill.

 

 

 

 

Suzette has gotten serious about her diet and has started counting calories, so our meals will necessarily change a bit in the near future.

 We decided to make a salad Nicoise for dinner.  Suzette picked string beans from the Center’s organic garden in Los Lunas.  After lunch I thawed out some PPI ahi tuna and at 5:30 p.m. went to the garden to pick a basket of lettuce.  The greens are growing well with all of the rain and lower temperatures we have had lately.  I also picked a Japanese cucumber and cleaned and put the greens in bag and into the fridge to cool and crisp. 

 Then I filled a small pot with water and added three eggs to hard boil and added a handful of Yukon gold fingerling potatoes we bought from Amayo Farms at the Farmer’s Market last Saturday.  When Suzette arrived we snapped the ends off the beans and threw them into the pot of simmering water to cook.  Then Suzette went to the garden and picked a handful of baby carrots, which she cleaned and sliced and also threw into the water to cook and we picked a few ripe tomatoes and I picked a handful of basil leaves.  She then seared the tuna and peeled and sliced the cucumber and sliced the tomatoes, while I made a Dijonnaise dressing with 2 small cloves of garlic, red wine vinegar, Grey Poupon Mustard, olive oil and a small handful of fresh sliced basil leaves whisked to a creamy consistency. I then peeled and sliced the hard boiled eggs.  Finally, we were ready to assemble the salads.  

We filled pasta bowls with greens and then arranged the egg, potatoes, carrots, beans, tomatoes, ahi tuna on top and around the sides of the greens.  I drizzled the dressing onto the salad and we opened a bottle of Concannon Sauvignon Blanc and poured glasses of it.  The only ingredient we were missing was Nicoise olives and with all the lovely fresh ingredients, a preserved olive was the last thing we were thinking about needing.

 We loved the first day of our new diet and Suzette stayed close to her allotted 1400 calories. 

 Bon Appétit