February 12, 2014 Dinner – Pork Confit with pasta and steamed cauliflower

February 12, 2014 Dinner – Pork Confit with pasta and steamed cauliflower

Suzette drove to Santa Rosa and back today and did not return home until around 7:00.  I worked at home and rode ten miles and made chocolate chip, raisin, cookies after my ride and ate a few, with lychee tea I had bought in the Muslim Market in Xian, at 5:00.

I went to meditate but it was a no show so I returned home around 7:10 to find Suzette home and hungry.

We discussed what PPIs we needed to eat.  She mentioned the PPI Pork confit and I mentioned the large head of cauliflower.  Suzette asked ”Do you want pasta or potatoes?  I said, “Pasta.”

So I picked out an open bag of Casarecce pasta and handed it to her. Suzette then said she would like to drink a Spanish red, so I fetched our last bottle of La Granja from the basement.  And de stemmed the flowerets of cauliflower from their base and put them into the steamer with water and put them on the stove.  Suzette started a pot of water to boil to cook the pasta.

When the pasta was put into the boiling water and had cooked for a couple of minute, Suzette put the PPI pork confit and the PPI mushroom and yellow bell pepper pesto tapenade into a large skillet and started to warm them.  Then we started steaming the cauliflower.

When the pasta was cooked, Suzette drained it and placed about two cups of it into the large skillet and tossed it with the pork and tapenade.  I poured the wine and we were ready to eat.  Suzette filled our plates with the pork pasta tapenade mixture on one side and the lovely white cauliflower on the other side of the plate. 

The La Granja Spanish wine was a little bitter at first but soon opened up and became the lovely 50/50% blend of tempranillo and grenache juices we are familiar with in this wine. La Granja is grown and produced in the Careniña region of Spain on a tributary of the Erbo located downstream (toward the Mediterranean near Zaragoza) from the more famous Rioja region. 

It is hard for me to tell it apart from a simple Rioja, so a pretty good value at $4.99.  The grades of Spanish wines in ascending order, care in processing and price are; simple regional wine, Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva.  The best value in Spanish red wine I find in Albuquerque at the moment is Eguia Reserve 100% tempranillo at Costco when it is on sale for $7.99, which is grown in the Rioja Region.

Another simple, quick and delicious meal created from PPIs.

Bon Appétit