March 3, 2014 Lunch – Chicken (Pollo Asado) at Pro’s Ranch Market Dinner – Thai Cream of Carrot Soup

March 3, 2014 Lunch – Chicken (Pollo Asado) at Pro’s Ranch Market   Dinner – Thai Cream of Carrot Soup

I called Peter Eller around noon and suggested we have lunch together.  He arrived around 12:30 and drove us to Pro’s Ranch Market in his 320 SL convertible.  Prices were going up everywhere in the market now that it was in bankruptcy and new owners were coming on board, according to Peter.  Yet the pollo asado was still $6.99 for a whole chicken.  We decided to split one and get a couple of side dishes. The lady picked one for us and sectioned it for us and filled one pint plastic container with rice and one with re-fried beans ($12.00 total) and I bought a large bottle of root beer for $1.79 and picked up two cups of ice at the juice stand.   We scooped chopped onions and cilantro and salsa from the complimentary condiment bar onto our plates and sat down to eat.  I ate my whole half chicken but Peter showed some restraint and ate only ¼ chicken, so he could take the rest home for dinner.

After lunch a did some power shopping and bought broccoli ($.69/lb.), Roma tomatoes ($.50/lb.), a pineapple (2 lb./$.99) and bosc pears ($.69/lb.).  I now had several ingredients for Sunday night’s meal.

At 4:30 I rode to Montano and showered and was tired so I lay down at 6:00 and snoozed until Suzette arrived from Santa Rosa at around 7:00.  She said she was not hungry because she had stopped for a Blizzard at Dairy Queen on the drive home.   I was still stuffed from lunch, but got up at around 7:30 to join Suzette and we went to inspect the progress of the renovation.   Josefo and ivan are moving the clothes washer and dryer into the back bedroom to open up the alcove by the back door to make it into our future mud room.

Suzette said, “Perhaps we should eat something.”  I had taken out a small bag of shrimp and a bag of scallops and a container with the PPI steamed flounder for a fish soup, but Suzette looked in the fridge and found a container of cream of carrot soup she had made last summer when we harvested all of our carrots from the garden (about twenty pounds).    She poured the soup into two mugs and she handed me a small bag of chopped toasted peanuts we had and I poured them into a small skillet and heated them.  While the soup was heating in the microwave and the peanuts in the skillet, Suzette fetched the bag of cilantro from the fridge and plucked leaves from the stems.  She also fetched the remaining crema from the fridge to use as a garnish for the soup.  I suggested that if she was going to garnish with crema, she might want to add some Thai red chili curry paste from a bottle in the fridge (Talin $2.50?).  She fetched the bottle of red chili curry paste in coconut cream and added a spoonful to the crema and when the soup was ready and the peanuts warmed, she added peanuts and crema and cilantro leaves to the tops of each mug of hot soup.  It made an attractive dish.  We drank water and stirred in the cilantro, peanuts and crema chili sauce into the soup and enjoyed an exciting tasting,

light dinner.

Bon Appétit