May 6, 2014 Lunch Pasqual’s Dinner Grilled Halibut and Couscous with chopped kale and tomato

May 6, 2014 Lunch  Pasqual’s    Dinner Grilled Halibut and Couscous with chopped kale and tomato

We went to Santa fore for a mediation and got a lunch break at 11:L40.  Sally wanted green chili so we walked one block from the Court of Appeals to Pasqual’s.  It has been forty years since I ate at Pasqual’s and then it was actually named the Golden Temple and run by Sikhs.  So I did not know what to expect, although I knew it had a national reputation.  Seeing two James Beard awards as we entered the restaurant helped reassure me that we were in the right place for a good meal.   I was not familiar with the menu so I ordered Mexican food, the Primo Plate with a Chili relleno and a chicken tamal with red sauce.  Both were really good.  The relleno was battered with Pasqual’s omelet batter that was really light, not like the heavy cornmeal coating at  La Salita.  The tamal was full of chicken and had lots of tasty masa coating it and the red chili sauce on it was excellent.  The two items were served with refried black beans that were delicious, cilantro rice and a jicama and orange and chili salad (light spicy and fruity, all at once).  My dish was $16.00 but I would probably try Pasqual’s again sometime. Sally and Bill both ordered sandwiches, which they liked that were served with chopped kale salads.

Sally's chicken breast sandwich

 

The Primo Plate with tamal and Relleno

Bill's BLT Sandwich

Shredded kale salad

I rode and came home about 6:00. Suzette was at home and we knew we needed to eat the fresh halibut steak I had bought at Talin yesterday, but we had to discuss what to cook with it as a vegetable.    We finally decided to make couscous with kale and chopped tomato.

 

Suzette made a compound butter with chives and butter and stuffed the stomach cavity with the butter, while I went to the garden and picked a basket full of two kinds of kale.  I chopped up the kale and one Roma tomato and put them in a sauce pan with water to boil and soften.  After a few minutes of boiling I added a cup of couscous to the pot and cooked it covered for about fifteen minutes while Suzette grilled the halibut on a bed of lemon slices.  A hint to how to simplify cooking dinner is to cook one dish instead of two dishes. For example, if you mix vegetables and a starch in one dish as we did tonight you cut down a lot of cooking time.
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I fetched a bottle of Leese and Fitch Sauvignon Blanc ($7.99 at Jubilation) from the basement and we were ready to eat when Suzette took the halibut off the grill.  We sat on the back patio under the awning with its superb view of the raised bed garden and confirmed how much we loved living, cooking and dining with each other and discussed lots of other things like how to get the best seafood in Albuquerque (it is not easy.). 

After dinner Suzette wanted some cheese and bread with some red wine.  I fetched the new wedge of Delicata cheese I bought at Costco last week and toasted three small pieces of bread.  Instead of going to the basement for a red wine I suggested we open a bottle of port because it might go better with the sharply acidic Delicata.  We had a bottle of Mogrado ruby port (Trader Joe’s $6.99) next to the kitchen and we poured glasses of it.  In fact, the cheese and the port were so delicious together that we sipped almost one-half bottle and reminisced about our recent trip to Portugal and the types of port we drank there.

Finally at around 9:00 p.m. we went inside the house.

Bon Appétit