October 10, 2014 Lunch Noodle Soup Dinner Party Grilled Steak with Brown Mushroom Sauce , Roasted Acorn Squash, Peach salad, and apricot cobbler with Ice Cream

 It was 57˚ at 8:00 and I decided to ride to Montano and back so by 11:00 I was really hungry.  I decided to make a noodle soup using some of the Vietnamese rice noodle and PPI pork roast and a few shrimp.

So I filled a medium sauce pan with water, cut up and added ½ of a small red onion, some seche seaweed, 4 oz. of tofu, some celery from the garden, instant dashi fish stock, a spoonful of White miso and 1 trumpet mushroom.  

We had invited Crystal and Doug and Janis and Tom for dinner at 6:30.  We were both working so we planned a simple dinner of grilled rib eye steaks and baked acorn squash.  At 5:00 I sliced three acorn squashes in halves and Suzette added minced onion and baked them for an hour in a 375˚ oven.  Then she made an apricot cobbler by defrosting a 32 oz. container of stewed apricots that we had picked from Megan’s  tree this summer.

I wanted make a healthy flavorful sauce and have an extra vegetable on the plate, because we only had ¼ squash and steak and that did not make a very pleasing plate.  I decided to make a mushroom sauce and thought the name of the sauce was Foresteire, but I could not find that sauce.  Finally I found what I wanted in Gourmet Cookbook; a mushroom brown sauce flavored with tomato sauce, which we had a fresh batch of in the garage, Sauce Chasseur (Hunter’s Sauce, page 519 in Gourmet Cookbook  Vol.1)). 

Sauce Recipe:

I sliced the seven or eight brown mushrooms and two trumpet mushrooms we had and used white vermouth for the wine and used ½ cup of Suzette’s fresh tomato sauce and a large Tbsp. of Pho seasoning instead of the 1 cup of beef stock.  The sauce tasted fine although perhaps, a little perky, zippy and not as elegantly French, as it would have had spent a day making a brown sauce.  I also added about 1 Tbsp. of the cooking juices from the steaks. The sauce actually thickened, so I added about 1 Tbsp. of La Crema Chardonnay to thin it a bit a make the right consistency. 

I had decided to use some of our older bottles of wine.  Since Doug and Crystal had opened a bottle of Brunello for us when we attended their cocktail party a week ago, I knew Doug liked Brunello, I opened a bottle of 2000 Caparzo Brunello de Motalcino Vendemmia DOCC ( Costco $27.00?) and a bottle of 2000 Chateau Margot St. Emilion Grand Cru hat we had bought at the Maison du Vin in St. Emilion and brought back with us when you could still do that in 2004 or 2005.

At 5:30 I fetched three bottles of wine and opened the 2000 Brunello and the 2000 St. Emilion Grand Cru to open up.  Since both wines are older reds, as they open up they tend to become smoother and fruitier.  I chilled the De Ponte rosé in the freezer.

At 6:30 Crystal and Doug arrived bringing a bottle of 2009 Tenuta di Renieri Riserva Chianti Classico and a platter of goat cheese and fresh figs drizzled with a red wine sauce on some of her lovely seasoned crackers.

We wrapped the Fano’s baguette in aluminum foil and put it into the oven to heat, when Suzette put the cobbler into the oven to bake around 6:30 and turned the heat down from 375˚ to 350 for the cobbler.

I then opened a bottle of 2011 De Ponte Willamette Valley, we had bought at the winery when we went to Willy’s graduation two years ago, and poured glasses and we took Crystal’s  appetizer to the living room and sat and talked and ate appetizers.   The rosé’s flavor was good.  Although it had lost much of its fruitiness, everyone seemed to like it. 

Then Janis and Tom arrived with fixings for a salad for dinner.  Janis made a fresh peach and mini mixed greens salad with tomatoes and toasted pinón nuts and a lovely balsamic/honey dressing made with equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil and a bit of honey.  The slightly sweet and tart dressing went really well with both the peach and fresh greens in the salad.  Janis dressed the salad and made composed salads with the greens and peaches on glass salad plates.

I sliced the steaks and Suzette sliced the baked squashes into quarters and put ¼ squash on each plate.  Each person took a plate and served themselves slices of beef steak and I ladled spoonsful of Chasseur sauce onto the meat and we set a plate of Janis’ composed salad at each place and sat down to dinner in the dining room since it was raining outside. 

Suzette thawed out a log of her herbed and anchovies compound butters she made to spread on the warm fresh baguette.

During dinner Doug asked me the question, “How do you get all these wines?”  My answer was, “I collect them.”

I have since thought about Doug’s question and can say that, although correct, my answer was not complete.  I actually categorize my wine shopping into three categories.  First, are the wines we drink on a daily basis are usually $5.00 to $10.00 wines, that I usually buy at Trader Joe’s or Total Wine or as close outs at Jubilation.

The second category of wines are better wines, usually $11.00 to $20.00 bottles of wine that we cellar and drink on special occasions such as when we make a favorite or new dish or have guests over that 

I usually buy at Costco, Trader Joe’s or Total Wine.   

The third category are the wines we have collected on our travels or premium wines we have bought as members of the two wine clubs we were members of; Londer and Wellington, or ones I want to put down for a special occasion.  The three wines we served tonight were in the third category.   The De Ponte was the best rosé we tasted in our tour of the wineries on the Dundee Hills in the Willamette Valley two years ago.  The St. Emilion as stated above was bought in St. Emilion on a trip to France about ten years ago.  The Brunello was bought because I read in a magazine that the 1997 Brunello’s were considered 100 point wines.  Then when I saw that 2000 was also a good year and Costco (about $27.00) had a 2000 Brunello, I bought one and put it down in our wine cellar for a special occasion.

Tonight was that special occasion, a Fall meal with the emphasis on great red wines.  The menu was geared mainly to Doug’s enjoyment of big reds.  And since Doug and Crystal are runners and we all like to eat lightly, we kept the menu simple and seasonal. 

After dinner I served some brie and goat’s cheese and we sipped some red wine with the cheeses. 

Then Suzette made parfaits of fresh warm apricot cobbler and vanilla ice cream and Chantilly cream.

Then around 10:00 gracefully said, “I need to go to bed”, and we all said good night.

Bon Appétit