January 15, 2015 Lunch – Beef pho soup Dinner Sautéed Shrimp Scampi Baked Acorn Squash and steamed broccoli

January 15, 2015 Lunch – Beef pho soup   Dinner Sautéed Shrimp Scampi Baked Acorn Squash and steamed broccoli

We had PPI steak from last night’s dinner with the rest of the vegetables that had been sautéed in olive oil and butter so that became the base for my noodle soup for today.  I filled a medium sauce pan to 2/3 full and then started adding ingredients.  I minced one shallot, chopped one stalk of Kale and threw in a bit of wakame seaweed, 1 large tsp. of Pho seasoning and a large tablespoon of red miso.   Then I added the chopped up the PPI steak and put it in with the vegetable medley which had a clove of garlic, two Vietnamese beef meat balls, three sliced brown mushrooms, about 4 oz. of tofu diced pretty finely and thin rice and bean noodles and finally two large shrimp, we were thawing out for dinner.  All the noodles and odd ingredients are bought at Ta Lin.  In about twenty minutes of simmering this all turned into a lovely soup.  Usually I end up with a rather full pot of soup and eat one and ½ bowls of soup, so one pot of soup will provide me two lunches.  Today’s creation will be no exception.

As I mentioned we have been trying to clear out some space in our freezer and we decided this morning before Suzette left to eat a lb. of large shrimp I had bought at Sprouts Farm Market for $7.99/lb.  I rode at 4:30 to Montano and back and snacked on Boursin garlic and fine herbs processed cheese and crackers left from our Christmas party and hot tea.

So when Suzette called around 6:20 and said she was going to a meeting after her long drive to Santa Rosa and back and would be home around 7:30, we discussed baking the acorn squash I had bought at Sprouts Farm Market last week, so when I hung up the phone I cut a medium Acorn Squash in half across its middle, de-seeded the cavities on both sides and added about ½ oz. of butter and a Tbsp. of light brown sugar to each cavity and put the two halves on a cookie sheet and put them into a 350˚ oven and set the timer for 50 minutes.

When Suzette arrived the around 7:30 the timer on the oven had just rung and I had turned off the heat in the oven and left the acorn squash in the oven to stay warm. 

The large 20–25 count to the lb. shrimp had thawed (these shrimp had been cleaned by removing the intestines at the top of the shell, so they were easy for Suzette to peel and would flair open when sautéed.  Then we started looking for things to add to the Scampi dish and we also found a bag of broccoli in the vegetable crisper that we decided to steam for a green vegetable.  

We agreed on garlic, onions and a bell pepper and parsley for the scampi, so I sliced and diced ½ yellow onion and we found about 7 or 8 cloves of garlic wrapped in aluminum and I diced up on yellow bell pepper.  Suzette took over and heated olive oil and butter in a large skillet and sautéed the onion, garlic and bell pepper for about ten to fifteen minutes to soften them and then added about ¼ cup of Italian Dry white vermouth and cooked the ingredients for another minute or two and then added the shrimp and sautéed the mixture until the shrimp turned from translucent to pink and opaque.  I had finely minced about 1/3 cup of parsley and gone to the basement and fetched a new bottle of wine I bought at Costco on sale for $7.99 (regularly $9.99) on January 4, 2015.  It was a 2013 Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand named Matua (which means head of the family in Maori) that had won two awards, a New Zealand Wine producer IWSC Trophy in 2012 and a gold medal at the New Zealand International Wine Show.  I read labels when I am looking for new wines and am usually attracted to a gold medal wine and this bottle had two awards and was priced at under $10.00 which is the normal price for good Sauvignon Blanc, so I bought two bottles and put back the Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc I had previously selected that was priced at $10.99.

I chilled the bottle in the freezer for a few minutes while Suzette added the 1/3 cup of parsley and the juice of 1/2 lemon to the shrimp and mixed it in and finished sautéing the shrimp and assembling the dish by first placing a half of an acorn squash in each pasta bowl and then pouring the shrimp over the acorn squash and adding the steamed broccoli around the pile of squash and shrimp to make an attractive bowl of food.

The wine was a twist off cap, so I set the table and poured us glasses of Matua.  We immediately noticed that Matua had the same greenish yellow color of most New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, but also had a slightly different citrus flavor than the typical grassy/light grapefruit citrus flavor.  This wine had a more pungent pithy flavor like the white pith just under the surface of the skin of a grapefruit.  It was not strong enough to be bitter but it definitely was noticeable.  Suzette liked it and I thought it gave the wine a rather strong character that left a wonderful citrus flavor in my mouth after drinking it.  I suggest you try this wine and let me know what you think.  We liked Matua a lot and I will buy some more, because it will go well with more assertive seafood dishes, like shrimp scampi. 

The only issue I noticed with Matua is that because it has a screw off top, it you want to store an opened bottle, you must tightly seal the metal cap or its pithy flavor will turn stale and bitter and it will lose its herbaceous flavor notes.

We could not finish our dinners and so will have PPIs for a snack.

Bon Appétit