Saturday, April 23, 2016

April 21 and 22, 2016 Lots of PPIs and a New Recipe, Willy’s Irish Beef Stew

April 21 and 22, 2016 Lots of PPIs and a New Recipe, Willy’s Irish Beef Stew

April 21 Suzette and I decided it was time to stop buying food and finish what we have in the larder.  Since I had about 15 lb. of oranges in the garage fridge I decided to squeeze and drink orange juice for breakfast, which I have done for the last two days for breakfast.

For lunch on Thursday, April 21st I made a Miso Vietnamese noodle soup with seaweed, tofu, green onion, regular onion, the last baby Bok Choy, seven heads off shrimp,  two beef meatballs, rice and wheat flour  noodles, ½ of a zucchini, red miso, in a dashi broth served with mung bean sprouts, fresh cilantro, hoisin sauce and Shiracha.  

  The PPI Miso Vietnamese Noodle Soup

Beverly and Glen invited us to a concert at their house on Thursday evening.  They open their house to traveling musicians and this Thursday, Robin Cage was playing.  Robin was raised in Utah and plays piano skillfully and has a pleasant voice with a fair amount of range.  She also writes songs.  I guess she is in her mid thirties.  She sang two sets. On the second set she was joined by local percussionist, John Bartlitt.


Her covers of songs by David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, and Nina Simone were particularly compelling.

Beverly invited me to taste her Parmesan cheese, roasted garlic and olive oil dip on a piece of heavy rye bread.  She makes her dip with 1 head of garlic chopped and sautéed, a 5 oz. package of fresh Parmesan cheese, and a cup of olive oil.  The dip has a pleasant consistency and flavor.

Everyone brought something to drink and some brought food, like cookies and brownies.  There is a recommended donation of $10.00 per person for the entertainer. 

Before the concert I rode to Montano and back and showered. We did not want to cook, so we heated the PPI red cooked chicken and basmati rice and ate that with water for dinner around 5:30.

After the concert we drove to Lowe’s and I bought a gallon of milk.

New Recipe - When we returned home we found Willy in the kitchen making his favorite Irish dish, Irish Stew with Guinness. I helped him chop carrots, parsnips, and mushrooms.  He had already chopped and was sautéing beef, onions and garlic in a large pot.  After these ingredients were Sautéed he added a few sprigs each of Rosemary and thyme and a couple of cans of Guinness stout. Willy does not put potatoes into the stew because he prefers to serve the stew on a pile of mashed potatoes made fresh for each meal.

Friday lunch I had a hankering for a salad and wanted to use up the PPI salad dressings and salad ingredients in the fridge and the grilled tuna and have a healthy lunch with the lovely fresh greens from our garden.  At 11:45 I went to the garden and picked a basket full of greens that I tore, rinsed and spun.  I chopped and added cucumber, a Roma tomato, two green onion, and four oz. of PPI grilled Aji tuna.  I then made a Russian dressing by combining the PPI tartare sauce with the balsamic blue cheese dressing and added 1 T. of catsup, a T. of olive oil, and a tsp. of lemon juice.  The result was to my liking, perhaps because I was emptying the fridge as much as anything.



I sliced a piece of Fano baguette and toasted it and melted slices of Swiss Gruyere cheese on the toasted bread to make two open faced cheese sandwiches. I drank water with the salad and read the economics article in this week’s New Yorker about how large corporations are the newest progressive counterweight to the latest wave of Right Wing conservative anti-trans gender legislation.  This seems Iike a turning point culturally speaking toward more inclusive policies and away from previously LGBTG discriminatory legislation sponsored by the Koch brothers organization, ALEC.  According to the New Yorker article, large corporations are leading the way with their economic muscle by withdrawing their facilities and operations from states that adopt such legislation. The reason given in the article is that young workers will not work in discriminatory work places.  

Friday, April 22 dinner was pretty much the same story. I worked until 7:30 on the water case and Suzette had a busy day at work reorganizing her senior staffing positions, since her Spa Manager is leaving for a new job.

We snacked on the ham salad Suzette made Wednesday evening putting it on Ritz crackers around 6:30, which quelled our hunger. At 9:00 after a shower we started watching hockey.  Suzette mentioned dinner and since Willy had conveniently left the pot of his Irish Guinness beef stew on the stove, we decided to have a bowl of stew with a toasted flour tortilla for dinner with a glass of an Italian 2013 Sangiovese red wine Suzette brought home, among about a dozen bottles of wine from the Greenhouse Bistro, left over from the old wine list.  I guess you could call the bottles PPI, although they were all immensely drinkable.

  The ham salad


Later I ate a small bowl of the last of the Java Chocolate Chip ice cream with a splash of Kahlua on it.

The lighter food I am eating is beginning to make me feel better with the addition of regular exercise.  Pray for no wind or rain. 

Bon Appetit 



No comments:

Post a Comment