Today the most creative and best meal was lunch. I made a Tabouli Salad. I filed a pasta bowl with our or five chopped leaves of romaine lettuce. Then I added a pile of the quinoa tabouli I made a few days ago, which had everything I wanted in the salad, such as chopped cucumber, tomato, parsley, and green onion. I wanted a little more of a Middle Eastern experience, so I added about a dozen cracked green olives and a ball of oil preserved labni and a generous sprinkle of feta cheese crumbles.here is what it looked like. I loved it.
After the market closed at 2:00 with a near record day for my portfolio, I drove to Bombay Spice Store and bought a tube of Vicco toothpaste and two boxes of Tea India Chai Marsala. Each box contains 72 round bags of the spices used to make chai. I just add a black tea and hot water and milk to make chai. No boiling herbs and ginger needed.
I then went to Talin and bought a 1.3 lb. trout for dinner.
When Suzette arrived home a bit after 6:00, I was still working but soon stopped. She had been on the road all day, driving to Santa Fe and Las Vegas and back, so she was not in the mood to cook. We had a pan of canola left from the last fish we fried, so we were ready to cook the trout, but the problem was the vegetable. I suggested stir frying Napa cabbage with beech mushrooms. Suzette said, “Coleslaw is the thing to serve with fried fish.” So we thinly sliced five or six Napa Cabbage leaves and I the added thin sliced and chopped pieces of an apple while Suzette made a dressing with apple cider vinegar, mayo, and CBD infused honey.
Suzette then dusted the trout with flour, salt, and pepper and fried it in the large skillet of heated oil.
Suzette then remembered she wanted to make tomatoes Provençal. Instead of cutting them in half, she cored out the stem from the top and stuffed each with a small piece of fresh mozzarella, some Progresso bread crumbs, and a drizzle of olive oil. I did not criticize but knew this was not the way my mother made them or as I had had them in restaurants. We were both challenged tonight to get something on the table and use up all the ingredients we had. The result was not very appealing; a lovely piece of fried trout hot from the skillet laid on a pile of cold coleslaw with a couple of tomatoes baked with a dab of mozzarella and a few bread crumbs.
The warm delicate fish on the cold cold slaw was a bad combination for me. We should have made a warm Coleslaw or the hot stir fried cabbage with mushrooms to go with the warm fried fish.
The tomatoes were just okay. My mother used to make them with a thick slice of cheese, usually a salty one such as Parmesan, and lots of bread crumbs. My favorite dish like this that mother made was eggplant Provençal thick slices of eggplant, tomato, and cheese topped with bread crumbs and a drizzle of olive oil, baked until cooked and tender.
I served us glasses of Matua New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc ($7.99 at Trader Joe’), that was just okay. It was too citrusy for me. I preferred the elegantly understated Fruii Italian White we had with the last time we fried trout. The lesson from this meal is not to mix hot and cold elements in one dish, unless it is Vietnamese.
The other lesson is to not cook when you are dead tired and don’t want to cook. I remember that I could never make good ceramic pots after a long tiring day of work, when I worked at Pier 1 during the day and threw pots at night in my 20’s.
Suzette suggested, as we ate, that perhaps tomorrow we should go out to eat. That sounds like a great idea.
We are both working grueling long days to get everything finished before we leave.
After dinner in an effort to finish off as many PPIs as possible I warmed a piece of Clafoutis and surrounded it with whipped cream and drank a cup of chai with it.
Bon Appetit
No comments:
Post a Comment