January 25, 2021 Lunch – PPI Posole and a Tamale. Dinner – New Recipe. Eggplant Moussaka

 January 25, 2021 Lunch – PPI Posole and a Tamale. Dinner – New Recipe.  Eggplant Moussaka

I did not eat breakfast again today so at 10:30 I heated the partially frozen pot of Posole and threw a frozen tamale into the pot with 1 ½ cups of water and brought it to a boil. I went to the garden and picked a handful of fresh oregano and de-stemmed the leaves and chopped them and chopped about 2 T. of onion to add to the bowl and ate 1 ½ bowls  of Posole.  

I can not believe what I am seeing in the Market.  Apple and Moderna were up again and my portfolio advanced another 1% today to yet another all time high. I am now trying to determine when it will pull back and how to plan for that.

I read Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris during part of the afternoon and when Suzette arrived around 4:00 1 walked ½ mile.

When I returned home we discussed dinner.  Suzette wanted to use the ricotta cheese she bought last week with the lamb chops she bought last week.  She finally came up with a recipe that used both, eggplant and lamb moussaka.  

This turned out to be one of the best new recipes we have cooked in a long time, possibly because we had all the fresh ingredients.  I removed the meat from six lamb chops, removed all the sinew and fat and minced the meat. I went to the garden and picked a handful of oregano and de-stemmed the leaves and chopped about 2 T. of oregano. Suzette diced tomatoes and an onion and sautéed the them with the oregano and lamb..

She sliced creamer potatoes and blanched them in a Pyrex loaf pan covered with Saran with a bit of water and sliced the eggplant I bought on Saturday.  She then made about two cups of cream sauce with a roux and milk.

Suzette then constructed the moussaka.  She laid the sliced cooked potatoes on the bottom, then the slices of eggplant, then a layer of fresh spinach, then the sautéed lamb, oregano, tomato, and onion then globs of ricotta, and finally the cream sauce.

 

 

 

 

   She then baked the 9 x 13 Pyrex baking dish of moussaka in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for 45 minutes until juices began to bubble up at the edges.

  

  

The moussaka was the best I have ever tasted; it was creamy and had an absence of oily fat.  I attribute this superior flavor to two factors.  We substituted creamy, slightly sweet ricotta instead of the traditional feta cheese called for in the recipe and by the fact that I meticulously removed the fat from the lamb so that it lacked almost all fat.

I love Southern Rhone red wine with lamb.  Southern Rhone is principally Grenache and Syrah grapes. I fetched a bottle of 2011 Vega del Origon Gran Reserva from the Terra Alta region of Spain because it has the typical dosage of grapes as Cotes Du Rhone, 60% Grenache/Garnacha and 40% Syrah.

  The moussaka could not have been more delicious.

I drank a bit of Calvados and ate a few squares of chocolate with almonds after dinner.

Bon Appetit