December 22, 2024 Brunch - Harvest Restaurant at Indian Pueblo Center. Dinner - Roast Duck and Spinach Couscous

December 22, 2024  Brunch - Harvest Restaurant at Indian Pueblo Center. Dinner - Roast Duck and Spinach Couscous

I ate a Chocolate Croissant with a cup of green tea while a watched Everton against Chelsea that ended in a 0 to 0 tie and Fareed Zacharia.

Then at 8:45 we drove to the airport to pick up Billy and Elaine.  We then drove to the Indian Pueblo Center and ate brunch in the Harvest Restaurant. The food was excellent. Suzette and Elaine ordered blu corn griddle cakes (three large pancakes with nuts and seeds imbedded in the dough.  Billy and I ordered blue corn enchiladas (three rolled enchiladas stuffed with cheese and garnished with meat and red chili on a platter with a wonderful salad with fresh cherry tomatoes, a pile of fresh Calabacitas with lightly cooked zucchini and yellow squash, and corn kernels, and a pile of cooked pinto beans. It was the best plate of enchiladas I had eaten in a long time p, mainly due to the sides.

After lunch we inspected the gingerbread house entries and then drove across the street to Mama’s Minerals, where I bought a wooden stand for my geode. 

We then drove home and I drove to Costco to pick up my hearing aids.

It took an hour and I still need to learn how to use them, but I wore them for the rest of the day and heard everything. After my noon appointment, at 1:00 I went shopping and forgot the most important thing, the lamb riblets for dinner, but I bought the cod, spinach, some excellent Spanish  olive oil, small quiches, a wheel of brie d’ Isigny, Normandy, pink salt, and another bag of 16 chocolate croissants.

After I loaded and filled up the mini with gas, I drove down the street to Southwest Distributers and bought, rice wine cooking liquid, rice vinegar, capers, ground cumin, and a bag of tagliatelle pasta. I also stopped at Lowe’s and bought a gallon of milk and a package of oatmeal cookies.

When I returned home it was 3:00. I watched some TV and a 4:00 heated and ate a slice of pecan pie with a cup of tea.

At 4:30 Suzette and I walked around the block to see the Christmas decorations. Our neighbors at the corner of Los Alamos went all out with a yard full of inflated figures.  Here up is a picture of their front yard.

We rested when we returned home. I felt good and had walked over 5000 steps, which is more than usual.

Billy and Elaine came over at 6:00 and we made dinner. Suzette heated two duck halves and glazed them with her homemade apricot jam. She roasted the pre-cooked duck that we bought at Costco that take 20 to 25 minutes to re-heat, so it was an easy, quick dinner to prepare.

I made spinach couscous. I sautéed 1/3 onion minced in butter, then added 1 cup of couscous and tossed it in the butter. Then I added 1 1/2 cups of boiling water and finally several handfuls of spinach that Billy and Elaine de-stemmed.

I opened a bottle of Chateauneuf de Pape and we had a lovely dinner.

After dinner we opened the German Asbach dark chocolate brandy filled beans they brought us andveachbate and each ate a bean.

We watched the Cowboys v. Buccaneer game and the Kennedy Center Awards auntie Billy and Elaine left at 9:00.

We watched the end of the football game that ended in an improbable finish when a Dallas defended took the ball out of the hands of a receiver after his catch while Tampa was marching toward a game winning field goal. Instead, Dallas won 26 to 24.

We then watched about an hour of Elf at 9:30 and then Suzette went to sleep and I blogged.

Bon Appetit