August 4, 2012 - Dinner - Everything Fresh Pasta Primavera

We are leaving on Tuesday for three weeks, so we are clearing out the fridge and picking what we can from the garden.   So when we went to the Farmer’s Market today, we purchased 8 ounces of fresh spinach linguine for $5.00 from Bell’ Incanto Pasta.  When we returned home we picked three lonely beets left from last year in from our garden, some kale and most of the fresh basil.

Suzette made fresh pesto by putting ½ cup slivered almonds into the Waring Blender and pulverized them and then added four cloves of fresh garlic and pulverized that and then packed the blender with 1 to 1 ½ cup of basil leaves and added ½ cup of olive oil slowly and pulverized some more, then added 2 Tbsp. of butter and then 2 tsp. of sea salt and blended until smooth and creamy.

After the pasta was cooked and drained, Suzette diced about ½ to ¾ cup of fresh mozzarella cheese and put that in a bowl with the pasta and ¼ cup of pesto.

Before cooking the pasta and making the pesto we chopped the fresh beets, a crook neck yellow squash, a zucchini squash, about three leaves from a bulb of fennel shaved with a vegetable peeler,  1 white onion,  1 cup of cherry tomatoes, and about three cups of kale from the garden, plus 1/3 cup enoki mushrooms from Ta Lin.

Suzette then sautéed the vegetables in a large enameled pan in butter and olive oil and after they were cooked added the kale and covered the pan to steam the kale, while I sliced slices of Regianno Parmesan Cheese and went to the basement for a bottle of D’Aquino Chianti Riserva 2006 (Trader Joes. $5.99?).

Suzette then mixed about 1/3 cup of pesto into the cooked pasta and added ½ cup of fresh mozzarella to the pasta and we toasted slices of French bread (Riviera Bakery $2.99).  We plated up pasta bowls with the pasta, vegetable mixture and slices of cheese and poured glasses of Chianti and put the toasted French bread in a bread basket on the table.  Viola.

As we watched the Olympics on T.V. we discussed the food.  We were amazed that the rag tag assortment of vegetables tasted so good.  We noted that beets stained all the other vegetables pink.  We noted that Bell Encanto pasta was more expensive and doughier or flaccid, not as toothsome, than its predecessor Pasta Davina pasta and we decided that we would rather make pasta than pay $5.00 for ½ lb. of fresh pasta anyway.

  Bon Appétit

July 23, 2012 Dinner - Duck and Cous Cous Hash

I had only thirty minutes between trial and a meeting to prepare and eat dinner, so I went to the fridge and got out the two PPI cous cous dishes and PPI roast duck and stripped the meat off two wings and sautéed it in a skillet with the PPI duck fat from the roasting pan and threw in a cup of the cous cous, tomato, carrot, onion, garlic and kale mixture and sliced up three fingerling potatoes and as put in as much of the butter and parsley and chives as I could dig out of the duck meat PPI container and sautéed that for about five minutes until the duck skin began to crisp and the potatoes became slightly browned and we plated it up and drank beer with it for a quick 10 minute prep time dinner.

We ate PPI Clafoutis for dessert later in the evening.

Bon Appetit

July 22, 2012 Dinner – Roast Duck with caramelized white onion and lavender and boiled new potatoes

Suzette bought baby fingerling potatoes and onions at the Farmer’s Market.  We had thawed out a package of two duck halves from Costco ($13.95).  Suzette roasted the duck but she put water into the roasting pan and the duck was a little tough.   She boiled potatoes and I chopped chives and parsley and Suzette rolled the potatoes in some butter.  I sliced the onions thinly and Suzette sautéed them in butter and lavender.  

Suzette steamed snow peas and then tossed them with the lavender and onions.

We drank a bottle of Napa Cellars Napa valley Pinot Noir.  It had that heavy Napa body instead of the delicate, feminine northern California pinot noir body, but it went well with the strng herby flavor of the fresh lavender.  

Bon Appetit   

July 21, 2012 dinner - Stuffed Squash Blossoms and Corn on the Cob

We went in different directions today. Suzette went to the Farmer’s Market while I prepared for a trial and lunched on chirashi at Azuma with Karim Kassam  Karim and his wife are the leaders of the Ismaeli community in Albuquerque so I was pleased to learn a little bit about that sect of Islam.

After lunch I went to The Center for Ageless Living for a massage.  Suzette was preparing the pool deck for re-painting at 5:00 p.m, after which she was dirty and did not wish to eat at the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery, so we drove home.

When we got home Suzette said that she had purchased a bag of squash blossoms and ears of fresh corn at the Farmer’s Market an she suggested stuffing them and frying the squash blossoms and boiling the corn for a light dinner.

Suzette quickly found a recipe for stuffed squash blossoms on the internet.

The Batter

1 cup flour

½ cup cornstarch

½ tsp. salt

1 cup fat free chilled milk, beer or water (we used 2% milk)

 

Cheese-Mushroom Stuffing

¼ cup ricotta (we used California Goat cheese)

1 clove garlic (we used  fresh cloves)

¼  tsp. each salt and pepper

2 Tbsp mushrooms, finely chopped (we chopped 4 Tbsp.)

1 Tbsp. fresh basil, or parsley, minced

16 squash blossoms, washed

Canola oil for frying

Batter – sift together dry ingredients, whtn whisk with milk, beer or water until smooth.  Cover and set in fridge for 30 minutes.  Can be kept up to 2 days in fridge.

Stuffing – combine cheese, garlic, salt pepper, mushrooms and basil.  Open blossoms and spoon about 1/2 tsp. (we put about 1 tsp. in each) of mixture into center of each.  Avoid over filling the blossoms. Twist the top of each blossom together to close.  Place on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Pour oil into skillet to a depth of ½ inch. Heat over high heat until a small cube of bread dropped into the oil turns golden brown within seconds.

Briefly dip each stuffed blossom into the batter, then carefully slip into the hot oil.

Cook until golden on all sides, about three minutes total cooking time. Add only as many blossoms at a time as will comfortably fit in the skillet.  Transfer with a slotted utensil to paper towels to drain briefly.

While  the squash blossoms were cooking I gathered a handful of basil leaves from the garden and sliced fresh yellow and red tomatoes that had been grown in Suzette’s garden and she bought at the Farmer’s Market and made an arrangement of eight slices of tomato on a plate with a basil leaf on each.  When the 16 squash blossoms were all cooked we put a squash blossom on each leaf of basil and then Suzette drizzled them with balsamic vinegar like a caprese salad with 8 per plate and put an ear of corn on each plate.  I cut a few slices of apple to garnish each plate.

I opened a bottle of Toulouse Rosé of Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley, California and we enjoyed an elegant vegetarian meal.

Bon Appétit

  

July 19, 2012 Dinner – PPI Veal Stroganff and Kale on Spaghetti

            We were both tired so Suzette made a simple sautéed single dish by combining PPI Veal Stroganoff with the PPI spaghetti and three cups of fresh kale from the garden.

            We drank a bottle of California Fog Head Pinot Noir, which was a big wine, which I do not think worked that well with the cream sauce of the stroganoff, but was great with the brie on bread after dinner.

Bon Appétit

July 17, 2012 Dinner – Veal Stroganoff with Spaghetti

        Another night with no prior plan for dinner.  At around 6:30 p.m. we started to put together a dinner plan.  Suzette had bought fresh oyster and button mushrooms at Ta Lin and so we decided to thaw out a lb. of veal stew meat and make stroganoff. 

1 lb. veal stew meat (Alpine Sausage Kitchen $6.99/lb.) in ½ inch cubes

2 Tbsp. olive oil and 2 Tbsp. butter

½ medium red onion, diced

5 cloves of fresh garlic, minced finely

¼ cup sour cream (crema sin sal from Pro’s Market)

¼  cup of heavy cream

¼ cup of Chicken stock

¼ cup of white wine (Chardonnay)

1/3 cup of sliced oyster mushrooms

1/3 cup of button mushrooms

1 medium tomato, chopped.

6 large Italian basil leaves, sliced thinly

5 leaves of sage, sliced thinly

Salt and pepper to taste

1 lb. PPI Spaghetti

The veal stew meat was end cuts, so many pieces had silver skin and tendons in them and had to be butchered to remove those unpleasant bits from the meat.  I did that and then diced the onion and minced the garlic and diced the tomato as Suzette chopped the mushrooms.

After we both diced and chopped the ingredients, Suzette first sautéed the veal with the onions and garlic in 1 Tbsp. each of butter and olive oil in a large skillet and then added all the other ingredients to the skillet while I heated the spaghetti in the microwave and went to the garden to pick the herbs and then slice them.  When the stroganoff had cooked for about fifteen minutes and the sauce thickened somewhat, I went to the fridge in the basement to fetch a bottle of wine.  We did not have a chilled bottle of Austrian white, so I selected a California Gnarly Head 2010 Pinot Grigio.
We then plated the pasta in large pasta bowls and spooned the stroganoff mixture over the pasta and garnished the plates with the sliced fresh herbs.  The sage was a little tough until the heat of the sauce cooked it a bit and softened it, but the fresh basil was lovely.
The wine had that slightly musty California grape aftertaste, but also that slightly fruity brightness that is common to Pinot Grigio.  The wine well suited the dish well and was probably the closest choice we had to an Austrian white. 

For dessert I had Rocky Road ice cream with the last of last year’s fruit cake with whip cream and a dossing of rum and orange liquor. Suzette had fresh green figs stuffed with goat cheese and a dossing of Balsamic Vinegar.

Bon Appétit

July 16, 2012 Dinner - Surf and Turf Burrito

We have not been to the store for days and there were not a lot of new ingredients, so while I was working with a client until after 7:00 p.m., Suzette went to the fridge and put together a PPI masterpiece; as often happens in such circumstances.

She sautéed the PPI steak, Mexican squash, onion, garlic, oregano and verdelagos sauté dish with about ½ lb. of PPI grilled Halibut from Friday’s dinner and flavored it with about 1 Tbsp. of Cervantes Red Chili Sauce, then heated flour tortillas and stuffed them with the mixture to make two delicious Surf and Turf Burritos. 
We opened a bottle of La Ferme Julien Rosé 2010.
La Ferme Julien is one of my favorite rosés.  It was on the Wine Spectator top twenty rosés list a few years ago and sells for about $6.00 at Trader Joe’s.  It is a Rhone Valley Appellation Ventoux Contrôlée blend of Cinsault, Grenache and Syrah grapes grown in the vineyards of the famous Perrin Family holdings high on the slopes of Mont Ventoux, where some of the best wines in the Rhône are produced.
So, Suzette did what she usually does so well, which is to cook the food, making a quick, tasty dinner without having to do any of the prep functions that I usually do by combining two PPI’s.
What a pleasant experience to stand up from my work area, say goodnight to my client and walk to the dinner table to be welcomed by an interesting new dish, a grilled steak and halibut filled burrito.
When combined with a great bottle of wine, it made a memorable dinner. 
Thanks to Suzette for seeing the possibilities of amplifying a Mexican influenced dish with fish to create a great Mexican dish.

Bon Appétit