October 31, 2012 Halloween – A Strange Day of Food

October 31, 2012  Halloween – A Strange Day of Food

I awoke with no plan for food other than to have some yogurt and fruit for breakfast.  Last Sunday I made a fruit salad with ½ papaya, a pineapple and the juice of three limes purchased at Pro’s Ranch Market a week earlier and ½ of a Crenshaw melon grown in our garden.  So I filled a bowl with fruit salad and granola and a large scoop of Lala Mango yogurt (Pro’s $2.99 for 32 oz.) for breakfast.

I became hungry again around 1:00 p.m. and called Mike, but he was going to Taj Mahal and I had gone there for lunch with him recently, so I decided to make what I am in the mood for these days, a bowl of noodle soup.   So I heated a pot of water and threw into it some dehydrated dashi, two chopped up pieces of cooked ham, a handful of sugar snap peas, 2 Tbsp. of diced onion, two kinds of noodles (a round wrapped Chinese wheat flour one and a Vietnamese rice stick one) three fish cake balls, some chopped fresh garlic greens and basil from the garden, three sliced water chestnuts a sliced stalk of celery and a green onion from the garden, two mushrooms sliced thinly, a dash of mushroom soy sauce, a dash of rice cooking wine and a dash of sesame oil and about 2 Tbsp. of brown miso.  When the soup had simmered for about ten minutes and the noodles softened, it was ready.  I ate it with Hoisin Sauce and Shirachi red chili cause and a cup of green tea and read the recent interview of Obama in Rolling Stone magazine.  A pretty good lunch for a throw together.

When Suzette arrived home at around 6:00 p.m. it was time to get the three large bags of candy and music ready for the hundreds of small trick or treaters who visit our neighborhood starting as sunset every year.

Our Huning Castle Neighborhood is a popular, major attraction for two very different groups of people for two very different reasons on two very special nights of the year.  One is Christmas Eve when every house decorates its yard with luminarias when people pilgrimage to Old Town and the County Club area to celebrate the coming of the Christ child by walking or driving the streets of our neighborhood to view the yards filled with luminarias and decorations.  The other wonderful evening is Halloween when children of all ages dress up in their most creative costumes and trick or treat from door to door.

We usually buy three or four large bags of individually wrapped chocolate bars of candy at Costco to give out.  So at around 6:30 p.m. the first of our small visitors arrived.  Every year Suzette and I come up with a question that we ask before giving a treat and this year Suzette came up with the question, “What are the names of the persons running for President?”  We love to ask a question because it breaks the monotony of just handing out candy and often opens up interesting insights into a child or parent who accompanies them’s thinking.  This year we got some great answers, like “Captain America” and “That other guy”.  Most of our visitors are from lower income families that live in the areas near our home and most of them seemed to be for Obama, so asking this year’s question gave us an opportunity to feel good that we were subtly getting out the vote.   I noticed that this year I had resisted eating the Halloween candy until Halloween night and then I ate lots of candy as Suzette gave out bags of it.   As Suzette and I ate candy and gave out candy and queried kids, I realized that Suzette and I were really enjoying sharing with our visitors the joy associated with Halloween, this special celebration of and for

the kid in all of us, as each of us connected with our childhood memories and thrill of celebrating Halloween and trick or treating and gorging ourselves on lots of cheap candy.   

By about 8:00 p.m. all of our 500 pieces of candy were gone, so we closed the door and turned off the porch light.  I asked what Suzette she wanted for dinner and she said, “I do not want to cook.  How about a pizza?”  So we decided to call Old Town Pizza Parlor and order a pizza.  We looked at their menu on line and decided that we would order a plain 16” cheese pizza ($11.99) and add our own toppings.  Suzette suggested some of her homemade pesto and I called Willy and he agreed to pick up the pizza on his way home from the gym.  So I started heated a large skillet with a bit of olive oil and cut up the last two slices of Genoa salami, about 2 oz. of slices and diced red onion, 1 oz. of Spanish Manzanilla olives, 2 oz. of PPI sautéed Italian sausage, some chopped garlic greens from the garden, and three sliced portabella mushrooms.  Then Suzette found and added a couple of Tbsp.s of pesto. These ingredients when sautéed together for a few minutes made a very pleasing medley of flavors.  I then gathered several opened bottles of red wine, including a Valley of the Moon Sangiovese, a Hafner Cabernet Sauvignon, and a 2008 Zichichi Family Vineyard from Healdsburg, CA’s Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.   

When Willy arrived with the box of pizza, we each plated slices and garnished them with the topping medley.  I heated mine in the microwave until it sizzled and the ingredients sank into the melted cheese.  We were in a great kidlike mood as we ate our hot fresh pizza with glasses of red wine and watched Colbert Report and John Stewart’s hilarious antics.

Bon Appètit

     

 

October 30, 2012 Braised pork steaks with apples, pear, Calvados and Cognac and a roasted vegetable medley

Suzette was out with the girls and I was working on a legal project and did not have a lot of time to cook, but I had thawed out two pork steaks.  So while watching the news, I peeled two carrots and a potato and diced them into bite sized pieces and trimmed and added 1 cup of Brussels sprouts and diced an onion and a small handful of chopped garlic greens and sage and put them into a ceramic baking dish and tossed them with olive oil and laid slices of butter on top and covered them with aluminum foil and put them in a 350˚ oven for an hour.  The aluminum cover helped cook and steam and release the juices of the vegetables, so that their juices accumulated in the bottom of the dish rather than gas off.

I also peeled, cored and sliced one apple and one pear.  After about 40 minutes, I added butter to a skillet and raised the heat and braised the two boneless pork sirloin steaks on both sides without letting the butter brown and then reduced the heat a bit and added the apple and pear slices. I cooked the pork and fruit for abut twenty minute or until the juices started running clear from the meat.  I then added a splash of calvados and a few drops of cognac.  The pork was slightly pink when I cut into it and very juicy.

I drank a glass of Toad Hollow Rosé of Pinot Noir from Toad Hollow Vineyards of Sonoma, CA.  The chilled dry fruity pinot noir wine complemented the hot buttery flavor of the meat perfectly.

A simple and great meal.     

Bon Appètit

October 29, 2012 Dinner – Polenta and pork in tomato sauce and grilled pork sausages and sautéed pimiento peppers, cippollini onions and portabella mushrooms.

I ate too much today.  We started around 8:30 with fresh fruit salad (pineapple, papaya, and Crenshaw melon) with Lala Mango yogurt.
Then as 10:00 I ate two men on a boat (a slice of French sourdough bread toasted in a skillet with butter and with an egg on top).

Then at 1:00 p.m. I went to lunch at Taj Mahal with Mike http://www.tajmahalcuisineofindia.com/contactus.html for saag and tandoori chicken and dhal.

After a bike ride at 6:00 p.m. I came home and Suzette was sautéing thawed  pork Italian sausages halved and split down the middle in one pan and whole cippolini onions with shredded pimiento peppers we had purchased at the Farmers’ Market last Saturday and portabella mushrooms (Costco) in another pan.  Then she heated the PPI polenta mixed with cream and pecorino cheese in the microwave and then heated the PPI ground pork with Brussels sprouts and mushroom in tomato sauce.  

After everything was heated and cooked, Suzette plated the sausages, and then beside them the polenta and the tomato pork sauce on top of that and then beside that laid the sautèed cippolini onions, pimientos and mushrooms.  We drank Hafner Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner.

Later in the evening we ate lovely pumpkin parfaits brought to us yesterday by Rosemary and Richard (large plastic cups filled with whipped cream, a pumpkin mousse and granulated crystalized ginger and dark spice cookies).  The parfaits are wonderful and definitely make me want to go to Rose’s Rose’s Café at Mesa del Sol (http://www.rosestablecafe.com/).

Bon Appètit   

October 28, 2012 Dinner - Dinner Party at Cynthia and Ricardo’s house

October 28, 2012 Dinner - Dinner Party at Cynthia and Ricardo’s house

I got up early and peeled and cored and sliced baking pears and simmered them in the PPI syrup from our last batch of candied quinces, a sweet wine and a splash of la Chiripada Late Harvest Riesling.  So, when Suzette awakened she decided to make a pear tart for the party.  She found a recipe for tart crust on the internet and while I went to the law Library she made the tart and glazed it with some of the reduced cooking syrup.  The consistency was quite caramelized.

While the pears were simmering, Suzette roasted one of the long pimply yellow French heirloom squashes today and made a cream of squash soup for the party made with cream, chicken stock and nutmeg.

When we arrived at Cynthia and Ricardo’s a bit after 6:00 p.m. we found a platter of cheeses and crackers.  We served Suzette’s squash soup with a dollop of Cacique crema and garnished with minced chives.  Then Cynthia served her main course of pot roast, which was chuck roast cooked with garlic, oregano, basil, tomatoes and mushrooms with baked potatoes and fresh salad.  We drank a lovely Brunello Mike brought and I opened a bottle of 1974 Montevina Amador County Zinfandel and a bottle of 2006 Wellington Noir de Noir.  

Dessert was Suzette’s pear tart with glasses of the La Chiripada Late Harvest Riesling and scoops of vanilla ice cream and then glasses of Korbel champagne.

A lovely dinner with wonderful friends who like to cook.

Bon Appètit

  

October 24, 2012 Dinner – Chicken and Dumpling Soup and fried Squash Blossoms stuffed with Goat cheese

October 24, 2012 Dinner – Chicken and Dumpling Soup and fried Squash Blossoms stuffed with Goat cheese

Suzette she was not going to cook tonight, so I suggested that I prepare the dumplings and make Chicken and Dumpling soup  Unfortunately, Suzette brought home a bag of beautiful squash blossoms, some of which were three inches long and she admitted that they should be cooked this evening.

So she helped me kneed and roll out the PPI potato and Guatemalan Blue Squash dough into rolls and let them rest.  I then fetched the PPI chicken soup from the basement and heated it and went to the garden and picked fresh kale and parsley and chopped up kale and minced parsley.   

While I was doing this Suzette mixed pecorino cheese, goat cheese, a little crema and some pesto in the Cuisinart.  When it was mixed we washed the squash blossoms and let them dry while we filled a plastic freezer bag with the cheese mixture and sealed it and cut a hole in one corner to make it into a pasty bag.  Then I filled the blossoms with the cheese mixture while Suzette beat egg white and added flour and the egg yolks to make a coating for the squash.  Measurements were not kept tonight but after the blossoms were dipped into the batter, Suzette heated a large skillet with canola oil to a depth of ½ inch and started frying the blossoms.  While she did that I turned up the heat on the chicken soup so it would start boiling and threw in the chopped kale.  When the chicken soup began to boil,  I put in the dumplings and in a few minutes when they floated to the top of the soup we turned off the soup and served the blossoms and soup with a bottle of Cutler Creek Pinot Grigio.

The squash blossoms had fried to a golden brown and were delicious, but the soup was even better with its delicately cooked chicken and the fluffy dumplings.   I dusted the top of each bowl of soup with about ½ Tbsp. of fresh parsley. 

For not cooking, this was a wonderful dinner.

Bon Appètit     

October 23, 2012 Grilled Steak with Pesto coated dumplings and grilled asparagus.

October 23, 2012 Grilled Steak with Pesto coated dumplings and grilled asparagus.

 

Tonight Suzette wanted grilled steak and we needed to use some slightly up old portabella mushrooms and asparagus stalks.   So I went to the garden and picked a couple of sprigs of parsley, thyme and tarragon and sliced up about a pound of mushrooms and minced the herbs.  Then we stemmed the asparagus stalks and Suzette brushed the boneless rib eye steak and asparagus with olive oil and dusted the steak with salt and pepper put the asparagus and steak on the grill while I sautéed the mushroom and herbs in butter and olive oil.   After a few minutes I added about 1 ½ Tbsp of Amontillado sherry to the mushrooms and let them cook for a few more minutes.

When the steak and asparagus were cooked, I sliced up the steak and we dished up and drank PPI Round Pond Cabernet Sauvignon and had a lively conversation with Willy.   

The asparagus were particularly lovely with a combination of olive oil and cooking juices sloshing around them.

Bon Appètit

October 22, 2012 Dinner – Veal stew with German Potato and Guatemalan Blue Squash Dumplings

 

October 22, 2012 Dinner – Veal stew with German Potato and Guatemalan Blue Squash Dumplings

I finished work around 6:00 p.m.  I suggested veal stew and Suzette said she wanted to make German potato dumplings to go with the stew using some of the squash we had.  She had started organizing dinner by gathering the Guatemalan Blue squash when I drove to Pro’s Ranch Market to buy milk, carrots and onions.  When I arrived at Pro’s Market I saw that the prices were really good so I bought onions (4 lb./$1.00), carrots (2 lb./$1.00), milk, papaya (2 lb./$1.00), pineapple (2 lb./$1.00), and limes (3 lb./$1.00), chips ($1.25 per 12 oz. bag) and some sliced ham.

When I returned there were two long 1 inch thick rolls of dumpling dough lying on the table and two fist sized balls of dough in the fridge.

I cut up the one pound bag of veal stew meat I had bought on Thursday at Alpine Sausage Kitchen by removing the silver skin and reducing the size of pieces to ½ inch where they were larger.  We then separated the pile of cubed meat into two equal piles and we bagged ½ and froze it for a future meal.

Suzette peeled and chopped two carrots and ½ of an onion into cubes and a few cloves of garlic and began sautéing them in olive oil and butter and cut the rolls of dough into 1 inch sections.  I asked if Suzette wanted any turnips from the garden and she said that would be fine, but no beets, so I picked five small turnips from the garden and clean them and quartered them into about 1/3 inch pieces and threw them into the skillet.  After the onions, turnips, garlic and carrots had cooked for a few minutes, we added the veal and about two Tbsp. of sage leaves that I had sliced into strips.

Suzette then asked if we had a good German wine we could drink with this good German meal and I said that we had a Riesling in the fridge in the basement, so Suzette went to the basement and fetched a chilled bottle of Loredonna 2007 Monterey Riesling from Loredonna Wine Cellars, Manteca, CA.

When the water in the large pan came to a boil we put the dumplings into the pot and there was a cloud of steam and flour as they sank to the bottom as Suzette stirred the water in the pan.  After a few minutes dumplings started to float to the top of the simmering water in the pan and Suzette said they were almost cooked, so she added some of the flour water from the dumpling pot to the skillet to make a light sauce and after draining the dumplings, I opened the Riesling and Suzette grabbed a piece of sourdough bread and we filled two pasta bowls with the dumplings and then spooned the veal stew meat over them.  The butter and oil separated from the sauce but the combination of dumplings and veal stew was delicious.  The flavor of fresh sage permeated the dish and the dumplings were tender,  not doughy and had a more neutral flavor than if they had been made entirely with potatoes.

We loved the California Riesling wine.  It was fruity and a little buttery and citrusy and not too sweet. A real surprise.

Bon Appètit