July 9, 2013 Dinner – Grilled steak and enchiladas and lasagna and fruit salad, cake and ice cream.

July 9, 2013 Dinner – Grilled steak and enchiladas and lasagna and fruit salad, cake and ice cream.

This was a re-run of Saturday night.  We had all the food already prepared from Saturday night’s party, except for grilling steak.  I invited Crystal and Doug Baker and the Palmers to dinner at 7:00 knowing that Suzette was driving to Santa Rosa and back, so we needed to give her a bit of time to decompress after the drive and keep the menu simple.            

Suzette was a little testy when she got home but after a scotch she rallied and got animated and set the table in the gazebo

 

 

by the pond and we put both the PPI ceramic dishes filled with lasagna and enchilada casseroles into the oven to heat.  We thawed out two steaks and I made guacamole with about ten avocados, ½ of a red onion three cloves of garlic, some juice, cilantro and a few dashes of Cholulu and salt. 

I finished just as Doug Baker and Crystal arrived at 7:00.  Doug was still dressed in his suit, having just finished an 8 hour deposition and Crystal seemed to have just come from work also.   I knew immediately I had made the right decision to invite folks for dinner because there is nothing better than a lovely dinner to go to after a hard day of work. The Bakers brought a lovely bottle of Bramare Cabernet Sauvignon from the Mendoza Valley. 

Charlie and Susan arrived shortly thereafter.  I opened a bottle of 2011 Cline Vineyard’s Ancient Vines Zinfandel from Contra Costa County that I had bought at Costco in February at Costco for $12.99.  It was surprisingly light and had very little peppery spiciness; just elegantly smooth fruit flavor.  When the steaks were cooked and the lasagna and enchiladas heated, we plated up plates with a piece of each and a scoop of fruit salad and a few slices of steak, which Suzette grilled to a perfect medium rare to medium.   

After we finished the Zin, we poured the Bramare and found that it was also soft and luscious tasting and even more surprisingly lacking that usual muddy, earthy flavor of many Mendoza Cabs.

For dessert we served small portions of the lovely white cake Susan had made for Saturday night’s party with its fabulous lemon butter cream icing and a scoop of the homemade peach and mango ice cream Suzette had made for Saturday night’s party.  

Bon Appétit