This morning I went to Pro's Ranch Market for their weekly produce specials and bought 9 avocados (4 for $.99), a couple of Hatch green chiles (3 lb. for $.99), pork steaks ($.97/lb.), large limes (3lb. for $.99), cilantro (4 bunches for $.99) and Michael's Mexican chips ($1.99 for 14 ounces). There was a little coolness in the air and it looked and smelled like Fall because store employees were roasting green chili in the parking lot.
I went to meditate at 6:45 p.m. and returned home at 8:30
p.m. and was surprised when Suzette said, “Let’s cook dinner. We need to eat
the crab.” So I went to fridge and
fetched about the two ounces of PPI sautéed salmon, the PPI crab cake, the PPI
crab meat and the PPI béchamel sauce mixed with crushed panko we used for the
crab cakes.
When we looked at the recipe for Crabmeat Mornay on page 69
of the Williamsburg Cookbook we were short some heavy cream, so I decided to
use grated Swiss cheese which is an ingredient substituted for cream in Sauce Mornay
contained in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking p. 61.
I combined two egg yolks and ½ cup of half and half in a bowl. Then Suzette heated the PPI béchamel sauce and we added some half and half to the béchamel sauce to emulsify it and I added about two ounces of grated Swiss Gruyere cheese to it as a substitute for the heavy cream and to bring the sauce closer to the French version. Then we combined the béchamel with the egg yolks and half and half and then flaked the crab cake and sautéed salmon into the sauce and added the approximately 1/3 lb. of fresh crab. We ended up with a little less than the 1 lb. of crab meat required for the recipe but we were close and we had added some extra panko that provided filler for the dish.
I preheated the oven to 400˚ and greased a small soufflé dish
with butter and we laid the crab mixture into the dish and I grated about 1
ounce of parmesan and fresh tarragon leaves onto the top of it and we put the chilled bottle of Cutler Creek Pinot Grigio into the freezer to chill further. Suzette selected a lovely yellow tomato and a
red tomato from our garden and I sliced them and then peeled on-half of a Japanese
cucumber from our garden and de-seeded it and slice it and place cucumber and
a few slices of avocado and the tomato slices on two plates.
In a few minutes when the oven was preheated, we placed the
dish in the oven for twenty minutes at 400˚.
After 20 minutes the crabmeat had risen a bit but not yet browned. Suzette said that the dish needed more time
because we were at high altitude, so we let it bake for an additional ten
minutes. 
Finally Suzette declared it ready and scooped a couple of spoonsful of the crabmeat Mornay onto each dish and I poured glasses of Pinot Grigio and we had a lovely light summer evening meal with our delicious new recipe and fresh vegetables from our garden.
The Cutler Creek Pinot Grigio was exceedingly clean tasting
and quite fruity so it enhanced rather than interfered with the delicate flavor
of the crabmeat mornay.
Bon Appétit 
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