January 24, 2015 Chicken Noodle Soup

January 24, 2015 Chicken Noodle Soup

Today we went to Altos Ranch Market before lunch and bought avocados, limes, and yogurt, corn and flour tortillas in the tortilleria, Mexican green onions and brown onions ($.33/lb.)   It is getting increasingly more difficult to find value and quality at Altos.  Their produce is less fresh, their prices are more expensive and their selection is less Mexican specific than its predecessor, Pro's Ranch Market.  I no longer eat in the restaurant, due to the increased prices, to mention one major change.

After Altos we drove to Costco at noon and bought fresh salad mix and bibb lettuce, mushrooms, blueberries, and a few other items.

Then we went home and Suzette fixed a chicken breast sandwich with sliced avocado, fresh bibb lettuce sliced tomato on toasted pieces of the fresh Fano Baguette I had bought on Friday.  We drank the last of the 2010 Leese-Fitch sauvignon blanc from Sonoma Valley with the sandwiches and complimented ourselves on not succumbing.to the appeal of a hot dog at Costco.

After lunch I cubed the PPI bread in the fridge from Christmas and tossed it with Italian Seasoning and olive oil and Suzette toasted the croutons in the oven for 10 minutes.

Then later in the afternoon, Suzette made a Chicken noodle soup.  First she chopped carrots, onion and celery and cooked them into a stock.  Then she strained the vegetables out of the stock and heated the strained stock and added the rest of the PPI chicken breast from Thursday night’s dinner cubed, three carrots cubed and one onion, cubed celery picked from the garden and cooked that for a while and finally when we were ready to eat, she added and heated the soup with the PPI noodles from Thursday night’s dinner and some chopped parsley.

Suzette then toasted pieces of fresh baguette and heated them with slices of manchego cheese in the microwave oven to make cheese toast.

We drank glasses of a bottle of La Contessa Spanish viura (Trader Joe’s $4.49) produced in Calatayud with this this light and lovely dinner.

Here is a bit of information about the wine district from Wikipedia:

Calatayud is a Spanish Denominación de Origen (DO) for wines located in the southwestern corner of the province of Zaragoza (Aragón, Spain) about 90 km from Zaragoza and covers over 5,600 ha, extending over 46 different municipalities, including Calatayud itself. It borders with the Cariñena (DO) in the east and with the province of Soria in the west. It is in the valley of the River Ebro and is crisscrossed by many other rivers including the Jalón, Jiloca, Manubles, Mesa, Piedra and Ribota. The vineyards are to be found on the south facing slopes of the Sierra de la Virgen range at heights of between 550 m and 800 m above sea level. Calatayud achieved DO status in 1990 and it became Aragon’s second largest quality wine-producing region after Cariñena.

Bon Appétit