October 26, 2015 Grilled Lamb Chops, Eggplant Provençal, Pimientos, and Asparagus

October 26, 2015 Grilled Lamb Chops, Eggplant Provençal, Pimientos, and Asparagus 

PPI Miso Soup for breakfast and lunch.

Suzette came home around 4:30 when I awoke from a nap and Peter delivered the steel table and two chairs we bought from Carey Smoot because she can not take them to the Azores, due to the humidity in the Azores.  We carried the new table and chairs out to the bocce area and placed them under the trampoline awning.  I suggested that we play Bocce.  We each made a cocktail and I grabbed the box of bocce balls and played a game to 11 points and then sat in our new chairs beside the new bocce court and enjoyed a lovely sunset.

Suzette suggested that instead of making couscous, we harvest our remaining eggplants and make grilled eggplant Provençal to go with the lamb chops we bought at Costco yesterday and grill some asparagus. Suzette fetched a scissors and cut the last five eggplants from the vine and we also harvested a handful of ripe cherry tomatoes and two ripe pimiento peppers.

We brought the tomatoes, eggplants and two pimientos in from the garden around 6:00.

I snapped the ends of about fifteen stalks of asparagus (Sprouts Farm Market for $1.48/lb.) and sliced a small eggplant into five 1/3 inch thick slices and the pimiento into five or six approximately one inch wide slices. I brushed the slices with olive oil, but Suzette wanted to coat the asparagus, pimientos and asparagus in olive oil and salt, so she got a freezer bag an put the ingredients into the bag with some Olive oil and salt and pepper and shuck the bag to coat the ingredients with olive oil.  While I went to the basement to fetch a bottle of Famille Perrin 2011 Reserve Cotes du Rhone ($7.99 less 15% at Total Wine) and opened it to let it breath a bit and called a client while Suzette opened a package of fresh Mozzarella slices and garnished the top of the eggplant slices with split cherry tomatoes and mozzarella  and then grilled five lamb chops, the eggplant Provençals, the pimiento slices, and the asparagus.

In about ten to fifteen minutes all the ingredients were grilled to perfection. The asparagus, pimientos, and eggplants were soft but not burned and the lamb was medium rare to rare.  I poured wine and Suzette plated the grilled dinner and we had a wonderful grilled dinner as we watched the Antiques Roadshow.

After dinner I toasted a slice of Bosque Bakery French Sourdough bread and smeared it with goat cheese and enjoyed it with the last of my glass of wine.

Later during my new favorite cooking show, “I’ll Have What Phil Is Having”, which featured the food of Barcelona this week, I ate a bowl of vanilla bean and chocolate ice creams drizzled with Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup and cognac and garnished with dehydrated cherries rehydrated in Marashino cherry syrup. When I finished my ice cream, Suzette refilled my bowl with vanilla ice cream and poured a glass of cognac.

We loved the last meal of the year provisioned with mostly ingredients we had grown in our garden. 

I hope it does not freeze for a few more days so I can harvest the thyme, oregano, and tarragon in the garden. 

Bon Appetit