September 30, 2015 Dinner – Grilled Pork chops with Sautéed Yellow Squash, Chard, Onions, Garlic, and Pimiento and Papaya Pineapple Salsa

September 30, 2015 Dinner – Grilled Pork chops with Sautéed Yellow Squash, Chard, Onions, Garlic, and Pimiento and Papaya Pineapple Salsa 

Suzette worked all morning on the kitchen.  Jose Robles came to paint and help install cabinet doors, and Mike the stone fabricator came and measured the counter tops for the soapstone and Quartz stone counters.

At 11:00 I became hungry and made us salads of Romaine lettuce, green onions, shaved slices of Pecorino Romano cheese, and tomato and toasted pieces of Fano Baguette and melted slices of Pecorino Romano cheese (Costco) onto them in the microwave for 45 seconds to create toasted cheese open faced sandwiches.

We ate in the garden; a lovely moment of quiet.

I had to go meditate at 6:45, so I began cooking at 4:30.  I started by halving and slicing the three yellow squashes Suzette bought at the Farmers’ Market last Saturday.  Then I diced ½ yellow onion and the ½ of a pimiento from our garden and placed the pieces in a bowl.  I sliced two cloves of garlic from our garden and put it in the colander with the squash pieces. Then I went to our garden and picked a handful of chard an four stalks of oregano.  I de-stemmed the chard and cut it inti bite sized pieces and then de-stemmed the oregano leave clusters and de-stemmed the leaves and added about ¼ cup of oregano and about 1 cup of chard to the colander. I also went to the garage fridge and took an ear of corn that Suzette had bought at the Farmers’ Market four weeks ago and sliced the semi-dried kernels  from the that had dried out from the cob and into the colander.  I then rinsed the colander in cool water and let it drain while I packed all but two loin pork chops in plastic wrap and put them into the freezer.  Suzette came home by 6:00.  I began sautéing the onion and pimiento mixture in 2 Tbsp. of butter and 1 Tbsp. of  olive oil in a large skillet.  When the onion began to change color in about five minutes I added the colander full of other vegetables, stirred them to coat them with oil and butter and the covered the skillet with the wok cover and let them cook for about twenty minutes, stirring and turning them occasionally.  

I then turned on the two middle burners on the grill and salted and peppered the two pork chops and placed them on the grill.  Suzette took,over at this point and I went to the fridge and poured glasses of the Vouvray she had bought at Trader Joe’s this morning, when she went for a cognac run and took the wall clock to be repaired.

By 6:25 everything was ready except the pork was not still a little pink, so Suzette microwaved the chops for a minute.  We sat inside and watched the news and talked of all the kitchen activity until 6:45, when I had to leave for meditation.

This year’s Vouvray is not as sweet as last year’s and I like it a lot more. One of the things we learned when we visited the vineyards in the Loire Valley three summers ago is that the Chenin Blanc grape is very variable in sweetness from year to year depending upon the weather.  As the French vintners told us, “We get whatever Nature provides us.”  The slightly sweet 2014 La Cheteau Chenin Blanc goes particularly well with spicy food according to the back label, which proved correct when I drank some to subdue the fiery flavor of the Thai chilis in the salsa.  Good wine makers in the Loire and even Vouvray can make drier wines by longer fermentation, so not all Chenin Blanc wines are the same.  But what is true is that it is hard to make a really sweet wine unless you have sweet grapes. 

Bon Appetit