November 9, 2015 Pork and beef Stroganoff and haricot vert

November 9, 2015 Pork and beef Stroganoff and haricot vert 

Tonight’s meal was one of the those magical events that comes together only seldomly, a perfect meal made from disparate PPI parts.  We had about 1½ cups of PPI French onion soup and a bag of PPI Cassarecce pasta sitting in the fridge plus about ½ lb. of chunks of pork that we did not use for last night’s meal, plus Cynthia left the rest of a tub of sour cream that she had brought for the salmon canapés.  Suzette’s genius as a recreational therapist is to see connections where others do not and to put different elements together into programs.  Tonight she proved her genius when she came up with the perfect menu idea, “Let’s make beef Stroganoff.”

We have three kinds of mushrooms, white, chanterelles, and Hungarian blacks, so we had a lovely combination and enough mushrooms for the dish.

I cubed the pork and sliced a medley of the three mushrooms and fetched the sour cream and we were ready to cook.  

I then snapped the ends off about a cup of haricot vert and steamed them in the steamer while Suzette cooked the stroganoff.

Suzette used the lovely large French copper sauté pan we had used to cook the pork tapa dish last night.  She started by sautéing the pork and then the mushrooms in butter.

Then she added the onion soup and about 2/3 cup of sour cream and we immediately had a decent looking stroganoff but the sauce was a little thin, so Suzette cooked it for about five more minutes until the sauce thickened and the ingredients became more integrated.

I opened the bottle of 2012 Chateau St. Michelle Pinot Gris that Jeff and Debbie brought last night, with its slightly sweet fruitiness went perfectly with the creamy slightly tangy stroganoff sauce.

Suzette heated the PPI Cassarecce pasta in the microwave and put some in pasta bowls, then ladled the stroganoff onto the pasta, and finally garnished the top of the stroganoff with a handful of the steamed haricot vert.  It made pretty plate of food that was equally lovely to eat.

A fabulous dinner created with little effort, but a huge flash of brilliance of menu therapy.

For dessert I ate PPI baked chocolate pudding with PPI crème anglais left over from our meal with Carey and Peter on Saturday evening.  Suzette had a bit of PPI vanilla ice cream from last night’s dinner as we watched the news and the Antiques Roadshow.

Bon Appetit