March 24, 2016 Lunch – Chicken Salad, Dinner Party – Stuffed Rack of Pork, Baked Asparagus Grilled Sweet Potato slices and a Baba Ghanoush appetizer
I made another salad with PPI roasted chicken for lunch.
We had invited Cynthia and Ricardo for dinner and their friend Dane, and Greg Gould. We decided to make the Stuffed pork Rib Roast.
We started cooking at 4:00. I butchered the roast as illustrated by running a knife along the bones of the ribs and then cutting the meat in along flat swirl that laid the chop portion out in a flat sheet,which we stuffed with a stuffing made of cherries, apricots, toasted hazelnuts, and prunes cooked in cognac infused syrup and then laid on the rolled out pork roast in a flat sheet and covered with de stemmed leaves of Red Giant lettuce. We rolled up the chop portion and tied it into it approximately original shape with string by cutting slits between the ribs to the level of the chop. Suzette then baked the roast in a 350 degree oven for approximately 1 ½ hours to an internal temperature of 145 degrees. While the roast was cooking I chilled a french rose’ from Bordeaux and snapped the ends off of 42 stalks of asparagus, which Suzette then placed in a gallon freezer bag with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
At 6:00 Cynthia and Ricardo and their friend, Dane, who is an artist and special Ed teacher in Los Angeles arrived with bottle of Invicta Prosecco, and apps, including olives, and a lovely bowl of fresh made Baba Ghanoush,which Cynthia made with roasted eggplant, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, and chopped parsley, which she served with fig and almond crackers and pita chips and a bottle of La Crema Pinot Noir. Soon Greg Gould arrived.
I took Dane on a tour of the art collection, while Suzette took everyone else on a tour of the gardens and bocce court, which Cynthia designed. The wisteria is in full bloom, so we stopped for a few pictures in front of it, Dane looked particularly wonderful with his hand embroidered Robert Graham shirt, which had several stripes the exact pale purple color as the wisteria blooms. Suzette then made a mustard, Crema and white wine sauce for the pork dish, which we had to adjust the flavor of because it was too strongly mustard flavored, by adding Sweet Madeira and more crema and I sliced two sweet potatoes Suzette had bought in the morning at Smith’s with the asparagus that was on sale for $.88/lb.
Suzette made a basting sauce for the sweet potato slices of butter, fresh chopped sage, and salt and grilled them after she put the olive oil, salt, and pepper coated asparagus on a aluminum tray into the oven.
By 6:45 everything was ready. I sliced the six rib chops and assembled them on 7 plates to equalize portions and added two grilled sweet potato slices and six baked asparagus to each plate. Suzette then doused the top of the pork with her mustard sauce. Willy joined us and we sat at the dining room table. I poured the La Crema pinot and the Les Portes de Bordeaux Rose’ (Trader Joe's $5.99) and we enjoyed dinner after a wonderful blessing by Greg. Greg also is an artist and had brought two notebooks filled with mandalas he designed. Unfortunately, we did not have time to view all of them. In the course of conversation, we learned that Greg’s dad was an art history professor at Columbia, so he has had art in his background.
After we finished dinner I sliced seven strawberries so they could be fanned out and Suzette filled parfait glasses with scoops of vanilla ice cream, a chocolate chip cookie made by Willy and the strawberry, which we served with the Prosecco. After dessert we talked some more and I fetched a ½ bottle of Londer 2007 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir and latter a bottle of bottle of Archery Summit Pinot Noir Rose'. We talked and drank until 11:00.
Bon Appetit
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