April 5, 2016 Lunch – longevity salad, Dinner – Grilled Rib Steak and Sweet Potato Slices and steamed Asparagus

April 5, 2016 Lunch – longevity salad, Dinner – Grilled Rib Steak and Sweet Potato Slices and steamed Asparagus 

I ate my favorite breakfast again this morning, granola, fruit salad, and LaLa Mango yogurt.

I invited J. B. Bryant over for lunch.  My idea was to make a longevity salad that would include the PPI sashimi from yesterday's lunch at Azuma, plus some seaweed salad we bought at Costco and greens from the garden.  At 11:15 I looked for a ginger salad dressing that would match up with the ginger and soy dipping sauce usually served with sushi.  I found what looked close on Epicurious.  Here it is: 

Asian Ginger Dressing

Ingredients

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tablespoons honey or brown sugar

2 tablespoons peeled and minced ginger

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

 

 

Preparation

Combine all the ingredients in a blender. Add 2 tablespoons of water. Process until smooth.

Reprinted with permission from Bikini Bootcamp , © May 2007, By Melissa Perlman and Erica Gragg, Broadway Books

I cut up the slices of Salmon, yellowtail, octopus, tuna, and ultra white, pickled daikon, added a small mound of sushi rice, omelet, and sliced a tomato and added a scoop of seaweed salad.  We each dressed our salads.  Both of us also mixed everything together to coat all the ingredients with dressing.

When B.J. arrived we walked out to the raised beds and picked a basket full of greens.  We cleaned them and tore them to bite sized and then put on the other side of the plate from the rice and fish. We drank water and ate on the porch with the smell and view of the wisteria and view of the garden. 

B.J. was kind enough to give me a painted shirt in payment for services i rendered to him.

When I showed him the basement, I took steaks out of the fridge.

After lunch I road to Montano and then rested for a while.  At 5:45 I showered.  Suzette arrived around 6:00 and we re-assembled the grill with the new parts that arrived today.  We discussed what to eat with the grilled steak and settled on grilled sweet potato slices and steamed asparagus.  

Suzette grilled the sweet potato slices and steak, while I snapped the end of 21 stalks of asparagus, which Suzette filled with water and steamed.

In no time at all dinner was ready.

I had fetched a magnum of Patch Block Pinot Noir and poured glasses of it for each of us.  I do not know if Willy appreciated the heavy beef that Suzette had aged on slabs of Himalayan rock salt, but I surely did.  The taste of the grilled beef seasoned with coarse sea salt triggered one of those déjà vu memories of eating aged beef in my youth in Fort Worth, Texas where aging sides of beef was an annual event, like roasting and storing green chili is here in New Mexico. 

We toasted bread and after dinner had a cheese course with buttered bread, blue, Delice, and goat cheese with another glass of Pinot. 

I noticed that the deficiencies of the wine were more glaring when paired with cheese, where a wine with more character would have been more appreciated.

Remember that Wednesday is the double discount day at Sprouts when two week’s specials overlap.

Bon Appetit