August 20, 2016 Breakfast – PPI Miso Pho Chicken Noodle Soup, Lunch – PPI turkey, avocado, and cheese sandwich, Dinner – stir fried Baby Bok Choy with Sautéed Scallops

August 20, 2016 Breakfast – PPI Miso Pho Chicken Noodle Soup, Lunch – PPI turkey, avocado, and cheese sandwich,  Dinner – stir fried Baby Bok Choy with Sautéed Scallops

I rode four miles just to get back on the bike this morning.  When I got back home I ate PPI soup for breakfast and watched the Olympics and worked until after noon.

I decided to heat the half sandwich given to me by Shane that he ordered yesterday at Central Grill.  It was delicious, a creamy combination of baked turkey, guacamole, roasted green chili, a tomato slice and lettuce. I even enjoyed the four tater tots with a bit of catsup.

When you are recovering from dysentery and reacquainting yourself to a wider range of food, everything seems to be fresh and flavorful.

Suzette had brought home some PPI fresh scallops from the seafood dinner Thursday night.  These were bought from Seattle Seafood, so they were top quality and very fresh.  We discussed how to prepare them at some length and finally decided to sautéed them and serve them with stir fried baby bock Choy over steamed rice.  

I chopped up three small heads of baby Bok Choy, separating the green leaves from the white stalks.  I then chopped ½ onion,. three cloves of garlic and 1 T. of fresh ginger.  Finally I sliced three shiitake mushrooms. And 

Suzette found a handful of string beans that she snapped and added to the Bok Choy leaves.

Suzette then dried the scallops and dusted them with salt, black long pepper and a mushroom salt given to us by Penny and Armand Remby.

Suzette fetched the wok and I heated 1 ½ T. of peanut oil in it and placed the seasoned scallops in the hot oil to sauté.  Suzette seasoned the exposed other side of the scallops and finished sautéing them.  We removed the scallops to a bowl and I added 1 T. more peanut oil and a few dashes of sesame oil to the oil and scallop juices that had resulted from the scallop sautéing.

I then stir fried the onion, ginger, and garlic.  After a few minutes when they began to soften, I added the white stems of the Bok Choy and then the slices of mushroom.  I then added some Chinese Cooking wine, ¼ tsp. of salt, ½ tsp. of sugar and finally 1 T. of Oyster Sauce.  Then I stirred in the green leaves Bok Choy.  In a minute everything was cooked evenly.  We had heated PPI steamed rice in the microwave.

  The vegetables in the wok

We plated up our plates with a pile of rice, then the stir fried vegetables and finally the scallops.  There was still about ¼ cup of sauce left in the wok so we added the liquid that had drained from the sautéed scallops to the liquid in the wok and heated the wok to thicken the sauce and then poured it over the scallops.  

I opened and Suzette poured a new wine I found at Trader Joe’s, a 2014 Amancay Winery Reserve Torrontes from La Rioja, Argentina.  The wine was a good representative Torrontes, a little sweeter and less crisp than some of the elegant high grown Torrontes, but still deliciously drinkable.

We both agreed this was an excellent meal.  The combination of fresh ingredients created a powerful flavor in their simplicity that made each flavor shine.  Sort of a California/Chinese Cuisine dish.  This meal proves that when you combine fresh high quality ingredients in simple combinations, you can create a wonderful dish and dining experience, which is the premise for lots off great cuisines, especially found in Italian and Californian cuisines.

We watched an excellent Gold Medal final match between China and Serbia’s women’s volleyball teams during dinner and later ate a few bites of bittersweet chocolate with almonds (Trader Joe’s $4.99).  Suzette had a sip of cognac with her chocolate and I sipped a bit of Calvados with mine.  I also had one of the delicious chocolates that Ioana brought me the other day.

A wonderful way for me to return to normal gourmet food.

Bon Appetit