September 20, 2016 Lunch – PPI Miso Pho Noodle Soup, Dinner – New Recipes. Fried Mahi Mahi with melon sauce, grilled artichokes with a Tzatziki Sauce, and cauliflower Couscous

September 20, 2016 Lunch – PPI Miso Pho Noodle Soup,  Dinner – New Recipes. Fried Mahi Mahi with melon sauce, grilled artichokes with a Tzatziki Sauce, and cauliflower Couscous

I ate the PPI Bol of Miso Pho Noodle soup for lunch with two BBQ filled steamed Buns.  I heated the buns for 2 minutes on high heat in the microwave on a plate floating on the surface of water in a larger bowl to keep the buns moist.

I ate them with a combination of garlic chili paste, soy sauce, and sweet chili sauce and drank lychee tea.

I rode to Montano and back at 5:00 in 45 minutes,pretty close to a personal best.  Before I rode I ate a piece of Wasa hard bread spread with butter and slices of gravad lax, a real smorgasbrod, to boost my energy a bit and it worked.

Suzette arrived a little after I returned home at 5:45.

  We examined the Mahi Mahi filet, which was small and then examined the items in the fridge that needed to be eaten or cooked.  As a result Suzette created a menu with all new recipes:

Fried Mahi Mahi with a melon sauce – Suzette put flour, salt, and pepper in a freezer bag and dropped in and dusted the Mahi Mahi.  She then fried the Mahi in hot canola oil.

The melon sauce.  We had a half of an unusual melon Suzette raised in her garden in Los Luna's, sort of a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew in color, orange in the center and green toward the rind that was softer and sweeter than either a cantaloupe or a honeydew.  I cut away a bruised spot and removed the rind and cubed the melon into pieces small enough to be dropped into the food processor.  Suzette asked if we had any melon liquor.  Luckily we did and I went to the basement to fetch it.  Suzette then processed the melon with cream and Midori melon liquor into a rather liquid sauce that smelled and tasted wonderful.

 

The melon sauce

The Cauliflower and Garbanzo bean Couscous.  This was not as great a departure from a known recipe as the melon sauce.  Suzette had cooked a dish for our Christmas Party that combined pulverized cauliflower, garbanzo beans, and preserved lemon.  So tonight she pulverized the cauliflower in the food processor and sautéed it with canned garbanzo beans in a large skillet of heated olive oil and then, instead of the preserved lemon peel, dusted the dish with micro-grated

Lime zest and finished the dish with 1/3 cup of minced fresh Italian parsley.

  The Cauliflower and garbanzo bean couscous

Grilled Artichokes with Tzatziki sauce

We had bought a plastic container of four small artichokes at Trader Joe’s a week ago and last Sunday I had simmered them for 1 ½ hours to cook them.  Tonight I split them in half and Suzette coated them with olive oil and some coarse sea salt and grilled them on the grill.  Grilling does three beneficial things; it softens them, gives them a woodsy outdoor charred flavor, and converts some of the moisture accumulated in the inner leaves into a flavorful coating on each leave.  We both love grilled artichokes, especially smaller, more tender ones.

The Tzatziki Sauce.  I simply found an old bowl of artichoke sauce I had in the fridge that had been seasoned with chives and mayonnaise and lemon and added to it several T. of yogurt, a bit more lemon juice, about 1 T. of fresh dill, and a minced small clove of garlic to make about 1 cup of sauce.

  The Tzatziki Sauce and the container of fresh dill

When everything was ready, I opened and poured the new bottle of 2014 Carayon La Rose we had bought at Trader Joe’s for $4.99 Saturday a week ago from the Languedoc.  Pay d’ Oc is the large area east of the Southern Rhone that includes Aix en Provence that is not classified into village appellations, but is classified only as an appellation d’ origene protégé.  Languedoc is the large region west of the Rhone in southwest France that is not included in any village Appellation that is also identified as an appellation d’ origene protégé.  I think this classification has something to do with more recent European Union agricultural designation system, rather than the older French wine classification system.

Alas, the new rose’ proved to be very pleasant and drinkable, especially with this light Mediterranean meal that we ate in the gazebo in the garden as night fell. 

Unfortunately, I ruined the benefit of the low fat dinner later when I ate chocolate covered peanut and almond cluster candies with a glass of plum brandy and a glass of calvados.  I guess I am one of those  who thinks chocolate is a food group.

Bon Appetit