Yesterday and this morning I ate my usual, yogurt, granola, milk, vitamin powder, and red grapes.
Yesterday I drove with Martin to court in Santa Fe. After court we met Amy and ate at the Shed for lunch. I had my favorite dish; two blue corn enchiladas wIth ground beef and double posole and red chili.
Martin ordered carne adovado and Amy ordered a cup of mushroom soup. After Amy left, Martin and I split a chocolate mocha cake.
For dinner after meditation I was not terribly hungry, so I heated and ate the 1/3 of the pot of PPI Vietnamese Miso Noodle Soup left from the other day.
This morning I went to the Annual Meeting of TecMed at 9:00 at the Flying Star on Corrales Road north of Alameda and afterwards shopped at Sprouts at Alameda and Corrales Road. I bought blueberries, yellow squash, bratwurst, green beans, and three lovely lamb chops cut horizontally across the leg (Osso Bucco style).
When I finished shopping, it was 11:08. Since the Sprouts store is located in the same shopping center as Ichiban I called Robert Mueller, but he was working and had eaten at Ichiban the previous evening, so was unable to join me. I decided to respond to my powerful urge to eat sushi at Ichiban, so at 11:30 I found myself seated and ordering Chirashi Donburi with their wonderful green tea at Ichiban. I got one fish I did not like, sort of an albacore tuna that tore into pieces instead of sliced and imitation crab (fish cake)m but there were three slices each of yellow tail, tuna, salmon and one other fish, plus egg omelet, so the selection of fish was okay and plentiful. What sets Ichiban apart from Azusa in my opinion is the addition of flying fish eggs pressed on top of the rice and the addition of liberal amounts of green seaweed salad and pickled squid and mushroom salad. I live both of these salads.
I enjoyed lunch tremendously. The waitress was very attentive, checking and pouring fresh hot green tea often. I felt for a second like a Japanese Businessman in a Japanese restaurant being served by geisha.
I finally arrived home a little after 1:00 and worked until a bit after 4:00 when Luke called, so I talked to him until a bit after 5:00 about all his adventures and mis-adventures.
Since the lamb chops were Osso Bucco style cuts, I decided to make Osso Bucco. I went on line and found an authentic recipe. Here is the recipe:
I had all the ingredients except for tomato paste, but we had a 15 oz. can of stewed tomatoes that I drained all the juice out of until I compressed down the tomatoes to just the tomato pulp.
I followed the recipe, browning the chops in olive oil in the large Le Crueset casserole until browned. Suzette arrived around 6:00, as I was chopping and sautéing the c2 carrots, two stalks of celery, and 1 large onion and began helping me. We decided to use the roasted garlic in olive oil in the fridge, so she fetched the bottle for me and I chopped four or five cloves. The major shortcut I suggested and Suzette agreed with, was using PPI turkey gravy, instead of making lamb stock. Also, while I sautéed the Vegetables, added the approximately 8 oz. of crushed canned stewed tomatoes and chopped them a bit and stirred them into the other cooking vegetables, and went to the garden and picked a large handful of thyme stalks, and sat and de-stemmed about 2 T. of thyme leaves from their stems, Suzette chopped Brussels Sprouts, cauliflower, ½ of a red onion, and one or two if the yellow crock necked squash I had bought at Sprouts, put them into a baking dish and salt and peppered the vegetables and drizzled them with olive oil. She also diluted the turkey gravy with water to make the required 1 quart and added it. I fetched the PPI D7 Pinot Noir and she added that to the cooking vegetable mixture and I added the 2 T. of thyme and cooked the vegetable mixture a few more minutes and stirred to mix the ingredients. Then we laid the lamb chops back on the vegetables and covered the casserole with its lid, removed a rack from the pre-heated oven to make room for the large Le Creuset casserole and slid both the aluminum covered vegetables in their baking dish and the casserole with the vegetables and lamb chops into the oven.
At this point there was a rather lengthy discussion with immediate agreement regarding time and temperature and setting of the oven. It was decided to bake both the dishes for one hour at 300 degrees without convection although this was a departure from the recipe time and temperature of two hours at 250 or 275 degrees. I had invited Wily and it was 7:00 and we expected him by 8:00 and did not want to eat too late.
Willy arrived around 7:45 and at 8:00 we removed the lamb from the casserole and uncovered the vegetables and put the lamb on the vegetables and kept cooking the vegetables while Suzette puréed the vegetables with the immersion mixer. Unfortunately, we had forgotten to remove a rib section of lamb and the vegetables were only an inch to an 1 ½ deep, so sauce was flung around the stove area until we removed the lamb rib bones, but we achieved a rather pleasing rough purée of the vegetables.
I opened a 2011 La Madone Fleurie French Burgundy from Trader Joe’s and poured glasses of it and we heated some dinner rolls that were in the fridge and I put out butter for the rolls while Suzette took the roasted vegetables and lamb from the oven and filled pasta bowls with roasted vegetables, the a lamb chop, and finally spoonfuls of vegetable sauce.
We all agreed that the lamb was sufficiently tender and the sauce was very tasty with both the lamb and the vegetables, but unfortunately the Fleurie was not great, although I think I only paid $6.99 or $7.99 for it a week ago at Trader Joe's. It was heavy and had a slightly bitter aftertaste that was unpleasant, although as it sat uncorked much of the bitterness went away during the course of the meal and we finished it with the meal. I would not recommend buying this bottle unless you are a fan of heavy full bodied red wine.
After finishing our bowls of vegetables and Oslo Bucco we were satisfied and full and could eat no more and sat and talked. When we said goodnight to Willy, and checked the time, I realized that it was after 10:00.
Suzette went to bed and I tried to blog but fell asleep at 10:30 and slept until 1:30 when I finished this blog.
I enjoyed this wonderfully full day of shopping, preparing a new dish for dinner and eating and drinking.
This the first time I have cooked Oslo Bucco. The dish was prompted by Sprouts having lovely Oslo Bucco lamb chops for $5.99/lb.
Bon Appetit
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