Simplicity and using PPIs as the guiding principal today. For lunch I ate two PPIs. I reheated a container of PPI Penne pasta in the mushroom and ground beef spaghetti sauce with chard. After lunch I was still hungry, so I heated another container of PPI sautéed mushrooms and snow peas.
We decided this morning to make our favorite Jose’ Andreas tapa of roast pork with apples and onions. Tonight Suzette made two changes to the recipe. Instead of apples she used diced pears. One of her customers had given Suzette a bag of pears that were a little over the hill, which we peeled and diced yesterday. They were a little over ripe which meant they were deliciously sweet.
Before dinner I went to the garden and picked a handful of dill weed, a handful of mint, a head of fresh garlic, and a basket full of oregano.
Tzatziki
I peeled 1 ½ cucumbers and diced them (about two cups). I then minced ¼ cup of Vidalia onion and added that to the cucumbers. Then I de-stemmed and finely chopped ½ cup of mint and ¼ cup of dill weed and the five cloves of garlic in the head of garlic I had plucked from our garden. Then I added 1 cup of Kirkland Greek style yogurt and the juice of 1 ½ lemons.
We decided to let the Tzatziki sit in the fridge over night and then add a tomato before we take it to Crystal and Doug’s for dinner tomorrow night.
Sautéed Pork Chops with pear and onion
As stated above our favorite way to eat pork is the Jose Andreas recipe. Here is the recipe.
This evening I vertically sliced one medium Vidalia onion we bought at Sprouts on sale for $.88/lb. into thin ribs. We had peeled and diced a medium bowl of the pears yesterday also, so we had decided to make the recipe with the Vidalia onion and pears to see how it turned out with these adjustments to the recipe. We also altered slightly the cut of pork from the recipe’s tenderloin to a center cut pork chop.
We thawed out two pork chops after we rode to Rio Bravo this morning.
Suzette decided to complete the dish in one step, rather than three steps by omitting the second step of oven roasting the pork tenderloin and combining the first and third sauté steps.
Suzette started by sautéing the onion strips in Sprouts Spanish olive oil we bought on sale at Sprouts yesterday for $5.99 per liter. Actually I bought five liters of olive oil.
When the onion slices had softened she added the chops, which were about ½ inch thick and sautéed them. Then she removed the chops and added about 1 cup of diced pears and 1/3 cup of prepared chicken stock we had bought at Sprouts for $1.99 per quart yesterday also.
After the sauce thickened slightly she returned the chops to the sauce to warm them and added a T. or two of Calvados to finish the dish.
Artichoke dipping Sauce
While Suzette Was cooking the pork dish I finished the Tzatziki and made the dipping sauce for the artichokes. The sauce is very simple
½ cup of mayonnaise
juice of ½ lemon
1 to 2 T. of minced dill weed
I went to the garden and picked a small handful of the greenest dill weed I could find and went to the garage and fetched two lemons.
I fetched the PPI artichoke dipping sauce from last week from the fridge. There were only a couple of T.s of it, so I removed the stems from the stalks of dill weed to leave only the tiny weed portion and then finely minced that. The result was a small 1 ½ to 2 T. pile of minced weed which I put into the bowl of old sauce. Then I added ½ cup of Kraft Mayonnaise we bought at Costco. Then I cut a lemon in half and squeezed the juice of ½ lemon into the sauce. Then I whisked the ingredients together until it ceased to show any lumps of mayonnaise and became a smooth homogeneous sauce.
The freshness of the dill with the pungency of the fresh lemon juice was remarkably flavorful. Suzette noted it when she dipped her first artichoke leaf in the sauce. The secret is to whisk the ingredients so that they transform from independent ingredients into a homogenous sauce.
We plated the pork chops smothered with the onion and Pear sauce and put one artichoke on each plate. I poured the last ½ bottle of chilled PPI 2016 Crayon Rose’ into two glasses and added three or four ice cubes to each glass to keep it cool because we were taking our plates to the garden to eat.
We enjoyed our dinner beside the pond, which has taken on a more natural look as the plants and fish seem to have acclimated to the pond.
The dinner was delicious. As stated above the fresh dill and lemon juice gave the artichokes a real zippiness.
The recipe for the pork was also a success in two respects. The use of Vidalia onion avoided that acrid bitter after taste that is associated with some onions and the sweetness and softness of the pear integrated into the sauce and gave it an overall greater sweetness. These were two improvements in my opinion. The only drawback to substituting pork chops for pork tenders was the meat was slightly tougher, although that toughness was masked to a great degree by the sweeter sauce.
We loved the meal and collectively decided to go further off our diet. Suzette heated a bowl of the Apricot Cobbler she made yesterday and we split it and drizzled it with a T. of heavy cream for dessert with a glass of Calvados and a cup of Earl Grey tea.
I did really go off the diet later when I had a piece of milk Chocolate with almonds (Trader Joe’s $4.99 for 17 oz.) and a second glass of Calvados.
It was a meal worthy of a slight transgression in honor of the tradition of great French dining, two wholly successful dishes and a glass of the new 2016 vintage of French rose’.
Crayon is my new favorite wine for the summer. It has that light clean elegance of the best Southern French rose’s and costs only $5.99 at Trader Joe’s. Try it. You will like it, especially for the price. I rank it close to Le Pont rose’ from Bandol, which costs $20 at Total Wine.
Bon Appetit
No comments:
Post a Comment