We rode at a strong pace to Rio Bravo and back.
For lunch I decided to scramble 3 oz. of the PPI steak and the sautéed vegetables from last night (sweet potato, mushrooms, zucchini squash, garlic, and onion) with two eggs.
Willy had mentioned making lamb meatballs, so I called him to ask what he needed. We had everything except a cucumber and the ground lamb. Last night Cynthia mentioned that Smith’s now carries ground lamb, so around 3:00 I drove to the Smith’s at Yale and Lead and bought 1 lb. of organic ground lamb for $8.99, a cucumber, some bananas, and a gallon of milk.
Middle Eastern Lamb Meatballs
At 6:00 I began cooking by cutting the flowerets from the cauliflower and broccoli stalks and placing them in the steamer with water. Then when Willy arrived at 6:30 he started making the meat balls by placing the ground lamb in a mixing bowl with ½ diced onion, raisins, cumin, turmeric, salt, and pepper and an egg to help bind the mixture. He poured about ¼ cup of piñon nuts into a medium skillet and I watched them as they heated and cooked a bit and then Willy added them to the mixture. I then chopped about ¼ cup of parsley and we added that to the mixture. Willy then mixed the ingredients together and shaped the mixture into about 15 meatballs and sautéed them in olive oil until they began to brown and then baked them for 5 minutes in the oven.
While Willy was making the meatballs, I made rice with 2 cups of water, a dash of Knorr’s dehydrated chicken stock. When the stock came to a boil, I added 1 cup of basmati rice and reduced the heat to its lowest level and set the timer for 30 minutes.
When the timer read 8 minutes, I started the heat under the vegetables so they would steam for 8 to 10 minutes and be cooked when the rice was ready.
Tzatziki
I then made the tzatziki. I diced ½ cucumber and added it to a bit more than a cup of Kirtland’s Greek yogurt in a mixing bowl to which I added two minced cloves of garlic, the juice of 1 lemon, ½ tsp. of salt and then de-stemmed about ¼ cup of mint leaves from their stalks and finely chopped them and added the mint to the mixture and stirred the mixture to integrate the salt so it would begin to release the liquid in the cucumbers.
I then selected a bottle of 2013 Quinta de Carvalhas Portuguese red wine from the Douro region that I bought at Total Wine for $11.59 less 20% and poured three glasses. Total Wine sells lots of Calvalhas products, including its ports, so probably has an exclusive for the U.S. on its products. Mi have found its wines to be tasty and this was no exception, a full bodied red with lots of complexity and a full finish that lingered a bit on the back of the tongue. It went well with the lamb.
When everything was ready we served ourselves from the stove and I poured glasses of wine and put the tzatziki on the table.
Luke called while we were cooking and we talked with him for a few minutes. He is acclimating to L.A. and his new job as manager of a juice bar. He said there was a flurry when James Franco came into the store today.
Willy fetched the Shiracha hot sauce, saying, “I particularly like the meatballs with a little Shiracha.”
I tried some and found that at the right level the Shiracha gave the meatballs a pleasant little extra flavor kick.
We switched between Rachel Maddow and Antiques Roadshow and I cheered every time Suzette’s ad for the Center for Ageless Living was shown, which is before each episode of the Roadshow.
Willy left around 9:00. Suzette took a soak in the hot tub and I dozed on the couch while watching the a Great British Baking Show.
We went to bed at 10:00 after a peasant evening of cooking and eating.
Bon Appetit
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