September 24, 2017 Brunch – BLT Sandwich, snack – cold artichoke, Dinner – Eggplant Parmesan and sautéed spinach
Back to a more usual schedule of cooking and shopping today.
Suzette made egg BLT sandwiches for us this morning around 9:30
I ate mine open faced on a single piece of toasted Le Quiche wholewheat bread. Suzette ate her sandwich on a bed of romaine leaves. We both drank the homemade V-8 juice Suzette had made with the juice of a lime squeezed into it.
We then rode to Montano and back and then rested.
At about 1:30 we drove to Costco and bought Saran, pork sirloin, chicken breasts, Clamato, a package of sliced fresh mozzarella cheese, more romaine lettuce hearts, and plastic bags. On our way to Costco we decided to make eggplant Parmesan with the eggplants in our garden with sautéed
spinach tonight and sautéed pesto rubbed chicken breasts tomorrow evening. We the stopped at
Southwest Distributors and bought 18 eggs, 1 gallon of milk and a 20 oz. bottle of catsup.
When we returned home we were a little hungry so I made a dipping sauce with 3/4 cup of mayo, juice of ¾ lemon, and 1 T. of fresh minced dill and we each ate an artichoke of the four I bought at Trader Joe's last Tuesday with glasses of Concannon Sauvignon Blanc. The Concannon was one of the best wine values of all time. It was bought for 3 bottles for $10.00 at Jubilation 5 or 6 years ago and was still fresh and vigorous today. I think I bought 3 cases of it and this was the last bottle of it.
After our artichoke snack I dozed off on the couch and when I awakened at 4:30 Suzette had picked the three eggplants in our garden and one-off the large green squashes and a couple of patty pan squashes and the basil and had brought the PPI meat sauce I made a week ago in from the garage and announced she was ready to cook dinner and make pesto.
Eggplant Parmesan
Suzette sliced the eggplants and the green squash into ½ inch slices. Then she coated the slices with a mixture of Progresso bread crumbs, grated Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper and then sautéed each slice to cook them. She then placed a light layer of meat sauce on the bottom of a ceramic baking dish and the layered alternating slices of cooked eggplant, a basil leaf and ½ of a slice of fresh mozzarella over the entire dish and the covered the slices with the rest of the meat sauce. She then sprinkled the top with a generous handful of grated Parmesan cheese and baked the dish in a 350 degree oven for one hour.
While the Eggplant Parmesan was cooking I minced 1 shallot and three cloves of garlic and cleaned about 1 lb. of fresh spinach and Suzette made pesto with basil, toasted pecan pieces, grated Parmesan cheese, olive oil, and a bit of medium red chili from Chimayo.
Willy came over around 6:30 and he and Suzette made basil Mayo while I talked to Luke. Then after the basil Mayo was made Suzette cut about a three pound piece offf the pork sirloin and seasoned it with sea salt and pepper and placed it in a Pyrex baking dish and put it in the oven to roast with the Eggplant Parmesan. At 6:30 I opened a bottle of 2014 Oak Ridge Ancient Vine Lodi Zinfandel (Total Wine $14.99) to open up and Suzette boiled a handful of vermicelli pasta. Then at 6:50, when the vermicelli was done, I sautéed the shallot and garlic in 1 ½ T. of olive oil and the added the spinach and tossed it in the olive oil, garlic, and shallot sauce to coat and cook it, while Suzette set the table in the TV room and poured glasses of Zinfandel. When the spinach was cooked in a minute or two, Suzette took the eggplant dish out of the oven and we served ourselves and I turned on Episode Six of the Vietnam War, which was January to July of 1968, one of the most consequential periods in the history of the U.S. in the last fifty years, in my opinion. Because it included the Tet Offensive that turned the tide of attitude in the US from trying to win the war by battle to resignation to seek peace by negotiation and forever changed the landscape of American politics when Bobby Kennedy and
Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated; a heavy dose of American history in an hour. Suzette’s
comment was, “I never knew any of this happened. I was too young to remember it.”
My response was “you had to have lived it. Actually I was in Denmark during the summer of 1968, so did not feel the direct impact of the death of Bobby Kennedy.”
My personal opinion is that the death of Bobby Kennedy was the end of any chance that the U.S. would develop a liberal democratic society during my lifetime. I think history has proven that to be correct, especially with Nixon’s Southern strategy, the rise of right wing conservatism with Ronald Reagan, and the election of Donald Trump.
ThevEggplant Parmesan
My plate
After the Vietnam War episode we cleaned the kitchen, I removed the Gravad Lax from its curing medium and washed off the filets and dried them and wrapped them in Saran and put them in a sandwich bag and put it in the fridge meat drawer.
I then poured a cognac for Suzette and a grappa for myself and we read for a few minutes and then went to bed at 10:00.
Suzette marveled at how much wonderful food we had cooked with food from our garden. We al
agreed that the dark berry fruit flavor of the wine complemented the acidity of the tomatoes in the meat sauce perfectly. Suzette liked the wine. I noticed on the back label that the vines date back to 1934 and the wine tasted dense and had a rich berry flavor with just a hint of Zinfandel spiciness.
Bon Appetit
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