Today I got back on the healthy food wagon.
I started with granola, poached Quince, yogurt, and milk.
Aaron came over and I made us a simple salad of romaine lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and green onions dressed with a Cesar dressing.
I toasted several small pieces of Cloud Cliff Whole wheat bread and smeared several with Kalles smoked fish roe paste that I bought at IKEA in Dallas two weekends ago.
Suzette came home around 2:30 and we decided to cook scallops, so we took them out of the freezer and the rode to Rio Bravo.
Then at 6:00 we started to make dinner. I went to the garden and picked tarragon, Sage, and basil, which I de-stemmed and chopped. I also fetched the bag of spinach and the bottle of Chablis from the garage refrigerator.
Suzette thawed out the scallops and minced five of six cloves of garlic.
Then we sliced thin slices of several squashes until we had accumulated about 2 cups of long flat noodle like strips of squash that Suzette put in a pyrex loaf pan with a bit of water and covered the pan with Saran. She cooked the squash noodles in the microwave and then began cooking the
Poached Scallops with Spinach In a cream sauce
Suzette washed the scallops under hot waiter to thaw them.
Then she Poached them in an about ¼ inch deep poaching mixture of butter, white wine, the chopped herbs, plus five or six cloves of garlic chopped, and a bit of water in our large deep walled skillet on the stove top burner, flipping them to poach both sides evenly.
I need to explain that we use previously frozen garlic that we grew in our garden this year and then froze in all of our recipes. The previously frozen garlic does not have the potency that fresh garlic has, nor are the cloves as large as those of most commercial garlic, so if you are using fresh commercial garlic you can cut the amount of garlic by 1/2 or 2/3. Also, because of its lack of potency, our garlic gives dishes a less potently garlic flavor, which is a subtle difference that sometimes I like and other times, when I hanker for a strong garlic flavor, I find missing.
The previously frozen garlic does seem to work well in a cream sauce with herbs and other ingredients, such as tonight’s cream sauce, because the garlic flavor blends rather than dominates the sauce.
When the scallops were cooked in a couple of minutes, I made a roux with 1 ½ T. of butter and 1 ½ T. of flour. Suzette stirred the roux for a couple of minutes to cook the flour and then I poured about ¾ cup of whole milk into the roux. Suzette stirred the sauce until it thickened and then poured the cream sauce into the skillet with the scallops and poaching mixture and I filled the skillet with fresh spinach and Suzette covered the skillet to cook the spinach four a minute or two. I sliced a small mound of Pecorino Romano cheese and we garnished each of our dishes with slices of the slightly tangy salty cheese.
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The back label is very informative. It reads "from single Vineyard 30 year old vines on Kimmeridgan limestone fermented with indigenous yeast"
I opened the chilled bottle of 2014 Sainte Celine Chablis ($12.99 at Trader Joe’s). Chablis is produced in the Chablis Appellation d’origene Controllee in the most northerly part of Burgundy.
Here is the Wikipedia description:
“The Chablis (pronounced [ʃa.bli]) region is the northernmost wine district of the Burgundy region in France. The cool climate of this region produces wines with more acidity and flavors less fruity than Chardonnay wines grown in warmer climates. These wines often have a "flinty" note, sometimesdescribed as "goût de pierre à fusil" ("tasting of gunflint"), and sometimes as "steely". The Chablis Appellation d'origine contrôlée is required to use Chardonnay grapes solely.
Chablis
Wine region
Chablis and Premier Cru Vaulorent.jpg
View of Chablis, Burgundy, from the north, vineyard of Vaulorent in the foreground
Type Appellation d'origine contrôlée
Year established 1938
Country France
Part of Burgundy
Total area 6834 hectares
Size of planted vineyards 4820 hectares
Varietals produced Chardonnay (Beaunois)
The grapevines around the town of Chablis make a dry white wine renowned for the purity of its aroma and taste. In comparison with the white wines from the rest of Burgundy, Chablis wine has typically much less influence of oak. Most basic Chablis is unoaked, and vinified in stainless steel tanks.
The amount of barrel maturation, if any, is a stylistic choice which varies widely among Chablis producers. Many Grand Cru and Premier Cru wines receive some maturation in oak barrels, but typically the time in barrel and the proportion of new barrels is much smaller than for white wines of Côte de Beaune.[1]”
A good Chablis, such as a Premier Cru have an arresting flintiness matched by a restrained but
peasant fruitiness, which makes it an amazing wine. The 2014 Sainte Celine did not have as much acidity and thus lacked some of the flintiness we were expecting. Its flavor was dominated by fruitiness, so it was just a pleasant glass of wine that complemented the scallops and cream sauce nicely, but not magnificently. To be fair a premier cru Chablis would cost three or four times more
than the $13. I paid for this bottle. The Chablis we liked that we bought at Total Wine recently cost $19.99 before the 20% discount, so that seems to be the entry level price for good Chablis. It makes me want to explore ordering Chablis on line to see what is available.
Today is a low food day for me so I did not crave and eat pistachios after I finished my lovely plate of food, perhaps because Suzette prepared and served us each a small plate of poached Quince, sultana, and cranberry compote garnished with a mound of yogurt as a pleasant dessert. This yogurt was Trader Joe’s French Village label, the least expensive yogurt at $2.79, which I like best because it tastes most like the original European yogurt I grew up on. Here is a short description of the enzymes in standard yogurt published by Livestrong.
“Yogurt is one of the simplest, tastiest digestive aids you can add to your diet, but not all yogurts are created equal. With so many yogurt brands and products on the market, the choices go far beyond blueberry or strawberry. Once you've found your favorite fruit flavor, then look for a yogurt high in probiotics, such as the lactic acid bacteria known as acidophilus and other live and active cultures.”
“When selecting a yogurt rich in digestive enzymes, the amount of lactic acid bacteria such as acidophilus is the most important criterion. According to the National Institutes of Health, "'Friendly' bacteria such as lactobacillus can help us break down food, absorb nutrients and fight off "unfriendly" organisms that might cause diseases such as diarrhea." The American Cancer Society recommends a daily dose of between 1 and 10 billion bacteria, so make sure your yogurt contains the National Yogurt Association's Live & Active Cultures Seal, ensuring the yogurt contains at least 100 million bacteria.”
Willy had called at around 5:30 after we returned from our bike ride and I told him what we were cooking for dinner, so he came by at 7:15 and Suzette plated him the same lovely dish of food we were eating and I poured him a glass of the Gran Lopez Spanish red wine.
I then went to my desk to work on the docketing statement for an appeal to the Court of Appeals for my new client until Willy left and I said goodnight to him around 8:30 and worked until about 9:30.
When I went to bed Suzette was already asleep, which is wonderful because she is trying to get over a cold.
Bon Appetit
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