December 29, 2017 Lunch – Vietnamese Noodle Soup with roast beef Dinner – Roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, brown gravy and cream horseradish sauce

December 29, 2017 Lunch – Vietnamese Noodle Soup with roast beef
Dinner – Roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, brown gravy and cream horseradish sauce

I ate ½ bagel with goat cheese and slices of onion and Lax for breakfast.

I wanted to ride today so I took all my vitamins.


For lunch I made a Vietnamese Noodle Soup with Pho seasoning, dehydrated dashi, broccoli, green beans, a shallot and a mushroom sliced and about 1/3 lb. of chunks of roast beef.  I even scraped the pan and put some pan drippings into the soup.  I used fresh rice noodles and garnished the soup with green onion finely sliced and fresh cilantro, lime juice and hoisin sauce.  This soup gives me nutrition and moisture that helps lubricate my joints, it seems.

After lunch I lay down for 45 minutes until 3:00 to build my energy by digesting lunch.

Then at 3:00 I went to pick up a digital file from Sally.

At 4:00 I rode to Rio Bravo and back.  I find that the above regimen helps me ride with good energy all the way.

I rested until 5:30 when I returned at 5:00.

Then I went to the kitchen and started cooking.


I prepped the mashed potatoes by peeling and cubing six medium russet potatoes (10 lb. of potatoes for $1.99 at El Super) and put the cubes into a pot ½ filled with water.  I then started the potatoes boiling until I thought they were soft and turned them off.

I then made the Clafoutis with blueberries.

Clafoutis

This is a dessert from the Limousine region of France which is dairy and cattle country.  This dish is characterized by the use of enriched milk.  To enrich the milk I use 2 cups of whole milk and 1 cup of half and half.

I scald the milk mixture and allow it to cool.


In a mixing bowl large enough to hold all the ingredients I mix 7 T. of flour, 10 T. of confectioners sugar, and ½ tsp. of salt.

I make a slight depression in the center of the dry ingredients and drop three large eggs into the center and and whisk the eggs into the dry ingredients.  Today the eggs did not fully emulsify all the dry ingredients, which is okay because I then added the milk and stirred the batter until it was smooth.  I then added three cups of fresh blueberries to the batter.

Then I the buttered a ceramic baking dish. I often cost the butter with sugar, but did not today.  I poured the batter into the ceramic baking dish.  And put the mixture into a heated 350 degree oven for 40 to 45 minutes until the custard is baked to firm and the top a golden brown.

Suzette arrived at 6:30 and Charlie arrived a few minutes later.


I opened a bottle of 2016 Belleruche Cotes Du Rhone rose’ and poured glasses of it for a before dinner drink. Suzette opened a bottle of 2016 Chateau Haut-Sorillon Bordeaux for dinner.

I then snapped the approximately 1 lb. of green beans I had bought at Sprouts on Wednesday for $.77/lb. and put the beans into the steamer basket of our steamer and placed the steamer on a larger burner on the stove and turned on the heat.

While I was dealing with the beans Suzette heated milk and butter in the microwave and added it to the drained potatoes she had put into the bowl of the Kitchenaid mixer and whipped the potatoes.

Then Suzette heated the PPI pan drippings left in the roasting pan after we roasted the 8 lbs. of standing rib roasts on Tuesday night and added flour to make a roux and then added milk to make a brown gravy.  She did not need to season the gravy since a portion of the sea salt and pepper I coated
the roast with had fallen into the roasting pan.

We checked the Clafoutis by shaking the baking dish and it seemed firm, so Suzette removed the baking dish from the oven and placed it on the counter to cool.

Dinner prep was a quick affair taking no more than twenty minutes after the potatoes were peeled, cubed and cooked.  Suzette whipped  the potatoes and made the brown sauce and I snapped and steamed the green beans.  Then I sliced three slices of roast beef from the roasted but uncut 4 lb. piece of PPI roast beef from Tuesday evening’s meal and Suzette covered the slices of meat with Saran and heated them in the microwave oven until they were hot and steaming.  We judged the beans to be cooked so we each plated our own plates with a slice of roast beef, a scoop of mashed potatoes, and a couple of tongs full of green beans and spooned brown sauce onto the meat and potatoes.  I fetched the cold cream and horseradish sauce from the fridge but it was unnecessary, because we all preferred the warm brown gravy.

When we finished our glasses of rose’ we poured glasses of red wine and ate our way through the heavy meat and potatoes dinner by washing the bites down with wine, although Charlie preferred water.
After dinner I asked Charlie, “Do you want Blueberry Clafoutis or my chocolate dessert?”  Charlie responded, “The chocolate.”

So I plated a piece of my chocolate dessert I had before Christmas and coated it with some pouring custard I had made before Christmas also.  I poured Suzette a cognac and myself a Calvados and we each ate a small bowl of still warm Clafoutis while Charlie ate the chocolate dessert with custard sauce.

I made a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk to wash down my food and dessert.

Charlie does not cook.  He learned woodworking from helping his dad in his dad’s woodworking shop, just like I learned how to cook by helping my mother prep dishes for her cooking school and family dinners.  Charlie’s woodworking skills are awesome.  He can make anything with wood from model planes to harpsichords and federal period marquetry tables.

When he said he had gone to the store to buy 6 cans of soup, I filled a storage container with two slices of roast beef, the rest of the mashed potatoes and as much brown gravy as I could get into the container and sent him home with several dinners of food.

We said goodnight at about 9:00.

Charlie had mentioned an interview on BBC Radio 4 of Obama by Prince Harry, so after Charlie left tuned it in on You Tube Suzette.  Suzette then went to bed and I stayed up to listen to Rachel discuss the Dossier and check the year end results of my portfolio.  I achieved a 16.5% gain, which is below average, probably because made two big mistakes. I had more than 10% in cash for fear of what Trump might do to the economy and I held a large position in GE, which was the worst performing stock in the Dow, down 45% for the year.

I just read a talk of the town article about a graphic designer who is going to make a book about unhappy people and I remember something Charlie said at dinner, “I have lots more time now that I ave stopped watching the news.”

Those two things made my realize that it is stupid to get angry or unhappy because of what President Trump says or does because that is just playing into his crazy agenda.  Suzette perhaps has the best attitude.  When we watch the news se says, “Let’s see what our crazy President is doing today.”

I need to adopt either Charlie or Suzette’s attitude and stop worrying about the President’s madness or Narcissistic personality disorder that continually attacks our democratic institutions.  I keep remembering what Hillary and others said during the campaign, about how Trump was emotionally unprepared to be President.

I promise myself to try not to react negatively to Trump’s craziness.

The problem is that I fear that Trump’s craziness and inability to govern exposes the U.S. to greater threats from those who would do us harm who see an opportunity to strike at the U.S. or leaders of growing powers like China and Russia who see an opportunity to advance their agendas because they think the instability created by Trump may keep the U.S. from making a unified response.

Bon Appetit