February 23, 2018 Lunch – PPI Bouillabaisse. Dinner – Grilled Rib Steak and Asparagus with a baked potato

February 23, 2018 Lunch – PPI Bouillabaisse. Dinner – Grilled Rib Steak and Asparagus with a baked potato

I ate granola and blueberries with milk and yogurt for breakfast.

Etienne and Peter came for lunch and I heated up the PPI Bouillabaisse and ran to the Bosque Bakery with Etienne to get a loaf of whole wheat bread.  I brought the aged wheel of Brie into the house and put it on the round wooden cutting board and sliced whole wheat bread and toasted slices and poured glasses of Carayon French rose and we had a simple but elegant meal of Provençal soup, bread, cheese, and wine.

                                              The Bosque Bakery whole wheat bread

                               The aged wheel of Brie from Isigney Ste Mere in Normandy via Costco

   The Bouillabasse

                                                   Peter and Ettiene

  Ettiene’s bowl of soup

                                                    The bottle of Carayon Rose is on the left

We enjoyed our very French lunch a lot.

I baked five russet potatoes at 4:00.  Suzette arrived from her dental appointment a little before 5:00 and finished cooking the potatoes and started prepping the two bone in rib steaks I had thawed.  I snapped the ends off about 16 stalks of asparagus and put them in a plastic produce bag for Suzette to season and douse with olive oil because she wanted to grill asparagus with the steaks.

While Suzette grilled the steaks and asparagus I sliced 1 ½ yellow onions into ½ inch slices and sautéed them in about 1 T. each of olive oil and butter and selected a bottle of Trader Joe’s Pinot Noir from the Santa Margarita Valley and opened it and poured glasses of it.

I squeezed a little liquid beef consommé concentrate onto the onions to see if it would develop a sauce.  It did not.  Instead it stuck to the skillet but it did it flavored the onions.  I chose not to deglaze
the pan with wine or some liquid because I wanted to enjoy the flavor of the first char broiled steak
and asparagus of the year unaltered by a sauce.  Perhaps next time.

Instead I thinly sliced three green onions.

Soon Suzette brought the asparagus in from the grill and wrapped them in aluminum foil to sweat them a bit and then a few minutes later did the same for the two steaks.  We let them continue to cook until we deemed the onions cooked.

Suzette sliced one of the steaks and plated our plates with slices of steak and 8 stalks each of grilled asparagus and a baked potato and put a sautéed slice of onion on the steak slices as a garnish.  I also sliced several radishes to have a fresh vegetable to crunch on.  We put butter, crema sin sal and sliced green onions on the baked potatoes for a delicious accompaniment to the steak and asparagus.  I fetched several more slices of sautéed onion so I could combine bits of beef flavored sautéed onion with each bite of steak or asparagus.  I am not sure if potatoes are on the Paleo diet, but if seemed like a rather Paleo meal, except for the wine.

                                        My baked potato, steak, asparagus and radish dinner

I did not like the wine because it lacked the clean Pinot flavor.  It seemed heavy and laden with a jammyness I associate with Syrah or a young Tempranillo.  I will not buy it again.  Instead I will buy Cherry Blossom at Trader Joe’s which costs less and is a clean tasting Pinot.

I ate a piece of chocolate for dessert with a couple of cups of chai and stayed up to watch the US team win the gold in curling.

Bon Appetit