June 15, 2018 Lunch – Beef Noodle Soup and a tomato and a herring sandwich, Dinner – PPI Chili Relleno, Pinto and Black Beans, and Duck Posole, and then the Neighborhood Party

June 15, 2018 Lunch – Beef Noodle Soup and a tomato and a herring sandwich, Dinner – PPI Chili Relleno, Pinto and Black Beans, and Duck Posole, and then the Neighborhood Party

I awoke at 4:00 a.m. and pitted the bag of cherries I bought at El Super on Wednesday for $1.77/lb.  they were small and very firm.  I doused them with 1 T. each of cognac and Grande Marnier and put them in the fridge to marinate a bit.

For breakfast I ate granola, ½ mango, blueberries, yogurt, and milk for breakfast.

A little after noon I heated the PPI beef Noodle Soup I made the other day.  It still had a rather burned flavor, but I loved the lamb and beef collagen that had fallen away from the bones, so enjoyed it.  To add a little lift to the meal I toasted two slices of Kommisarbrod and smeared mayo on one and lay slices of a Roma tomato on it.  I smeared the other one with crema and lay thin slices of fresh onion and four pieces of pickled herring in wine sauce with a few of the pickled onions.

Jesse, Suzette’s refrigeration guy came by and checked the humming sound in our refrigerator and ordered a replacement freezer fan to be delivered on Tuesday.

I am thrilled that I am finally working on what I think will be the final draft of a pleading in my water case, so I kept working until 4:00.

Then I made a Clafoutis using the recipe from the Gourmet Cookbook Vol. 1.  Here is the recipe.

I scalded 3 cups of milk and let it cool, while I measured 7 T. of flour, 10 T. of  Confectioner’s sugar, and ½ tsp. of salt into a mixing bowl.  I stirred to mix the dry ingredients a bit and then made a well in the middle of the ingredients into which I poured 3 large eggs that I had whisked to blend.  I then stirred the egg mixture into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon and the added the scalded milk slowly while stirring to mix the ingredients until smooth.

I then buttered a ceramic baking dish and coated the sugar with granulated sugar.  I pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees and poured the liquid mixture into the ceramic dish and then added about 4 ½ cups of marinated cherries to the ceramic dish until the surface of the liquid was filled with cherries.  The recipe calls for 4 cups of cherries but I had almost five cups so I made it with a solid surface of
cherries this time.

I then placed the ceramic dish on a cookie sheet and baked the Clafoutis is the 350 degree oven for 1 hour until the crust turned a golden brown and the custard became firm.

Suzette called to see if the refrigerator was making ice yet and I reported that it was not, so she came home a bit after 5:30 with a bag of ice.

We were a bit hungry, so Suzette filled and heated a Pyrex pie pan with the PPI Chile Relleno from yesterday’s lunch with Peter at Padilla’s with the pinto beans and added some PPI black beans and duck Posole we had in the fridge.  We shared the pleasant Mexican snack and then watched the news until a few minutes after 7:00 when we grabbed the bottle of sparkling PureLoire Chenin Blanc ($14.99 at Total Wine), a container of Reddi Whip, and the ceramic dish of Clafoutis and walked to the Neighborhood party at Barry and Kylene’s house on Los Alamos.

There were lots of neighbors and lots of cooked dishes this evening.  Baked Mushrooms stuffed with a green chili filling by Kim were among the best although Jennifer’s deep fried coated asparagus were wonderful.  There was a blueberry tart and Harvey’s wife made a wonderful chicken liver paste.  One of my favorite dishes was Janis’ unassuming small bowl of beautifully marinated White beech mushrooms.  I went to Kylene’s kitchen and put out spoons so folks could eat the gooey dishes.

One of the dishes both Suzette and I loved was a massive pecan praline made with about a pound of pecans mixed with a clear caramel that you had to tear apart pecan by pecan.  It was initially very stiff and only yielded one pecan at a time but as the evening progressed the caramel began to relax a bit and one could pull chunks of caramel and pecans off.  What fun.

I talked to several folks, mostly about food and wine,  since it was so good, although when I told Tom about Tuxedo Park by Jennet Conant’s history of the evolution of the military/industrial industry created to win WWII, he told me about the years he spent with Motorola taking care of the U.S.’ nuclear stockpile at Sandia and some of the experiments he was involved in testing hardened materials to see if they could resist energy pulses, lasers, and missile strikes.  He was obviously proud of all the interesting stuff he was involved with and so was I.  I feel like many of my fellow Book club members who worked at Sandia have similar stories.

The PureLoire sparkling Chenin Blanc was just okay.  I guess it is hard to duplicate my memory of a pleasant young lady pouring a chilled glass of sparkling Chenin Blanc in Saumur. France, especially when we were drinking the sparkling PureLoire Chenin Blanc wine from a plastic cup on a muggy warm summer evening in Albuquerque.  My favorite wine was a chilled bottle of 2016 Emma Reichart French rose of Pinot Noir (Trader Joe’s $6.99??); a perfect wine for this warm summer evening of light appetizers and desserts.

We left around 9:30 after a lot of great food, wine, and conversation.

Bon Appetit