We planted two raised beds this morning. Then I went in to cook breakfast, while Suzette did a couple more things outside.
Suzette requested a lamb and goat cheese omelet. I also had a Mexican squash and like onions and garlic with lamb, so I added those plus a red mini sweet pepper to the mix by thinly julienning them. I sautéed all the vegetable ingredients and then added the meta of one lamb chop that I had julienned also and heated it. I whisked four eggs and added the herbs I had prepped last night: thyme, tarragon, and chives to the eggs.
I poured the eggs over the sautéed vegetables and lamb and dotted the top of the eggs with about 3 T. of goat cheese.
When the eggs began to congeal I turned one side on top of the other side and cooked it for another couple of minutes.
Suzette made a Bloody Mary and I poured a glass full of Clamato with the juice of ½ lime. We carried the food and drinks to the table under the gazebo in the garden and enjoyed a lovely breakfast.
I waited about one hour and then rode to Rio Bravo and back in a very respectable 45 minutes. I think my quads are getting shape from being atrophied from inactivity due to my accident and surgery.
When I returned Suzette had gone to Lowe’s to buy a caulking gun to glue the new mirror into the frame she made..
When she returned we went shopping. We stopped at Bombay Spice, but they were out of Tea India chai masala. Suzette said she was getting hungry so we stopped at what used to be Que Houng, but had changed ownership and menus. Everything was a bit more expensive.
We ordered No 71, Stir-Fried Flat noodles with mixed vegetables and pork for $8.95 As it turned out the dish consisted of stir fried boiled 30 mm. wide rice noodles with carrot strips, mung bean sprouts, onion strips, and green cabbage squares and pieces of pork seasoned with a light brown sauce. I squirted hoisin sauce on the dish with Suzette’s assent. It was a very tasty dish,
although we both thought the dish was just okay. Neither of us felt a compulsion to return.
We then drove across Louisiana Blvd. to Talin. Suzette wanted some items for new dishes for the Center. She bought Chinese Cooking Wine, oyster sauce, and soy sauce plus thin Vietnamese Banh rice noodles.
We also bought for the house. Pho seasoning cubes, firm tofu, rice noodles, wood ear threads, Siljan’s Swedish hard bread, a six oz. container of white beech mushrooms, and a beautiful fresh 1 ½ lb. trout, for which we were given a bag of ice to keep chilled.
We then drove across the parking lot to Coda Bakery where Suzette picked up a baguette and then drove to Uptown to Total Wine, where Suzette bought two 1.75 liter bottles of her favorite scotch and I bought a bottle of Moonshine whiskey for the book club meeting on Thursday.
We then drove to Trader Joe’s where we bought toiletries for the guest bathroom and I bought nine bottles of wine; three Paton-Clemente Spanish La Mancha Tempranillo Crianza for $4.99, a bottle of Austrian white Gruner Veltliner for $8.99, a bottle of Famille Perrin Reserve red Cotes du Rhone for $8.99, a bottles of French St. Emillon for $12.99, a bottle of cognac, a bottle of Picton Bay New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for $6.99, and a new cheap French sweet white wine for $3.99.
We then drove home and watched the nightly news at 5:00 by way of the candy store to check on Mario’s progress in cleaning the weeds and fixing the gates.
At around 6:00 we decided to cook dinner and a Suzette decided to make cauliflower Couscous to go with the trout since we had a head of cauliflower.. We also decided to add the green beans I had bought last week to the Couscous. Suzette used the shredding attachment instead of of the chopping blade, which produced a more uniform and larger granular shapes the cauliflower Couscous. She also shredded two carrots. She then sautéed the cauliflower Couscous and carrots and de-stemmed green beans in butter. While the vegetables were cooking Suzette fried the whole trout in a large skillet filled to 1/3 inch with canola oil until browned on both sides.
While Suzette was sautéing the Couscous and trout, I made a tartare sauce with the juice of ¼ lemon, 2/3 cup of mayonnaise, and 1/3 cup of pickle relish, plus a pinch of salt.
I also opened the bottle of 2015 Terlato Friuli Colli Orientalist Denominazione de Origine controllata Pinot Grigio that Travis Nd Kathleen brought to the Neighborhood party last week. It was a lovely wine and highly rated by both Wine Enthusiast and Wine Spectator. Here are some notes.
Average Price (ex-tax)
$21
Aggregated Critic Score
89/100
Producer
Terlato Vineyards
Region/Appellation
Colli Orientali del Friuli
Country Hierarchy
Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
Grape/Blend
Pinot Grigio
Food Suggestion
White Fish
Wine Style
White - Green and Flinty
Alcohol Content
13%
We agreed with the ratings. The Terlato Pinot Grigio was a superior wine; light, with a good balance of peach fruit notes and minerality. Its lightness and minerality complemented the trout’s lightness
perfectly.
We both agreed the tender trout, Couscous and green beans with the perfect light Pinot Grigio was a great meal, not available at any Albuquerque restaurant, but at least a $125.00 meal. This meal is a great example of what greatness can be achieved for very little money. Suzette said it is hard for restaurants to fry trout in canola oil like she had, because it gets messy to repeat the technique repeatedly and that this dish would be $24.95 in a good restaurant. We each were served a 6 oz. portion of trout on a pile of cauliflower Couscous with green beans and shredded carrots. We had paid $7.50 for the 1 ½ lb. trout and only ate ½ of it, so each of our dishes ¼ of $7.50 for a food cost of $1.87. I paid $.50/lb. for the cauliflower at El Super so each dish contained approximately ½ lb. of cauliflower for $.25. The carrots were even cheaper. I paid $.99 for 4 lb. of carrots. The green beans were $.99/lb. and there was about 1/5/lb. in each dish for another $.20. The ¼ lemon wedge served with the dish probably cost $.35 and the tartare sauce probably cost the same. So, this dish cost a bit over $3.00 in food costs.
The wine had an average cost of $20.00, so a 2½ to three multiple for it in a good restaurant would make it a $50.00 to $60.00 bottle. If the trout dishes were $25.00 each and the wine $50.00 to $60.00, that totals $100.00 to $110.00 for the meal and with a 15% tip, the total cost would be at least $125.00. And we could not think of a restaurant where we could get this good a meal in Albuquerque or Santa Fe. The last time I saw fresh lake fish cooked this well was at lake side restaurants at Annecy in France and at Lake Maggiore in Italy.
We loved the meal. After we admired the pond and all our new fish, we went inside. I ate some fig Clafoutis with whipped cream and a cup of Earl Grey tea and Suzette ate the last piece of peach and blueberry cobbler with a sip of cognac, as we watched several new American Pickers shows.
At 9:30 we went to bed after a pleasant day of work, shopping, and eating.
Bon Appetit
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