I ate ½ of a whole wheat everything bagel (my favorite) with cream cheese, Lax, Vidalia onion slices , and capers for breakfast.
For lunch Aaron joined me for lunch. We ate bowls of chilled Vichyssoise. After Aaron left I made a melted Brie open faced sandwich on a buttered toasted slice of German Whole Wheat bread.
I intended to make a potato dish with Peruvian potatoes, so after lunch I thawed a ribeye steak.
I lacked a green vegetable so at 4:30 I drove to El Super and bought a bunch of spinach for $.50, a head of celery for $.50, bananas for $.50/lb., an 8 oz. box of mushrooms for $.99, and a head of romaine lettuce for $.50.
When I returned a bit after 5:00 I washed and de-stemmed the bunch of spinach and put it in a colander into the fridge.
I then checked the recipes for potatoes au Gratin and creamed spinach and found that they were almost congruent, both utilizing a cream sauce, onion and cheese. I first started to make the mushroom sauce by slicing four large white mushrooms, three cloves of fresh garlic and a small handful of thyme from our garden.
Then I started to make the potato dish by thinly slicing 6 cups of the purple Peruvian potatoes that Suzette bought at Sprouts yesterday for $1.49/lb.
Suzette arrived while I was slicing potatoes. When I asked her if she agreed to combine the spinach and potatoes and onion into one casserole with a generous amount of cream sauce she agreed, thus creating a new recipe. I showed her the Potato au Gratin recipe on the Internet and the creamed spinach recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking and she increased the cream sauce recipe from 3 T. of butter and flour for the roux to 4 T. each. While I sliced 6 cups of Peruvian potatoes and a Vidalia onion, Suzette made the cream sauce and added 1 cup of Irish cheddar cheese, salt and white pepper to the cream sauce to make a sauce mornay. I poured the diced onion and sliced potatoes into the pot of cream sauce. Suzette fetched a Pyrex 9 x 13 baking dish and we poured ½ of the potato and cream mixture into the baking dish. Then Suzette covered the potato layer with a layer of fresh spinach and finally we poured on the other ½ of the creamed potatoes. I covered the baking dish with aluminum foil as the recipe instructed and baked the casserole in a pre-heated 350 Fe green oven for One hour. At one hour Suzette checked the potatoes and said, “They need several more minutes to dry out.” So we cooked them another ten minutes and then removed them from the stove to sit for a few minutes.
While the Creamed potatoes and spinach au Gratin casserole cooked Suzette gathered a basket full of verde Lago or purslane from our driveway and we picked the leaves from the stems.
Then Suzette prepped the steak for grilling by dusting it with salt and pepper and then grilled it, while I minced a shallot and sautéed the garlic, mushroom, shallot and thyme in a skillet with 1 T. of olive oil and 3 T. of butter. After the mushrooms absorbed some oil and fat and began to soften I added about 3 T. of Amontillado sherry to the mixture and Suzette added a handful of purslane.
Suzette then went to the garden and picked a small basket full of yellow cherry tomatoes. After she
rinsed them I picked 6 or seven and cut them in halves and added them to the skillet with the mushrooms and purslane for added flavor and color from our garden.
In a few more minutes Suzette brought the grilled steak in and covered it with foil to let it keep cooking slowly.
In another five minutes I sliced the steak and we filled our plates with creamed potato and spinach casserole and covered the steak with sautéed mushroom and purslane mixture. I had also fetched the Béarnaise sauce and put a bit on my steak to further flavor the steak and mushroom sauce.
I had read an article in the new Wine Enthusiast several days ago about the classic combination of Cabernet Sauvignon and steak, so after the potato casserole went into the oven I headed to the basement to find a classic cab. I found the area where the Wellington wines were stored and pulled a 2008 Morehardt Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon. I wondered for a moment if the vineyard located on top of the Sonoma Ridge was surviving the latest Mendocino complex fire in California. One thing is certain, this fire season in California will be devastating to the wine industry. Even if the vineyards are spared, the wine will probably taste scorched.
Suzette was blown away by the meal. She loved it. She kept saying, “This is great” and I had no reason to disagree. I liked every aspect of the meal from the perfectly grilled well marbled ribeye steak to the healthy, garden fresh mushroom, purslane, shallot, and tomato medley to the amazingly flavorful potato and spinach casserole. And as the Wine Enthusiast article said the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon was a perfect complement for the steak and the two different sauces.
I was in food heaven also. We have lots of good meals, but rarely a great meal such as this with a new recipe and a medley of vegetables fresh from our garden cooked into a sauce for steak. I don’t even know how to describe the mushroom, purslane, tomato, shallot medley. It was both a side dish and a condiment for the steak, with its buttery sherry flavor. The flavors of the ingredients got mixed up with the saucy sherry, thyme, and butter flavors to create a vegetable dish unto itself. But like the wine, the mushroom dish perfectly complemented the other parts of the meal.
“Greatness” is where you find it. Superbly fresh ingredients of the highest quality combined expertly to complement each other is clearly a strong indicator of greatness.
And I haven’t even mentioned the new recipe. The Peruvian purple potatoes kept their color and their flavor was distinctly milder and creamier than a russet, especially with the creamy, cheesy flavor of the mornay sauce made with Spanish Manchego cheese.
About ½ hour after the meal I fetched the Peach and cherry Clafoutis from the garage fridge and
Suzette went to the basement and found an open bottle of Martell VSOP cognac I was given by Buddy several years ago for Christmas. Suzette wanted to finish off the Otard XO we bought in a
Chinese duty free shop, but I stopped her and now regret it, because the meal was good enough to merit that. Anyway we ate bowls of cold Clafoutis Garnished with whipped cream and sipped cognac, which Suzette noted was very good. I made a cup of tea with a fresh tea ball full of Earl Grey tea. The peach and cherry Clafoutis was the best yet and a perfect ending for a great meal.
Suzette had had a poor night’s sleep last night, so at 9:00 she dozed off. At 11:00 after watching a Frontline exposee on violent white racists at Charlottesville and an interesting show on the astronomical alignment of temples on peaks in the Valley of Puebla, specifically near Cholula, with the Constellation Orion, we went to bed.
I awakened at 3:00 for a glass of water and finished this blog entry. It is 4:51 a.m. and I am a happy camper soon to be nestled in bed with Suzette.
Bon Appetit
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