For Breakfast I ate two quartered slices of bagel smeared with cream cheese and topped with Smoked Whitefish.
I worked until 10:30 when I went with Luke to Wells Fargo Bank to begin processing a mortgage loan.
At noon we finished at the bank and drove to Taj Mahal to meet Mike for lunch.
The Taj was as good as ever. I ate my usual favorites, tandoori chicken, tikka masala chicken, beef meatballs, Saag paneer, roasted yellow squash, a piece of culcha (naan seasoned with onion, parsley, and other herbs and baked in a tandoori oven) and some mung Dahl. Luke also ordered a mango lassi and Mike ordered a Pepsi.
Like took pictures and we talked to the owner’s boyfriend, Jack.
We stayed until after 3:00 and then drove back home. I was surprised that the market may have finally turned positive with a 432 point in the Dow.
I lay down for about fifteen minutes to rest and then got up to start dinner. There were a series of calls from Amy, who was in Albuquerque to pick up Val, who was returning from a trip to see his son’s family in Homer, Alaska, regarding dinner. The final result was that Amy and avail would go eat and then stop by for a glass of wine.
Suzette was still shopping at Costco for her program, so I started dinner. My plan was to chop the two zucchini and two yellow squash and add them to the PPI spaghetti squash and tomato meat sauce to amplify the remaining spaghetti sauce.
I sliced the four squash plus five cloves of fresh garlic from our garden and ½ of a small yellow onion by the time Suzette arrived from Costco.
I went to the garden and picked four stalks of basil and five yellow cherry tomatoes and removed and chopped the approximately 3 T. of basil leaves and added them to the other vegetables by the time Suzette unloaded the car. I cleaned a large Le Creuset casserole and asked her to sauté the vegetables. She checked the PPI spaghetti and said there was not enough meat, so she sautéed the vegetables in the casserole with about 3 T. of butter and 2 T. of olive oil while she sautéed the remaining 1 lb. of ground beef in a skillet. I then sliced four baby portobello mushrooms and added them to the skillet.
Suzette said, “We need to add liquid to the vegetables.” She added 1 cup of water and I fetched the remaining 1 ½ cups of a PPI bottle of undrinkable Benton Lane rose’ and added it to what was quickly becoming a vegetable stew.
I then sliced the cherry tomatoes in half and diced two or three red tomatoes and added those to the casserole and added the now cooked ground beef and mushrooms.
We covered the casserole and set it to simmer. When Amy and Vahl arrived I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of 2010 Coppola Pinot Noir, since Vahl likes pinot.
As we sipped Pinot, Luke showed his photos of the cabin and everyone seemed to think it was a decent cabin for the money.
Vahl showed us photos taken on his trip to Homer, Alaska of his son, Erin, and wife and handsome grandson. After about an hour, about 6:30 Amy and Vahl left and we resumed preparing dinner. We asked Luke if he wanted any spaghetti and he said, “Yes.” So we put a pot of water on to boil and Suzette added ½ lb. of spaghetti to the boiling water.
By 7:00 we were ready to eat. Suzette drained and rinsed the spaghetti in a colander and we served ourselves spaghetti and spaghetti sauce. I shaved slices of salty Pecorino-Romano cheese for each of us to garnish the top of our pasta bowls filled full of spaghetti and sauce. We poured out the rest of the Coppola Pinot Noir and talked through the pros and cons of Luke’s possible house purchase and planned trip to Portland and New York.
Dinner was delicious. I loved the balance between vegetables, meat, and spaghetti. I love the fact
that we used lots of ingredients from our fridge and garden. Here is a picture of the remaining sauce
and spaghetti.
After dinner at around 8:30 I got tired and went to bed after eating a couple of pieces of Halloween candy.
At 11:30 I awakened to blog a bit and drink a glass of water.
Bon Appetit
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