November 20, 2018 Lunch – PPI Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup and a shrimp, mushroom, onion, spinach, and cheese omelet. Dinner – French Potato and Leek Soup and a warm Butternut Squash, quinoa, and spinach salad

November 20, 2018 Lunch – PPI Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup and a shrimp, mushroom, onion, spinach, and cheese omelet. Dinner – French Potato and Leek Soup and a warm Butternut Squash, quinoa, and spinach salad

I ate yogurt, milk, grapes, and granola for breakfast.

At 12:00 I heated the PPI Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup and then made a shrimp, mushroom and cheese omelet with four PPI BBQ’d shrimp from last Thursday evening some red onion, two mushrooms sliced, some spinach, and slices of Jarlsberg cheese.

I wanted to eat a hardy lunch so I would have enough energy to ride the six miles to Campbell Rd. and back, which I did at 2:30 after the plumbers made their measurements for the new boiler.

I got home around 3:30 and at 5:00 started making the pecan pies for Thanksgiving Dinner.  Here is
the recipe.

Let me tell you a little history about the Salado Stagecoach Inn.

After Statehood in 1845, the U.S. built a line of forts to guard the frontier from Comanche raiding parties.  My hometown, Fort Worth, was established as one of those forts in 1849.  The frontier ran more or less north/south from Fort Worth to San Antonio. After the line of forts was established towns, like Waco, on the banks of the Brazos River sprang up.  A stagecoach Route linked the towns to Austin, the capitol of the Republic of Texas and later the State capitol on the banks of the Colorado River.  In 1852 a two story stagecoach stop was built in Salado, between Waco and Austin.  When we

were young our family used to stop in the 50’s and eat on our 200 mile drives to Austin, because it was known for it wonderful food.  I still remember its great fried chicken, but it’s most famous for its Chocolate Pecan Fudge Pie.

I remember when I was young being given a tour of the basement of the Inn and being shown the underground passageway to a nearby river built to provide an escape route for the women and children during Indian attacks.  As I grew up they stopped giving tours of the basement because the passageway had collapsed, but we often stopped for an excellent meal topped of with a slice of Chocolate Pecan Fudge Pie.

When I made the recipe this evening I was distracted by helping Luke and his friends get settled in and I left the pies in the oven an extra 10 minutes and they got a little scorched on the top.

Luke helped cook dinner.  He de-seeded and baked a butternut squash drizzled with olive oil.  Suzette helped him when she arrived after a shopping trip to Costco for the Center around 6:45. Luke made quinoa and Suzette made a dressing for a warm butternut Squash and quinoa salad served on a bed of fresh spinach leaves by reducing balsamic vinegar and adding to it a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper.

Suzette also helped finish the Leek and Potato portage I had cooked on Sunday, by pureeing the ingredients in a Waring Blend and adding the required 6 T. of heavy cream, while I went to the garden and picked about ten stalks of chives and sliced them thinly and put them into a bowl with a spoon and then chopped about ¾ cup of fresh parsley and put it into a different bowl with a spoon.

When the soup was puréed and reheated with the added cream, Suzette ladled it into bowls and
served them and I sprinkled parsley and chives on top of each bowl.

After the soup, pasta bowls filled with warm butternut squash, quinoa, and spinach salad were served.  Luke’s friends Autumn and Debbie brought Blackberry flavored apple cider that we drank with dinner and I chilled and opened a French apple cider from Normandy (Trader Joe’s $4.99).

After dinner Luke and the girls left and Suzette and I ate a small ramekin filled with chocolate fudge cake, with which I drank a Calvados and a tea and Suzette drank a cognac.

Bon Appetit