December 31, 2019 Lunch – Water Spot, Dinner – St. George Hotel
This was a pleasant day spent in Marfa. We walked the main street from the Judd Foundation to the courthouse and back. At 11:30 we drove to the edge of town where the Water Spot was located .
The Water Spot was crowded because very few restaurants were open. We ordered cheeseburgers with fries. They were large1/2 lb. hamburgers for $15.00 each. We talked to Mona at the next table who was county historian and owner of the 98th building, which was the garrison for US troops stationed on the border to protect the ranchers from Mexican bandits in the 1910s and 1920s. Pershing, Eisenhower and Patton were all stationed here during that period.
In WWIi it was used as a prisoner of war camp for the Germans who had fought with Rommel’s Africa Corps who were captured by the British.
There is lots of history in Marfa, but it is impossible to not think that Marfa has seen its better days.
After the 98th building we drove to the Riata and rested until 4:00 when we dressed and drove to the St. George Hotel for dinner.
We ordered and shared an order of Grilled quail with a sweet potato purée and a creamed spinach with parmigiana cheese and a bowl of kale, vegetable, and brown rice soup.
After the hearty lunch at Water Spot we could not finish our soup, so took it home in a container.
At 6:00 we moved from the restaurant to the bar and finished our Bardino Cava while watching the Alamo Bowl game between Texas and Utah. Amazingly Texas beat Utah 38 to 10, even though Utah was ranked 11th in the nation in the AP poll as we later sipped a green Chartreuse.
After Texas scored at the beginning of the fourth quarter to go ahead 21 points, we walked across the street to the St. George Event Center for the music and drinks and New Year’s celebration. The music was decidedly low keyed. I guess music in Austin has reverted to traditional folk music, based on what we heard. The main act was Billy Dale Gilmore, who was just okay, not great.
The countdown clock at the concert
We made it to midnight though. After the band stopped at midnight we drove back to the motel and went to sleep.
December 29, 2019 Lunch – Roasted Chicken and Cream of Asparagus soup with salad. Dinner – New Recipe Sautéed Teriyaki Salmon with Steamed Broccoli and Steamed Brown Rice
I watched two soccer matches and the news programs this morning and then at 10:00 we began prepping the 4.4 lb. whole chicken I bought Friday at Smith’s.
We sliced 5 lemon slices and coated them with dried tarragon and slices of garlic and pushed them under the skin of the chicken and trussed it on a spandex cooking frame so it stood up in a ceramic baking dish with two cups of water. Suzette Baked it for ten minutes at 450 and then lowered the temp to 350 degrees and Roasted the chicken for an hour. We also made a mirepoix of a carrot, ½ onion, and three stalks of celery plus the bottom of the asparagus stalks and simmered those in a pot of about two quarts of water to create a vegetable stock.
While the chicken and stock were cooking Suzette and I took a short walk. We were going to walk ½ mile but the cold north wind forced us to cut short our walk.
Willy got up around 11:00 and we watched the Liverpool v. Sheffield match, which Liverpool won 2 to 0 to continue its remarkable unbeaten streak this year.
Suzette strained the broth to remove all the solid ingredients and added some of the Tortilla Espanol and the rest of the asparagus stalks.
After those ingredients cooked a bit Suzette emulsified the soup and added several T. of heavy cream to make it into a cream soup.
We ate a hearty lunch of roasted chicken, cream of asparagus soup, and gourmet salad greens plus candied pecans, preserved guayaba cubes, pickled beet cubes, and cubes of Manchego Cheese dressed with Suzette’s pomegranate dressing.
I poured glasses of La Granja Viura/Verdejo blend, which is my favorite under $5.00 white wine with chicken (Trader Joe’s).
After lunch Suzette took the car to get serviced and Willy went to the gym, and I rested until 2:30 when the Cowboy game started. I watched most of it until it appeared that Philadelphia was going to win their game against the Giants and knock the Cowboys out of the playoffs.
At 6:30 suzette sautéed the teriyaki salmon fillet in peanut oil, which was not the best way to prepare the salmon. Suzette was trying to crisp the skin but the skin was scorched by the direct heat while waiting for the rest of the flesh to cook because she placed the fillet skin down in the skillet. We will work on this. I loved the fish though. Except for the excessive amount of oil, its flesh was cooked to pink, just beyond seared. My favorite.
We usually grill it outside on the propane grill but that was out of consideration on such a cold day.
Also, the PPI short grain brown rice was amazing. And I loved the steamed broccoli.
I heated a pitcher of sake and heated it in a Bain Marie (water bath) on the stove. Suzette fetched her new small cups, which I filled them with sake.
I also made cups of green tea for Willy and me.
This was a great meal because of the combination of great rice and well cooked salmon with a lovely steamed vegetable. I love the flavor and texture of brown rice and the feeling that I am eating something with real nutritional value. The same is true of the salmon. Its clean teriyaki flavor dispels any storage of fishy flavor. In fact, the oil and teriyaki sauce created by Suzette’s cooking method mimicked a style of Chinese cooking of fish, which is to add a sauce of peanut oil and soy sauce to steamed fish. The same is true for the broccoli; it had a freshness to it that complemented the flavor of freshness of the fish. Suzette added some of the teriyaki marinade to the skillet, which created a sauce for the broccoli and rice.
I felt like in a very special way Suzette had created a meal with a unified flavor profile, namely the use of a teriyaki and peanut oil sauce.
I have been trying to explore Japanese Cuisine lately and this meal seemed to open another door to understanding it, if only in a Chinese or American way.
We watched TV and drank small glasses of limoncello after dinner for an end to a wonderful meal. The freshness and intensity of the lemon and alcohol cut through any residual oiliness from the teriyaki and peanut oil sauce.
After lunch today we prepared our food to take on our trip to the Big Bend area tomorrow. I diced the rest of the chicken meat, four stalks of celery, ½ of a red onion and the rest of the bunch of fresh dill and Suzette added mustard and mayonnaise to make chicken salad. She also packed crackers and rolls, pate, and cheddar cheese cubes, while I cut and wrapped five sections of the thick brownies I made yesterday. We also packed an assortment of chocolates and the spicy pecans Suzette made for Christmas.
We went to the basement and decided to take a bottle of 2003 Prager Winery and Port Works’ Royal Escort Port that we bought at the vineyard in St. Helena (Napa Valley) about 15 years ago. We also took a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, a White, and a Gruet extended triage Blanc de Noir.
We also called Anne Adams and left a message and called the Gage Hotel in Alpine to make sure it will be open on New Years Day.
Tomorrow we drive to Marfa and then the McDonald Observatory for a tour and night sky viewing at 7:00 p.m. with a full larder.
December 28, 2019 Breakfast- Serrano ham with Cottage Fries and Fried eggs Lunch – Clam Chowder and a Serrano ham and Beaufort cheese sandwich Dinner – Sandwiches and Brownies
Another odd but pleasant day of Christmas leftovers.
We started with a lovely breakfast made by Suzette of country fries made from PPI potato slices unused for additional Tortillas Espanol plus serrano ham toasted to crisp by sautéing in olive oil topped with a fried egg. I drank a glass of Clamato juice mixed with the juice of ½ lime.
Suzette drank her coffee with breakfast.
There were country fries left over, so Willy cooked several eggs into the potatoes in the skillet.
Willy and I watched a couple of soccer match in the morning, Everton v. Newcastle and then Tottenham v. Norwich. Near the end of the Tottenham match I drove to Smith’s and bought a whole chicken, a dozen eggs, and a gallon of milk.
Then college football began at 10:00 and I watched Penn State win the Cotton Bowl handily against Memphis.
I decided to eat lunch before my 3:00 appointment. I heated a can of Progresso clam chowder, which was mostly potatoes and not very good and I made a ham and cheese sandwich that was delicious wit a toasted piece of rye bread, topped with Beaufort cheese slices, a slice of onion, and Serrano ham slices melted in the microwave 1.11 minutes.
The two big bowl games that will decide the NCAA football championship were on TV today also. I watched some of the first game in which LSU scored an astounding 49 points in the first half against Oklahoma before I went to a closing of the sale of a business at 3:00 and then to Sprouts to buy a salmon fillet and granola. When I got home I saw the last of the game in which LSU scored 63 points and made teriyaki marinade and marinated the salmon. We will probably roast the chicken for brunch and make chicken salad for our trip with the leftover white meat and sauté the salmon for dinner tomorrow.
Then at 6:00 the other national playoff game between Clemson and Ohio State started. Suzette was home by now and we routed for Clemson. It was a much more competitive game in which Clemson
came from behind in the fourth quarter to win by 6 points.
Suzette had eaten meatloaf at the Center so she was not hungry for dinner. I had previously made brownies with the new Ghiardelli brownie mix and it had resulted in a thin brownie with a hard crust when I used one bag of mix, so I decided to bake a batch with two bags of mix. They turned out to have more of a soft center but still had a hard surface. I think the problem is using the convection setting on the oven that is drying the edges.
Anyway I decided to extend the Christmas party by eating some of the foods we served with some of the PPI mulled wine I made.
I decided the best complement for the mulled wine would be the lovely chicken liver pate that Jill made for me and a couple of cheeses.
I toasted six thin slices of French baguette, buttered them, and spread pate with onions, mustard, and capers on three. I lay slices of Camembert on two and spread goat cheese on the sixth. Here is a picture. I enjoyed my sandwiches with the mulled wine.
The block of pate on its serving plate
We took the brownies out of the oven after 45 minutes and I tasted them and they were soft under the surface but the surfaces were hard. Yuck.
Suzette and I enjoyed a glass of limoncello after I finished my sandwiches as we watched the exciting finish to the Clemson v. Ohio State game and then a bit of an old episode of SNL.
We got in bed a bit after 10:00 and watched the start of the 10:30 SNL, but it was a rerun and I fell asleep soon after it started.
I woke up at 3:00 and blogged and drank some water.
It snowed on the mountains today but we got only a few flakes of wet snow that froze after dark.
December 27, 2019 Lunch – Salad with Serrano ham. Dinner – PPI Paella and steamed asparagus
The cavalcade of PPIs continued today. I had my usual breakfast of granola, milk, mango, and yogurt at 10:30 after a blood draw at Tricore was delayed for over ½ hour by an awful episode of an autistic small child who screamed continuously and resisted the draw absorbed the attention of both parents and the entire staff of five or six phebotomists. As best I could tell from the waiting room without seeing the procedure, they wrapped the child in a blanket to keep her from moving her trunk and then held her arms to complete the draw. The child was screaming the entire time I was at the Tricore office in Pres.
I really unsettling experience for all concerned.
Willy was at home today and we decided to watch the Man City v. Wolves match at 1:00. We decided to make a salad. I used the PPI salad from Christmas Eve, which was the worst for wear after three days in the fridge. I added a pile of Romaine lettuce cut to bite sized pieces plus 1 ½ tomatoes that were also the worst for wear, some olives, diced Swiss Gruyere cheese, and a sliced Persian cucumber. Willy added pumpkin seeds, and olives. I added Serrano ham to mine and Willy added blueberries to his salad.
We watched the match which turned out to be one of the most exciting of the year. Man City lost its goalie in the 22nd minute due to a foul and played with ten men for the rest of the match. Even though it lost a man Man City was up 2 goals to none on the Wolves at halftime. Then in the second half the Wolves increased the tempo of the game and attacked continuously and by the end of regulation had evened the score at 2 to 2. Then in overtime the Wolves scored a third goal to win the match. This kept Leicester in second place. A tie would have dropped Leicester into third place.
Near the end of the match I made brownies using a mix plus 1/3 cup of water, 1/3 cup of canola oil, and 1 egg. I overbaked the brownies by a couple of minutes because the edges dried out, but they were delicious. This reminded me of my first attempts at baking when I was around 13 or 14 and would bake brownies from a mix like this after school. I thought I was a genius, when the actual fact was that the bake had been engineered by the mix company to be foolproof like this recipe.
Willy and I ate some brownie with tea and then Willy went to the gym.
I got all my taxes paid for the year. Today I paid my final installment on my 2018 State income taxes. I also paid my CRS taxes today. It seems like when you have lots of stuff you have lots of taxes.
At 4:30 I walked ½ mile without any pain. When I returned home I stopped to talk to Allison and Brandon, our neighbors who we share a fence with.
Suzette arrived just before I walked in at 5:30. I then drove to the bank and deposited a check and returned at 6:00. We watched the news and several football bowl games. My favorites were Iowa vs USC and Texas A & M vs. Oklahoma State.
Tomorrow are the two National college football playoff games between Ohio State and Clemson and Oklahoma and LSU. Oh boy
Tonight we decided to eat the PPI paella with steamed asparagus. Suzette heated the paella in a Pyrex baking dish and lay the snapped stalks of asparagus on the paella and heated and cooked the ingredients together.
Suzette drank the final glass of Gunner Vitliner from Austria and I drank a cup of PPI mulled wine that I heated in the microwave.
After dinner I ate another piece of brownie with a cup of chai and went to bed at 10:00.
Perhaps I will go shopping tomorrow for a piece of fish to break this monotony of PPIs. If not, we will be eating Tortilla Espanol with ham and Mornay sauce again most likely.
Bon Appetit
Friday, December 27, 2019
December 26, 2019 Lunch – Paella. Dinner – Tortilla with Serrano ham a la Mornay Sauce and salad
The day after a big party we usually eat leftovers and make dishes with the PPIs. Today was no exception.
Also, beginning with this day’s blog I am inserting recipes from the internet rather than photos of our recipes when the internet recipe is similar, because I think it is easier to read a printed recipe. I will explain the adjustments we made to each recipe so you will still have a complete recipe of what we cooked.
Suzette left 1/3 of a cup of coffee with steamed milk when she left for work. I added a single serving bag of hot chocolate and enough hot water to fill the cup and enjoyed a coffee hot chocolate for breakfast.
Then at noon I heated a cup of mulled wine and a bowl of PPI seafood paella. It was delicious. This was the best paella we have ever made. The best.
Here is a Simply recipe similar to the one we used, except we prepared our dish in three separate steps and then combined the three preparations in one large roasting pan for the final bake. We first steamed our shellfish in a medium of butter, white wine and water. Second, we used the poaching medium to cook the rice with Knorr dehydrated tomato and chicken stock and saffron instead of tomatoes and sofrito. Third, we sautéed 1 1/2 lb. of chorizo with 15 oz. of canned diced Spanish pimiento. Finally on the 24th, Suzette combined all three preparations into one large roasting pan and baked it covered in the oven. We used 5 lb. each of mussels and 5 lb. of
Manila clams, a 15 oz. can of Spanish pimiento, 3 lb. of shrimp and apparently the same 2.2 lb. bag of Bomba rice, but made 30 servings of paella.
Prep time: 30 minutesCook time: 35 minutesYield: 6 servings
If you have trouble finding Spanish chorizo, substitute another kind of cooked sausage along with 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (for the smoky flavor).
No grill? Cook this inside! Cook the paella through step 6 on top of the stove. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Add the seafood (step 7), cover the pan tightly with foil and finish cooking in the oven for 6 to 10 minutes or until the rice and shrimp are both cooked through and the mussels and clams are open. Check to see if the bottom has browned and, if not, set the pan over medium heat for a minute or two to allow the bottom layer of rice to caramelize.
INGREDIENTS
4 1/2 cups seafood stock
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled and then loosely measured
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 Sweet yellow onion, finely chopped
15 oz. can of pimiento finely chopped
10 cloves garlic, finely chopped
24 ounces mild dried chorizo sausage, sliced into thin half-moons (See Recipe Note)
3 cups short-grain rice, such as Spanish Bomba rice
3 T. of Knorr dehydrated Tomato in chicken stock
1 lb. of frozen green peas
3 pound large (21-24 per pound) shrimp, peeled and deveined, with tails left on
5 pound mussels, rinsed and scrubbed
5 pound Manila clams, rinsed and scrubbed
Here is the paella we served at the party
I
Here is the PPI paella I ate today
After lunch I watched Liverpool beat my new favorite PL team Leicester, 4 to 0, which saddened me a bit. But then I checked the Market and found out there was a pretty fair gain in my portfolio, reaching a new all time high.
At 4:00 I went to meditate until 5:00
When I returned home Suzette and I both agreed instantly on the dish we wanted to make for dinner, we sliced the tortilla Espanol in half and stuffed it with slices of Serrano ham. We heated the ¼ wedge of tortilla in the microwave and doused it with Mornay sauce made with a flour and butter roux plus milk and grated Manchego cheese.
Here is a recipe from the Food Network:
Ingredients
2 1/2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups warmed milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
pinch freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
2 ounces grated cheese, such as Gruyere. We used Manchego.
Here is my dinner
Here is the finished Tortilla Espanol
Here is 1/4 of the tortilla like what we cooked tonight
Here is the 1/4 we cooked with the Mornay sauce
The dish was delicious but very heavy, so 1/8 slice each of tortilla plus PPI salad was a full dinner.
We opened the bottle of 2018 Kellermeister Privat Gruner Vitliner produced by Kramer Goldberg in Kremstal, Austria . This was the real deal Gruner Vitliner and Suzette loved it. I have mixed feeling about it . I seemed a bit too sweet and heavy for me but did have lots of acidity also.
The 2,368 hectares of vineyards in Kremstal are divided into three different zones, starting with rocky soils in the original Krems River valley and the historic town of Krems, along with the municipality of Stein that adjoins the Wachau in the west, then moving on to the deeploess east of Krems, and finally the southern bank of the Danube opposite Krems, around the magnificent abbey Stift Göttweig.
Since 2007 KremstalDAC stands for spicy Grüne Veltliner and elegant, mineral Riesling wines which are marketed either in a fresh, classical style or as powerful reserve wines. The cellars of many wineries in the Kremstal Valley evidence the tradition of great wines over decades. KremstalDAC wines with the addition "Reserve" display ripe aromas, density on the palate and often a long and smoothfinish. The Grüner Veltliner is the major grape variety in the KremstalValley. It thrives on mighty loessterraces as well as on steep primary rock slopes. Many famous single vineyards produce individual, characteristic wines such as Pfaffenberg, Kögl, Wachtberg, Sandgrube, Pellingen, Gebling, Spiegel or Steinbühel. Especially the challenging Riesling – the second grape variety of the KremstalDAC – expressively mirrors the characteristics of these single vineyards.
THE REGION
The 2.368 hectares of vineyards in Kremstal are divided into three different zones: the original Kremstal Valley and the historic town of Krems along with "Stein" which directly joins the Wachauregion in the west, the mighty loess massifs in the east and the small wine villages south of the Danube below the monumental Stift Göttweig monastery. With its young and successful winegrowers, an economically very successful cooperative and a state-of-the-art viticultural college, the old (wine) cultural city of Krems sets dynamic trends. Well-known winegrowing villages in the vicinity include Krustetten and Furth south of the Danube, Gedersdorf, Rohrendorf, Senftenberg and Stratzing north of the Danube.
Two types of soil dominate the Kremstal: loess over a very compact sub-soil with high water storage capacity, ideal for the Grüner Veltliner, as well as primary rock soils perfectly suited for the cultivation of Riesling wines. The deep river valley is well protected against cool winds from the north while Pannonian climatic influences from the east are still markedly felt. Thus the Kremstal– although further in the west as for example the Kamptal Valley – benefits from warmer airstreams generally resulting in ripe and aromatic wines. Quite naturally other grapevarieties have also proved successful for a long time and have conquered their place within the grape variety spectrum of the region.
Later, Suzette ate some of the ice cream her brother Jeff, send us for dessert and I ate a few spoonfuls of the pouring custard I made for the chocolate dessert.
Later I joined her and sipped some of the fresh limoncello she made just before Christmas over crushed ice. The limoncello may have been the most memorable part of a memorable meal. It was both powerfully alcoholic and lemony at the same time. Here is our recipe. I peeled the yellow outer portion of about a dozen lemons without getting any of the white pith. Suzette put it in a jar with about 2 ½ quarts of grain alcohol for thirty days in the cellar, which infused the alcohol with the flavor of the lemon peel. A few days before Christmas Suzette drained the alcohol into a large pot and added a simple syrup to make the final limoncello. We then bottled the limoncello in quart bottles that Suzette labelled. The result was a fresher, more alcoholic drink than what you can buy at about ½ the cost.
Suzette used a recipe that utilized grain alcohol, but here is a similar recipe using Everclesr.
Limoncello Recipe with Everclear
Fresh and sweet, easy to do summertime cocktail.
Prep Time 40 minutes
Servings 7 cups
Author Ventura Limoncello
Ingredients
10 lemons organic
1 750 ml Everclear
3 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 cups sugar
Instructions
Wash the lemons thoroughly to remove dirt. You can use a brush if necessary.
Peel lemons and remove the pith.
In a large, sealable container, place the zest and pour Everclear.
Let the lemons steep in Everclear for 4 weeks.
After 4 weeks, prepare sugar and water and cook in a medium saucepan.
Bring to a boil by stirring it regularly. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes. Let syrup cool.
Strain the jar to remove the lemon zest. Add the syrup.
Transfer in bottles and chill in freezer.
Serve in a chilled glass. Enjoy.
The Process
Here is the process of creating a lemon home infusion- Limoncello with Everclear.
“The process starts with first, peeling the zest into long strips from 10 lemons. It is important to use organic lemons because it does not give off a waxy residue. Next, remove the pith so that the final product will not become bitter. To do this, lay the zest pith-side up, then carefully scrape away the pith with a sharp knife.
Next, place the lemon zest in a jar and pour 750 ml of Everclear. The alcohol content of Everclear has the greatest extraction capability compared with other liquors. Leave the zest to soak in alcohol for 4 to 6 weeks. It must be remembered that the jar is kept in a cool, dry and dark place. Another key point is to not refrigerate the mixture. Additionally, do not forget to shake the jar occasionally to let the ingredients incorporate. As a matter of fact, the longer the zest is soaked, the better Everclear absorbs the flavor.
Limoncello with Everclear
Second phase
After 6 weeks, the zest is strained from the spirit. Set aside the mixture. Next, make a simple syrup by combining 3 1/2 cups of water and 2 1/2 cups of sugar in a pot. Then bring the mixture to a boil, stirring frequently for about 10 minutes until sugar is dissolved. After it has boiled, remove the pot from heat and allow to cool. The syrup should be at room temperature. Lastly, pour the simple sugar to the mixture and stir. It is important to note that when the spirit is mixed with simple syrup, the mixture becomes cloudy.
The final step is to put limoncello in bottles. This process should have been done beforehand. Prepare 750ml bottles, thoroughly washed, sanitized. By the time the limoncello is ready, the bottles should be already dry before filling. Now, fill each bottle until 1 or 2 inches from the top. Use a funnel and a ladle to make sure that it will be mess free. Lastly, if there’s any mixture remaining, you can enjoy it for yourself. Pour it over ice and wait for it to mellow. You will notice that the drink is definitely smoother when it has mellowed.
Storage
Limoncello is always best when served chilled so it is important to store your limoncello in the freezer. The high alcohol content in the limoncello will not cause it to freeze. You can always enjoy a chilled bottle of Limoncello Recipe with Everclear after a meal or just having a good time with your special friends. Remember to chill the glass too, before serving limoncello, for an ultimately authentic experience.
Here is a photo of one of our bottle of limoncello
Amy and Vahl always have a big dinner on Christmas for his family. This year was special because Dayla is dating a lawyer named Craig seriously and Amy and Vahl invited his family, Craig, Sr., Carol, and Kyle to visit from Chicago.
We did not take any food, but Willy and Luke took gifts for Amy and Dayla and we took a bottle of 2008 De Ponte Pinot Noir, a Gruet Blanc de Noir champagne, and a bottle of 2016 Benton Lane Rose.
According to Suzette, Amy had everything catered, there was Posole, tamales, and blue corn enchiladas, plus a baked ham, which could have been a swirl cut ham and several cheeses. The best cheese was a soft cheese named Saint Angel. The cheeses were served with oat biscuits, which I love.
Willy with Dayla and Craig and his family
Suzette told me the blue corn enchiladas were very picante, so I did not eat any of them. Suzette later told me the enchiladas did not agree with her.
Everyone was friendly. I was particularly attracted to Ric Spiegal who is two years younger than me and went to Sunday school with me and Billy for a while and played with Billy when we were growing up in Fort Worth.
Ric and I talked for a long time comparing notes and reacquainting ourselves. I really hit it off with his wife, Mary, who is an actor’s agent in Dallas and grew up in Tanglewood in Fort Worth and went to Paschal H.S. as Ric, Billy, and I did. We shared information about the film industry in New Mexico, which she is interested in entering.
Craig, Sr.was also interesting. He is an attorney in Chicago and mainly deals with tech start-ups. He has a client who is forming a real estate block chain, similar to the one I am helping start, it seems.
After dinner, at around 4:30 we walked up Chusco to the corner and when we returned I watched the sunset with Aaron, Vahl’s son who was visiting from Denver.
We finally left after most others did, we said goodnight and drove home at around 6:30.
When we returned home I drank the last of the chai Luke had made this morning and then bites of the foie gras Jill made and some Serrano ham. I washed that down with a small glass of ruby port.
It is 9:00 and I am lying in bed blogging out this post.
We love spending time with our family and am happy Amy has found a family and lets us share them with her.
Since I almost died last Christmas, I am thrilled to be feeling better this Christmas. I am not back to my original level of health, but feel like I am at 80%, which, thankfully, is much better than 2% or 0%. Suzette, who deals with old folks all the time tells me that I am at 100%, which I guess means that 80% is my new normal. Although not thrilled to be feeling pain occasionally, I am thrilled to be able to enjoy the holiday season with family and friends.
Also, this has turned out to be a great year in the stock market for me and instructional. My portfolio has grown 16% so far. A commentator said the other day, “investors usually worry about their losses instead of being happy about their gains”. My experience this year was a good example. I was worried that Trump would mess up the China trade negotiation and so I sold 1000 shares of Apple at 187, to develop a reserve of cash in case the Market dropped. The Market did exactly the opposite.
Apple shares went up 100 points since I sold the 1000 shares, which means I lost $100,000 in value, but the Apple shares I kept have increased by $100 each and my portfolio has increased in value.
Today is the most important day of the year in our neighborhood because all the houses illuminate their sidewalks and porches with luminarias and people come from far and near I see the ocean of light.
So starting at 9:30 it was all hands on deck working like crazy to prepare the food and luminarias for tonight’s open house.
Eating was of little importance. We snatched food as if in a force nine gale.
I ate a bowl of granola, with ½ of a fresh mango diced, yogurt, and milk at 10:30 after helping Suzette with the salad and I ate the PPI Donburi rice, chicken, salmon, and egg dish from last night at 2:30.
Suzette did most of the cooking this year, because she uses the Cuisinart so efficiently. I am still a hand slicer. For example, she sliced the potatoes and Nixon’s for two large Tortillas Espanol in about two minutes. She then put the potato and onion slices into a large bowl of cold water until she was ready to make the Large omelets at 4:00. I mixed the 10 eggs and she filled the two copper clad sauté pans with potato and onion slices and coked them to soften but not brown the onion and potato slices and then covered them with egg and cooked them to set them on the stove and then baked them in the oven to cook the egg on top. Here is a picture of the result. It tasted exactly as a tortilla should taste to me.
I remember when I first traveled with Suzette. I drove with her to the lake house she and Harold owned on Lake Chapala with their household goods. We arrived late in the evening after a long drive from Aquacalientes and there were only eggs, onions, and potatoes so I made us a tortilla Espanol, a heart warming dish made with the simplest of ingredients. This dish makes you understand why it is so loved by the Spanish, it perfectly expresses the soul of Spain.
After the tortillas were made Suzette combined the three elements of the Paella, the poached seafood, the sautéed chorizo and pimiento, and the onion risottoed rice cooked in seafood stock with saffron in the large blue roasting pan in the oven. At 5:00 she put a large portion of the paella in the paella pan on the large chafing dish platform and Willy brought five or six votive candles and Suzette put them in dishes under the pan and lit them to keep the paella warm.
Here is a Simply recipe similar to the one we used, except we steamed our shellfish in a medium of butter, white wine and water. We then used the poaching medium to cook the rice with Knorr dehydrated tomato and chicken stock instead of tomatoes and sofrito. We also sautéed the onion and rice separately before cooking it with the dehydrated tomato and chicken stock in the seafood stock. We also separately sautéed the pimiento and 1 1/2 lb. of chorizo. We used 5 lb. each of mussels and clams, a 15 oz. can of Spanish pimiento, and 3 lb. of shrimp and a 2.2 lb. bag of Bomba rice.
Prep time: 30 minutesCook time: 35 minutesYield: 6 servings
If you have trouble finding Spanish chorizo, substitute another kind of cooked sausage along with 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (for the smoky flavor).
No grill? Cook this inside! Cook the paella through step 6 on top of the stove. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Add the seafood (step 7), cover the pan tightly with foil and finish cooking in the oven for 6 to 10 minutes or until the rice and shrimp are both cooked through and the mussels and clams are open. Check to see if the bottom has browned and, if not, set the pan over medium heat for a minute or two to allow the bottom layer of rice to caramelize.
INGREDIENTS
4 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled and then loosely measured
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
6 ounces mild dried chorizo sausage, sliced into thin half-moons (See Recipe Note)
3 cups short-grain rice, such as Spanish Bomba rice or Italian Arborio
1 (14-ounce) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
1 cup frozen green peas
1 pound large (21-24 per pound) shrimp, peeled and deveined, with tails left on
1 pound mussels, rinsed and scrubbed
1 pound littleneck clams, rinsed and scrubbed
1/4 cup chopped parsley, for garnish
She then tossed the salad with the pomegranate dressing she had made in the Cuisinart with pomegranate juice and olive oil and apple cider vinegar. The salad was the gourmet greens from Costco and cherry tomatoes cut in half, plus jicama, Persian cucumbers, and carrots Suzette sliced in the Cuisinart.
The heroes of today’s cooking were Suzette and the Cuisinart.
The boys were filling the 250 bags we had folded with sand Willy had fetched from Kit Carson Park. They set the bags up in the garage ready to set out along the sidewalks surrounding the house, but the weather reports forecast rain, so they did not put the bags out. It did start raining at 5:00, which destroyed most of the luminarias set by our neighbors. Sandy and Tim, our across the street neighbors, came over with her mom, daughter, Grace, and cousin, at around 6:30 and told s that only about 1 in 20 of their luminarias had survived. His was the same throughout the neighborhood, making for a dark and wet night. Willy and Luke devised a strategy to overcome effects of the rain. They only placed about 80 luminarias along the walkway to our house which is largely shaded by two large cottonwoods and on the large porch facing the street so the path to our front door was illuminated by luminarias protected from the rain.
At 3:00 I started slicing and toasting slices of Trader Joe’s ciabatta baguette and putting them in a large basket for cheese. Suzette has wrapped the Hawaiian rolls and dinner rolls in aluminum and heated them in the oven after we served the paella.
I then decided to use the Spanish 2011 Origon Gran Reserva (60% Tempranillo and 40% Syrah bought at Trader Joe’s for $5.99 per bottle) instead of the French Patch Block Pinot Noir, so I fetched six bottles of and put back the three pinots.
I transferred the nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon sticks to another pot and Suzette poured in one of the 128 oz. bottles of freshly pressed apple cider (Costco). I then poured four bottles of Origon and a bottle of Italian Volcanic Lemon juice into the remaining negrus syrup and lemon and orange zest. I stirred and heated the two cauldrons and later tasted and they were both fabulous. I am so glad Costco has ceased selling Concha y Toro Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon magnums.
The mulled wine tasted cleaner and fresher and went perfectly with our Spanish food. Actually the menu for this year was a rather simple SpanisH meal instead of the extravagant spread that we usually produce that features dishes from Scandinavia to China toMexico and New . I liked the simplicity and unity of this menu.
It was great to see all the usual folks, the Kassams, the Turners, Mark and Carol, Jill and Marty, Mellisa and Ruth, Davida and Josefo, Mike and Karen, Sandy from Cynthia and Ricardo, our neighbors from across the street, and Willy’s friends, Will and Rachel, plus Sandy from my meditation group.
I felt happy to be alive and semi mobile and among friends and family.
This about about as close as I can get to Christmas spirit.
My chocolate dessert with crème anglais was a complete success, gobbled up quickly. I should have made two or three because only two extra desserts were brought although I opened the box of chocolate covered cherries.
People also liked the vast array of cheeses expanded this year by a newly available cheeses at Sprouts, a Rustique Camembert, and a Spanish hard cheese, Cinco Lanzas and one of my favorite cheeses, Beaufort from the French Haute Savoie.
I recall Fifteen years ago when we had to divert our route to Turin, Italy from Annecy because the Simplot Tunnel had collapsed, we drove through the small alpine town of Beaufort at the top of the Alps near the pass that Hannibal used to invade the Roman Empire. The pass was one of those deeply historic places that makes you realize you are standing in a fortified position that dates back 60,000 years, like the high hill overlooking the Danube River on the Boda side of Budapest or the castle on the sharp edge of the rock pinnacle separated from the town of Segovia by a wide deep crevasse, on which Isabella’s castle sits.
Bon Appetit
Monday, December 23, 2019
December 23, 2019 Lunch – Taj Mahal. Dinner – Japanese Donburi Chicken on Eggs
I ate granola with blueberries, milk, and yogurt for breakfast.
I did not work today but caught up on mail from friends that had gone unanswered during the weekend. This was an auspicious day because it is the day that news of Ram Dass’ death reached me. As I noted in my blog, today Ram Dass officially entered the cosmos.
Dee sent me Ram Dass’ obituary and two things stood out. First, his father was one of the founders of Brandeis University and president of the New Haven RR. Second Ram Dass was at the first psychedelic experiment on March 5, 1961, with Timothy Leary at Harvard; the day that the Beat Generation ended and the psychedelic era began
At around 9:00 I made the pouring custard or crème anglais that complements the chocolate dessert. I have adjusted the basic recipe to a more Mexican flavor by scalding the milk with ¼ cup of Mexican coffee beans to infuse it with coffee flavor and added a tsp. of vanilla extract. Here is the basic recipe, which I followed except for using 2 cups of milk and ½ cup of heavy cream, which made the custard thicken more quickly.
At 1:00 Willy, Luke, and I decided to go to Taj Mahal to eat lunch. We all love Taj Mahal. I tried to not eat too much, but drank three or four cups of chai instead.
After lunch Willy drove me home and Luke drove to Cedar Crest to see a friend.
When I returned home I made negres for the Mulled wine, this time I turned up the heat to a rolling boil and used 3 cups of sugar to 1 ½ cups of water. The smaller amount of water seemed to speed the thickening of the syrup. In previous years I have simmered the syrup for over a hour and it did not thicken. Today it thickened in about ten minutes at a rolling boil. Voila.
Here is the recipe from Joy of Cooking:
My job was done with ease. I fetched three magnums of Patch Block Pinot Noir produced in France by George Deboeuf, which I bought several years ago.
Here are the winemaker’s notes from Wine.com
This luscious Pinot Noir has abundant flavors of ripe cherries and raspberries enveloped in a silky body with hints of toasted bread and subtle, smoky notes.
Pair it with planked salmon, Peking duck or dark chocolate and fresh berry trifle. Or, be adventurous and pair with a grilled pineapple salsa swordfish.
It seems to pair with lots of different types of food, so should be drinkable with the Serrano ham or the seafood paella or chocolate dessert and I love Pinot Noir with cheese.
When Suzette came home she did not want to cook and suggested we go out. Willy supported her, but I said I would cook a good dinner instead. I have really gotten infatuated with Japanese Donburi or Chicken and Egg on Rice. Here is the recipe from Japanese Cooking, the simple art p. 282/283. I have cooked this dis several times and each time it gets better. Tonight I prepared it with short grain brown rice, which is my favorite, but which Suzette does not prefer. I made the broth with 2 ½ cups of dashi using dehydrated dashi and 9 T. of regular soy sauce. I also added kombu seaweed strips to the rice. The dish is magical. You cook the chicken cubes in the broth and add sections of scallion and then the whisked egg. The egg cooks into clouds and attaches to the green onion and chicken for a sort of Japanese floating island on a clear broth instead of crème anglais.
I drank green tea with the dish. Suzette liked it grudgingly, but Wily liked it when he ate a bowl after he came home from the gym after 8:30.
This is good because I shall be making it more often since I have become more proficient at cooking it.
It is a simple inexpensive dish to make. I thawed out 1 chicken thigh and added about 3 oz. of PPI
salmon from last night and used four scallions, so the ingredients are minimal. Suzette said it was egg drop soup and I guess, in a way, it is. But to me it is a sophisticated egg dish.
I served it with our never ending Japanese pickles.
I felt full after one bowl and did not crave a dessert. In fact at 11:30 as I write this blog post I feel great. I love raw rice.
December 22, 2019 Brunch – Bacon, Egg, and Potato Burritos Afternoon snack – Steamed and Pan Seared Chicken Pot Stickers, Dinner – Teriyaki marinated salmon grilled on a cedar board with grilled asparagus and creamed sweet potatoes
This was a mega day of shopping and cooking. We try to get as much of the cooking done ahead of time for the Christmas Eve Open house. Since today was not a work day we could spend the entire day shopping and cooking.
I slept until 8:00 and then watched news programs and Watford beat Man U. and the news programs, GPS and Reliable Sources on CNN and after the first match the second match between Tottenham and Chelsea, which Chelsea won.
During the match I made guacamole with five small avocados, 3 oz. of red onion, a large clove of garlic, about 1/4 cup of minced cilantro, salt, the juice of one lime, a few drops of hot sauce.
Then at 10:00 I diced red onion and two small potatoes and Suzette sautéed them and five slices of thick cut bacon. Suzette then added eggs to the skillet to make burrito filling and heated whole wheat flour tortillas. I filled my tortilla with the filling and put guacamole and drizzled Cholula hot sauce on top. Suzette and Willy put all the ingredients inside and ate burrito as a hand sandwich.
Here is the leftover filling and some guacamole
At 10:30 I showered and dressed and Suzette loaded the bottles and newspapers for recycling and we left. We first went to TaLin, where we bought a 1.5 liter bottle of Gekkiakan sake, a chocolate Harry Potter wand for Willy, Bomba rice for paella, fresh dill for the dill pickles, a can of Spanish pimientos, and some fresh shallots.
We then drove to Trader Joe’s and bought two loaves of ciabatta bread for cheese and two gift cards and 17.6 oz. bars of Belgium chocolate to bake the chocolate dessert. Then we drove to the recycling center on Edith near Griegos to recycle our bottles, newspapers, plastic, and cardboard boxes.
Then it was on to Southwest Distributors. Suzette bought lots of items for her Center for Ageless Living for this week. Suzette is the primary buyer for the Center’s kitchen. We also bought sweet gherkins for the ham sandwiches, anchovies, a large can of clam juice for the rice, and bags and candles for luminarias for us.
Finally, we drove to Costco which was mobbed with shoppers. While Suzette shopped for theCenter I bought mixed greens, a case of assorted Mexican beers, butter, a wedge of Comte cheese, a 5 lb. bag of mussels, a 5lb. Bag of Manila clams for the paella, and flour and sugar for the chocolate dessert. I looked throughout the wine section for the magnums of Concha y Toro and could not find them. I
can only conclude that the wine trade has sorted itself out a bit with Trader Joe’s dominating the low end, which has forced Costco to begin to stock more highly rated wines at medium prices to higher prices. For example, I saw a bottle of Chimney Rock, my favorite Napa Cab for the first time for $49.95 a bottle, which is cheap.
Finally I called Suzette and discovered she had called me six times and was checked out and was waiting for me.
I checked out and we loaded the Highlander nearly full with groceries and drove to Sprouts where Suzette ran in to buy Parsnips for the Center’s Christmas dinner of standing rib roast and mashed potatoes and Parsnips.
We then drove home around 2:30.
You will note that we coordinate our separate efforts by cooking to systematically advance toward the completion of dishes. My function is often prep while Suzette handles the cooking.
After we arrived home and unloaded the Highlander, Suzette suggested we prepare pot stickers. She placed a dozen in the steamer and steamed them and then sautéed them in a skillet with peanut oil. While Suzette was making the pot stickers I made teriyaki sauce by heating 1/3 cup each of sake, soy sauce and Aji Mirin plus 1 T. of sugar.
I filled a small bowl with teriyaki sauce for the pot stickers and poured the rest into a gallon freezer bag in which I had placed the fresh 1.25 lb. salmon fillet I had bought at Sprouts two days ago and sealed the bag and put it into the fridge to marinate. This completed a lovely lunch and the prep for dinner. Then I fetched the Japanese pickles from the fridge and we ate and shucked clams and
mussels.
Dill pickles – I found a recipe that called for equal parts of white vinegar and kosher salt and dill and 8 to 10 cloves of garlic to 3 lb. of cucumbers. I measured ½ cup of vinegar and ½ cup of sea salt from Mexico and that did not fill the Jared had, so Suzette took over the prep of the pickling brine and I prepared the fresh dill and shucked the garlic cloves and put them into the jar and then sliced Persian cucumbers in half and then into four slices lengthwise so they would fit on a roll with the ham and cheese and mayonnaise. Suzette then filled the jar with pickling brine to cover everything. Then we started on the paella.
Paella
We do not use the traditional method of cooking everything in a paella pan. Instead we construct the paella in separate steps. We cook the rice, seafood, and other ingredients separately and the combine them and bake them together to create the finished dish. This method cuts down the cooking time and allows us to cook in quantity in a way we could not using the traditional paella pan method.
Step 1 Poaching the seafood
Suzette finished sautéing the pot stickers she started preparing the paella by steaming the clams and mussels. She made a poaching medium with equal parts water mixed with Knorr dehydrated tomato and chicken stock instead of sofrito and white wine plus butter. I fetched a bottle of Santiago Station Sauvignon Blanc from Argentina for the stock. We plucked clams and mussels from their shells as we ate pot stickers and drank small cups of sake I had warmed in a hot water Bain Marie by filling a small pitcher with the newly acquired sake and heating it in a half filled pot of boiling water. I also made myself a cup of green tea.
After we plucked the ten pounds of mussels and clams, I fetched three or four pounds of shrimp and
Suzette thawed them by running warm water over them in a colander. Suzette the replenished the poaching medium with more white wine and some of the clam juice we had bought and poached them.
Step 2 The other ingredients
I diced a large sweet onion and peeled the shrimp and diced the smaller Mexican shrimp into four approximately equal pieces each while Suzette diced the 15 oz. can of Spanish pimientos. Shen sautéed the onion and pimiento in Spanish olive oil (Sprouts) and removed them from the skillet.i had bought traditional Mexican chorizo. Suzette removed it from its casing and fried it in a pan with a bit of olive oil and then added back the onion and pimiento and added the diced shrimp and sautéed them together for a minute or twofold blend flavors.
Step 3 The Rice
I zested three lemons and finely minced a bunch of parsley and peeled six cloves of garlic.
Because we were making such a large quantity of paella we made two batches of two cups each of the Bomba rice in our two covered Le Crueset casserole. Here is the description for each batch. Suzette sautéed one-half of the garlic minced in 2 T. of olive oil add added 2 cups of rice and risottoed the rice and garlic for approximately three minutes and added ½ of the lemon, ½ tsp. of saffron, a bay leaf, and minced parsley and sautéed for another minute.
Then she added four cups of the poaching medium to the rice ,ixture in the casserole, which created
an intense boiling reaction in the hot risottoed rice mixture. We then covered the rice mixture and
reduced the heat to low and simmered the rice mixture for thirty minutes.
We then refrigerated the three elements. On Tuesday we will combine them and baked them in the oven to complete the dish.
I was exhausted and lay down for 20 minutes to rest. When I returned Willy had arrived and Suzette had started dinner. Earlier while I was dicing shrimp for the paella she cut a length of cedar 1 x 6 inch board to hold the salmon fillet.
Then around 8:00 she snapped about 20 stalks of asparagus and put the teriyaki marinated salmon on the cedar board and grilled them on our pre-heated propane grill outside. She then removed the PPI sweet potatoes from their skins and added about ¼ cup of heavy cream and mashed them with a potato masher. She then heated the mashed sweet potatoes in the microwave. Suzette then sectioned the salmon fillet into four pieces and plated one piece with grilled asparagus and mashed sweet potatoes for a lovely dinner. I divided the remaining Santiago Station Sauvignon Blanc into two glasses and added ice and served us glasses of white wine with dinner.
Willy drank water with dinner. Teriyaki salmon is Willy’s favorite dish.
After dinner Willy watched his new series on Amazon Prime.
The Chocolate Dessert
At around 9:00 suzette and I decided to make my chocolate dessert in one large Soufflé dish in the steaming oven. This would allow us to make one large dessert rather than two small ones reliant on baking in the oven in a Bain Marie, which was necessary because the two Le Creuset casseroles were now filled with paella rice. Also we now had a steaming oven capable of baking the baked pudding.
Here is the recipe I have developed over the years. I separate the egg white from the yolks and whip
the egg whites to put some lift into the chocolate dessert.
I also add ½ T. of Grand Marnier to give it a little pizazz.
I separated 10 eggs into whites in the Kitchen Aid bowl, 7 yolks into a mixing bowl and 3 yolks in a small bowl reserved in the fridge for the pouring custard I will make tomorrow.
I then added 1 T. of flour to the egg yolks and whisked in the flour until the mixture was smooth.
Suzette beat the 10 egg whites plus 1T. of sugar into soft peaks and buttered and sugared the large Soufflé dish while I melted ½ lb. of the dark chocolate we had bought at Trader Joe’s and ½ lb. of butter in a Le Creuset enameled sauce pan. When the chocolate and butter were fully melted and smooth I added ½ cup of sugar and whisked that into the chocolate and butter until smooth. The goal is to put the sugar into solution without boiling the mixture. I then turned off the heat and added the yolk and flour mixture and whisked it until the ingredients were fully integrated.
Then Suzette folded the resulting chocolate mixture into the egg whites in the Kitchen Aid bowl. We then poured the mixture into the sugared Soufflé dish and placed it into the steamer oven. We watched the dessert carefully for the 30 minutes it baked at 250 degrees. The chocolate mixture rose above the lip of the Soufflé dish but did not overflow the lip. We had discovered a simpler, quicker method to bake the dessert. I usually baked the dessert 50 to 60 minutes in a Bain Marie in the oven.
Here is a picture of the final dessert. After it cooled I covered it with Saran.
Luke came home around 9:30 and at 10:00 when we finished the dessert, Suzette and I said goodnight as the boys were beginning to play the board game, Splendor.
After 11 hours of shopping and cooking, we fell asleep instantly and slept 8 hours.
