January 25, 2019 Lunch – AmerAsia. Dinner – Stuffed Bell Peppers

January 25, 2019 Lunch – AmerAsia.  Dinner – Stuffed Bell Peppers

I had a biodynamic granola breakfast with tropical fruit salad and yogurt.

I went to AmerAsia to eat dim sum with Aaron for lunch.  We went a little crazy and ordered 6 dishes: chicken with peanut and water chestnut steamed dumplings, beef with water chestnut steamed dumplings, steamed buns, rice with spicy pork, stuffed deep fried tofu, and fried dumplings filled with juicy pork balls.

We must have been hungry because we ate so quickly that I forgot to get a picture.

After finishing the six dishes, we were given a dish with four pieces of  fried dough covered with powdered sugar that we gobbled also.

Aaron returned me home by 1:30.

Suzette came home early at 4:00.

At 5:00 I asked Suzette if she wanted to cook stuffed bell peppers and she said, “Yes.”

We went into motion around 6:00.  I called Mike to ask him if he wanted to join us for dinner and he said he would bring a bottle of Italian Amarone.  Then Willy called and said Amy and Val were in town and we invited them to dinner also for a total of 6.  We rearranged the table and chairs and I brought in two more chairs so we could gather around the round table in the TV room in front of the fireplace.

Then at around 6:15 Suzette put five Yukon Gold potatoes into the oven to bake and I started by coring the five bell peppers, while Suzette made the filling with ground pork and beef plus onion and cauliflower by processing them in the Cuisinart. When she sautéed the filling I went out to the garden and picked a handful of sage, which I chopped finely and added to the filling.

I then diced three Roma tomatoes and added them to the skillet Suzette had filled with 7 oz.of tomato sauce and a bit of red wine to which  I added about 1 tsp. of marjoram leaves.

After the filling was cooked Suzette stuffed the bell peppers with the filling and poured the sauce over the five stuffed bell peppers she had placed in a Pyrex baking dish .

We continued to bake the Yukon gold potatoes with the five stuffed bell peppers in the oven for about thirty minutes.

After the stuffed bell peppers were in the oven, I started making a blueberry Clafoutis, by measuring 7  T. of flour and 10 T. of powdered sugar plus ½ tsp. of salt into a medium mixing bowl.

I  scalded 1 cup of cream and 2 cups of half and half together in a sauce pan over moderate heat until it began to boil and then I turned off the heat and let the milk cool.  As the milk was cooking I whisked 3 eggs and added them to the dry ingredients. After the milk had cooled a bit, I poured the scalded milk through a seive to catch the milk solids into the dry ingredients and stirred until the batter was smooth.

I then added 18 oz. of blueberries I had bought at Sprouts last week for $2.98 to the batter in the
mixing bowl and stirred the batter to mix it .  I then poured the batter into the buttered ceramic baking dish and placed it on a cookie sheet.

We removed the potatoes from the oven and then placed the Clafoutis in the 350 degree oven at 7:00, just after Mike arrived.  Amy, Vahl and Willy arrived at around 7:15 and we poured everyone glasses of the new Portuguese wine I bought at Trader Joe’s for $6.99 produced in the the Lisbon region that has a colorful impressionistic painting of a funicular in the city.

Everyone liked the Portuguese wine because it was fruity with mild tannins.  The men sat at the table in front of the fireplace and Suzette and Amy cut each stuffed bell pepper in half and sliced two baked potatoes and served ½ of a bell pepper on a slice of baked potato with a drizzle of the tomato sauce enriched with the cooking juices in the baking dish to each person

I thought ½ of a bell pepper would not be a sufficient amount of food but it was very filling, although Willy and I split another smaller stuffed pepper for seconds.

I took the Clafoutis out of the oven at 8:00 when the top was just beginning to turn golden brown and let it cool for a bit.

when dinner was eaten and Mike’s bottle of Italian wine was finished, I opened a new bottle of cognac ($19.95 at Trader Joe’s) and set it on the table with a can of Reddi Whip and then served bowls of warm Clafoutis and Suzette fetched small spoons.  We nibbled on Clafoutis and talked until 9:00.  As it turned out Amy and Vahl were staying in Albuquerque because they are taking the early flight to PV in the morning and staying in Sayulita. We talked about Sayulita and told them we were going there on February 13 and Willy is traveling to Mexico City on March 1 and Luke is there now running a spiritual retreat on the beach in Oaxaca.  What a magnetic pull that country seems to have on our
family.

At 9:00 we said goodbye to Amy, Vahl, and Willy and Mike said goodnight at 9:40.

We were in bed shortly after 10:00 and watched Rachel Maddow report the explosive news that Roger Stone was arrested early this morning on 6 or 7 criminal charges connected to his activities supporting the Trump campaign and specifically the release of Clinton emails by Wikileaks.

Bon Appetit