June 14, 2019 Lunch – Vietnam 2000. Dinner – Stir Fried Vegetables with Couscous

I passed on breakfast.  I corrected and printed forms and delivered them to a client’s business.  Then I drove to Sprouts at San Mateo and Lomas and bought the last eight ears of corn in the store.  It was 90 degrees and I was in the mood for a big bowl of cool Vietnamese noodles, so I drove to Vietnam 2000 that serves my favorite summer dish Bun Cha Gio; grilled pork and fried egg rolls on a bed of rice vermicelli with cool chopped vegetables and herbs on the bottom of a deep bowl.  I usually ask for extra basil, cilantro, and been sprouts for a dollar extra.  I love this dish and always have.

   

After lunch I went to the bank of my client because she had given me a counter check on which she wrote the account number in hand.  When I arrived instead of an interrogation, I had a pleasant chat with the teller about my client as she cashed the check without question.

I then went home and put the corn in the fridge.  When I got back to my computer I discovered that I had experienced a very small loss for the day thanks to support for Facebook, even though the Market and especially the tech sector was down.

I worked until 3:30 and lay down and read my book club book, Dead Wake by Erik Larson.

I called Suzette at 5:30 after watching the Nightly Business Report and she approved of my idea of making stir fried Vegetables for dinner.  I went to the garden and picked eight radishes and six snow

peas and cleaned them.  I fetched carrots , mushrooms, and Mexican Squash from the garage and ginger, Garlic, ½ of a red bell pepper and the Chinese Cabbage Suzette brought from her garden in Los Lunas from the indoor fridge and started chopping.  I separated the chopped vegetables into two bowls, one firm and the other soft.  I chopped a small yellow onion and then the rest of the vegetables, two Mexican squashes, ginger, garlic, radish slices, carrot slices, the heavy white portions of the cabbage, and red bell pepper all went into the firm pot.  The green cabbage leaves, snow peas, and sliced mushrooms went into the soft colander.

The idea was to create a medley of vegetables with a texture similar to Chinese vegetables such as water chestnuts and bamboo shoots.

I stir fried the firm vegetables for about fifteen minutes in two T. of peanut oil and 1 tsp. of sesame

oil.  Then I stir fried the soft vegetables for about six of seven minutes covered with a wok cover,

which turned out to be a bit too long because the cabbage leaves collapsed.  I then added a seasoning sauce of 1 T. of soy, 2 T. of Chinese rice wine, 1 tsp. of sesame oil, 1 tsp. of sugar, ½ tsp of salt, and a pinch of white pepper plus about ¼ cup of water, and a handful of roasted cashew nuts.

Before I started cooking the vegetables I made 1 cup of Couscous by heating 1½ cups of water with a tsp. of Knorr dehydrated Chicken stock to a boil and adding 1 cup of Couscous and 2 T. of butter in a sauce pan. I let the Couscous cook covered on low heat for about five minutes and then turned the heat off and let the Couscous absorb the moisture. I then fluffed the Couscous with a fork and tasted it.  It was lovely and still a bit moist, the way I like it.

We both made drinks this evening. So I drank a gin and tonic with dinner.  I realized after dinner that I had forgotten to add the pork I had thawed out yesterday to the dish.

We did not miss the meat, there was so much variety and color to the dish that the meat was not missed.

Since we discovered today that the neighborhood cocktail was hit nownot this evening we both ate slices of the Clementine almond flour dairy and gluten free cake Suzette made this week.  Rebecca introduced us to this recipe in January when we spent the weekend in Taos for the Winter Wine Festival with Mickie, Billy, Elaine, and Willy.  It was a hit then and it is a hit now, moist with a subtle flavor of mandarin orange and almond.

We went to bed at 10:00 and I blogged this entry while Suzette sleeps.

Bon Appetit