This was a great day of food. It started with granola with tropical fruit salad and yogurt.
I had a wonderful experience with my Continuing Legal Education credits today. The annual requirement is 10 hours of general credit and 2 hours of ethics. When I checked my credits yesterday, I had 4.9 general and 2 ethics credits. I signed up for the Annual Business Law seminar in November and received a $25 early sign up discount. That seminar will provide 4.5 general credits, which left me .6 general credits short for the year. But several days ago I had signed up for a one hour orientation seminar to orient the new case research tools being introduced by the Courts for 10:00 a.m. today. When I attended today’s seminar I was amazed that each lawyer was given 1 hour general credit for attending. So I met my annual requirement, with .6 hour extra general credits.
After the seminar I returned home and made Miso Chicken Noodle Soup with seaweed, dehydrated chicken stock, tofu, a diced chicken thigh, red miso, spinach, three kinds of noodles, and garnished it with thinly sliced green onions.
I ate two bowls with hoisin sauce.
I worked until 4:30, when Suzette arrived.
The Couscous
We started cooking at 5:00.
I picked a handful of Chard in the garden. And de-stemmed it and cut the leaves into bite sized pieces. I then minced a shallot and three cloves of garlic and diced four lovely ripe tomatoes Suzette grew in her garden at the Center for Ageless Living.
Suzette wanted an herb to add to the poaching medium and we decided to add chives so she went to the garden and snipped a handful of chives and I cut them into 1 inch lengths. She fetched the fresh
parsley she had previously picked from the garden and I finely minced about ¼ cup of parsley to garnish the entrée.
Then I melted 4 T. of butter in a sauce pan and added the minced shallot and garlic. After the shallot and garlic had cooked about five minutes I added two cups of Couscous and sautéed the Couscous with the shallots and garlic for a couple of minutes while I heated water in the teakettle. I then added 3 cups of boiling water to the Couscous Couscous and turned down the heat to the lowest setting on the smallest burner on our stove. I then added the diced tomatoes and Chard in a couple more minutes I added about ½ cup of chicken stock because I was cooking the Couscous, not steaming it, and I was afraid it would get too dry and scorch and tossed it to mix in the tomatoes and Chard. Five minutes after I added the chicken stock I turned off the heat and let it sit until we were ready to serve.
The Asparagus
I fetched two bunches of asparagus from the garage fridge and Suzette cut the tough ends off. We decided to cook 1 ½ bunches. Since that quantity exceeded the capacity of our steamer Suzette lay them in a Pyrex baking dish and added a bit of water, covered them with Saran and steamed them in the microwave.
The Poached Salmon and Cream Sauce
I had bought a huge 3.3 lb. salmon filet. Earlier Suzette fetched the salmon poacher from the basement. Here is a picture of it.
The filet was 2 to 3 inches longer than the poaching rack, so I cut that much of the tail off and lay next to the remaining end so the entire filet fit on the rack. Suzette placed the poacher on the stove
and it fit perfectly on two burners. She then made her poaching medium in the poacher with 4 oz. of butter, 1 cup of white wine, 1 cup of water, 1/3 cup of chives, 1 lemon sliced, and 4 cloves of garlic minced.
She heated the poaching ingredients until they boiled and inserted the rack with the filet into the poacher and placed the lid on the poacher to contain the heat and steam and started poaching the fish for about thirty minutes.
Melissa and Ruth came first with a dozen petit fours from Whole Foods for dessert. Here is a picture.
Then Willy came around 6:15, soon followed by Cyndy and Dan who brought two types of crackers, sliced salami, and a jar of chili chèvre as appetizers along with a cooler bag with two bottles of chilled wine; a lovely Spanish Cava and a French white from Saint Joseph Controllee.
After we talked and nibbled Salami, chèvre on crackers, Suzette and I excused ourselves to return to the kitchen. The chili chèvre is a new produce to me as were the two lovely wines Dan brought. It was fun to discover a new food item and drink two new wines and appreciate their bringing them.
The Cream Sauce
I made a roux with 3 T. flour and 4 T. of butter in an enameled sauce pan, whisking it for about three minutes and then turning down the heat to low. Then we checked the salmon and decided it was fully poached after poking at it with a fork a couple of times. Suzette removed the rack and we poured the poaching medium through a sieve into a bowl. We then added about 2 cups of medium to the roux while stirring to make a cream sauce. We added about 1 T. of half and half to finish the sauce.
We then plated the 7 plates. Suzette sliced the salmon filet and placed a spoonful or two of Couscous on each plate and about a dozen of the thin cooked asparagus. I then placed a piece of salmon on each plate and then sauced each slice of salmon liberally with cream sauce. Suzette garnished each plate with a pinch of parsley and we carried the plates to the garden.
Dan came in to fetch the Saint Joseph white and Willy came in to carry to carry two plates. Melissa came in to pour and serve glasses of water.
Dan poured glasses of Saint Joseph. I found it a little to high in acidity for my taste but very drinkable. I guess I prefer those luscious big fruity wines like Chenin Blanc with salmon.
We had timed the dinner perfectly. By preparing the Couscous and asparagus before poaching the fish, all we had to do was prepare the cream sauce, which took about five minutes, and plate the dishes to complete the entrée. This allowed us to put a hot meal on the table.
After we ate and talked a bit it was getting cool around 8:15, so we came inside for dessert. We each served ourselves a petit four and I poured glasses of Gruet Brut. The Brut was a little dry for dessert. I should have served a 2012 Vintage that was creamier and sweeter.
We talked until 9:00 when everyone magically and simultaneously had the urge to leave because many of us had to work tomorrow or our internal clock were set to go to bed at 9:00.
We said goodnight and put away the food and Suzette loaded the dishwasher and we sat down to watch some TV. Suzette had awakened at 4:30 so she fell asleep immediately. I watched Rachel Maddow and a few minutes of Lawrence O’Donnell and went to bed a bit after 11:00. I ate a few squares of chocolate and drank a cup of chai and a sniffer of Calvados and another lemon curd petit four while I watched the news.
I awakened at 3:30 and finished this blog and drank several glasses of water to help flush the massive amount of food I had consumed today through my system and returned to bed at 5:30.
Bon Appetit
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