October 26, 2019 Lunch – Fried Brown Rice with Beef, Onion, and Mushroom. Dire – Boeuf Bourguignon with Mashed Potatoes and Steamed Asparagus

October 26, 2019 Lunch – Fried Brown Rice with Beef, Onion, and Mushroom. Dire – Boeuf Bourguignon with Mashed Potatoes and Steamed Asparagus

I watched some PL Soccer and then we drove to Southwest Distributors for Suzette to buy salad, tortillas and other items for a catering meal by the Bistro.  Then we drove to Sprouts to buy vine ripened tomatoes for $.88/lb.  I also bought baby portobello mushrooms, four avocados  2/$.99, yogurt $1.99/32 oz., cilantro, and milk  chocolate covered almonds for $3.99/lb.

We then picked up the mini-rototiller at a machine shop near Sprouts and drove home.

Suzette drove the food for the catering to her Greenhouse Bistro and I  began working on the dinner recipe.  I fetched a 15 lb. slab of ribeye steaks I had bought several months ago in cryovac from the garage fridge.  When I opened it it had a very strong smell of blood.i curt off and butchered a heavily marbled side of the about 25 inch long slab and butchered the meat off it.  I was watching Kansas State play No. 5 ranked Oklahoma and I made a stir fried of PPI brown rice, a large white mushroom sliced, a ¼ inch thick slice of red onion, and a couple of small pieces of the sour smelling beef.

I drank the last of the Primus Red Blend (Costco $14.99) with lunch.

I was afraid of eating much of the meat, but really enjoyed the wine.  Perhaps because K State beat Oklahoma.  K State beat TCU by 1 point last week, mainly due to the skill and running ability of their quarterback, Skyler Thompson, who also made the difference in their win over Oklahoma this week.

 I rode my bike south to Rio Bravo and back at 1:30 just as the TCU v. Texas football game was starting and returned by the end of half-time, which is when Suzette arrived.

I had anticipated that she would object to eating the blood soured beef, which I did not want to eat either because that was what killed the Buddha, so I had started thawing a 2 lb. bag of filet Mignon trimmings we had frozen.

My father and I both had degrees from both TCU and Texas, we have a family tradition of being for
either team to win, but we were never ambivalent.  Since we were residents of Fort Worth, we always rooted for our home town Frogs to win, especially since my father played golf for TCU and was an active member of the ex-letterman’s association that supported TCU sports.  I recall that we always had football tickets on the aisle at the 40 yard line about eight rows up where you could just see the entire field because the surface was curved with crown in the middle that ran end to end.  I guess ex-lettermen had first choice on season tickets.

I am not an ex-letterman, so I have a better seat in front of my TV.

At 5:00 after TCU upset 15th ranked Texas, we started dinner.

Boeuf Bourguignon

We follow Julia Child’s recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon loosely.  Like most recipes we have cooked many times, we have introduced short cuts.

We followed the recipe at the beginning by cutting four  slices of thick cut bacon into lardons and browning them in a large skillet.  We then browned the meat, carrot, and onion in the bacon fat and then put them with the lardons into a large enameled casserole and add two cups of Pinot Noir wine and 1 ½ cups of beef stock and cover the casseroles and baked it in the oven for several hours. After the first hour we sautéed until translucent and added about 1 lb. of cubed portobello and white mushrooms and a cubed yellow onion and added a bit more wine.  We had 2 lb. of meat instead of 3 lb., so we had to adjust the recipe somewhat for the amount of liquid by 1/3.

Also, because we were using filet Mignon and not using pearl onions we were able to reduce the cooking time to a couple of hours.

Game 4 of the World Series began at 6:00 so we watched it as the casserole cooked.  We rooted for
the Astros since they are a Texas team and Alex Bregman, who plays third base for the Astros, is from Albuquerque and the son of Lawyer friends in town.  The Astros took an early lead of 2 runs in the first inning and added to it  to win 8 to it.  I think Bregman hit a grand slam home run.

I also peeled and cubed five small russet potatoes and Suzette cut the ends off a 1 lb. bunch of asparagus and put them into the steamer with water.

I asked Suzette what type of wine she wanted to drink and when she said Cabernet I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of our favorite, Wellington 2010 Mohrhart Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon from the Sonoma Valley and opened it to let it breath for an hour.

Suzette made mashed potatoes and steamed the asparagus about ten minutes before she took the
casserole out of the oven around 7:30 and I poured glasses of red wine.

The wine has retained its elegant fruity flavor of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape, but also has acquired a rather pleasant leathery flavor also that adds to its complexity.  It obviously went well with the dinner of beef stew.

At 8:00 we watched Father Brown and at 9:00 Death in Paradise on PBS, although I fell asleep during the latter and Suzette had to fill me in on the plot twists.

Suzette went to bed at 10:00 and stayed up and ate a few squares of chocolate and sipped the last of the current bottle of Berneroy  XO Calvados ($29.95 at Total Wine).

I went to bed at 12:00 after Saturday Night Live and the comeback victory by No. 11 Oregon against Washington State.

As Suzette said during dinner, this our first Winter meal.

After dinner she started looking through the cookbooks for a good cassoulet recipe.

Bon Appetit