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

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.

Bon Appetit