January 7, 2019 Lunch – Buffet King Dinner – Meatloaf with Roasted sweet potato and acorn squash and Steamed Green Beans

January 7, 2019 Lunch – Buffet King  Dinner – Meatloaf with Roasted sweet potato and acorn squash and Steamed Green Beans

I ate granola, yogurt, milk, and ½ mango and a few blueberries for breakfast at 8:45.

I worked on a new case until noon. Then I drove to Sprouts and bought a 3 lb. sweet potato, green beans, 2 acorn squashes, and two bunches of broccoli rabe for $1.99 each.

I then decided to go eat lunch at Buffet King, because I was ambivalent whether the eat sushi, or Chinese food.  Buffet King is one of my secret food passions.  It is sort of cheesy and low rent with lots of awful dishes, but there are five or six things I love that keep me coming back.

They have the best BBQ pork ribs in town.  I have a thought that eating meat collagen helps add to the collagen in one’s joints, so I ate three pork ribs today. The buffet usually includes steamed Manila clams tossed in jalapeño and fermented black beans and my favorite tofu dish, a kind of quick Mapo Dofu made by stir frying pork sausage with red pepper flakes and chunks of soft tofu.  The other item I love is mussels on the half shell filled with mayonnaise and roasted.  Here is a picture of what I got on my first plate of food plus a large cup of egg drop soup with a steamed wonton and green onion slices.

The secret at Buffet King is restraint.  Today I decided to not eat any fried dishes, which is tough because fried shrimp and General Tso’s chicken are among my favorites. Instead today I took two plates filled with sushi, pickled ginger, wasabi, and nigiri rolls, seaweed salad, and pickled daikon.  Here is a picture.

This is the first plate from the sushi bar

The problem with the sushi bar is that it only includes raw mackerel and red snapper.  Neither are my favorites.  I stripped the slices of fish off the rice and ate them like Sashimi dipping them in wasabi laden soy.  The nigiri rolls were good also, as was the seaweed salad.  I ate everything with pieces of pickled ginger.

On the second plate of sushi I took more seaweed salad and no mackerel.

I ordered a pot of green tea and washed down everything with tea and sips of the egg drop soup.

Finally, I ate two almond cookies with the last cup of tea from the pot of tea.

I did well today and only felt stuffed for a few minutes after lunch.  The reason I keep going to Buffet King is because it is the best Chinese buffet value in town and has many items I like. The cost for an adult is $9.00 plus $1.99 for a pot of tea.  For Seniors before 2:00 the price is $8.00.  They did not charge me for tea when I requested the senior discount, so I am not sure if seniors get tea for free.  After 2:00 the price for seniors drops to $6.00.

After lunch I drove to the Bike Coop and DJ helped me.  He lubricated my shifters with rubbing alcohol to loosen the grease build up in them and then put a new chain on the bike for $45.00.

At 3:15 I drove to the Metro Court and filed my new case and then walked to the Sheriff’s Civil Service Division at the Police station and delivered the complaint to the Sheriff’s office for service.

A little after 4:00 I arrived at home and walked about 1/3 mile without pain as I listened to
Democracy Now discuss “The Big Hack”, a new documentary on Cambridge Analytica. I love the new Bluetooth headphones that Willy and Luke gave me for a Christmas that connect to streaming audio channels.  Suzette connected me to KUNM’s streaming channel. Voila.

I returned home a bit before 5:00 and discovered that instead of the nightly business report, there is a new BBC program called Outside Sources that does more in depth reporting from several different angles. Today’s show was on the Iran - US Conflict.

Suzette called at 5:00 to tell me she was going to Costco to do the weekly grocery shopping for the Center.  When Suzette had not returned by 6:45, I put the sweet potato and the two acorn squashes into the oven at 350 degrees to bake.  Suzette arrived just a couple of minutes later and made the meatloaf very quickly with a couple of pounds of ground beef, ½ Onion diced, ½ Red bell pepper diced, catsup, 1 ½ cups of oatmeal, Worcestershire sauce, two eggs, and a T. of prepared Dijon mustard.  She fit everything into a loaf pan and baked it the oven while the potato and squashes were roasting at 350 degrees for an hour.  Suzette said this is her Mother’s family recipe for meatloaf, although the red pepper and onion were definitely additions to the original recipe.  We just happened to have both those items available.

I snapped the ½ lb. of green beans and started them steaming.

Willy came by at 8:00 and helped me print the contract with PNM to install the new electric box and second line to the Candy store to provide independent electric service to the second floor apartment.

Suzette took over in the kitchen and I went to the basement cellar and found a bottle of 2013 Crown Peak California merlot.  I don’t recall where I bought this or for what price. I did not notate that on
the label.  It was probably a close out or a gift.  I thought the wine was rich and jammy, like a heavy
merlot should be.  It is rated from 82.5 to 86 points and last sold in 2015 for around $15.00. Its suggested pairing is with lamb, so it may have been too heavy to go with the meatloaf.

Around 8:30 dinner was ready, green beans, acorn squash, sweet potato and meatloaf.  As Suzette said, “An American Classic”.

Here are pictures of the PPIs.

 

Suzette says she loves meatloaf sandwiches, so she will have one or two in the next few days.

After dinner Suzette fetched another bottle of the limoncello she made from the garage fridge and we each had a liquor glass filled with limoncello and crushed ice. This limoncello had an alcohol kick that I did not tasted in the first bottle, although they all came from the same batch.  Perhaps as limoncello ages the alcohol begins to dominates the fresh lemon flavor.

Bon Appetit