June 29, 2020 Lunch – Pork Tomatillo Salsa Enchiladas with Black Beans. Dinner – Grilled Rib Steak and Asparagus with Sautéed Mushrooms and PPI Ratatouille

June 29, 2020 Lunch – Pork Tomatillo Salsa Enchiladas with Black Beans. Dinner – Grilled Rib Steak and Asparagus with Sautéed Mushrooms and PPI Ratatouille

I ate granola, yogurt, and tropical fruit salad for breakfast and then completed my edit of the brief.

I then made Tomatillo Salsa and Pork Enchiladas for lunch.  I heated some Tomatillo Salsa I made several weeks ago in a small skillet with some olive oil and when they were softened slid them into a pasta bowl lightly coated with the same salsa.  Then first layer was chopped BBQ Pork and onions.  The second layer was onions and cheese. The third layer was pork and onions. And, then I grated cheese and added chopped onions on the top.

I baked the enchiladas in a 350 degree oven for twenty minutes.  This is the way my favorite restaurants make individual portions of enchiladas, baking them in the oven.

I fetched the container of black beans from the garage fridge and heated about 1 cup of them with two oz. of onion. When I removed the enchiladas from the oven I ladled the beans around the edge of the pasta bowl.

The enchiladas and black beans were delicious; soft and slightly creamy.

I drank a Killian Red  with the enchiladas, but could only eat ½ of the meal.

After lunch I thawed a rib steak.

At 5:30 Suzette had not arrived and I became hungry, so I ate a few bites of Baba Ghanoush with pieces of toasted pita bread with a gin and tonic.

Suzette arrived at 6:00 and after a cocktail we began dinner.

I sliced about ten mushrooms and snapped 14 asparagus stalks and put them in a freezer bag.  Suzette added olive oil to the asparagus and salted and peppered the steak and then grilled them


I went to the garden and picked 7 or 8 sprigs of thyme and me of tarragon and grabbed two stalks of dried garlic.

When I returned I minced ½ shallot and placed it n the large skillet and added three T. of butter and Suzette added 1 T. of olive oil and added the sliced mushrooms.

While Suzette grilled the asparagus and streakiest sautéed the mushrooms.  After the y softened I added 3 T. of  Amontillado sherry and reduced the heat.

Soon after Suzette brought in the charred steak that was cooked to rare when I sliced it. Then she brought in the asparagus and we microwaved the Ratatouille and I opened the bottle of chilled Chianti and poured us glasses of it.

Suzette plated two plates with Ratatouille and asparagus and we served ourselves slices of steak and  ½ of the mushrooms in sauce.

We watched the Best of the Antiques Roadshow from Philadelphia with its fabulous items and then some of Lawrence O’Donnell and went to bed early after reading Suzette’s lease for treatment rooms at the Spa, which she hopes to re-open soon.

This was the usual great steak dinner with a well grilled steak and lovely thick Asparagus grilled plus delicious sherry flavored mushrooms and a warm Ratatouille salad.

We have decided to chill all wines including reds as the daily temperatures increase.  We are still without cooling on one side of our house but it is the bedroom side so we don’t suffer while cooking and dining.

Today the Supreme Court dealt the Trump Justice zdeanother blow by striking down a Louisiana abortion law fashioned on the Texas abortion law that it struck down previously on the basis of following established precedent (I.e. the prior decision that the Texas abortion law was fatally flawed).

As one commentator stated Chief Justice Roberts who joined the four liberal judges in this decision is a conservative who is also a perfectionist and he will not fashion a conservative result for an imperfectly presented case that is fatally flawed on its face.  The scary thing was that aJustice Kavanaugh joined the dissent after he assured the Senate and specifically, Senator Susan Collins that he believed that Roe v. Wade was established precedent. Apparently he is not as committed to precedent for abortion cases as he indicated.

Bon Appetit

June 28, 2020 Lunch – Fish Chowder. Dinner – Baba Ghanoush and Fish Chowder

June 28, 2020 Lunch – Fish Chowder.  Dinner – Baba Ghanoush and Fish Chowder

I awakened at 8:30 and ate granola, fruit, and yogurt and watched news until 10:00 when I rode five miles south and back.

I rested until Suzette return around 2:30.

We decided to make fish chowder.  Suzette found a bag of corn and two bags of frozen fish fillets in the freezer. She thawed the fish and diced it into bite sized pieces.

I finely diced two stalks of celery, two potatoes, and ¼ onion, which Suzette placed in an enamel casserole with the fish and corn with enough water to ½ cover the cubes of fish and simmered those ingredients for about ½ hour. Then Suzette added milk an thyme complete the soup. We heated a Bosque Bakery baguette and served bowls of soup with bread and butter.  We drank water.

While Suzette was preparing the soup I cleaned and cut a medium eggplant in half and brushed olive oil onto the exposed flesh and baked the eggplant in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.

After lunch we zoomed for an hour with Billy, Elaine, ?Mickie, and Rebecca and then at 4:00 I napped for two hours.

Baba Ghanoush

When I awakened at 6:00 I scooped the cooked eggplant flesh into the Cuisinart and puréed it.  Then I added to the eggplant 2 T. of yogurt, 2 cloves of garlic pressed, ¼ Tsp.of salt, 1 ½ T. of tahini, and 2 T. of lemon juice and mixed the ingredients together.

I emptied the mixture into a bowl and garnished it with a diced Roma  tomato, about seven sprigs of Italian parsley chopped, and a T. of olive oil.

I toasted two pitas on the open flame on the stove.

We ate a few bites by spreading the Baba Ghanoush on pita.  The Baba ghanoush was so dense we could not eat more.

At 9:00 I heated another bowl f fish chowder and toasted a slice of bagel and spread cream cheese on it and enjoyed the soup again for dinner.

We watched Grantchester and Beecham House and went to bed.

Bon Appetit

June 27, 2020 Lunch – 2000 Vietnam No. 21. Dinner – PPI Chicken Vietnamese Noodle Soup

June 27, 2020 Lunch – 2000 Vietnam No. 21. Dinner – PPI Chicken Vietnamese Noodle Soup

Somewhat by coincidence the food ingredient of today was Vietnamese vermicelli noodles.

We made Sausage, Potato, onion, and egg burritos for breakfast with Jimmie Dean Sausage that we ate in the garden.  I also peeled and cubes the last pieces of melon see bought at Sprouts several weeks ago that were still delicious.

After breakfast we harvested about ½ of the lavender and then deforested our shrub beds along the front and sides of the house of unwanted species of trees and trimmed the shrubs.

I was tired after we finished but I soon recovered soon while watching TV until noon.  After a shower I called Willy to find out if he wanted us to pick up a No. 21 at 2000 Vietnam and bring it to him. No. 21 is a three layer dish with cool chopped lettuce, cucumber sticks, and mung bean sprouts on the bottom vegetables . Warm boiled fresh rice vermicelli noodles in the middle layer and  hot fried rice paper wrapped pork filled egg rolls and marinated and grilled slices of pork on top.

When he said, “Yes.”, I ordered 2 No. 21s from 2000 Vietnam. We drove to the restaurant located at the intersection where San Mateo intersects Lead/coal its West side and Zuni on the East.  Suzette fetched the order.  We drove to Willy’s apartment and gave Willy an order and we shared the other order.  It was pleasant eating at the large table on Willy’s patio because there was a breeze and because Willy played us several songs by a band named XX on the Bluetooth speakers on the patio and the music sounded wonderful.

We picked Oriental basil from Willy’s herb garden Suzette made for him for his birthday to garnish our dish.  I brought lettuce and cilantro to add to the dish also.

After lunch at 2:00 we  went home and Suzette ran errands and I worked on my brief until Suzette returned at 4:30 and turned on the TV after which I could no longer concentrate.

At 6:30 I was ready to make dinner but Suzette was not hungry, perhaps because she had eaten a bowl of vanilla ice cream in the late afternoon.

I was on my own so I went to the fridge and when I opened the door was pleasantly surprised to see the PPI bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup left from the pot of Soup I prepared yesterday.

Suzette was deeply engaged in making a foam cushion covered with vinyl for a park bench at the Center for Ageless Living, so I heated and ate the Soup.  The soup contained Vietnamese fresh boiled egg white noodles, so for the second time today I was eating Vietnamese Vermicelli Noodles.

After dinner I also ate a bowl of vanilla ice cream with a drizzle of Hershey chocolate syrup and rum as we watched Father Brown and Death in Paradise.

Suzette went to bed at 10:00. I stayed up to watch the PBS Dutch mystery named Professor T about an eccentric Criminology Professor who brilliantly solves murders for the Royal police and then blogged.

Bon Appetit

June 26, 2020 Lunch – Chicken Noodle Soup Donburi. Dinner – Sautéed Roasted Pork, Mushrooms, and Shallot in a Sherry Reduction with Ratatouille

June 26, 2020  Lunch – Chicken Noodle Soup Donburi. Dinner – Sautéed Roasted Pork, Mushrooms, and Shallot in a Sherry Reduction with Ratatouille

Today things finally got so bad we decided to start drinking our champagne and it put us into a better mood.  The market did one of its over 700 point dives as many states announced new highs in Corona virus infections and the US hit it highest number of new infections at around 45,000.  I watched Pence explain how we were doing great as spokesman for the WH corona Virus Taskforce and I was embarrassed.

I worked on my brief from 12:30 to 5:00 a.m. and finished the final draft. So I guess you could say I was up early.  I slept until 8:30. I actually slept about Six hours, after having gone to bed at 9:00 p.m. last night.

I ate granola, yogurt, tropical fruit salad and ½ banana sliced for breakfast.  Then I walked ½ mile at 10:00 and watched Pence and company at 10:30.

I became hungry again at 11:00 and decided to convert the chicken stock, mirepoix, and boiled chicken thigh into a noodle soup.

I added some water to the pot of chicken stock to get the level of liquid to 2/3 and chopped up the thigh.  I then added about 2 T. of onion chopped, 1 zucchini diced, two mushrooms sliced, a small bag of cooked green beans, 2 green onions sliced, and 1 bundle of fresh egg white noodles I bought at Talin.  There was so many ingredients it turned into a ramen bowl as the noodled expanded a bit.  I decided to add an egg and an egg white Donburi style so I whipped the egg and added about 2 T. of the extra seasoning sauce Suzette made for her garlic eggplant dish and added that to the pot.  I covered the pot and let it boil on low heat for about 30 minutes to cook all the ingredients.
The soup was delicious.  I added fresh cilantro leaves for a little extra flavor and drank cold water.

I lay down after lunch and dozed off and on and read until 5:15 when Suzette arrived.

I then checked the  damage to my portfolio.  It was down 2% which is consistent with the 2 ½% drop in the Dow.  I was saved the full impact of the market sell off of the by the several stop sell orders triggering , especially on Facebook and Google.  I will assess the full extent of the damage tomorrow.

We decided to use the approximately 4 oz. of PPI Bacon wrapped Roasted Pork Tenderloin and add Mushrooms and sauté it with shallot and serve it with steamed green beans and the PPI Ratatouille.

Suzette complained of a difficult day and week, so I suggested we drink the bottle of Gruet Sauvage Rose I had picked up yesterday among the bottles in my current allotment.

Rose Sauvage is currently my favorite Gruet wine.  It is made with 100% Pinot Noir and zero sugar is added so it is exceedingly dry with 0% residual sugar but has a wonderfully rich Pinot flavor.

Here are the tasting notes from Gruet: With zero dosage, Sauvage Rosé's vibrant fruit flavors of wild strawberry and hint of cherry really shine on the nose and palate and are complemented by bright acidity.

100% Pinot Noir

Aged for 24 months en Tirage at release
pH: 3.02 | Alc: 12.50% | RS: 0%

We drank a glass of champagne and then started cooking dinner.  I minced a large shallot (about 1/3 cup), three cloves of garlic, and about five or six white medium mushrooms, while Suzette diced the pork.

While Suzette started sautéing the shallot and garlic and put the casserole of PPI Ratatouille on the stove to heat I went to the garden to fetch four or five sprigs of thyme and a sprig of tarragon.  I added those to the sauté and then fetched the carafe of amontillado sherry and added about 2 T. to the sauté.

I then cut a handful of green beans in half and steamed them and we were ready to eat.  I poured out the rest of the Sauvage champagne and Suzette filled each pasta bowl with a pile of Ratatouille and
covered it with half the Pork and Mushroom Sauté and lay a small pile of green beans on the side.

We carried our plates out to the garden and enjoyed a lovely dinner.

The biggest impression we want this meal to convey is how you can adapt and utilize PPIs as ingredients to create an equally or better dish or meal.

Tonight was a great example of how we utilize PPIs to reduce the prep and cooking time for meals .  Tonight we were able to stretch 4oz. of PPI bacon wrapped pork into a wonderful dish and when combined with the Ratatouille and a green vegetable, a wonderful meal.

The sautéed combination of the sherry flavored pork, bacon, shallot, garlic, and  mushrooms was sublime.  The Ratatouille is a gift that just keeps giving as its flavors and textures blend as we keep reheating it.

This was a superb meal, as last night’s dinner of PPI lemon tarragon chicken with PPI Ratatouille and steamed asparagus was also.

Later we split the last of the blueberry and mango cobbler with Blue Bell Vanilla ice cream and watched two episodes of The English Game until 10:00 when we went to bed

Bon Appetit

June 25, 2020 Lunch – Pork Tenderloin Salad Dinner – PPI Tarragon Lemon Baked Chicken Thigh with Sweet Potatoes and Asparagus

June 25, 2020 Lunch – Pork Tenderloin Salad   Dinner – PPI Tarragon Lemon Baked Chicken Thigh with Sweet Potatoes and Asparagus

I had worked  on the brief from 12:30 until 4:30 this morning, so slept until 7:30.  I toasted two slices of the awful doughy Smith’s bagel, spread them with cream cheese and garnished them with slices of red onion. On the larger slice I laid slices of Gravad Lax and on the smaller slice I placed bits of whitefish.

I drank a cup of chai with breakfast.

I worked until 12:30 then made a salad containing lettuce, arugula from the garden, ¼ cucumber peeled, Iberico cheese, Moroccan Black olives, a Roma tomato diced, and 2 oz. of PPI Pork Tenderloin. I refreshed the dressing with lemon juice and Spanish olive oil. And dressed the salad.

I then hosted a Zoom meeting of the book club reviewing The Spy and the Traitor by MacIntyre.  It received high marks.

I then worked from 4:15 until 6:30 when Suzette re-heated the PPI Roasted Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, and Steamed the last 12 stalks of Asparagus.

Since I knew we planned to eat the chicken in the afternoon I had chilled a bottle of 2018 Gruner Vitlander from Trader Joe’s.  It is about $6.00 and a usually reliable wine but this bottle had the tell tale sign of secondary fermentation, it produced a cloud of bubbles.  They soon cleared and the slight flatness of the wine did not bother me, although neither Suzette or I took a second glass.  I poured large glass fulls and we added lots of ice and took our glasses outside with our plates of food outside to eat in the garden.  The flies were really bad and it was warm tonight so not long after we finished we returned to the house so we could watched Midsomer Murders on PBS from 8:00 until 9:30.

A pepper plant in our garden

                                         

                                                                Dinner at sunset

I drank a small glass of cognac mixed with Grand Marnier and a chocolate chip cookie and then ate a piece of fruit cake with a cup of chai.  Suzette ate blueberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

We both went to bed after the show ended at 9:30.

I awakened at 1:30 to finish this blog and drink a glass of water.

Bon Appetit

June 24, 2020 Lunch – PPI Pork Filling and Rice Donburi. Dinner – New Recipe, n Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Pork Tenderloin and Ratatouille.

June 24, 2020 Lunch – PPI Pork Filling and Rice Donburi. Dinner – New Recipe, n Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Pork Tenderloin and Ratatouille.

The theme of the day. Everything is better wrapped in Bacon.

I ate the PPI diced melon with yogurt for breakfast as I worked on my brief and helped the plumbers locate a leak in the house.

Unfortunately, the leak was located under the pad where the old dead swamp cooler was located so we will need to wait a few days t allow the ground to dry before the new swamp cooler is placed so it will not sink into the mud, which is probably what happened to the old swamp cooler, because it was completely rusted out on the bottom where it had sunk into the mud.  I am thrilled that Joe and Brian to find the leak.  I took them all morning as they turned off different sections of water and checked under the house for the leak.

I was hungry again by 11:00.  I asked Suzette if she was hungry and she said,”Yes! I am famished.”

So we went to the kitchen.  The best leftover was the last 1/3 of my plate of chicken tacos from last night.  I suggested Suzette eat that.

I was looking at the container of stir fried pork filling mixed with green beans and green onions and wondering if I could add eggs and make egg foo young.

I found the recipe for soft omelettes in the Japanese Cookbook.

Here it is.

I decided to try it and tried to proportion the recipe for two eggs.  I measured ½ cup of the chicken stock we made yesterday and added 1 T. of soy and mirin and 1 tsp. of sesame oil in the mix and 1 tsp. of sesame oil in the wok.

I then stirred two eggs and added them to the liquid.

I heated the pork mix in the wok and then added the liquid to the wok.

There was no firmness and I had to flip and cook the mix until the liquid evaporated, which took about ten minutes.  The result was not as firm as egg foo young and the eggs did not hold together and puff up like in a pot of soup.  But it tasted delicious.

I joined Suzette outside by the pond and ate the whole delicious loose pile of rice, pork, and egg. It made me feel better.

After lunch that many of my stocks had hit the stop sell target including Apple in the 710 drop in the Dow.  I rebought Apple and then finished the first draft of the brief.

I felt free and called Tom Crow and he was in the office, soo grabbed the check and the bottle of Calvados and  drove to the bank and then to Tom’s office.  We had a great hourlong talk after I gave him the Calvados.

As I left Tom’s I called Gruet and Matt told me they had my allotment of wines, so I drove there next. Matt brought the box of wine to the car.  Here are the six bottles.

I then drove to Costco and picked up my prescription and at 4:15 arrived home.

I reworked the brief outline and sent it back to Carolyn and was mixing a gin and tonic when Suzette arrived at 5:15 from her errands.

We had discussed our dinner menu in the morning and had agreed to thaw the pork tenderloin in the freezer.

We decided to butterfly the pork tender and fill it.  Suzette wanted to fill with onion and Apple. I wanted a fruit so we added both.  Suzette rehydrated 1/3 cup cranraisins and I chopped ½ apple and 1/3 onion.

Suzette sautéed the filling and stuffed the opening in the tender and wrapped the tender with three
slices of bacon that she affixed with toothpicks.  She then sautéed the tender in a skillet to crisper the bacon.

Then she baked the tender in the oven for about 15 minutes in a 375 degree oven, which left the center pink and heated the casserole of Ratatouille.

We decided to drink a French Rose to complete the Southern France character of the meal, so I opened the bottle of 2018 Cotes du Provence St. Sagnol I had chilled.

I sliced the tender and Suzette lay several slices on a pile of warm Ratatouille.  We decided to not add a green vegetable and enjoyed a lovely Mediterranean French meal.

We fell like we were sitting in France as we sipped the chilled rose.

Another heavenly meal.

To celebrate I opened a new bottle of Berenroy XO Calvados and sipped a glass after dinner with a cup of chai and two of the new Biscotti baked by the chefs at her Center for Ageless Living.

What a wonderful meal.

Bon Appetit

June 23, 2020 Lunch – 2000 Vietnam No. 21, Dinner – Chicken and Black Bean Open faced Tacos.

June 23, 2020 Lunch – 2000 Vietnam No. 21,  Dinner – Chicken and Black Bean Open faced Tacos.

I ate tropical Fruit Salad, yogurt, and granola for breakfast as I watched the Market surge up further today.  The Dow ended up 131 points and my portfolio was up over ½ %.  God Bless Apple.

At 8:00 I rode seven miles south without a sugar pill, so I appear to be gaining strength.

When I returned I worked until 1:00 and then ordered a No. 21 from 2000 Vietnam, so I would not need to cook lunch.

I dropped off books and picked up next month’s book club selection at the library and then drove to 2000 Vietnam to pick up lunch.

I arrived home at 1:45 and watched the Market close as I ate lunch.

Then I worked until 5:15 on my brief when Suzette arrived.

I hope to finish by tomorrow.

We watched the news for a bit and Suzette ate the bit of lunch I did not eat.  But she had not eaten any lunch, so she was ready to cook dinner.   Suzette brought home a bag of corn chips so I made guacamole with the two large ripe avocados, 1/3 cup of diced onion, two cloves of garlic, ¼ cup chopped cilantro, juice of ½ lime, five drops of Cholula hot sauce and 1/2 tsp. of salt.

Suzette chop onion and garlic and I deboned and chopped one thigh that we had boiled yesterday.p and some lettuce.

Suzette opened a can of black beans and drained them in a colander.

She then sautéed the black beans and onion and garlic and added a chopped up Hoja Santa leaf.  She then added the chicken and steamed five corn tortillas wrapped in a wet paper towel in the microwave and fetched two Negra Modelos from the garage and in just a few minutes after we organized the ingredients our dinner was ready.

The finished taco filling

I lay  three tortillas on my plate.  Suzette lay two tortillas on her plate.  We then spooned chicken and black bean mixture onto the tortillas and garnished them with chopped lettuce and guacamole.

We watched Rachel and a Toni Morrison American Experience.  Suzette taught me how to set up a Zoom meeting and I invited my book club to the meeting for Thursday afternoon.

We watched Trevor Noah at 9:00 and then suzette went to bed and I blogged.

Bon Appetit

June 22, 2020 Lunch – New Recipe - StirFried Rice with Ground BBQ Pork, Green Beans and Green Onions. Dinner – Baked Tarragon, Lemon, and Garlic Flavored Chicken Thighs with Steamed Asparagus and New Recipe – Candied Sautéed Sweet Potatoes

June 22, 2020 Lunch – New Recipe - StirFried Rice with Ground BBQ Pork, Green  Beans and Green Onions. Dinner – Baked Tarragon, Lemon, and Garlic Flavored Chicken Thighs with Steamed Asparagus and New Recipe – Candied Sautéed Sweet Potatoes

This was a very productive day with two new recipes. I edited more than ½ of the brief and cooked a weird lunch.  I ate tropical fruit salad, yogurt, and granola for breakfast.  At 12:30 I stir fried the PPI BBQ Pork Suzette made to stuff dumplings yesterday with PPI rice, and a handful of green beans and two sliced green onions and three mushrooms sliced to use up lots of PPIs.

The market went through several up and down gyrations today but ended up 154 points on the Dow and my portfolio rose a very respectable 1% helped by an upgrade of Apple and Square. The market has been in a holding pattern for the last week.  I did not know if it was poised to go up or down, so it is refreshing to see it move up.

I started work at 7:00 and quit work at 3:45 when I could no longer concentrate and lay down and read and napped until Suzette arrived at 5:30 with a bag of sweet potatoes from her garden in Los Lunas.

I wanted to bake the six chicken thighs but we decided to bake four and boil the other two in a mirepoix.  I went to the garden and picked tarragon and garlic and celery for the boiled chicken.

When I returned Suzette had started a boiling pot filled with water , the chicken thighs, celery, onion, and celery.  I went to the garage and fetched a carrot and a bottle of Adelina Verdejo from Spain.  I peeled the carrot and diced it and added it to the pot of chicken to complete the mirepoix.

I then sliced a small head of garlic into slices and stuffed garlic slices, a slice of lemon and sprigs of tarragon under the skin of each of the four chicken thighs Suzette has placed in a Pyrex baking dish.  I then squeezed lemon juice over each thigh and placed the baking dish in the oven set at 375degrees in which Suzette was baking the sweet potatoes.

After 45 minutes Suzette removed the sweet potatoes from the oven.

We turned the heat down to 350 degrees and baked the chicken for a total time of 1 hour and 10
minutes until 7:00 p.m.

We poured out the last of the bottle of Chateau Touch cotes du Gascogne and added ice but it still had a bitter taste from being partially oxidized, so I fetched the bottle of creme de cassis and poured a few drops into each glass.  This miraculously made the wine slightly sweet and drinkable.

New Recipe Sautéed caramelized Sweet Potatoes.

Although this is a new recipe for me Suzette tells me it is an old Pennsylvania Dutch recipe her mother often cooked.  Suzette cut the sweet potatoes in half and sautéed  them in butter in a skillet large enough to hold them. After she browned them on one side she flipped the sweet potatoes and sprinkled sugar on the tops and sautéed the other side and then flipped them again to caramelize the brown sugar.

I snapped the tough ends off 14 asparagus and put them into the steamer with water.  With 10 minutes of cooking time left on the chicken,  Suzette turned on the heat to steam the asparagus.


At 7:00 we were ready to eat.

I opened the Spanish Adelina Verdejo ($4.99 at Trader Joe’s) and poured glasses, while Suzette plated each plate with a thigh, some sweet potatoes, and seven asparagus.

It was hot, so we ate inside as we watched the Antiques Roadshow, which we found a welcome relief from the terrible news these days.

We both agreed that the dinner was terrific and very French, a beautifully flavored lemon, tarragon, and garlic roasted chicken thigh, an exciting new candied sweet potato dish, and perfectly steamed asparagus.  I cut the remaining ½ lemon in half and placed a wedge of lemon on each plate, so we could squeeze lemon juice on our chicken to further flavor it as was done at Restaurant Le Republique in Bourg en Brest, France when we ate there with Mother and Billy in 2000.

After dinner I sipped the last of a bottle of Calvados Berenroy XO.

Later each of us ate a small bowl of blueberry cobbler with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a perfect ending to a terrific meal.

Bon Appetit

June 21, 2020 Father’s Day. Breakfast – Tropical Fruit Salad with yogurt. Brunch – Chinese Dumplings, dipping sauce, melon salad, and Japanese Pickled Vegetables and Blueberry Cobbler and Chocolate Chip Cookies

June 21, 2020 Father’s Day. Breakfast – Tropical Fruit Salad with yogurt. Brunch – Chinese Dumplings, dipping sauce, melon salad, and Japanese Pickled Vegetables and Blueberry Cobbler and Chocolate Chip Cookies

This was a rather busy Father’s Day. When I awakened around 7:30 I made a new bowl of Tropical fruit Salad by peeling and dicing a papaya, a pineapple, two mangoes, and four oranges and adding the juice of two limes.  While I was making my salad Suzette was making the dough for Chinese dumplings.  The impetus for making dumplings was the disastrous overcooking of several country style ribs this week.  Suzette ground the meat up in the Cuisinart with water chestnuts, Mirin, and chives.  She also made a seafood stuffing with scallops, Mirin, water chestnuts and chives.

Suzette also made a dipping sauce with Mirin, sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce to which I added a few drops of sriracha.

We were able to made a few dumplings by 10:00 when we stopped to Zoom with Rebecca, Willy, Billy and Elaine.  We h ad received a call from Luke at 9:30 wishing me a happy Father’s Day because he had a noon appointment.

After the meeting we watched a couple of noodle wrapping videos and then tried out hands at them.  We set up a production line with Suzette forming and rolling out the round sheets of dough and me stuffing them and folding the dough wrappers.

We had a couple of false starts like not greasing the steamer rack in one of our steamers, but then we cut a sheet of parchment paper and fitted it to a steamer tray and steamed the dumplings in our steaming oven, which worked perfectly.  I liked the Dumplings sautéed in peanut oil. Suzette liked them steamed.

Willy arrived around 1:00 and we steamed the rest of the 30 or so dumplings we made.  Here are some pictures.

I peeled and diced ¼ each of the three Mellon’s we bought last weekend at Sprouts.

I opened a bottle of Chateau Touche Cotes du Gasgnone white and poured glasses and took the Japanese Pickled Vegetables from the fridge and we carried those to the garden table.  Suzette first sautéed the pork filled dumplings and then the scallop filled dumplings.  We loved them all, but decided it was not worth the effort.  Suzette said, “Dumpling restaurants must have automatic machines to prepare and shape the dough and make the dumplings because this is a lot of work.”

We were so stuffed we could not eat dinner but we made two desserts.  I diced a mango and Suzette made a mango and blueberry jiffy cobbler and I made chocolate chip cookies.

We watched our favorite Sunday shows, Grantchester and Beecham House and ate bowls of cobbler and vanilla ice cream for dinner.

Suzette went to bed at 10:00 and I stayed up to blog.

Bon Appetit