August 15, 2020 Lunch – Bagel with Gravad Lax. Dinner – Grilled Eggplant Parmigiana with Three Cucumber and Red Onion Salad

 August 15, 2020 Lunch – Bagel with Gravad Lax. Dinner – Grilled Eggplant Parmigiana with Three Cucumber and Red Onion Salad

We cleaned the house a bit this morning and I helped carry empty bottles to Suzette’s vehicle to take to the recycler.

I then ate a breakfast of granola, blueberries, yogurt, and milk.

At 11:00 I was hungry so I toasted two slices of bagel, spread them with cream cheese and garnished them with red onion and Gravad lax slices.

At noon Scott came by for a visit and Suzette took pictures to Michael’s for framing and bottles for recycling.

I put out Italian olives and roasted peanuts and we sat outside under the trees in a light breeze.

The visit lasted until 4:00ish.  Suzette had arrived before Scott left so after he left we decided to cook dinner.  The menu was simple.  We wanted to use the two eggplants we grew in our garden and the fresh tomatoes Suzette brought home, grown in the garden at her center.  Suzette has also brought lots of cucumbers from her garden in Los Lunas that we planned to make into a cucumber and onion salad.  So a wonderful fresh vegetarian meal.

The first thing I did was prep the chunky tomato sauce Suzette wanted to put over the grilled eggplant slices to bake into the dish.  

I Chopped a sweet onion and five cloves of garlic, which Suzette began sautéing. I then sliced seven or eight portobello mushrooms, which were added to the sauce.  Then I diced six or seven tomatoes of varying degrees of freshness.  Suzette went to the garden and picked a basket full of basil leaves and I de-stemmed them and sliced them into thin strips and added about 1/3 cup of basil strips to the sauce.  Suzette simmered the sauce for twenty or thirty minutes during which she sliced the two eggplants into ½ inch slices and grilled them on our outdoor propane grill and I peeled, seeded, and diced the three different cucumbers. Here is a picture.

The sauce with mushrooms just added

Fresh basil from the garden

I then sliced and diced and added to the cucumbers about 4 oz. of red onion and 2 oz. of fresh mozzarella cubes.

Suzette dressed the salad with a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing.

After the eggplant slices were grilled, Suzette placed them in a 9 x 13 inch Pyrex baking dish alternating between each slice, a slice of fresh mozzarella.  She then spooned the chunky tomato sauce over the eggplant and mozzarella slices.  I then grated Parmesan cheese on top of the dish and Suzette baked the eggplant Parmigiana in the oven for another thirty minutes.  Willy arrived around 5:30 and we ate soon after in the patio under the awning due to the sudden fiercely blowing wind that often presages rain. 

.Suzette opened a bottle of Pizzania Chianti and I poured glasses and chillier them with ice.

Suzette put a pile of PPI spaghetti on each late and then several baked eggplant slices and a spoonful of two of the sticky tomato and mozzarella sauce.

We enjoyed a lovely meal, but within fifteen minutes after we finished and cleared the table and said goodnight to Willy, around 8:00 there was a cloudburst of rain.

We had seen the Father Brown episode re-run on TV so we watched The Lincoln Lawyer, a movie suggested by my cousin Audrey, who is 89 and living in an assisted living facility and still very alert.

We liked the movie very much and when it ended at 10:00 we went to bed.

Bon Appetit