September 10, 2020 Lunch – PPI Vietnamese Shrimp, Fishball, and Fish Noodle Soup. Dinner – New Recipe - Steamed Duck Breasts with sautéed Butternut Squash and String Beans with toasted slivered almonds.

 September 10, 2020 Lunch – PPI Vietnamese Shrimp, Fishball, and Fish Noodle Soup. Dinner – New Recipe - Steamed Duck Breasts with sautéed Butternut Squash and String Beans with toasted slivered almonds.

Another day with a new creative super delicious dinner.  I ate my alternate breakfast of granola, milk, yogurt, and fresh blueberries and casaba melon as I watched history being made, as the 22year old Swiss rider, Mark Hirshi, won stage 11 by a minute.  He has now come 3rd once, second once, and won a stage in this year’s  Tour de France.  After the race, I worked for a while and then at 10:30 I walked ½ mile.

When I returned I heated the PPI noodle soup and added some water, some de-stemmed Chard, kale, and arugula from the garden and four more shrimp to extend and enhance the soup.  The water was needed because the noodles have a tendency to absorb liquid as they sit so I add liquid to return the soup to the proper liquid to noodle ratio.

The soup broth retained its wonderful fishy flavor.  I ate the remaining two bowls.

The glass installers came and replaced the broken windows and then I went to the bank.  When I returned at 4:00 I rested and napped until 4:54 and then meditated until 5:30 with our small four person zen group by Zoom.

Suzette came home at 5:00 and waited until we finished at 5:30 to start dinner.  Suzette had gone to Costco today and brought home haricot vert.  Tonight Suzette created the menu.  We had a butternut squash grown in Suzette’s garden at her Center for Ageless Living in Los Lunas that we had baked several days ago.  

I peeled, seeded, and cubed the butternut squash and then Suzette sautéed the cubes with chopped onion in butter and olive oil.

Suzette also sautéed the chopped string beans with slivered almonds in a separate skillet with butter.

Steamed Duck Breasts

The most interesting dish of the meal was the the steamed duck breasts.

Suzette rubbed the surfaces of four thawed duck breasts with herbs de Provence and then steamed them in the steamer oven.  The result was amazing.  The flesh was incredibly tender and the meat was pleasantly flavored with herbs de Provence.  

The combination of a Fall vegetable, the Squash, and the duck made me think of how in the fall the French roast and sauté chestnuts with duck.

It has that same feeling of a Fall dish.

 I suspected that the the dinner would be elegant, so I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of De Ponte 2016 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir.  It has a clean elegance that reminds me of an elegant French Burgundy.  We both thought the wine’s clean light flavor went perfectly with the tender duck meat.  I doubt we shall ever sauté or roast a duck breast or duck ever again.

After dinner we nibbled the last ½ wheel of Camembert cheese on fresh pita chips with the rest of the wine.

I ate a chocolate chip cookie with a cup of Earl Grey tea later.

Bon Appetit