October 22, 2020 Lunch – PPI Vietnamese Shrimp and Fish cake Noodle soup. Dinner – Poached Salmon in a Garlic Cream Sauce with steamed asparagus and Penne Pasta

Today was odd and fun.  I slept until 9:00, which is a rarity.

I toasted two slices of a Trader Joe’s wheat bagel and spread them with cream cheese and garnished them with thin slices of onion and Gravad Lax and drank a cup of green tea with them.

At 11:15 I rode 7.5 miles north to Montano and then by the candy store to check the progress of the replacement of the driveway with curb and gutter.  The work had been done perfectly and the two workmen waiting for the concrete to dry said the City had inspected the work and approved it.

I rode home and at 1:00 heated the bowl of PPI Vietnamese Shrimp and sliced Fish cake Noodle Soup.  It was just as delicious today as yesterday, if not more so because I was hungrier

After lunch, I checked my portfolio and had a small .3% gain, mainly due to big increases in AT&T and American Electric Power with a bit of help from the vaccine makers, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and therapeutic treatment maker, Gilead, because the tech companies were still in the doldrums.  Still, a gain is better than a loss..

This market is like crossing rough waters where your boat is constantly being tossed up and down as you boat is lifted by the peak of each wave and then drops as the peak of passes.

There is lots of volatility but not much progress.

I worked some in the afternoon and at 4:00 thawed a salmon fillet.

Suzette came home at 6:00 and we decided to make an easy meal we like, 

Poached salmon, Penne pasta, and diced steamed Asparagus in a Garlic Cream Sauce 

Suzette made a poaching medium with ½ cup of white wine, a minced shallot, three oz. butter, and 1 cup of chicken stock.  She placed the partially thawed salmon filet in poaching medium in a deep skillet and covered the skillet with a wok cover to seal in most of the heat and steam.  

While the salmon was poaching Suzette made a roux with 2 T. each of flour and butter in a small sauce pan and cooked the roux several minutes to cook the flour.  

Suzette then removed the salmon filet from the skillet and scraped the roux into the poaching medium in the skillet.  She then stirred the sauce until it thickened and then added the remaining 1 cup of chicken stock, and then we added about ¼ cup of milk and 1 T. of Italian Marsala until the sauce obtained the consistency of thick cream.

Suzette then removed the skin from the filet and broke it up into approximately 1 inch chunks, I sliced the 15 steamed asparagus into 1 inch pieces and Suzette microwaved the last 1 ½ cups of PPI Penne pasta in the microwave and added it and the asparagus and salmon to the skillet filled with cream sauce and stirred to mix all the ingredients.

This one of my favorite one dish dinners, although it actually requires the use of the steamer to steam the asparagus, and a separate sauce pan to make the roux.

I opened the Chilled white Bordeaux in the fridge and within just a few minutes we were eating dinner and watching the preparation for the Presidential debate between Trump and Biden.

After the debate we watched some of the TV commentators discuss the debate until 9:00 when we watched Trevor Noah. 

Bon Appetit