November 29, 2020 A McDonald’s Sausage and egg biscuit Lunch – a Chicken Salad Sandwich Abe a bowl of Turkey Stew. Dinner – Sashimi with sliced cucumbers and avocado

 November 29, 2020  A McDonald’s Sausage and egg biscuit  Lunch – a Chicken Salad Sandwich Abe a bowl of Turkey Stew. Dinner – Sashimi with sliced cucumbers and avocado

This was a rather odd day of food.  We awakened at 5:45 to go get a tree at Home Depot.  When we arrived at 6:30 we discovered that they did not open until 7:00 on Sundays.  Suzette wanted to get a cup of coffee so we drove to the McDonald’s across Montano from Renaissance Center.  Suzette ordered a coffee and I ordered an orange juice and a sausage and egg biscuit and we returned to  Home Depot. We ate our breakfast and then st 8 minutes until 7:00 Suzette got in line and I waited in the Highlander.

In about15 Minutes Suzette called and I drove the Highlander to the entrance where they loaded the tree into the Highlander and we drove home.

I watched the news shows and soccer until 10:30 when unloaded the tree and hammered the base onto the tree.  We carried the tree into the living room and set it up and removed the plastic mesh it was packed in.  It was a noble fir and smelled wonderful.

At 11:00 I flipped the salmon curing into Gravad Lax and Suzette made us chicken salad sandwiches on French baguette with the last of the chicken salad.

Then at 1:00 I heated a bowl of turkey stew Suzette made in 2018 that I recently thawed.  It was delicious even though the rivulets were a little soggy after being frozen for two years.

Suzette walked around the lakes and I rode 5 miles this afternoon and then I rested until 4:00 while Suzette hung lights on the tree. 

As soon as I showered and dressed Suzette appeared at the door and said, “I’m hungry.”

We decided that we needed to eat the tuna and salmon I bought Friday.  Suzette agreed to eat Sashimi and helped me prepare dinner. While I started boiling rice with some seaweed, Suzette thawed four sea scallops.  While sliced the tuna steak, 2 scallops and salmon tail pieces. Suzette chopped and sautéed the other two Scallop and sliced an avocado and ½ cucumber into thin slices and heated a pitcher of sake.

We fetched the pickled ginger, soy sauce, and wasabi sauce.  Suzette added the PPI Steamed Green Beans and some of the pickled beets she made yesterday and I made a cup of green tea.

                                                       Suzette’s sautéed scallops

 The full plate 

 

The sushi rice with seaweed

 

Soon we were eating the Sashimi and Suzette ate her sautéed scallops.

We watched Sixty Minutes and then an episode of The Great British Baking Show and then went to bed.  I blogged in bed until 11:00 when I got up and removed the cured salmon from the curing medium, Asher the pieces and dried them and wrapped them in Saran, bagged them and put them in the fridge.  I tasted it and the addition of grappa seems to have darkened the flavor and the 36 hour cure seemed to make it  firmer.

 

Finally around midnight I turned out the light and went to bed. 

Bon Appetit 

November 28, 2020 Preparing Gravad Lax Brunch – Gravad Lax on French baguette with cream cheese, red onion slices, and capers. Dinner – Turkey Pot Pie with Steamed Green Beans

 November 28, 2020 Preparing Gravad Lax  Brunch – Gravad Lax on French baguette with cream cheese, red onion slices, and capers. Dinner – Turkey Pot Pie with Steamed Green Beans 

I slept in a bit today and then watched some PL soccer. The best game of the day was Leeds against Everton, which Leeds won.

At 10:00 I toasted two pieces of French bread , smeared them with cream cheese, lay slices of Gravad Lax on them and garnished with capers.  

I then made a new batch of Gravad Lax. I mixed 1 cup of salt, ¾ cup of sugar, and 1 tsp. of freshly ground black pepper.  I then lay a layer of fresh dill fronds on the bottom of the 9 x 9 baking dish.  I then sprinkled the outer skin side with the dry mixture.  Then I lay the skin side of one fillet on the dill skin side down and then spooned mix onto the exposed inside, then added a layer of dill.  I then spooned mix onto the inside of the other fillet and lay the inside on top of the dill on the first fillet. Finally, I spooned the rest of the mix on top of the skin of the top fillet and lay dill on top and then lay Saran over the dish and placed a concrete brick on top and put it in the fridge to cure. 

I had tea and a pecan dream and chocolate chip cookie at 2:30 and we walked in the Bosque to the two lakes.

When we returned Suzette she wanted to make a turkey pot pie.  She made her now famous pastry dough and lay it in a pie pan and crimped the edges.  She then made more gravy and added that with some of the 

PPI  beets and sweet potatoes and turkey and frozen corn and lay a crust on top and decorated the top with leaves made from leftover pastry dough. I snapped about ½ lb. of green beans and put them in the steamer with water and when the pot pie was 10 minutes from being fully baked I turned on the heat to steam the green beans.  When everything was ready Willy came for dinner. Suzette cut slices of turkey pot pie and garnished the plate with green beans and we ate some PPI  cranberry sauce with the pot pie.

I opened a bottle of 2017 Martini Cabernet Sauvignon. Its fruitiness was delicious with the pot pie.

 

We watched an episode of The Great British Baking Show after dinner and then went to bed.

Bon Appetit

November 27, 2020 Brunch – New Recipe – Sausage, onion, egg and cheese omelet flour tortilla taco with guacamole. Dinner – Poached Salmon with Mashed Potatoes and Creamed Spinach

 November 27, 2020 Brunch – New Recipe – Sausage, onion, egg and cheese omelet flour tortilla taco with guacamole. Dinner – Poached Salmon with Mashed Potatoes and Creamed Spinach

Another interesting day of food. We usually eat PPI’s every other day, so this was an anything besides turkey  day.

At 10:00 I decided to make a sort of burrito , but it turned into a three egg omelet of onion, sausage, egg and cheddar cheese that I was able t flip and brown on both sides, which made it easy to cut.  I cut it in half and each half perfectly fit into a toasted flour tortilla folded around the 1/2..  I garnished the top with Cholula and guacamole and ate it with a knife and fork with a cup of camomile tea.  Suzette ate her ½ in a toasted tortilla, but like a sandwich held in her hand. I count this as a new recipe because of the use of a legitimate French omelet as the filling for a flour tortilla, a much more elegant and stiff dish. This burrito reminds me of my favorite that we had in San Diego once where we ate a chili relleno burrito that similarly wrapped a toasted flour tortilla around a fried chili relleno.

      

We worked after brunch until 2:30 when I drank a cup of tea and a pecan dream and a chocolate chocolate chip cookie.  

 At 3:30 the mail arrived, bringing the rent check from Ultra Health.  I showered and dressed and took the 

check to the bank and then drove to Sprouts on Coors to do some shopping because Jody told me to drive the Prius and because the new Sprouts is my favorite grocery store and we needed a fresh green vegetable for dinner.  

I first went to the meat counter and saw both fresh Salmon, Italian sausages, and tuna were on sale, so I bought a tuna steak, a salmon fillet and four Italian sweet sausages.  Then I went looking for green vegetables and bought 2 bunches of lovely thick asparagus, a bag of fresh green beans, 4 beautiful hot 

  house tomatoes, and a bunch of spinach to make my favorite salmon dish, poached salmon with spinach in cream sauce made with the poaching liquid.  

 I then saw that there were large bunches of dill weed, so I decided that since salmon was on sale if I bought another salmon fillet I could make three meals with salmon: Poached Salmon, Gravad Lax, and Sashimi with fresh tuna, salmon, and thawed scallops. I then picked up a container of plain yogurt and then went back to the meat counter and picked up another salmon fillet for a great day of food shopping with lots of fresh fish and vegetables.

 When I returned home around 5:15 I cut two salmon fillets to fit a 9 x 9 inch Pyrex baking dish, two nice fillets for dinner and bagged the two tails for Sashimi. 

Suzette took over in the kitchen and made a poaching medium with water, white wine, garlic, and butter and poached the salmon.  While the salmon was cooking she de-stemmed and rinsed and spun the spinach 

and then made a roux with butter and flour.   

She removed the salmon from the deep sided skillet she poached them in and added enough roux to create a cream sauce plus some milk and Amontillado sherry.  I poured glasses of rose from Provence and Suzette re-heated the PPI mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

  

 

We skinned the poached salmon fillets to eliminate the scales.  Then Suzette spooned a small pile of mashed potatoes into the center of a pasta bowl.  Then we arranged the poached salmon fillets on top of the potatoes and Suzette spooned the Creamed Spinach on top of the salmon.  Suzette’s favorite condiment to eat with salmon is cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving, so we put out a molded cone of cranberry sauce.  Since we had an open ½ bottle of French rose from Provence we poured out that and had a rather pink meal 

After the meal we watched the Great British Baking Show and since the show was devoted to chocolate, we opened the box of Belgium chocolates Suzette bought at Costco last week and I poured each of us a sniffer of cognaWe savored the lovely decorated fresh chocolates as we watched the bakers baking and decorating with chocolate.

Bon Appetit

November 26, 2020 Thanksgiving Supper

  November 26, 2020  Thanksgiving Supper 

We started prepping around 9:00. Suzette peeled the five beets and cubed them.  We divided them into two Pyrex baking dishes.  I then peeled two sweet potatoes and cubed them and added them to the Pyrex baking dish with fewer beets.  Suzette Baked both dishes of beets.  The mixed one we served for a thanksgiving Supper.  The other one Suzette put in a jar in the fridge to pickle tomorrow for pickled beets. When they were roasted Suzette removed the dishes and covered them with aluminum foil.

Then I diced an onion four or five stalks of celery while Suzette chopped bread for the stuffing.  Then she chopped pecans in the Cuisinart and I chopped a 6 oz. jar of oysters and went to the garden to pick thyme for the oyster and pecan dressing.  There was not enough thyme outside so I stripped leaves from several sprigs of frozen thyme we had harvested and froze a month ago. She then sautéed the celery, onion, and pecans in butter.  When they were cooked Suzette added butter and eggs to the vegetables and bread and mixed them with her hands in a large bowl.  She then segregated some of the dressing into a smaller bowl and added the chopped oysters and thyme and mixed those ingredients together. 

While Suzette was making the dressing I opened and cleaned the turkey and quartered the liver and heart and put them into a 2 quart sauce pan with the neck, a peeled and sliced carrot, the remaining pieces of celery, and 3 oz. of onion and water to boil to make a broth for the gravy.

Suzette then stuffed the stomach cavity with the plain dressing and the neck cavity with the oyster dressing.  We then trussed and closed each cavity with string and put the turkey into an oven bag Suzette had dusted with flour.  We then sealed the bag and placed the turkey into a large roasting pan and put the 15 lb. turkey into a 350 degree oven for 3 hours.

We zoomed with Suzette’s brother, Jeff, and sister, Jean, at 11:00.     

We were hungry and I prepared a bowl of granola, tropical fruit salad and yogurt for myself and fruit salad and yogurt for Suzette at noon.

Then we both took showers and dressed.

Suzette then snapped a dozen large asparagus and drizzled them with olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper and placed them in s Pyrex baking dish.

Willy arrived at 1:30 and we went to the garden and worked together to start a fire in the Ceramic 

Mexican fireplace and I poured Rivero Reserva Spanish Tempranillo (Costco $7.99) for Willy and Albrecht 2018 Pinot Gris (Total Wine $17.99) for Suzette and me.  Willy and Suzette set the table in the gazebo.

Then we returned to the kitchen and Suzette put the asparagus into the oven and removed the turkey from 

the oven and made a roux with butter and flour for the gravy in a sauce pan.  We then slit the oven bag and drained the liquid from the turkey into the roux to which Suzette added additional goblet broth that had been cooking since 10:30 to make the gravy.

While Suzette was making the gravy, I carved the turkey and removed the dressing from the cavities.  The oyster went into a medium soufflé dish and the regular dressing went into a large soufflé dish.

The turkey was incredibly tender.  I carved the thigh for dark meat for Suzette and me and four or five slices of breast white meat for Willy.

Suzette took the Asparagus out of the oven after ten minutes at 350 degrees and poured the gravy into a 2 cup Pyrex measuring pitcher and we were ready to serve ourselves buffet style from the kitchen counter and cutting board were the sliced turkey lay.

 

  

 

We filled our plates and carried them to the garden and ate in the sunlight by the fire.

 

 

Suzette took binoculars in hopes of seeing some birds and she was not disappointed. Toward the end of the meal a pair of flickers flew into out Dutch Elm tree and hopped along a couple of limbs looking for food I suspect.

  It was a lovely meal and we all took seconds.  

After the meal at 3:00 we zoomed with my family, Rita Holzweig, Bill and Elaine in Dallas, Luke in upstate New York, Rebecca and Mickie in NYC, and Willie on the hammock in the back yard in the afternoon sun.

When we finished zooming at 4:00 we took a ¾ mile walk in the neighborhood and when we returned at 4:30 I cut the meat off the turkey and bones and put the bones and carcass into a stock pot to which Suzette added water and the remaining turkey broth.

Willy took a couple of Pecan Dream tarts Suzette had made and said goodbye and went to my office and meditated with my zen group from 5:00 until 5:30 by Zoom.

By 6:00 we were full and tired from our day of cooking so we sat and watched TV and cleaned the kitchen. I watched the Washington v. Dallas game until it became apparent that Washington would win.

We decided to watch episode three of the Great British Baking Show.

Suzette made us a dessert of a pecan dream placed on top of a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  

When the baking show episode ended around 7:15 Suzette went to read a boo and I to blog.

After a day of cooking we were satisfied with our effort and the massive amount of PPIs we had for future meals.

We have developed a way of working together to create Thanksgiving supper with a minimum of effort so the cooking is enjoyable although it consumes 4 to 5 hours.

Bon Appetit

November 25, 2020 Lunch – Chicken Noodle Soup. Dinner – Chicken Salad Salad with Cheese Sandwiches and Chicken Salad Sandwich

 November 25, 2020 Lunch – Chicken Noodle Soup. Dinner – Chicken Salad Salad with Cheese Sandwiches and Chicken Salad Sandwich 

I got an earlier start today.  I ate a bowl of granola, tropical fruit salad and yogurt. 

Loyda came around 10:30 and by 11:30 I was hungry so made 

Chicken noodle soup

I used the broth we made last night from the carcass of the roasted chicken.  I removed the accumulated grease and bones and added a bit of water to fill a 2 quart pot 2/3 full of liquid.  Then I chopped and added a stalk of celery, 3 oz. of onion, three mushrooms  sliced, five leaves of Napa cabbage sliced, a small bunch of taka Choy, about 1 tsp.of dehydrated chicken stock, about 2 oz.of diced chicken, and a heaping T. of white miso.

When the pot came to a boil I added a bunch of fresh egg white noodles bought at Talin.

In about twenty minutes the vegetables had cooked and I ate the two bowls of soup.

I watched the Market close and was surprised that Moderna was up more than $14.00 and Apple was up almost $1.00. This drove my portfolio about ½% higher to almost its all time high.

  I have a lot to be thankful for.

.I rested after lunch for about an hour and then at 4:00 rode my bike four miles south.

When I returned John Myers was walking by so I said hello.  He suffers from Parkinson’s and has stopped riding a touring bike, but told me he has purchased a three wheel bike, so perhaps he can now ride.

I made a hot buttered rum and at 5:30 when Suzette had not yet come home I began to make chicken 

salad.  Soon Suzette arrived and helped make the salad by peeling the four eggs I had hard boiled.  I minced ½ onion, three stalks of celery, 1 chicken breast, and the Granny smith apple. Suzette looked up a recipe that called for a dressing of mayo and lemon juice. Suzette wanted to add sour cream to the dressing and I wanted to add tarragon.  

I went to the garage and fetched two lemons and the Romaine lettuce and then went to the garden and was 

lucky to find a handful of still green tarragon sprigs.

When I returned to the house I plucked the tarragon leaves from the stalks and added them to the bowls of ingredients I had prepared.  Suzette then made the dressing with 1 cup of mayo and 2 T. of sour cream and I squeezed and stirred in the juice of one lemon.  I added the dressing to the salad.  It was too dry and stiff for me so I added some more mayo and another T. of sour cream.  Suzette tasted it and approved of it. I tore lettuce to make a salad and peeled and seeded and sliced ¼ cucumber and spooned on 1 cup of  

.chicken salad and drizzled it with olive oil to finish my salad.

I toasted three small slices of French bread and covered them with slices of Jarlsberg cheese and microwaved them for 22 seconds to melt the cheese. Voila, an instant dinner fit for a king who is eating a heart healthy diet.

   Suzette wanted a sandwich so she went to the garage and fetched the two packages of hamburger buns I had bought for the turkey dressing.  She toasted two halves of a bun and spooned chicken salad on ½ and lay lettuce on the other side to make a big chicken salad sandwich that she devoured before I could get a picture.  

I drank the last of the French Bordeaux and Suzette drank a glass of Crayon rose from Provence. We watched the news and Nature and then a wonderful Nova documentary on the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after the 2019 fire.

 Tonight’s meal was not exactly a meal out of nothing because we had saved the chicken breasts from last night’s meals, but the two divergent menus appeared out of thin air when I decided to make chicken salad. 

 I ate one chocolate chip cookie with a cup of Earl Grey tea and a glass of my homemade raspberry flavored vodka after dinner.

 We went to bed at 10:00. Suzette to sleep and I to blog.

Bon Appetit

November 24, 2020 Lunch – PPI Fish and Chicken Noodle and Rice Soup Dinner – Tandoori Roasted Chicken with Sautéed Asparagus, cherry tomatoes , Shallot, and Pinon Nuts

 November 24, 2020 Lunch – PPI Fish and Chicken Noodle and Rice Soup Dinner – Tandoori Roasted Chicken with Sautéed Asparagus, cherry tomatoes, Shallot, and Pinon Nuts

I slept until 8:00. When I turned on the TV everything in the Market was moving up.  By the end of the day at 2:00 the Dow had set an all time high of breaking through $30,000 and my portfolio rose 1 ½ % to within 1 %  of my portfolio’s all time high.

I spent the morning with a bowl of granola, fruit salad and yogurt re-filing the pleadings I tried to file yesterday and learned two new skills I did not previously know, one technical and one procedural.  The technical one was how to compress a file.  There is a free app at smallpdf.com that compresses your file for you.  The procedural lesson learned was how the court clerk requires one to package a pleading.  With the guidance of the clerk and Aaron’s assistance in merging several documents into one package behind a lead document I was able to file the 14 documents in three packages that were accepted for filing.

This took until lunch so at 1:20 I heated the PPI Fish and Chicken Noodle and Rice Soup and ate as the market closed.

This was also a great day for America.  Biden introduced his picks for his National Security team state Department and Kerry as his Climate envoy. 

I could not be happier.  The market seemed to respond positively.

I worked until 4:30 when Suzette arrived and then prepped the chicken she brought home from Costco this morning by dusting it with Tandoori seasoning and impaling it on the Spandex vertical cooking rack in a Pyrex 9 X 9 inch baking dish filled to ½ inch with water.

At 5:00 I left the roasting to Suzette and took a ¾ mile walk around the neighborhood. Suzette roasted the chicken for 15 minutes at 425 degrees and then 1 hour 45 minutes at 350 degrees. The chicken was mostly done except there was some redness in the inner thighs, so I cut the hind quarters off and Suzette microwaved the for 2 minutes to completely cook them.

 

  

  Sautéed Asparagus, cherry tomatoes , Shallot, and Pinon Nuts

We cooked another amazing tomato dish.  Tonight Suzette halved about 1 lb. of the ripened cherry tomatoes from our garden plus about seven stalks of asparagus chopped into ½ inch pieces, a medium shallot minced, and a handful of pinon nuts and sautéed those ingredients in a large cast iron skillet in butter and olive oil. As the ingredients sautéed I added six or seven of the oven dried tomatoes we prepared a few days ago.  The result was very delicious and a lovely way to celebrate the end of our harvest.

 

  

 

I opened a bottle of white Bordeaux that went well with the chicken. 

After dinner Suzette made more Pecan Dream tarts for dessert for the Thanksgiving meal at the Center, while I re-watched the episode of Finding Your Roots that traced the family trees of Larry David and Bernie Sanders.  They were almost 100;% Ashkenazi Jews with roots in Poland (Galicia) and Prussia (East Germany) and the big surprise at the end was that they shared enough DNA to be cousins.  

At 8:00 we watched another episode of The British Baking Show and went to bed at 10:00.  Suzette to sleep and I to blog.

Suzette made a grocery run this morning to Costco and purchased lots of cheeses, sausage, Belgium chocolates, mushrooms, butter, peanut butter and chocolate kisses for a cookie she wants to make, cream, and several other items we needed and some extravagances.

Bon Appetit

November 23, 2020 Lunch – PPI Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup Dinner – PPI Tomato, Leek, and Goat Cheese Tart

 November 23, 2020 Lunch – PPI Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup  Dinner – PPI Tomato, Leek, and Goat Cheese Tart

I had an upset stomach so skipped breakfast and ate 1 ½ bowls of PPI Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup with the addition of the PPI stir fried fish and vegetables and rice.

I then worked until 4:50 when Suzette came home.

She had eaten meatloaf for lunch so was not very hungry.  I opened a container of Boursin shallot flavored cheese spread with crackers and dried olives and opened a bottle of Rivero Reserva Rioja red wine.

    

We did no want to cook, so I made a salad of lettuce, some of the dehydrated tomatoes Suzette made yesterday, cucumber, Baby corn, and pickled leeks, kind of a mixture of what we had in the fridge.  

I heated the last of the tomato, leek, and goat cheese tart and divided it between Suzette and me.  It was even more delicious tonight after the olive oil soaked into the crust.

It is the best tomato tart I have ever eaten.  The salad was plain dressed but clean and delicious with Cesar salad dressing.

   

   This was a great dinner. 

 I  heated a slice of banana nut bread spread with butter and orange marmalade and made a cup of Earl Grey with heated milk and called Dee Simpson and talked for an hour.

At 9:00 Suzette went to bed and I watched an American Master episode on N. Scott Momaday. 

   I have seen it before and love it, so a short blog today.

Bon Appetit

 

November 22, 2020 Lunch – Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup Dinner – Stir Fried Rice with Yellowtail, Mushrooms, Taka Choy, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby corn, and onion

 November 22, 2020 Lunch – Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup  Dinner – Stir Fried Rice with Yellowtail, Mushrooms, Taka Choy, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, baby corn, and onion

I awakened at 6:30 and watched the news shows until 10:00. I then watched Leeds lose t Arsenal for a few minutes. Then I helped Suzette move items in the basement from the side she intended to paint the floor of.  

When I came upstairs I made Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup with the PPI chicken and broth and mirepoix plus a bundle os Savoy cabbage leaves sliced int bite-sized pieces, dehydrated chicken stock, a Pho seasoning cube, a medium shallot, four mushrooms sliced, four baby corn cobs sliced into ½ inch lengths, a heaping T. of white miso, and the remaining ¾ lb. of fresh fresh rice vermicelli in the three quart sauce pan filled to 2/3 with water.  As it turned out I should have used a four quart pan because as the noodles absorbed water and expanded, I had to keep adding water as we ate some noodles and stock. So after three bowls of noodles I ended up with almost as much noodle soup as there was after we ate out lunch.

After lunch I watched Liverpool trounce Leicester 3 -0 and then Zoomed for an hour with the family and talked to Willy for a while as he ate some of the tomato, leek, and goat cheese tart with a glass of Tavel and did his laundry.

After Willy left and Suzette finished paying the invoices, she went to the kitchen and made four dozen of her favorite cookie, small pecan pies made in a small muffin cup. She made a pie dough, roasted and chopped pecans and made a brown sugar and cream cheese filling.  After pressing a ball of dough into each small muffin holder she smoothed the dough to fill the edges of the cup and then filled each with chopped pecans and filling and baked the cookie filled muffin tins until the pie crust turned golden brown.

While she was baking we decided to combine the two pieces of PPI sautéed yellow tail from last night’s fish in lettuce wrap dinner and the earlier PPI rice and stir fried beef and pork and vegetables to make make a new fish fried rice.  I sliced the last 1/8 of an onion, the last 4 oz. of white Beech Mushrooms, about ½ T. of ginger, four small cloves of garlic, and fetched a small can of bamboo shoots cut into strips, I diced the fish and separated the white stems of two bunches of taka Choy from the green leaves.

I also made a seasoning sauce by combining the Vietnamese fish sauce I made last night with about 1 T. of soy, 3 T. of Chinese Cooking wine, ¼ cup of water, 1 tsp. of sesame oil, and 1 T. of cornstarch.

As Suzette and I traded places in front of the stove as she baked her cookies, I stir fried the hard ingredients in my wok with 1 T. of peanut oil and 1 tsp. of sesame oil.

I then added the PPI rice and beef and vegetables and a little more peanut oil to help break up the congealed rice nodules.  After another couple of minutes I added the mushrooms and fish and then in another couple of minutes the green leaves of taka choy.

Finally , when the green leaves had wilted a bit I added the seasoning sauce and cooked the dish until the sauce thickened.

Suzette fetched two Modelo Especials from the garage and chop sticks and I served us each a plate of the fish fried rice.

We enjoyed the relatively light meal with the light Pilsner beer.  After dinner Suzette gave me a pecan pie tart to try.  It was delicious although a little dry.

I later ate two chocolate chip cookies  with a cup of tea.

It looks like we are officially getting into the Christmas spirit.  Suzette asked Willy to help put up our artificial Christmas tomorrow night when he returns for his clean clothes.

Bon Appetit

November 21, 2020 Brunch – Egg BLT Sandwiches Dinner – Two new Recipes Yellowtail in lettuce Wraps. And a Tomato, Leek, and Goat Cheese tart

 November 21, 2020 Brunch – Egg BLT Sandwiches  Dinner – Two new Recipes  Yellowtail in lettuce Wraps. And a Tomato, Leek, and Goat Cheese tart

Today was a busy day of activities and new and favorite foods.

I slept until after 8:00 and then showered.  When I was finishing my shower Suzette shouted , “breakfast is almost ready.”

I hurried into my clothes as I smelled bacon frying and when I arrived in the kitchen Suzette was finishing the assembly of BLT Sandwiches on toasted French baguette smeared with mayo with a wedge of scrambled egg, fried bacon, fresh sliced tomatoes from our garden, Romaine lettuce, and slices of avocado.  We picked all the tomatoes the day before the first big snow and Suzette has been ripening them in the window in the utility room for weeks.  Most of them have finally ripened so Suzette picked one of her favorite breakfasts that emphasizes tomatoes.

Last night I should have suspected a tomato dish for brunch, when Suzette mentioned making a Tomato, Leek, and Goat Cheese tart for dinner today.  I found an old Electrolux recipe.   Here it is.

H I worked from after brunch at 9:45 until 1:00  and then rested for a bit until 2:30 when Suzette called me to help hang Christmas decorations.

Suzette was vey active, making and decorating a board on which to hang the galvanized snowflakes we bought in Marfa, Texas last New Year’s and painting the basement floor.

After we hung the board and stars we took a 1 mile walk in the neighborhood.

Tomato, leek, and Goat Cheese Tart

When we returned I made gin and tonics for us and put a bottle of Tavel into the freezer to chill and we started dinner.  Suzette brought the box filled with ripened tomatoes to the kitchen and I sliced ten or twelve while Suzette made a pastry dough in the

I then sliced the white and light green portions of 2 ½ leeks that Suzette then sautéed until they changed 

color in olive oil.  She then rolled the dough out until it covered a large tart pan and pressed it into the pan and crimped the edges to cut off the excess dough.  Then she filled the pan with leeks, then tomato slices, and then crumbled goat cheese. Finally, she brushed the top with heavy cream. Here some pictures.

 

 

Sautéing the leek slices 

 

The finished tart ready for the oven 

 

 She placed the tart in the oven and baked it for 40 minutes.

 The finished tart  

  Yellowtail Lettuce Wraps

While the tart was cooking we made another new dish. I filleted a yellowtail steak we had bought at Talin a week ago that we thawed yesterday.  Suzette then sautéed it in the large skillet with olive oil and 

rosemary sprigs.  I fetched the Romaine lettuce from the garage and we

Laid several leaves of lettuce on dinner plates.  When the fish fillets were cooked Suzette lay them on the lettuce leaves.  

 

The sautéed yellowtail fillets

  

The finished dish 

 Suzette asked me to make a dipping sauce for the wraps. I mixed Aji Mirin, a dash of Rice vinegar, a tsp. of sugar, a dash of salt, a T. of fish sauce, some sweet chili sauce and water to try to replicate the Vietnamese fish sauce served by 2000 Vietnam and I think I got rather close.  I poured the sauce into small bowls for dipping and placed them on the table. I also opened a can of pickled leeks and sliced them into flat slices and garnished the fish fillets with them. 

I then opened and poured glasses of Tavel and Suzette placed the tart on a cake tray and brought it to the table where she cut slices of tart and placed them on our plates along side the lettuce leaves filled with fish and leeks.

 

We enjoyed the rich fish wrapped in a lettuce leaf and dipped into the fish sauce and the fresh tomato, leek, and goat cheese tart.  The wine was better with the tart than the fish so we ate several lettuce wraps and then dipped the wine with the tart.

This was a great meal of two distinctly different dishes that shared two characteristics; they were both unique dishes and they were both were made with incredibly fresh ingredients.  It is a joy to eat fresh ingredients.  I feel the wonderful feeling of the energy from the ingredients flowing into my body.  The tart was a perfect use of the ripened tomatoes, with fresh leeks, and goat cheese.

I felt comfortable but not full after a couple of fish wraps and two slices of tart.

After dinner we watched the first episode of season eight of the British Baking Show. They made a dessert wrapped in marzipan and I could not resist the urge to heat a Swedish marzipan wrapped dessert and eat it with a cup of tea.  After the baking show we watched our usual Saturday night shows on PBS and went to bed a bit after 9:00.

I awakened at 2:00 to blog this.

The wine was Tavel in name only. It did not have any vibrancy that is typical of low cost offerings of great appellations.  Tavel is the town on the west side of the Rhone River across the River from Chateauneuf du Pape in Cotes Du Rhone.  You can see from the label that Tavel blends the same grapes as Chateauneuf except it aims for a dark reddish rose like the Italian dark rosados.

All three of the dishes we prepared today were fabulous and will be repeated whenever there is availability of the proper ingredients. For example, I had bought premium smoked thick cut bacon at Sprouts that prompted Suzette to make the BLT.  It will be more difficult to find fresh ingredients during the winter, but we will try.

Bon Appetit