November 7, 2020 Brunch – Tuna and Gravad Lax, Red Onion, and Goat Cheese Omelet. Dinner – Lobster Mac and Cheese and Caprese Salad.

 November 7, 2020 Brunch – Tuna and Gravad Lax, Red Onion, and Goat Cheese Omelet. Dinner – Lobster Mac and Cheese and Caprese Salad.

We had good reason to celebrate today. Biden was declared President-elect by the news media.  We were watching People out in the streets all over America celebrating on the TV.

Trump, as Bernie has so aptly stated, was playing golf.

We watched the news most of the morning. Around 10:00 Suzette started looking in our fridge for something that needed cooking and found a PPI piece of teriyaki tuna from dinner last week.  She suggested a tuna and Gravad Lax omelet, so I cubed the tuna and some Gravad Lax and some red onion.  

Suzette whisked several eggs and squeezed out a couple of oz. of California goat £0cheese bought at Costco and made the omelet.  Suzette made her weekly Bloody Mary and I drank Clamato with the juice of ½ lime.

IWe thawed out the 2 lb. bag of lobster claws I had bought at Costco and Suzette started looking for a recipe.  We settled on a recipe Suzette found for Lobster and Pumpkin MAC and Cheese.  We had all the ingredients except evaporated milk.

 After noon we drove to the Lamp Store near Central and Eubanks to take one of our lamps for repair and buy a dimmer switch for another lamp.

We then drove to Costco for gas and on our way Lomé stopped at Lowe’s and Suzette ran in and bought a can of evaporated milk, and a head of Romaine lettuce.

When we returned home I began watching football and was lucky enough to watch Texas best West Virginia and TCU beat Texas Tech, so another week that my schools scored a daily double.  But the best game of the week was No. 1 Clemson v. No. 4 Norte Dame.  It was tied 33 to 33 at the end of regulation and went to the second overtime period when Notre Dame stopped Clemson from scoring with two defensive sacks of Clemson’s quarterback. This rivalry will likely continue this year because both Clemson and Notre Dame are in the Atlantic Coast League and will likely play each other for the league championship, when Clemson’s main quarterback, Lawrence, who did not play today due to an injury, will be healthy and Clemson will be at full strength 

 We started cooking dinner at 5:00 because we had invited Willy for dinner at 6:00. Here is the recipe,

I removed the Lobster claw meat from its shell and cubed the meat.  Suzette made the cream sauce for the dish with the evaporated milk and boiled some cassarecce macaroni. She the mixed the marsacapone, cream sauce and 1 cup of grated Dubliner Irish cheddar cheese with the lobster and cooked macaroni and put it in a soufflé dish.  She then crushed about ½ cup of bread crumbs to which I added about 1/2 cup of micro-grated Parmesan cheese for the topping.

Suzette Baked the dish in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.  

 I fetched a bottle of Gruet Brut from the garage and placed it in the indoor fridge freezer to chilling we then made the Caprese Salad. Suzette fetched two ripened tomatoes from the table ripening in the utility room and sliced them and went to our covered raised bed where our basil plant was still growing and picked a handful of fresh basil leaves.  I sliced thin slices of red onion and separated and cut slices of fresh mozzarella in half and cut the tomato slices and onion slices in half. While I was doing that Suzette made a simple balsamic and olive oil dressing and tore leaves of Romaine lettuce and lay them on salad plates to create abed for the salad.  Suzette then composed the three salads by alternating layers of tomato, onion,   cheese, and basil leaf and dressed the salads.

 Near 6:00 Suzette reduced the oven heat so the Mac and cheese would stay warm but not dry out as we waited for Willy.  Willy arrived a bit after 6:00. In time to watch all Kampala Harris and Joe Biden address the nation.  After dinner and the addresses followed by a huge fireworks show Willy left and we watched an episode of the PBS series “Body and Soul” and the end of the Clemson v. Notre Dame game that extended over 30 minutes beyond its scheduled ending, which delayed the start of Saturday Night Live beyond its scheduled 9:30 start. In short we fell asleep and Suzette went to bed.  I awakened and watch some until 11:00 and then went to bed.

 We toasted the Biden victory and drank champagne with our Lobster Mac and cheese.  We did not find any pumpkin, so deleted that from the dish.  The frozen lobster lacked the salty richness of fresh lobster so the Mac and cheese was not as tasty as we thought it should be.  So it was a new recipe, but not a successful recipe.  On the other hand the Caprese Salad was fantastic.  The utility room ripened tomatoes were delicious.  I felt like we were enjoying the last breath of summer and I relished that feeling.  

The Gruet Brut was also wonderful.  The bottle had a gold label instead of a white label and I tasted a richer portion of Pinot Noir grape in the dosage.

All in all it was a very successful celebratory dinner, if not great. 

Bon Appetit