August 4, 2021 Lunch - charcuterie Salad. Dinner party at Susan and Charlie’s

 August 4, 2021 Lunch - charcuterie Salad. Dinner party at Susan and Charlie’s

I ate granola, milk, blueberries, and yogurt for breakfast.  Then drove to the Center in Los Lunas to deliver a case of wine and a box of Edible New Mexico Magazine and then had a sound table treatment.  The sound table vibrates while a very new age audio tape played relaxing music for 45 minutes.

I then picked a couple pounds of tomatoes in the organic garden and said hello Ed and Ben and then went to the kitchen to say hello to the new chef and drove back to town.

When I returned home I made a good salad with gourmet greens, a hard boiled egg, radish, tomato cubes, two green onions sliced thinly, and cucumber slices.

After lunch I worked until 3:30, when I made teriyaki sauce and marinated a salmon fillet and then napped until 5:15.

Suzette came home but needed to work, so I gathered the things for dinner; a chicken, string beans, a bottle of Gruner Veltliner, four Yukon Gold potatoes, a handful of tarragon, two stalks of mint, a spandex vertical cooker, butter, and a head of garlic.

The Roast Chicken

When I arrived at 5:45 Susan had put out a bowl of popcorn and Charlie made me a gin and tonic and then Susan and I started the prep of the chicken.  Susan put the wine in the refrigerator to stay chilled.  

I opened the cryovac bag and removed a neck from the stomach and rinsed the chicken inside and out.  I then dropped two 1/8 lemon wedges into the stomach cavity and impaled the chicken on the spandex cooking rack wedging the lemon in the stomach cavity against the rack.

Then I snipped small clumps of tarragon from the larger stalk and sliced two cloves of garlic into thin slices. Susan softened the 1/4 lb. of butter in a bowl in  the microwave and then I combined the tarragon sprigs and garlic slices with the butter.  We then began to push tarragon and garlic infused butter under the skin of the chicken into joints of the legs and along the breast until it was almost all gone and then I rubbed the outside of the skin with the rest of the butter.  Susan had preheated an oven to 425 degrees and we seared the chicken in the 425 degree oven for 15 minutes and then lowered the temperature to 375 and cooked it at 350 for 1 hour at 350 until it had an internal temperature of 165 to 175 degrees and there was no more blood showing.

The Minted Potatoes

As soon as the chicken was in the 425 degree oven I cubed the potatoes and put them into a 9 x 13 inch Pyrex baking dish and added cloves of garlic with their tough ends cut off but the skins still on.  I then tossed the potatoes with olive oil, salt, and white pepper. Charlie covered the baking dish with aluminum foil and we placed the potatoes in the second oven at 350 degrees when the chicken had finished searing for 15 minutes and we reduced the heat in the chicken oven to 350 degrees.  If you have only one oven you can bake the potatoes and chicken in the same oven at 350 degrees and cook then both for an hour.  After 45 minutes we uncovered the potatoes.  After an hour we turned off the heat in the potato oven and checked the chicken an increased the temp in the chicken oven to 375 degrees and cooked it another 15 minutes until it achieved an internal temperature of 165 degrees.  I had bought a large young chicken weighing 6.8 lb. that took longer to cook.

We roasted the potatoes uncovered for another 15 minutes and I tossed them again with a knife and let them stay in the warm oven.

I then stripped the leaves from one stalk of mint and chopped them finely and Suzette, who had arrived at 7:30 tossed them into the potatoes.

The string beans

After the potatoes were roasting, I snapped the tough stalky end of the haricot verts we had bought at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market last Saturday and the longer beans in half.

Susan cooked them in the microwave with a bit of butter and water.  They were tough and undercooked, but crunchy and edible.  We should have cooked them for another minute or two to soften them.

The Sautéed Zucchini

Susan wanted to cook a zucchini.  I still had a half of a lemon so I decided to sauté the zucchini with oregano and lemon, an Italian recipe I am fond of.  I sliced the zucchini in quarters and then into diagonal 1/4 thick slices.  I then walked half way to our house and saw Suzette and asked her to pick three or four stalks of oregano from the clump growing in the front garden.  When Suzette and I returned to the Palmer’s house, I stripped the leaves from the four stalks and chopped them. 

 Susan heated butter and olive oil in a skillet and we added the zucchini slices and sautéed them at medium high heat until they began to brown.  Then we added the oregano and sautéed until they became tender and turned translucent.  Then I added the lemon juice.  

Dessert - Susan had baked a dense carrot and pineapple pan cake. While the zucchini was cooking she made a cream cheese, sugar, and lemon juice icing and iced the cake.

Serving dinner 

We took the chicken from the oven and I carved it and put the pieces on a wooden board Susan had fetched to serve the chicken and put it on the granite side board near the dining table.

I then removed the potatoes from the oven and put them beside the chicken after Susan put down trivets.  Then Suzette tossed the potatoes with the mint.

Susan put the string beans and zucchini on the table and Suzette poured the wine and we were ready to eat.

We took our plates from the table where Susan had set them and served ourselves chicken and potatoes. After we were seated we passed the bowls of string beans and zucchini.

The chicken was wonderful.  I could taste the garlic that had penetrated its flavor into the meat.  My strongest impression of the meal was how well the Gruner Veltliner wine complemented the chicken.  The acidity of the wine balanced the fat of the chicken beautifully.

After dinner Susan served the carrot cake and Suzette poured out the rest of the wine and ate a delightful dessert course.

We said goodnight at 9:30 and went home to bed, except I stayed up until midnight watching women’s beach volleyball.

Bon Appetit