September 19, 2021 Brunch - Almond Croissant and 1/4 plum and cream cheese Danish. Dinner - Smashed Boiled and Roasted Potatoes with Romesco Sauce and Cedar Planked Salmon and Steamed Green Beans

September 19, 2021 Brunch - Almond Croissant and 1/4 plum and cream cheese Danish. Dinner - Smashed Boiled and Roasted Potatoes with Romesco Sauce and Cedar Planked Salmon and Steamed Green Beans 

Today was special because both sons were home most of the day and we cooked dinner together.

I awakened at 6:00 and watched the news until 7:00 when Leicester played Brighton. Brighton won 2 to 1 after a questionable penalty and two offsides that erased goals, so a pretty bitter defeat.

Luke had been given several almond croissants, so zsuzette heated them and we ate one each and then 1 4 of a plum and cream cheese Danish from Ryus Bakery in La Veta, Colorado.

After the news ended at 10:00 I showered and dressed and joined Luke and Suzette gardening.  I gathered the approximately five lb. of carrots they harvested and while they root-tilled and mulched the former carrot patch, I cut off the green tops and any root below the main body of each carrot and picked four tomatoes.

We then went into the house and Willy arrived and by 12:30 the two boys went shopping and I lay down for a nap, but I could not get to sleep so I watched the Cowboys v. L.A. Chargers NFL game.  

When they returned p around 4:00 Luke made Chai and came out to join everyone and share a pot of chai and watch the Cowboys.

We decided to make Romesco sauce and boiled, smashed, and roasted new potatoes from two recipe ps from an edition of Edible New Mexico.

Here are the two recipes.

Suzette also made carrot and ginger and garlic soup. It was wonderful to enjoy the carrots and garlic from our garden in the soup.  She heated about two quarts of PPI chicken stock and added about 3 oz. of ginger and about 1 lb. of carrots, some onion, and two stalks of celery and creamed those ingredients with the emulsion mixer into a soup.  The boys ate without cream and Suzette and I added a bit of cream to our soup. The soup was deliciously vegetably but lacked the zip of ginger that Lambert’s carrot soup had.

After eating the appetizers of smashed potatoes with Romesco sauce and a bowl of carrot soup with the remaining red wines (Chateauneuf du Pape, Six Hats Pinotage from South Africa, and Aquino Reserva Chianti, we began to prep the main dinner entree course.

Earlier Willy had helped Suzette cut a 1 x 6 inch Cedar plank for grilling the salmon.

Suzette had soaked the plank in water for approximately 1 hour to 

Keep it from burning up in the grilling process.  I minced about 2 T. of fresh dill and Suzette melted about 3 oz. of butter in the microwave and added the dill and lemon juice to the mixture and brushed the salmon with the mixture and put the salmon on the wet Cedar Plank and put the plank on the heated propane grill.  

Willy had snapped about 1/2 lb. of green beans I had bought at Sprouts last week.  When Suzette put the salmon on the grill, I put the green beans into the steamer with water and and turned on the heat to steam the beans for 8 minutes.  It took about twenty to 30 minutes for the salmon to cook, since it had been frozen, so the beans were done before the salmon.

While we prepped the entree course Luke made a recipe of his favorite olive oil bread in a Pyrex bread loaf pan with flour, sugar, baking powder zest of an orange and olive oil.  Like told us this is a famous bread made at Abrazo Restaurant in The Lower East side in NYC.

I put the chilled bottle of Gruet Sauvage Rose into an ice bucket with water and carried it to the Gazebo.  When Suzette brought the grilled salmon in we each served ourselves some salmon and green beans and took our plates to the gazebo in the back yard, where I opened the bottle of Gruet  Rose and poured glasses of champagne. The difference between regular champagne and Sauvage is that for regular champagne normally an additional amount of sugar is added when it is transferred from the fermentation vat into the bottle, but with Sauvage there is no additional sugar added, so it is fully fermented wine without and residual sugar. The result for me is that Sauvage carries the flavor of the grape forward undeterred by any extra sugar.

Suzette and Willy rigged up the Indian Mosquito smoke charcoal and put it on the gazebo table, which helped deter the mosquitoes from our upper bodies but did not protect our lower bodies, so after we finished eating and drinking the entree we returned to the house for dessert of Luke’s olive bread.  Luke told us stories of his recent experience of clothing himself fully and wearing a hat with mosquito netting to fully cover his face to go outside to work at his cabin in Hurley because the mosquitoes were swarming so thickly.  There are lots of lakes and swamps near where Luke lives that must be ideal mosquito habitat.

We watched the Fat episode of the Salt, Fat, Acid, and Sugar and the Willy left.  Then we watched the Acid episode that featured green use of sour orange and lime juice in cooking in the Yucatán. The most dramatic dish was stewing a small whole Turkey in a mixture of chili, water, cinnamon, vanilla, and sour orange.

At 9:30 we went to bed full of good food and wine.  A family that cooks together is usually a happy family, at least ours is.

Bon Appetit