September 4, 2021 Lunch - Split Pea Soup with Peach Preserves on Toast Dinner - Garlic Eggplant with Broccoli and Chicken.

September 4, 2021 Lunch - Split Pea Soup with Peach Preserves on Toast  Dinner - Garlic Eggplant with Broccoli and Chicken.  

We woke up early and watch some TV. At 8:00 I ate a bowl of granola with milk and blueberries and bananas and yogurt.

Then we showered and Suzette trimmed my hair.  We drove to Home Depot around 9:15 and got to Costco around 10:30 where we bought a salmon filet, butter, lemons, creamer potatoes, olive oil, and a wedge of Jarlsberg.  I swear the Norwegians are dumping Jarlsberg on the US market.  The Jarlsberg was priced at $5.55 per lb. and there was a discount of $4.30 per wedge and our wedge was 2.15 lb. for a total of $11.88, so the final cost for the wedge was $7.58 or $3.53 per lb.  I think we paid over $10.00 per lb. in a cheese shop in an Oslo food hall a couple of years ago.  This price made no sense, but we bought a wedge.  

I ate a hot dog while Suzette finished shopping for the Center so when we returned home a bit before noon I was not hungry, but Suzette was hungry so she heated the last of the split pea soup and ate a bowl.

She then worked in her office and I watched college football, specifically Penn State beat Wisconsin and the Texas beat Univ. of Louisiana. I also read some of Travels with Charley.

Dinner -

At 5:00 I returned to the kitchen and we decided to make Suzette’s favorite Chinese dish, Garlic Eggplant, with the addition of chicken, broccoli, and onion.

Rice - 

I started by making 1 cup of rice with two cups of water plus about 1/2 tsp. of dehydrated chicken stock and 1 1/2 T. of chopped parsley. When the water came to a boil I added 1 cup of jasmine rice, covered the pot and reduced the heat to its lowest setting and cooked 30 minutes.

Garlic Eggplant -

Here is the recipe.

I peeled and cut an eggplant into 2 to 3 inch by 1/3 inch strips that Suzette then cooked in the wok in peanut oil until they softened.

I also sliced 1/2 onion and three slices of fresh ginger into 1 1/2 inch strips and minced 5 cloves of garlic while Suzette mixed the seasoning sauce.

I then cut up a small head of broccoli into individual flowerets that Suzette microwaved in a gallon freezer bag in the microwave.  

After the eggplant strips were cooked, Suzette stir fried the garlic and ginger and then added the onion. After a couple of minutes when the onion was cooked Suzette added the broccoli, PPI boiled chicken and the cooked eggplant.

I fetched the bottle of sake and filled two wine glasses each with sake and five cubes of ice and put them on the table with chop sticks.

Suzette added the seasoning sauce to the wok full of ingredients and stirred them in.

After a few minutes the sauce began to thicken and we were ready to eat.  We each filled our plate with a paddle of rice and a couple of spoonfuls of the eggplant mixture.

The dish was fabulous.  I could taste the rice vinegar and the texture of the  chicken and chicken were soft and yieldingly tender.

After dinner Suzette sipped a glass of limoncello and I ate a couple of scoops of mocha almond fudge ice cream with a splash of Kahlua.

We watched Father Brown and Death in Paradise and then went to bed at 10:00, I to blog and Suzette to sleep.

Bon Appetit