November 13, 2021 Brunch - Chili Relleno Casserole, Vara Wine Club Tasting. Dinner - Sautéed Duck, baked Sweet Potatoes, a green beans with slivered almonds

 November 13, 2021 Brunch - Chili Relleno Casserole,  Vara Wine Club Tasting. Dinner - Sautéed Duck, baked Sweet Potatoes, a green beans with slivered almonds

I don’t recall much about the morning, except Willy called and said he had been exposed to someone with Covid and he would not join us for brunch.

Suzette went to the store to shop for ingredients while I showered and dressed.

At 10:00 I started watching the Baylor v. Oklahoma football game.  It got more and more interesting as Baylor extended it lead and finally won.

The end of the game was a classic.  The Baylor students ran onto the field when there were 3 seconds left on the clock.  The Oklahoma coach objected and after a few minutes they were able to get the students off the field and brought the teams back from the locker room and Baylor sent it field goal team onto the field and Baylor kicked a field goal to win by 13 points instead of 10 points.  Then the Oklahoma coach got really mad.

Suzette made a delicious Chili Relleno Casserole using a recipe from the Colorado Cache Cookbook that we ate during the Baylor game.

Here is the recipe

When the game ended we drove to Pastian’s Bakery and bought three loaves of bread and 1/2 dozen honey wheat bagels for $2.16.

We then drove north on 2nd St. to Alameda and then to Vara Winery and Distillery.

Vara was tasting the wines it was allocating to members; a sparkling Cava Reserva, a Malavasia, a Grenache reserva, and a Tempranillo.  We liked all of them, except the Grenache.  There were snacks with each wine.  Truffle oil flavored popcorn for the Cava, Grilled toast spread with goat cheese and garnished with a sautéed canned pimiento for the Malavasia, and lamb riblets spread with a peach jam for the Tempranillo.

We then went inside for dessert and fortified wine and whiskey tasting.  The dessert was fried milk, which I had never eaten with the vermouth Vara makes us its Cardinal wine made from a grape native to New Mexico.

We poured out the vermouth and went to the bar and tasted a rum and rye blended whiskey and then a whiskey we did not care for.

At 3:00 when the tasting ended we bought our allocation except we bought two Tempranillos and we also bought a bottle of the rum and rye blend to use to made Manhattans with Suzette’s maraschino cherries.

We then drove to Costco and bought several essentials such as clothes washing liquid, but we bought several items for the house.  We tasted a seaweed salad that we liked and bought, so we bought a piece of fresh tuna for sushi.  We also bought a rack of lamb riblets, since they were so delicious, lightly grilled at Vara.  I thought it might be Australian Spring lamb, corn chips for guacamole, butter, olive oil, pita chips for snacks, a case of Stella Artois beer, heavy cream, and a bag of lemons to peel to make Limoncello.

We returned home at 4:45 and it was getting dark.

I was not feeling well so I drank two glasses of water and ate some corn chips.

At 7:00 Suzette started dinner.  Dinner was easy.  We had thawed a duck breast and baked sweet potatoes yesterday.  Suzette snapped a handful of green beans and got out three small skillets.  She skinned and sliced the sweet potatoes and sautéed the slices in a skillet with butter.  Suzette sliced the duck breast into 5 inch thick fingers and sautéed them in olive oil turning the sticks to cook them evenly on each side. Simultaneously, Suzette sautéed the green beans in butter in a skillet To which she added almond slivers. 

I was pretty much immobile during dinner prep, but got up to fetch a bottle of wine.  I chose an open 1/2 bottle of De Ponte Lonesome Rock Ranch Pinot Noir and a 1/2 bottle of Cherry Blossom Pinot Noir.

I poured the Lonesome Rock equally into the two glasses Suzette had set on the table.

After the duck breast fingers were seared at high temperature fo a couple of minutes, Suzette removed the duck breast fingers from the skillet and spread fig jam on each.  She then plated our plates with sweet potato slices, and a small pile of sautéed green beans and slivered almonds.

We enjoyed the dinner immensely.

At 8:00 we watched Father Brown but I dozed off. At 9:00 we watched Death in Paradise, which I stayed awake to see who committed the murder. I did take a sip of cognac mixed with Grande Marnier and a cup of chai tea.

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

Bon Appetit

August