November 15, 2021 Lunch - PPI Sushi Dinner - Grilled Rack of Lamb, steamed Broccoli, and Potage

 November 15, 2021 Lunch - PPI Sushi  Dinner - Grilled Rack of Lamb, steamed Broccoli, and Potage

I ate a bowl of fruit salad and yogurt for breakfast.  I then got dressed and went to my doctor’s appointment at 11:00 and did labs after and stopped at Lowe’s on the way home to buy milk, cream cheese, parsley, sweet potatoes.

Prices on many items have gone up. Bananas have doubled in price to over $1.00 per lb., for example.

I noticed that I was hungry by the time I returned home, not weak, just hungry.  The absence of a handful of granola and milk seems to have made a difference.

I heated a bowl of the sushi rice drizzled with 1 tsp. of rice vinegar, made a cup of green tea, and arranged the leftover tuna, salmon, and scallop slices on a plate with pickled ginger and leeks and radish slices. In a separate bowl I lay some seaweed salad and drizzled it with  1 1/2 tsp. of sesame oil.

I was ready to eat by 1:45. The market was down fractionally so I watched the ceremony to sign the infrastructure bill.

At 2:30, when I finally checked the market I was pleasantly surprised that my portfolio was up fractionally,  .15%.  Up is always better than down.

I read until 4:30 when Suzette arrived and then walked 2/3 mile with Suzette.

When we returned I rested until 6:30 and then went to the kitchen.  Suzette asked what vegetable I wanted and I said, “Keep it simple, steam some broccoli.”

Suzette then grilled the rack of lamb we bought on Saturday at Costco and I fetched the potato and leek soup from the garage and turned on the  heat to low.  I then went to the basement to put away the Vara wines we have bought recently.  Now  that we have become members of Varna’s  wine club, we are allocated four bottles every two months.

After storing the new bottles I picked two bottles of Spanish wine to possibly drink with the lamb, a Kirkland 2015 Rioja Reserva Tempranillo and a bottle of 2011 Origon Gran Reserva from the Tierra Alta region that was a blend of Syrah and Grenache very much like  a southern Rhone. Drinking the 2011 Origen was like saying goodbye to an old friend.  I bought a lot of, like two cases, of 2011 Origon for $5.99 at Trader Joe’s  over the last couple of years and this may be the last one that we have drunk.  It was delicious with the lamb.  It simply reinforced my belief that a Southern Rhone or Spanish Tempranillo is an ideal wine for grilled lamb.

We finished dinner with a small bowl of chocolate ice cream with a dash of cognac.

I had had a traumatic experience at Lowe’s.  I went to the cookie aisle to buy my usual cheap icing filled sandwich cookies for $1.69 for 20 oz. and the prices had risen and they did not have an all chocolate assortment and Oreo’s were $4.77 for the same quantity.  So I decided then and there to make my own favorite style of chocolate chip cookie with raisins, pecans and chocolate chips.

So, at 9:00 after the Antiques Roadshow ended, a went to the kitchen and in short order made a batch of 29 large chocolate chip cookies with the recipe I carry in my head: 1/2 lb. of butter softened in the microwave, 1 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tsp. of vanilla and 2 or 3 eggs mixed in the Kitchenaid. Then I stir 2 cups of flour, 1 tsp. of Baking Soda, and 1/2 tsp of salt and add the dry ingredients to the blender bowl and push the ingredients down into the blender bowl to mix the dough until thoroughly blended.

I then add the raisins, pecans, and chocolate chips and blend.  Then I drop small mounds onto buttered cookie sheets and bake them in a pre-heated 350 degree oven until the cookies brown in about ten minutes. A pretty simple way to overcome sticker shock at the grocery store.

I put them in a freezer bag to keep them from drying out and they stuck together a bit because they were so moist, but that should not diminish their flavor.

When I finished the bake, I made a cup of tea and poured a small cognac and taste tested 2 of the cookies and they were good except I used a slightly larger granule of salt, so there were little salt granule bombs in the cookies that I found pleasant.

By 10:00 I was headed for bed after a wonderful day of food.  We cook for a few days and then we eat and combine PPIs to make simple meals. For a few days.

We will probably grill tuna and swordfish skewers with a poke sauce tomorrow night, since we thawed a swordfish steak and still have some fresh tuna and sushi rice.

And we still have four grilled lamb riblets left from tonight’s dinner and much of the pot of potato and leek soup that will allow us to repeat tonight’s meal later this week.

Bon Appetit