April 12, 2022 Brunch - French Toast. Dinner - Spinach and Squid Ink Fettuccine in a chicken, oyster mushroom, pancetta, onion, and garlic with an egg enriched cream and cheese sauce
We nothing on the agenda today other than to rest and cook.
We kept to our two meal a day schedule.
Around 9:30 I suggested French Toast for breakfast because I had seen maple syrup in the fridge and we had bought a fresh bolillo yesterday along with a large slice of bacon, some cojita cheese, and a fresh container of yogurt.
I sliced the top crust off the bolillo but forgot to remove the rest of the crust, which proved to hinder greatly the total effect of the dish.
Suzette took over and mixed eggs with milk and added vanilla and cinnamon and battered the four slices of bread I had cut the bolillo into.
I suggested frying two bananas with the toast and Suzette agreed.
I also fetched the remaining fresh raspberries and the yogurt to garnish the toast.
The result was very pleasing after we severed the unwanted crust.
It was great to have a delightful breakfast thanks to the fried bananas, fresh raspberries, and yogurt.
Te area around Tizapan is a rich agricultural zone and based on what we saw at the market, lots of berries are raised in the area. The raspberries were stellar, and Suzette had made a wonderful fig and raspberry compote that I ate a few spoonfuls of at midnight with the yogurt to alleviate some lactose insensitivity.
We walked the property in the afternoon and it was fun to see all of it and some of the vegetation.
After we returned, we watched several more episodes of the Last Kingdom. Then at 5:30 we started cooking dinner consistent with our eating an early dinner rather than snacking.
Dinner - we have been building ingredients for this meal from the very beginning of the trip when Suzette bought the pasta in PV.
Suzette had found a recipe for what we wanted to make that called for an egg enrichment to the cream sauce, which was the key to the creamy rich sauce.
We worked together as usual with me doing most of the prep and wine service and Suzette doing most of the cooking.
Suzette actually cut the bacon/pancetta we bought yesterday into lardons, and shucked about 1/2 cup of fresh garbanzo beans as a substitute for the recipe’s English peas, while I diced 1/2 onion and 1 T. of garlic.
Suzette started sautéing the onion, garlic, and pancetta and started boiling the dried pasta, while I stripped the meat off the grilled chicken and diced the 1/2 lb. of beautiful fresh oyster mushrooms we bought at the Tizapan market two days ago and fetched the crema and cojita cheese.
I then opened the bottle of Concha y Toro Argentinian Cabernet Sauvignon and poured us glasses of it.
Suzette then whisked two egg yolks and handed me the bowl to which I added the remaining 4 oz. of crema and grated several oz.s of cojita cheese to make a thick creamy sauce.
Suzette then added the garbanzo beans, mushrooms, and chicken to the pan and boiled the pasta.
Soon Suzette was ready to finish the dish by adding some pasta water to the sauté pan ingredients and then the drained pasta and the sauce.
Suzette cooked all the ingredients together for a couple of minutes to allow the sauce to thicken and then filled pasta dishes and fetched the bottle of chilled Trapiche Argentinian Torrontes white wine.
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| Another beautiful sunset over Lake Chapala |
We took glasses of wine and dishes of pasta to the table on the veranda and ate the best meal we cooked of the trip.
After dinner Suzette drank the rest of the white wine and I made a Penefiel limon mineral water, brandy, cassis and lime juice cocktail and we watched another episode of the Last Kingdom until hotspot connection became erratic and prevented the Netflix connection from downloading.
We went to bed by 9:00 and I awakened at 12:30. I ate some yogurt and fig and raspberry compote and drank a cup of mint tea with honey and lime juice to settle my stomach that was probably reacting to the heavy crema.
Anyway that worked and I finished reading Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne and then wrote this blog and returned to bed at 2:30.
Dinner was the best meal of the trip, even counting the interesting traditional foods we ate in Uruapan.
We have been relatively healthy this trip, except for one bad day each.
As Suzette said, “You rarely know what touches off a bout.”
That should be the guide for all travelers to Mexico. You do the best you can to eat clean food without sacrificing the incredible quality and variety of foods Mexico offers.
Bon Appetit
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