April 19, 2022 Breakfast - Oatmeal. Lunch - Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner - Grilled Steak with Macaroni Shells and Spinach in a Cream Sauce

April 19, 2022 Breakfast - Oatmeal. Lunch - Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner - Grilled Steak with Macaroni Shells and Spinach in a Cream Sauce

When recovering from a bout of muscle weakness, such as I suffered yesterday, I usually over eat and feel over stuffed.  That is what happened today.

I woke up at 6:30 and at 7:00 made a pot of oatmeal flavored with brown sugar and raisins.  Suzette ate a small amount and I ate a bowl full.

Then at 10:30 I drove to Jodie’s to shuttle Aaron back home and then drove to Highland Pharmacy for my 11:30 appointment for my Covid booster shot.

After that I drove home and made lunch.  I wanted a hardy noodle soup like yesterday’s soup.  I boiled 2 quarts of water with 1 T. of  dried wakame seaweed for a few minutes and then tossed in 1 tsp. of dehydrated dashi and a dried shitake mushroom. Then I added a bundle of rice vermicelli and a bundle of wheat noodles and cooked the mixture for about 20 minutes.  I added the diced tops of six asparagus, six snow peas destemmed and cut in half, and 1 1/2 T. of red miso plus a dash of sesame oil and Chinese rice cooking wine.  Finally, I added about six chicken mini dumplings and the last 7 oz. of soft tofu cubed and cooked the mixture another 15 minutes. I sliced thin slices of green onion to garnish the soup and added a squirt of hoisin sauce (the dark stuff on top of the soup)

The result was a lovely miso soup thick with noodles.  I ate two bowls as I watched Liverpool beat Man United decisively with two goals scored in the first twenty minutes.  Liverpool is first and Man U. is struggling to hold onto sixth place in the PL.  Liverpool’s players were creative, organized, and effective, while Man U. was disorganized and put on the defensive most of the match.

At 2:00 I turned off the match and checked my portfolio.  It was a monster day with the Dow up over 500 points.  Even with today’s gain my portfolio that had recovered half of its loss from its high this year stood at only 1/4 of its gain.  In other words it lost 1/2 of the recovery from its low of the year, while I was on the trip. I guess this not going to be a very good year for equities as long as the world economy is in chaos caused by Covid, disruptions in supply chains, reduced demand, and the war in Ukraine

I napped for an hour and then paid some bills and at 4:00 walked to the bank and withdrew money for needed repairs for the mini.

When I returned home I read The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne until Suzette arrived a few minutes after 5:00.

She was hungry, not having eaten anything since breakfast so we decided to cook dinner.  

We had discussed dinner in the morning and decided on a menu of grilled steak, pasta in cream sauce utilizing the piece of Italian tallegio cheese I had bought at Smith’s before the trip. I cleaned the molded parts of the rind off the cheese and then diced 1/4 red bell pepper, 1/2 shallot, and two cloves of garlic that Suzette sautéed in olive oil.  She diced the tallegio, boiled a cup of small shells, started the grill, and peppered and salted the steak.

Suzette then grilled the steak and added the tallegio and about 2 T. of heavy cream to the sauce in the skillet and de-stemmed 2 cups of baby spinach leaves.

I watched the pasta and sauce while she was involved in grilling the steak.

After she flipped the steak, she added the fresh spinach to the sauce, drained the pasta, and added it to the skillet.  We stirred and folded the spinach and drained pasta into the cream sauce mixture until it thickened and the steak was finished grilling.

I sliced the steak and we put slices of steak on top of the pile of creamed spinach and pasta mixture.

Yesterday I bought a 16.3 lb. slab of USDA Choice rib steaks that were on sale for $5.97/lb. at Smith’s and the butcher was kind enough to cut the slab into 1 1/4 inch thick steaks.  The thickness aided Suzette in cooking the steak to a perfect medium rare.  We liked the flavor of the steak and its tenderness. I feel like I got a good piece of meat and we had about 12 steaks left.

I opened a 2013 Murphy Goode Pinot Noir that was light and lovely for the meal.

I thought the sauce could have contained more tallegio and less cream but Suzette liked it.  In truth we did not have enough tallegio to use only tallegio in the sauce.

We were both still feeling the ill effects of turista and could only eat 1/2 of our dinner.  Suzette put up the rest for another dinner.

I ate some ice cream and we both ate a few cookies and drank another glass of wine and sipped cognac and Calvados, but we could not finish the wine either.

Suzette said that the lack of eating from turista reduced the size of our stomachs.  I am sure it reduced our appetites.

Suzette went to bed at 10:00 and I stayed up until 12:30 and got up again at 1:30 as I and my body adjusted to the return to health and Albuquerque.

We will see how long it takes to or if we get back to our normal diet.

Bon Appetit