April 23, 2023 Brunch - Men on a raft. Dinner - Zucchini, onion, steak, Mushroom, and Tomato Medley over Casarecce Pasta

April 23, 2023 Brunch - Men on a raft. Dinner - Zucchini, onion, steak, Mushroom, and Tomato Medley over Casarecce Pasta

A large part of the day was spent in the garden.  Carlos came and worked from 9:30 to 1:45.

He spread twelve bags of dirt throughout the garden, pulled volunteer trees and weeds from the formal garden, planted the five blueberry and five raspberry bushes we bought yesterday, and cleaned the area around the rose on the patio of bind weed and trees, and that was just what he did that I saw during the 1 1/2 hours I worked outside.

After Carlos filled the raised beds with dirt, Suzette and I planted about a dozen rows of vegetables, mostly carrots, radishes, lettuce, and beets in two beds. In a third bed Suzette planted squashes.

So we hopefully will live off the land this year.

But earlier in the morning at 7:00 I watched an amazing fixture between Newcastle and Tottenham, in which Newcastle scored three goals in the first five minutes and went on to beat Tottenham 6 to 1 that lifted Newcastle into third place in the standings past Man U.  It was the most impressive performance I have seen this year by ant PL team.

I also drank a glass of a mint flavor yogurt drink and rode 1.50 miles on the Bike.

At 11:40 I came back inside and made three men on a raft and fried four strips of bacon that Suzette and I shared. I also sautéed a slice of onion for myself. A man on a raft is a dish my mother made for me when I was little.  It is a slice of rye bread with a hole cut in the middle sautéed in butter on one side then flipped and sautéed on the other side and an egg is dropped into the hole that supports the yolk. After any egg that slips of the bread is firm the bread is flipped again to cook the egg over easy.

After brunch I planted several more rows of vegetables and supervised as Carlos cleared the bind weed and volunteer elm trees from the patio garden from around the Don Juan rose bush.

We then rested until 3:00 and then we made the two beds with the clean sheets Suzette had washed and dried.

The two guest rooms are ready for my family’s visit during the first weekend in May.

At 4:30 we started dinner.  Suzette boiled water and we blanched three tomatoes in the boiling water to loosen their skins that also stewed them a bit.

I then sliced two zucchini, 1/2 onion, two cloves of garlic, about 1/2 lb. of PPI grilled steak, the last two oz. of Jimmie Dean sausage, and five white mushrooms. Suzette sautéed the ingredients in a large skillet with some olive oil.

She also boiled 1/2 of a bag of Casarecce pasta and fetched the Parmesan cheese and ground a handful of basil into powder and added it to the sauté.

While everything was cooking we went to the garden and picked a handful of fresh oregano that I cleaned, destemmed, and chopped and added to the sauté.

Suzette opened the bottle of Chianti Classico that I bought at Costco.

By 5:30 dinner was ready. Suzette drained the pasta and filled the bottom of a pasta bowl with pasta.  Then she sliced slices of Parmesan cheese onto the pasta. Finally, she spooned spoonfuls of the sauté medley over the pasta. 

This is my idea of wonderful Italian cuisine, fresh ingredients, some from the garden without a lot of meat or a sauce cooked simply, so their individual flavors are discernible and without a heavy sauce.

Willy came by later and ate a bowl of pasta with the sauté and cheese and drank the last glass of chianti with it.

Willy left at 8:00 and Suzette went to bed at 8:30.

I stayed up to watch the latest episode of Marie Antonette and ate a bowl,of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and maraschino cherries and some of their liquor.

It was a lovely weekend and hopefully we will have lots of vegetables to enjoy from our effort.

Bon Appetit