October 8, 2012 Dinner - Grilled Leg of Lamb, Roasted Delicata Squash and steamed Baby Yellow Squashes and Broccoli

I had purchased a boneless leg of Australian Lamb at Costco last Saturday ($4.99) and put it in a plastic freezer bag with about ½ cup of red wine and ¼ cup of olive oil and a handful of rosemary and about six smashed cloves of garlic and put into the fridge to marinate. 

Monday Suzette spent the day at home and we decided to grill the lamb and roast the two delicata squashes we had purchased at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and steam the broccoli I bought at Pro’s Market on Saturday with the six or seven baby yellow squashes we had also purchased at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday.

So we split in half lengthwise the two delicate squashes and I chopped up 1/2 of an apple and about ½ of an onion and Suzette removed the seeds in the center of the squashes yielding a deep depression that she stuffed with the apples, onions, pinon nuts and about 1 Tbsp. of butter in each in a pyrex baking dish with some water in the bottom to let it steam a bit and not dry out.

After the squashes were roasting in the oven, Suzette put the lamb onto the grill and glazed it with the cranberry/mint syrup/glaze we made last week while I cut the flowerets off the broccoli and cut the stems and ends off the baby yellow squashes and started them steaming in the steamer to steam for about 10 or 12 minutes.   After the lamb had cooked for about thirty minutes and the delicatas had roasted for about 45 minutes, we were ready to eat.  We sliced the lamb and it was still red in the center, so we microwaved some of it, which was a mistake because that forced the liquid in the meat out of it and it turned relatively tough, not too tough to eat but it lost its lovely moist texture.  We should have put the lamb back on the grill for a few more minutes but we were hungry and thought we could short circuit the process and we had a lot of lamb that was cooked to rare so we had enough lamb that was cooked properly that we could eat.  So we each filled our plates with slices of lamb, a stuffed delicate, and several baby squashes and broccoli flowerets.

I opened a bottle of Spanish Tempranillo that I had also purchased on Saturday at Costco ($9.99); Vina Eguía from Bodegas Equía in Elciego, Spain, which is the small village on the Erbo River in the Rioja region (Denominación de Origen Calificada) we visited last year where the world famous Riscal Winery with its Frank Gehrey designed hotel and spa and conference center is located.  This bottle of Eguía Reserva 2007 was aged in oak for 24 months and then in the bottle, which meets the requirements for reserva.  It did have a pleasant complexity and smoothness.  I do not think it was as great as Riscal Reserva but according to the sign at Costco it had garnered a 92 rating and was half the price of Riscal Reserva.  It was lovely with the lamb and we ate a chocolate or two after dinner with sips of it and they were great also.

I love tempranillo and a good reserva has both the earthiness of tempranillo and the finish and complexity of a great wine, so for $9.99 it was a good bargain.   The five years of age were sufficient to show its finish, but I guess it could benefit from a year of two more.  I might buy several more bottles just to see.

Bon Appètit   

October 5, 2012 Breakfast – Crenshaw melon, blueberries, granola, and Mango yogurt, Lunch – Dinner Chirashi at Japanese Kitchen “The Best”, Dinner – Roasted Chicken and kale and tomato Couscous

October 5, 2012 Breakfast – Crenshaw melon, blueberries, granola, and Mango yogurt, Lunch – Dinner Chirashi at Japanese Kitchen “The Best”, Dinner – Roasted Chicken and kale and tomato Couscous

 Food consumption can be so quixotic. Today Breakfast and Lunch were better than dinner and dinner was met my usual high standard.

For breakfast I sliced about a two inch wide slice of fresh Crenshaw melon from our garden and scooped out the seeds to make a shallow bowl into which I placed fresh blueberries and a small pile of granola.  I then poured a healthy dollop of LaLa mango yogurt over the pile and squeezed a bit of fresh lemon juice over the whole affair.  This made a messy chaotic but delicious breakfast dish.

I called Bob Mueller, a fellow lawyer who loves sushi more than I do and who is a real expert on the subject, about a case and he suggested lunch at his favorite sushi restaurant, The Japanese Kitchen, located at 6521 Americas Parkway in Albuquerque’s Uptown area.  The Sushi Bar is located in a separate space from the steakhouse with its teppan grills that is serenely quiet in contrast to the excitement and noise of the steakhouse.  Bob suggested that we sit at the counter and walked us over to sit in front of the main sushi chef, an older Japanese man.  I ordered the lunch chirashi that was priced at $18.00 and Bob looked at me and said, “I always order the dinner chirashi.  So I said, “Then I will have the dinner chirashi also.”

After about fifteen or twenty minutes we were each handed two round about 7 or 8 inch wide chirashi bowls stacked on top of each other.  When I took mine apart I saw that one was covered with vinegared sushi rice on which were two small dollops of sea urchin roe (uni), a slice of sauced BBQ’d eel (unagi), a small pile of umeboshi Japanese plum pickles, a surf clam and a small pile of orange salmon roe. 

The other box contained an inverted teacup surrounded by ice cubes and covered with a thick layer of shredded daikon. On top of the daikon were multiple layers of thick slices of raw fish and seafood (sashimi): 3 tuna (maguro), 4 salmon, 4 yellow tail, 2 mackeral, 1 conch, 1 white tuna, 2 slices of octopus, a slice of squid rolled around a dollop of flying fish roe and a bit of Japanese mint leave into a small cylinder, 2 large slices of egg omelet cooked with sweet soy, 1 slice of abalone, 1 flavored shrimp, 1 slice of giant sea clam perhaps, 1 slice of fresh conch that had been crisscross sliced to relieve some of its fibrous tension, a  Japanese mint leave (shiso) and several other fish and seafood items I did not notice but ate heartily. In other words, an extravagant assortment of fresh seafood.  Bob drank saki and we both drank hot green tea.  It took me over 1 ½ hours to eat all of the food and I did not leave a morsel in either bowl.  One of Bob’s comments was that for whatever reason we see very little sea urchin roe from Japan any more.  It mostly comes from California.  Bob said that when it used to come from Japan he would ask for complete silence when he ate the dollops of sea urchin roe so he could completely savor its salty creamy flavor.  I can say without reservation that Japanese Kitchen on this day was the best sushi in Albuquerque. 

One proviso, this is the first day of the International Balloon Fiesta and that means that there are more tourists from all around the world in Albuquerque than at any other time of the year and if you were catering to sophisticated tourists from all over the world you would want all their favorite delicacies.  Another point worth mentioning is the Japanese Kitchen is probably the oldest and most famous Japanese Restaurant in Albuquerque, having been in business for about 20 years. 

I was beginning to feel like being a foreign tourist eating my way through France or New York City with gourmet food at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Suzette arrived home at around 5:30 with a large warm Herbs de Valencia whole roasted chicken.  At 6:00 p.m. I ran to the garden and cut about a pound of leaves of kale and about twenty small red and yellow cherry tomatoes.  While watching the PBS “News Hour”, I sliced the stems out of the kale leaves and chopped them into bite sized pieces and halved the cherry tomatoes while Suzette started a large 3 or 4 quart aluminum pan with 1 ½ cups of water boiling.  I threw in about 1 ½ Tbsp. of butter and when the water came to a boil Suzette threw in 1 heaping cup of couscous.  Then we immediately threw in the pile of kale and tomatoes.  When we checked the pot after about 5 minutes there appeared to be too little water, so I added about 2Tbsp. more water, so the couscous would beg soft and the kale steam and reduced the heat to keep it from sticking on the bottom of the pan.

I then cut the thigh and leg quarters off the chicken and heat them in the microwave oven uncovered.

When the chicken was heated, Suzette fluffed the couscous and kale and the kale wilted a bit into the couscous.  I ran to the basement and fetched a bottle of Concannon Sauvignon Blanc and we served ourselves the chicken and couscous.  The chicken and couscous was hot and delicious and the steamed kale was particularly pleasant layered among the tomatoes and fluffy couscous.  Unfortunately, the wine had gone bad due to oxidation and it was undrinkable and it ruined the dinner.  The lesson here is to not allow a spoiled wine ruin your dinner.  We were not so concerned.  Suzette and I stopped drinking wine after the first glass, but we had had a mojito cocktail during the news and we were well liquefied, and did not feel the need to get another bottle even though it greatly affected the effect of the food.

Bon Appétit

October 4, 2012 Lunch - Ahh Sushi; Dinner - Veal stew

October 4, 2012 Lunch - Ahh Sushi; Dinner - Veal stew

I went to Ahh Sushi restaurant for sushi today with a client.  It is located at 6231 Coors NW, at Riverside Plaza, Ste. “A”, located north of Montano.  I ordered my usual: chirashi.  This one was cheaper than most at $9.95 and came with soup or salad and tea.  It was served in a medium sized bowl filled with sushi rice on one side and green salad on the other.  The salad was topped with a red chili dressing and seaweed salad and flakes of crab.  The rice side was topped with fish of your choice.  In my case I asked for salmon, maguro (Ahi tuna), white tuna, yellowtail, octopus and salmon and received what I ordered plus two shrimp.  My host asked the owner, whose name is AHH, to fix whatever he wanted to fix and we received a crab and shrimp filled caterpillar, a Santa Fe roll that was very interesting rice wrapped with a thin sheet of rehydrated dried tofu around the layer of rice and stuffed with crab, green chili and cream cheese.  There was also a fiery salmon roll that was rather hot for my taste.  The miso soup was good with large chunks of tofu and lots of white miso.  The sashimi fish in the chirashi was also cut into chunks rather than long thin slices like some other restaurants.  I liked it all the fish was fresh except the octopus and possibly the white tuna.  Next time I will simply ask for whatever fish is freshest.

Willy and I had gone by the Alpine Sausage Kitchen after lunch at La Salita yesterday and picked up Genoa Salami, Gelbwurst (veal bologna) and a 1 lb. package of frozen veal stew meat.  When we arrived at home, I thawed out the meat, but when Suzette brought the Italian dishes, I put it in the meat crisper.

So today at around 5:00 p.m. I dissolved a cube of beef bouillon and about 2 tsp. of chicken bouillon in about 2 cups of water.  After Suzette got home and relaxed for a few minutes, at around 6:00 p.m., we went to the garden and picked an about 2 lb. eight ball squash and baby carrots, beets and turnips and we cleaned and cube them.  I then cubed the meat and 2 russett potatoes Suzette had peeled and then I cubed two fresh large shallots and Suzette tossed the veal in rice flour and salt and pepper and sautéed the veal and other ingredients in a large skillet with grape seed oil and then combined the ingredients with the broth I had made in a large enamel pan.  While the stew was simmering on the stove we had a discussion about seasoning and decided to use sate, so I went to the garden and picked a handful of sage and chopped about 1/2 cup of it and put it into the stew.  I then tasted the stew and wanted a little more complex herb flavor so we decided to add parsley.  I fetched three stalks of parsley and chopped them and added them.  We had reserved the carrot and beet leaves, so I chopped them just before we served the stew and cooked them for about ten minutes until they softened slightly. 

I sliced slices of sourdough French bread from Costco and toasted it and we served the stew in psta bowls with a bottle of La Granja 2010 (50% tempranillo and 50% garnacha [granache] from Rioja, Spain, $5.99 at Trader Joe’s).

The stew was lovely.  It was light and flavorful yet did not have any harsh flavors at all.  The wine had that lovely combination of sharp edginess of tempranillo combined with the soft fruitiness of granache.

While the stew was cooking Suzette peeled about three lbs. of fresh peaches and after dinner she made a peach and blueberry cobbler.

What a wonderful dinner of fresh ingredients!

Bon Appétit  

October 3, 2012 Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery Italian Menu Preview

October 3, 2012 Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery Italian Menu Preview

Suzette brought home the three special Italian dishes that will be served in the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery (www.facebook.com/GreenHouseBistro.com) during the months of October through December in clear plastic food boxes.  I may not have their names exactly the same as on the menu, but they were a butternut squash stuffed ravioli garnished with sautéed cubes of butternut squash, the pork confit with cannelloni beans that we tested before and a sautéed boneless trout dusted in rice flour and served with linguine tossed with the green chili pesto that Suzette has created.

I opened a bottle of Concannon Pinot Grigio and made up plates from the boxes and heated them in the microwave for a simple dinner before the first Presidential debate. 

After the debate I chopped up a couple of slices of fresh Crenshaw melon from our garden and garnished them with blueberries for dessert.

Bon Appétit

October 2, 2012 Dinner- Grilled Salmon, Asparagus and pasta with pesto and crabapple jelly

October 2, 2012 Dinner- Grilled Salmon, Asparagus and pasta with pesto and crab apple jelly

When Suzette got home we talked to Willy and decided to cook the lamb chops in the fridge.  Willy loves mint jelly and lamb chops.   We did not have any mint jelly; so, of course, we decided to make fresh mint jelly.   We first looked to see if we had any pectin and we did not.  So Suzette and I did some cookbook research (she in “Betty Crocker” and I in “Joy of Cooking”) and we both found that crab apples were a good source of pectin.  When I told her that we had crab apples, Suzette suggested a rosemary and mint jelly, so we went out to our crab apple tree and picked up about three cups of crab apples that had fallen on the ground.  We then walked around the back of the house and picked a handful each of fresh rosemary and mint.

Suzette then put the fresh mint and rosemary leaves into a large, heavy bottom pot and added two cups of sugar and two cups of water and made a simple syrup while I plucked the stems and removed the spoiled spots from the crab apples.  Suzette then added the crab apples to the mint and rosemary simple syrup and simmered them together for about 1/2 hour.  We then strained the liquid and bottled it to see if it jelled.  The liquid did not jell. so Suzette said that she wanted to make a thicker syrup and made another batch of simple syrup in the same large pan with the crab apples, mint, and rosemary with 3 cups of sugar and 2 cups of water and it thickened more.

We poured off the second syrup into a jar and when Suzette tasted the remaining sludge in the bottom of the pan, she declared it to be delicious and we saw that the fruit had become glazed.  So she put the glazed fruit and herbs into an old cognac bottle with some vodka.   The start of a great martini.

After our mint sauce diversion we turned our attention back to dinner.  When we took the lamb chops out of the package, they smelled spoiled, so we threw them away.  I then pulled the PPI salmon filet left from our Sunday evening meal and it was fine, so we decided to grill the salmon and serve it with asparagus and pesto tossed sautéed pasta.  Willy and I went to the garden and picked a handful of fresh tarragon.  Then Willy made a compounded butter with butter and tarragon and lemon juice, which he and Suzette smeared onto the salmon.  I snapped 18 stalks of asparagus and got the pasta and pesto out of the fridge.

Suzette grilled the salmon and I steamed the asparagus.  While the salmon and asparagus were cooking, Suzette put about 1Tbsp. each of butter and olive oil into a large skillet and sautéed the PPI pasta and, when it was heated, Willy and Suzette added 3 large Tbsps. of pesto to the pasta and heated it thoroughly.  

I then ran downstairs and fetched a bottle of Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie “Reserve de Cleons” from the Loire valley.   The Muscadet Sèvre et Maine appellation is at the western end of the Loire Valley near the sea, around and west of Nantes.  It is a very light wine but very good with seafood, especially with the delicate flavor of oysters and mussels.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner with bits of PPI basil mayonnaise sauce Willy had made a couple of days ago and spread it on the asparagus and fish.

 Bon Appétit

 

       

 

 

 

c

October 1, 2012 Dinner- PPI Pork and Saurkraut, Asparagus and mashed potatoes

October 1, 2012 Dinner- PPI Pork and Saurkraut, Asparagus and mashed potatoes

I had a late lunch at Vietnam 2000 with Willy at 1:00 p.m. while Luke was attending a yoga class, so was not terribly hungry at 5:30 p.m. when Suzette arrived at home.

We had trouble deciding what to cook tonight because we have a new bag of asparagus and lamb chops and salmon filet and PPI pork and sauerkraut, so we rode ten miles to Montano at 6:00 p.m.  We were passed on the bike path by Willy on the way to his gym as we rode home.  We arrived home at around 7:00 p.m. tired and not really wanting to cook a big meal.  Suzette said, “Why don’t you cook tonight.”  We discussed cooking salmon tacos with shredded cucumber but then we decided to heat the PPI pork and sausage and sauerkraut and potatoes and apple casserole and Suzette said she would like to make mashed potatoes to go with the pork and sauerkraut, which is her most traditional Pennsylvania German way to serve the dish.

So we peeled and sectioned four potatoes and she boiled them and mashed them while she heated the pork and sausage and sauerkraut in a skillet and I broke the stalks off 18 sticks of asparagus and Suzette put the asparagus in a steamer with water to steam. .

When the potatoes were boiled, Suzette placed them in the bowl of the Kithenaid and beat them with the whip attachment while adding heated milk and butter to whip them into a mashed consistency.

When Willy arrived home, I then went to the basement for bottles of Kirkland beer and we each plated up our plates with asparagus, mashed potatoes and pork and sauerkraut.  I fetched the PPI sour cream sauce with oregano and chives from last night’s meal to coat the potatoes and asparagus and some horseradish and Dijon mustard to make into a sauce for the meat and we sat down to a lovely German meal.   Suzette loved the meal, commenting on how it was wonderful, just like she wished it to taste.

I had chocolate ice cream latter and it proved to be a bit much, but a great food day.

Bon Appétit 

September 30, 2012 A Family Dinner- Grilled Salmon with kale and quinoa Salad and Squash Pancakes

September 30, 2012 A Family Dinner- Grilled Salmon with kale and quinoa Salad and Squash Pancakes

In the morning we picked a large green, oblong winter squash in our garden that must have weighed ten to fifteen pounds.

Then we went to Costco around 1:15 p.m. and picked up a 2 lb. salmon filet and asparagus and a few other items like a bottle of Rioja reserve tempranillo for $9.99.  As we were leaving Costco, Luke called around 2:15 p.m., to say his plane had arrived in Albuquerque, so we drove home and I went to pick him up at the airport..

On the way home we stopped at La Montanita Coop and Luke bought a few food items, including some quinoa.

  

Around dinner time we started processing the squash, by cutting it into wedges and peeling the green skin off it with a knife to reveal a lovely pale yellow/pink fairly soft flesh.  In about 1 hour I peeled and sectioned and Suzette processed squash into slices, shredded and I diced some squash into pieces that we then placed in freezer bags and froze, except for about 3 1/2 cups of shredded squash.  We found a simple recipe for potato pancakes in a Jewish Home Cooking Book

4 cups of shredded potatoes

½ cup flour

1 egg

1/2 tsp. of salt

1 cup of oil to fry the pancakes.

Suzette substituted 3 ½ cups of shredded squash and ½ cup of shredded onion and used canola oil to fry the pancakes in a large iron skillet.

Luke picked kale and I removed the center stalk from each kale leaf with a knife to leave two halved leaves.

Luke then boiled some quinoa and tossed it with the kale and some apple cider vinegar and oil to make a wilted kale and quinoa salad.

Before dinner Suzette cut a length of 1 X 6 inch cedar plank and soaked it in water for about fifteen minutes and then trimmed the salmon filet to fit inside the edge of the board and salt and peppered the filet and brushed it with olive oil and soaked it with lemon juice and put it on a hot grill to roast.

My Jewish tradition is to top potato pancakes with sour cream and sometimes chives, so I made a simple sauce by picking three long stalks of oregano in the garden and picking about ten stalks of chives and removing the leaves from the oregano stalks and chopping the leaves of oregano and then mincing the chives and mixing them into about ½ cup of sour cream (Crema con sal from Pro’s Ranch Market).

We set the table on the back patio and started by serving the wilted kale and quinoa salad and then when the salmon was cooked through to pink and the squash pancakes fried to golden brown, we plated ¼ of the salmon and one squash pancake onto each plate and dabbed spoonfuls of sour cream sauce onto the fish and pancakes.  

We served a bottle of chilled Concannon Sauvignon Blanc and then some Ferme Julien Rosé and enjoyed our garden fresh dinner under the almost full moon with both Luke and Willy together for the first time in over a year.

Bon Appétit