Saturday, Jake made ham and eggs with fried potatoes for
breakfast. He, of course, prepped the potatoes the night before as well as
baking the ham slice (to eliminate some of the excess moisture). That way, in
the morning, all he had to do was fry. Breakfast was delicious.
Sidebar: I am sorta glad my scale at home quit working a
while back. God only knows how much weight I’ve gained this trip!
Jake and Carla had an errand to run, so I stayed home with
the dog. I used my time to fill in the Blog post and to shave, shower and get
dressed.
When they got back, Carla and I switched places. She stayed
home while Jake and I made the trip to Whole Foods. We got the few items we
needed for both tonight and Sunday night’s supper.
Back at home, I switched back into shorts and a tee shirt
(another sunny, warm day). In the afternoon, we started prepping. Jake and I
each had our own station and were directed by Chef Carla.
I paid no attention to what Jake was doing, but it had
something to do with chorizo and various cheeses. I know I medium-diced an
onion, minced three cloves of garlic, seeded and diced two Roma (Italian)
tomatoes, chopped a quarter cup of fresh, flat-leaf parsley and, after removing
the crusts, cut three slices of hearty white bread into one-inch cubes.
All the ingredients went into baggies or plastic containers
and into the fridge.
We relaxed and watched some TV until Jake decided to clean
the mussels. After that was done, Carla started dinner.
She decided, last minute, that she wanted to have shoe
string French fried potatoes with dinner, so Jake peeled three russet potatoes,
cut them into shoestring slices on the mandolin and then he and I separated each
slice into the shoestrings.
She was making a Portuguese stew with mussels and sausage
(in this case, chorizo). She browned the sausage and added in the onions and
garlic. Next came the diced tomatoes.
She varied from the original Portuguese recipe by adding a
healthy slug of white wine.
Next, all the mussels went in to get steamed for about 10
minutes.
Jake, meanwhile, had heated up some oil in a pan and was
making the French fries in batches.
Carla ripped big hunks of bread off a baguette and we
finally plated everything.
Dinner was served with the remaining white wine (a
sauvignon blanc).
The stew was excellent, especially when you sopped up the
broth with the crusty bread. As we ate, the mussel shells got bigger in their discard
bowls and our stew bowls got emptier. The fries were long gone by the time we
decided we were full.
All in all, it was a great and memorable dinner!
Jake cleaned up the kitchen and we settled in to watch another
John Wayne movie, “The Sons of Katie Elder.” When it was done, Carla said she
was going to bed. So, Jake and I watched a documentary about Muhammad Ali (one
of my personal all-time sports heroes).
When that finished, I went to bed. I read for about 15
minutes and decided I was too tired for reading. So, I went to sleep.
Is that all you people do - EAT.
ReplyDeleteOf course not! We spent about three hours discussing quantum mechanics today, but I know my readers and thought they'd be more interested in what we ate.
ReplyDeleteI’d love a post on quantum mechanics and Max Planck.
ReplyDelete@ Jyl: I'll keep that in mind for the upcoming year's Blog entries.
ReplyDelete