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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Alex’s Supper Menu

Definition of a picky eater: someone who will eat a greater variety of food than Alex. In an effort to get our live-in granddaughter, Alex, more involved with our meals and the family decisions, we decided to allow her to select the menu for one dinner a week, figuring it would be a bowl of cereal or chicken noodle soup from a can (it has been banned as part of this exercise). She will on occasion be willing to try something new and I think it surprises her and us when she says she likes it. The next step will be to she if we can inspire her to want to help cook her meal.

For her first meal, she selected fish (crappie from the freezer) with lemon, butter, caper sauce which she’d tried here recently link, deep fried asparagus which she’d had while her parents were visiting over Christmas, and portabella mushrooms like the ones Bev stuffed the other day, but without the stuffing – hum. I was more than a little suprised by her meat and 2 veggie menu. Discovering she likes asparagus is new info and I told her to be prepared to be in hog heaven this spring, as my asparagus patch produces more than we can eat and it tastes light years better than store bought.

We have a basic beer batter (flour, egg, beer, salt) that we use for most things, but I decided to surf the net a little and found this one to use on the asparagus. For the portabellas, we just sprinkled with a little garlic salt and sautéed in olive oil. The originals were coated with olive oil, sprinkled with garlic salt, stuffed and baked, so it was pretty close and we all liked them. Here’s a picture of Alex’s plate.


I also battered and deep fried three cremini mushrooms and two pieces of fish to see how we liked them with the new batter - I believe it may be our new favorite. It has more flavors added and it’s lighter than our normal – kind of between it and a tempura. Here’s my plate with the experiments.


It made for a good meal and I’m looking forward to next week’s menu choices.

As an aside, we are far from wine connoisseurs, and most of what we drink is from a box (we’d go bankrupt if it were all $15/ bottle – but that’s another issue), but one of the ways we treat ourselves is belonging to the V. Sattui Wine Club, where we get two bottles per month of their choice of wine. We discovered the winery many years ago, before they were rich and famous, during a trip through Napa Valley and have always thought they make great red wines, especially cabernet. It’s not available in liquor stores here, and perhaps anywhere, so we have to visit the winery or mail order it. I’ve added this to today’s post as this month’s selection just arrived via Fedex.



We'll look forward to trying it shortly. Have a great day and I enjoy your comments and suggestions.

Larry

8 comments:

  1. I was surprised to hear that your granddaughter chose fish. I have a hard time getting anyone in my family to eat fish! The menu looks great and I thank you for sharing it with us. :)

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  2. Alex needs to come to my house and show up my number one picky eater. You must be so proud! Home grown asparagus! Wow, now that's something I will have to ask my husband to plant.

    How are you getting wine shipped into the TN? I got busted =(

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  3. Katherine,
    There are specific loopholes in the laws regarding having wines shipped to TN (which we found out from the sommolier there at Sattui). If you have gone to the winery, purchased wine directly from them and filled out the requisite form, then they can legally ship the wine to you. So take a trip to Napa and Sonoma Valleys. Sample some great wine. Buy a bottle or two from the places you like. Then come home and order them as much as you want!

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  4. Well said Wende and thanks for jumping in, I was going to answer her but couldn't remember the exact ground rules.

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  5. And I sure didn't know how to spell sommolier, although I think I may know how to pronounce it.

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  6. Anytime, Dad. I'll take my payment in soup and wine. ;)

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  7. Thanks for your mention about V. Sattui! We appreciate it! We're following you! Feel free to follow us @vsattui1885 and Fan us up on our Fan page. Thanks and come by and visit soon.

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  8. Fried asparagus, sounds like Alex ate at Puleo's Grill :) That is some awesome stuff, I can eat it for my main course instead of sharing as an appetizer.

    I have a recipe from Stockton for a heartier and peppery batter like they use at Puleo's but I love the sound of a tempura batter with it.

    Great idea for getting Alex involved.

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