I made the onion soup from menu 8 on Friday night, a fairly straight-up recipe. It was pretty, though... well, not so much dull as very delicate. I think the onion needed to be sauteed a bit longer, and we needed better cheese. But the soup had great potential and didn't break the points budget. It was definitely an example of what The Bride observed in an earlier thread--many of these recipes are ways of serving plain foods in fancy ways. Onion, bread, wine, cheese. What could be simpler?Tonight, I made the Truite aux amandes, although, alas, in the end it turned into Truite sans amandes because I remembered the almonds only after we sat down to eat. The little bag of almonds sitting in the ingredients pile next to the butter, parsley and lemons might as well have been left in the shopping cart at Lunds. Oddly, I remembered the slice of lemon. I remembered the parsley garnish. Evidently my subconscious was stunned enough at the prospect of sauting almonds in 10 TBL of butter that it just drew a blank. In addition to forgetting the butter-sauted almonds, I reduced the fat content of the recipe by using butter-flavored canola spray instead of 3 Tbl of butter plus 1 Tbl of oil. I'm sure that the flavor would have been much richer with butter and nuts, but it was good without it too.
Arthritic, hobbled Hobbes was like a cat-possessed. The trout seemed to put a spirit of youth in him. He performed acrobatic feats to reach the counter where I was preparing the trout. When I stood up to get the salt, he moved like a flash and almost got some off my plate.
We served the trout with the pommes à l'Anglaise, roast asparagus and delicious baguette made from "artisan bread in five minutes a day." I had a French white, and Tom had a red.
2 comments:
I love the shots of Hobbes chasing the fish! Floyd has done much similar, although he's well-mannered enough not to jump on the counter (but he got Anne's tuna sandwich at lunch today).
You must try the trout again, and remember the almonds this time. It is a really special treat. I used only about 5 TBs of butter -- and even that much wouldn't be necessary. I was thinking there needed to be a buttery sauce, but the fish is moist enough that you can leave the almonds fairly dry. They do have to be sautéd to get the full flavor, however.
Nice picture of the plated food.
Love the pictures of Hobbes. I can only say - get that cat a fish of his own. He deserves it.
Our Gomez doesn't like fish particularly, but goes berserker in the presence of liver. So I buy it for him and saute it in butter, brown on the outside, but still rare on the inside, just the way he likes it.
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