Culinary victory...

Marie and Paul came over for a visit and were generous enough for us to eat sort of a whacky meal and stay long enough to start watching the series Due South with me, a show Paul recommended.

You see, Marie and I had planned to make the Grilled Eggplant with Balsamic Vinegar, Feta, Basil and Grilled Baguette, since Paul had yet to try it.  But I have also been hankering to try an re-create an Archer Farms flatbread that I found.  And, since even the grilled eggplant would not have been enough, I thawed chicken so we could have baked chicken with Thai peanut sauce over basmati rice.  Yes, that final bit is an odd addition to the other two parts of our "meal."

I am very excited about the flatbread. In posting the recipe I created, I was not sure what to call it, but settled upon Three Cheese and Balsamic Glaze Flatbread.  It was very, very, very tasty.  The good thing is that you end up with more of the base sauce than what you need for just one flatbread, so I can have it again as soon as I wish.

Because I am a chicken, I made Marie tackle the béchamel sauce, ostensively because I was allowing her the opportunity to learn how to make a béchamel sauce ... but I am a chicken.  We ended up putting the garlic paste on the bread, since I didn't think to add it to the sauce at the beginning, so I wrote the recipe up to add it to the sauce so that I do it properly next time.

As the recipe notes, the Archer Farms flatbread simply said "Italian cheese sauce" as an ingredient.  I looked high and low trying to figure out what that might be and ended up deciding to make a béchamel sauce with gruyere cheese.  That was the sauce base on top of which was to be brie and balsamic glaze.  However, I thought it should have more than what Archer Farms did, so I added feta cut basil paste.  Hence the third cheese of my recipe name.  I stink at guestimating what I have dumped in, but I tried to think more carefully about how much basil went into the feta.  Since Marie brought a container, I was able to see just about how much feta was used and I tried to cut the gruyere so that I could also know how much was used.  Despite my poor recipe writing skills, I would highly recommend you try this flatbread.  Actually, I would highly recommend that you try it out all by yourself (i.e., eat the whole darn thing) before serving it to others.

Because I am still so very exhausted from the past week, I set my alarm for 10 minutes before Marie and Paul were to arrive.  They got here early and let themselves in, since they needed to change from church clothing to arctic gear (most folk find my house cold).  Without even looking at a mirror (even though I went to bed with wet hair), I dragged myself to the GREEN chair and mumbled a greeting.  Those poor folk had to wait for me to wake up some before eating.  I think I half starved them.  But they left stuffed ... so perhaps it all worked out in the end?

Being the researcher, I would only be willing to say that this is a preliminary finding, but close scrutiny of my water bills since the dishwasher was installed, taking into account the additional water usage of guests' showers, I believe that there has be no increase in my water bill from using the dishwasher. In fact, I almost believe that it might be saving water usage, by not having water running whilst doing dishes everyday. I still wash certain things by hand, but what can go into the dishwasher goes into it.  The reason I say this is because I had guest showers and I had one evening of watering the yard (in moving the sprinklers a total of four hours of running water) and yet still did not go over the previous month's bills!

Fort Wayne seems to have set levels. I really don't understand it, because I have the same bill each month unless I do something stupid like trying to keep my yard alive during a drought.  We had an increase in basic fees this last year that was not insignificant to me.  However, despite having a dishwasher, having done more laundry than usual, having watered the yard, and having had a guest, my bill was the same.  Again.

The reason I mention this is that we made a bit of a mess in the kitchen, using lots of dishes.  First, without the dishwasher installation, which expanded the counter space, making such a mess would have been harder.  Making three different dishes would have been really difficult.  Second, though we made a great mess, clean-up was fairly easy because much could go in the dishwasher.  I washed by hand what needed washing by hand and was finished before Marie and Paul would have arrived back home.   So, there was no real strain on me for the visit and the culinary adventures, either physically or financially.

Amos, of course, is very happy during culinary adventures with guests.  Guests mean that he had more dishes to pre-clean for me.  And his Aunt Marie and Uncle Paul are oft a tad bit generous on how much they leave for him to clean.

I've napped thrice since my guests left.  For whatever reason, I never dream when I nap in the GREEN chair.  However, I am fairly sure this night will be filled with dreams of flatbread tastiness.  A day with a culinary victory, merciful guests, a new show to watch, much rest, and a contented puppy is a good day.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!