Towse: views from the hill

We got back from our flying visit to Obama country late Tuesday.

   (One of the reasons we visit Obama country. …)

Weather when we landed was spitting. (Oh, please give us more rain before the dry summer months kick in.)

We caught the Super Shuttle in from the airport. His nibs had signed and paid online (cheaper that way) before we left home. There were two other guys in the van before us and we wondered where we’d be taken on our way home. Super Shuttle is a fantastic random way to see parts of the City that we don’t usually see.

Both guys — turned out — lived in the Sunset, just a few blocks from each other. One was like at 26th and Noriega, the other at 27th and Judah, maybe?

After dropping the second guy off, the driver drove like a bat outta hell to get from the Sunset to Telegraph Hill, through the park, up Park Presidio to 101 to Lombard then over on Larkin and up Union, down Montgomery.

Home again, home again. Drop the bags on the floor. Pick up the mail that’s sitting where it fell after the mail carrier stuffed it through the door slot.

By now it was past 7:30p and our usual behavior would’ve been to walk down to Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store and order a large carafe of cheap red wine and two orders of canneloni. Soul soothing food for tired people. Ymmm. But there was this drizz, see? and I was tired and … I can make dinner quicker than we could walk the four blocks down to Mario’s and wait for our order. Not to mention I didn’t feel like walking uphill home after dinner.

Dinner Tues

Preheat oven to 375dF or so. Set the rice cooker cooking rice. Fish from the freezer, thawed in the microwave. Place on aluminum foil. Sprinkle with mixed herbs. Squeeze half lemon on top. Wrap up and put in oven for 15min. (~$3)

Prep broccoli and put in microwave for 3min. (~$0.50)

Hmmm. Hmmm. Start sorting through mail. 15min up. Check fish. Put back in for another five minutes. Check broccoli. Zap for another minute. Rice is done. Fish is done. Broccoli is done. Dinner is served ~ twenty-five minutes after we decided not to walk down to Mario’s.

Cost: maybe $4 for the two of us. ($0.50 for broccoli. $0.20 for rice, maybe? $0.20 for lemon. $3 for fish. … Cheaper than Mario’s, that’s for sure.)

Dinner Wedn

Last night I just wanted something simple. Still lagging from the trip. His nibs had stopped off in Chinatown on his way back from his doctor’s appointment and stocked up on fresh veggies and fruit. What sounded good?

Hardboil two eggs. Well, three eggs, really. Save one for an egg salad sandwich Thursday or Friday. Peel and chop two eggs.

[How to boil an egg. Place egg in small pot. Cover with cold water. Place pot on burner. When water boils, turn off heat, put lid on pot and wait ten minutes. After ten minutes, pour hot water from pot and cool egg(s) by filling pot with cold water.]

Rinse bag of spinach from Chinatown. Shake dry. Put in large heat-proof bowl. Cost: $0.50

Toss chopped egg on top. Cost: $0.40 +/- for two eggs.

Take about 1/3 lb bacon and cut into small bits. Fry. Cost: ~$0.70 (bacon 4lbs/$8 @ Costco)

While waiting for bacon to crisp, slice a chunk of sour batard in half, butter, sprinkle with garlic herb sprinkle, put back together, butterside<->butterside, wrap in aluminum foil and heat in 400dF oven. Cost: ~$0.60

Take fried bacon bits out of frying pan and toss onto spinach in bowl. Pour off all but 3T of bacon fat. (Save remainder of bacon fat in refrigerator dish with bacon fat already saved there for another day. …)

Add 2T olive oil to bacon fat in frypan. Heat. Add 1/2 onion, chopped. Brown. Add ~ 3T balsamic vinegar and scrape up bits from bottom of frypan. Cost olive oil/onion/vinegar ~ $0.50

When hot through, pour onion/vinegar/fat over spinach/egg/bacon and toss. Serve with garlic bread.

Cost for tasty, nutritious (well, except for the bacon and bacon fat) dinner for two: $3, if that.

Home again, home again. Let’s take a boat to Bermuda. Let’s grab a plane to Saint Paul. Let’s take a kayak to Quincy or Nyack. Let’s get away from it all.

But it’s oh. so. nice. to come home.

Simple really.

We buy fish at Costco in big cheaper-by-the-pound lots and then divvy it up into 1/2lb. bags for the freezer.

Cost of fish ~$3.

1C of dry white wine. (Doesn’t need to be the pricey stuff, but at least make it something you’d drink out of a glass without spewing. Peter Vella Chardonnay out of the box we stash in the hall closet for just such uses.)

Chopped onion. I used maybe half an onion. (onion $0.39/lb in Chinatown)

Add wine and onion to saute pan and heat to boiling. Add fish. Cook until fish flakes easily with a fork. Take fish out of pan and put in a glass baking dish.

While the fish is cooking. Melt a cube [1/2C] of butter in a measuring cup in the microwave. Butter melted? Fish done and removed to baking dish? Good.

Boil down the wine and onion until reduced to about 1/3C. Add the hot wine/onion reduction to the melted butter in the measuring cup.

Separate two egg yolks.
(We used the egg whites in the scrambled eggs this morning. …)

Put two egg yolks in blender and whirl. You see where we’re going right? While the yolks are whirling, pour the wine/onion/melted-butter mix into the blender and whirl until it all thickens up. Call this a Hollandaise variant if you must.

Pour the sauce over the fish that’s in the baking dish. Sprinkle with a bit of shredded Parmesan cheese. On top of that, sprinkle a dusting of paprika.

Put under a broiler until the sauce browns lightly.

Served with rice and asparagus, which happens to be 99c/pound in Chinatown and local, not shipped in from Chile or some such place. We had about half a pound between us.

Total cost something like $4, maybe $4.50 for the two of us.

Delish. Hard on the arteries, but delish.