For semi-retired folks like me, lunches are a beautiful thing. Normally, there are no time pressures, no deadlines for when one must produce the meal. They provide a splendid mechanism to exercise your creativity while using up leftovers which would otherwise go to waste. And they can be served with or without wine, as you wish on any given day.

Today’s solo lunch for me illustrates these principles. The meal was built around a series of small plates. The first one was a serving of fresh Padron Peppers, received yesterday from an online order with La Tienda.

Those of you who are regular readers know that I have no financial interests in any of the products I recommend in this blog. I just want my readers to be able to have access to the best ingredients, easily.

Simple dish: peppers, olive oil, sea salt flakes:

Next was a dish based on several leftovers in the fridge: two small calamari tubes, home-roasted and peeled sweet peppers, and sautéed pieces of mushrooms — Oyster and Lion’s Mane varieties. These were sautéed in the same pan as the padron peppers, so as to use the flavored olive oil and minimize dishes. A little Piment d’Esplette supplied a bit of spice to the meal. (You may notice the prevalence of peppers of all kinds in my lunches. That’s because my wife can’t eat peppers at all, so these are opportunities for me to go ‘hog wild’ without reproach.)

I still had plenty of mushrooms left, so the last dish was made with Ciabatta rolls from Trader Joe’s topped with mushrooms. One slice was just that, and the other was gussied up a bit with Manchego cheese on top of the mushrooms, lightly grilled.

As usual, good wine makes it all come together nicely. Today’s pick was new to me. It was a delightful surprise I learned a couple of days ago from a friend and former student (Marshall). He was a graduate of our Wine 101 Seminar seven years ago. He recommended Mbali from Trader Joe’s, a blend of 79% Chenin Blanc and 21% Viognier. This wine was outside my normal price range (retail price $4.97), but I took a gamble and bought 2 bottles yesterday. It was the perfect choice for this eclectic set of dishes. Thanks, Marshall!