It must be easy to tell when we have company! As you can see, we went through a fun selection of wine this weekend, trying new tastes. This was the first time we've ever served a white or a dessert wine.
Kevin and I split the duties this weekend -- I did Christmas Eve while he handled Christmas Day. I got lucky and after having thought I would need to work on the Eve, it turned out I had the day at home. Which was good, since it allowed me to both wrap presents and complete the menu for the evening. Dinner was for 8 adults and two small children. Recipes to be posted later.
Before dinner:
Cheese & cracker tray (including aged cheddar, brie, and applewood smoke cheddar)
Shrimp with homemade cocktail sauce (a mix of recipes garnered from FoodTV)
Dinner:
Brined & Grilled Cornish Game Hens
Saffron Risotto
Steamed Green Beans
Dessert:
Liz brought a wonderful assortment of cookies & Jenn brought a ginger cake to share that a client had sent her.
I didn't count on us eating quite so much *before* dinner as we did (and I didn't even get out the frozen appetizers!) so I made too many of the baby chickies. But it was all good, and the risotto is a definite keeper (recipe to be posted soon). We served the Tyrell's pinot and the Relax riesling, with the Red Electra after dinner.
For Christmas, Kevin was inspired by Alton Brown's episode about prime rib, and decided to cook our first. Not an experience to be repeated soon, not so much because of taste (it was OMG good) but because of expense. Yowch! But oh so worth it!
He had complete control over the menu, and his parents brought in a small appetizer plate and the Sebastiani merlot.
Dinner:
Prime rib
Roasted garlic smashed potatoes
Buttered asparagus
Salad
Bread (store bought Italian... we needed one thing easy! *grins*)
Christmas breakfast was handled by my mom who brought a wonderful coffee cake (I'll grab the link for that later).
Overall, a weekend of good food and good eating. We'll be enjoying the leftovers and I get to take prime rib to work for lunch! *grins*
Red Electra
California Muscat Wine, 2003
Andrew Quady, Madera California
$12.95
This is one of the wines we tried at the wine tasting during our Christmas shopping trip to Lee (along with the Riesling Kevin commented on earlier). I very much like this one, and would definitely like to pick it up again. It's one I could happily have around and have a small glass of after dinner at night.
It's sweet without being sugary, with a hint of fizz. It was compared by some to a port (and Kevin has now promised to pick up a port for me to try). It is definitely not intended to be anything but a dessert wine, and I think it would pair well with a rich, dark dessert like chocolate.
Relax (Deb:8/10, Kevin:7/10)
Riesling, 2003
Germany
$9.95
We've finally found a white wine we like. Sweet, but not overpowering. Well balanced between the sweet and the dry. Very light, a nice complement to lighter dishes (such as the cornish game hens we served for Christmas Eve).
Sebastiani (7/10)
Merlot, 1999
Sonoma County
Unknown Price (Gift)
My parents brought this merlot with them as the wine for our Christmas dinner. It matched well with the prime rib. There was a complexity to the nice fruity flavor of the wine.
Tyrrell's Old Winery (5.5/10)
Pinot Noir, 1999
Hunter Valley
$12.99
A softer style of red wine with complex "gamey" fruit flavours and a fleshy fruit palate texture.
I found this a fairly non-descript pinot noir. It was certainly drinkable, but not outstanding.
Chateauneuf du Pape (4.5/10)
Estate Bottled Rhone Table Wine, 2000
Domaine de la Solitude
Price Unknown (Gift)
I'll say this -- it's better than most French wines I've had. Then again, I don't particularly like French wine. This is a blend of grenache, syrah, and mourvedre.
You may say this is cheating. But these came out SO good with a sharp lemony taste and just enough sweet and a brilliant little bite at the end. I'll definitely make them again. I might actually use more ginger next time. If I'd had the shredded ginger, I would've used that.
Lemon Ginger Cookies
1 box lemon cake mix
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
zest of 1 lemon, minced
1 tsp ground fresh ginger (I get it from a jar -- SpiceWorld)
1/4 cup candied ginger
Preheat oven to 325. Stir together first five ingredients. Stir in candied ginger. Drop by teaspoonfuls (small scoop) onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 8 minutes. If you use a medium scoop, bake for roughly 15 minutes.
If you want to add a fancy finish, frost with a dollop of vanilla frosting just before serving.
On Friday I came home and found Kevin on the phone with our propane/oil company, demanding to know why we had no propane. Turns out, after four attempts to have propane delivery turned on, they had never asked us for paperwork, nor gotten anything filed to do it. Needless to say, we're without oven and stove this weekend.
Of course, this is the weekend I was supposed to be baking up a storm for the dessert party at work on Monday. I was despondent. I *love* baking. It is my favorite form of cooking. Okay, well, candy making comes in close, too.
Then on Saturday morning we went out and bought a small appliance that we've been wanting for a while. And suddenly my troubles were over.
Yes, I've been baking in a toaster oven. The recipe for the cookies I made this morning follow next entry.
But I have one question... is my foody license revoked because I've been baking with cake mix and doing it in a toaster oven??
Tonight, Kevin and I played the time honored game of "rescue that sauce!" We also proved once again something we already knew. We each cook well. But we cook far better when we work together.
When I walked in the door from work, he was fishing through the freezer seeking something to make for dinner. He'd already put a beef roast in the fridge to defrost for later this week, but he needed something for Right Now.
He came up with boneless, skinless chicken breasts -- our staple. He told me he planned to pan sear them, and make some sort of a sauce. I pointed out the white Bully Hill wine, and the new mustard we'd gotten yesterday (and the blooming onion sauce). Then I headed downstairs.
When I came back up, he had the chicken in the pan, searing up a storm. The oven was preheating so he could finish them off, and sitting next to the stove was his planned sauce, already mixed together (white wine and the blooming onion horseradish sauce). He then got everything into the oven and headed off to do something. So when the pan was ready, I started the sauce.
This was when the problem started. The blooming onion sauce had curdled in the wine. Ew! We started whisking and throwing things at the problem and in the end, we had an amazingly good pan sauce that wasn't a bit broken.
Seared Chicken with Horseradish Sauce
The Chicken:
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, about 4-6 oz each
oil (we used peanut oil)
salt
pepper
Preheat oven to 350. Heat a cast iron pan to hot. Rub the chicken with oil, salt and pepper. Place chicken in pan and immediately cover with spatter guard. Cook for four minutes on each side, then place pan in the oven for 8 minutes.
Check for doneness, and remove to a plate and keep warm.
The Sauce:
1/3 c wine + water to make 1/2 cup
1 T butter
2 heaping Tbsp Rothschild's blooming onion sauce
1/3 c sour cream (until thick)
Add wine to hot pan to deglaze over medium heat. Stir in butter until melted and combined. Whisk in blooming onion sauce and raise heat to medium-medium high (you want a good bubble, but not burning). Add sour cream (I used light) by the spoonful and whisk thoroughly until you reach a decent consistency. I added two heaping soup spoonfuls.
Spoon sauce over chicken and serve. Makes four servings.
Red Truck (6/10)
Red Table Wine, 2002
Cline Cellars, Sonoma, California
$9.99
The description on the bottle is poetic: Remember that old red truck your grandad had on the farm... that's right, the one that sat idle most of the time; but when you needed a dependable running machine, it rumbled to life and made you feel good. Our Red Truck wine is just the same way -- reliable, well crafted, full of life, and great tasting.
I like this one. It is fruity and dry. Deb says the dryness masks the fruitiness and wrinkled her nose at it. It is a mix of Oakley Mourvedre, Sonoma County Syrah, Merlot, and Petite Sirah.
Today Kevin and I learned that Christmas shopping near a cooking store (or a wine store!) can be dangerous.
Not that any of it isn't useful! No, no, it's all stuff we needed (well, maybe except for the food). We got a 12 inch spatter screen, which is good for the 12 inch skillet (the smaller spatter screen just wasn't doing it). Two small scoops for cookie baking. A new parmesan cheese grater. A new pepper mill (since Kevin dunked the other in the crockpot and it just *didn't* come clean). Four small glass oil cruet jars with nice spouts.
We had stopped into the specialty food/wine store early in the day, and they had recommended coming back for the wine tasting later. So I sent Kevin there while I picked up a last few things. When I got there, I tried a couple of wines, and we ended up buying three more wines (for my already too full wine cabinet). A red because of the name (Chateu St. Nick, which Kevin intends to try for Christmas Eve). A Relax Riesling white, which was soft and fruity, without being overly dry or sweet. An Electra (or was it Elektra? anyway...) which is a darling dessert wine which isn't too sweet but is rather like a soft mellow juice. Very nice and simple, and I'll have that out for after dinner at Christmas Eve.
And yes, we did manage to do some Christmas shopping for other people too. *smiles* But I swear, every place we stopped that had to do with cooking, we came out with *something* for us.