The first dish I cooked in my Le Creuset had to be special. It sounds silly, but this is one of those kitchen pieces I have been wanting for so long. I needed a worthy initiation. What could be better to break in my classic French vessel than a classic French recipe? Coq au vin it was.
Now, there are a plethora of coq au vin recipes out there, from the simple, to the less simple, to the nostalgic classic. I, however, went straight for my copy of Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles cookbook. This is not a quick and simple recipe. It requires overnight marinating, 3 different pots/pans and several steps. But it's really not hard if you prepare and stay organized throughout the process. Plus, the recipe calls for 1 bottle plus 1 cup of red wine...so you have that remaining bottle to drink while you enjoy making classic, heart-warming cuisine!
It started with a chicken in a bath of red wine (every girl's dream, no?)...
the next day everything was the prettiest purple color.
well...not everything was purple. Here are the brown components, awaiting their fate. (Yes, those are lardons from our second batch of home-made bacon. I'm hooked! Must get more pork bellies to make more! I even gave some away as Christmas presents!) the le creuset doin' it's thang:
Served up with some buttered egg noodles (admittedly I wimped out and used frozen...they were good, though!):
TOTALLY worth the effort. The flavors were so good together...the acid and fruity depth of the red wine, the salty bacon, the earthy mushrooms and the juicy chicken...there's a reason why this is a classic.
I'm trying out a new regular feature on this blog. Last weekend, when making stock, I finally brought a CD player into the kitchen (I usually just have the TV on in the background) and was amazed how much more fun cooking was with some of my favorite tunes playing. Later in the week, I went to a wine class, and it occurred to me how much more pleasurable wine drinking might be with a soundtrack. Like pairing food with different wines, doesn't it make sense to pair music with certain wines? Looks like I'm not the first one to have this thought...though this article gets into brain waves and stuff...makes my head hurt a little. I'm more interested in mood. Certain wines, with their flavors and aromas and mouth feels, put you in certain moods. I think music to compliment this mood would most likely enhance the wine tasting/drinking experience.
I recently opened a new favorite find...Garnacha de Fuego. I think I've pretty much liked every blend wine I've had that included Grenache, so it makes sense that I would like straight-up Grenache. this is a bargain at about $8 a pop. Here's a professional's description:
"Bright red. Smoky cherry and dark berry aromas are complemented by candied licorice, dark chocolate and zesty minerality. At once silky and lively, with impressively complex cherry and dark berry flavors joined by an exotic floral pastille quality on the finish. This boasts remarkable focus and persistence for the price."
I pretty much have to agree with that assessment. Furthermore, I see it as kind of a casual kind of wine that most people could groove with. Fruity, but sultry. Which brings me to my playlist (these are amazon links, and you can listen to little previews of the songs):
-Badfish, Sublime- such a chill-out song, with a nice slow beat and rich bass. One of my favorite summer driving songs.
-Son's Gonna Rise, Citizen Cope. This is such a good album. I highly recommend it. This is the song that hooked me (actually a co-worker discovered it from a car commercial).
-It Was a Good Day (Remix)-Ice Cube. From an album celebrating NWA and it's individual members, called N.W.A. legacy. While the original is great, this one is more mellow and smooth with some funk.
-Like the Weather, 10,000 Maniacs. My favorite Maniacs song. Laid back, sad without sounding too melancholy, Natalies's unique fluctuating voice.
-What a Fool Believes, The Doobie Brothers. What?I I like, darn it. You need a little cheese with your wine, right? Anyway, this song is fun and (I think) pretty darn cool.
-Moondance, Van Morrison. God I love this voice. Brings in the "smoky" aspect of the wine, and the sultry nighttime relaxed mood.
So that's it...my Granacha de Fuego playlist. please let me know what you think!
Meanwhile, to sort of bring this full circle, an update...you see, I was drinking the de Fuego (I love saying that!) while I was making my onion butter the other night, so to follow up... for "dinner" tonight (had a big, late lunch, so didn't have a real dinner), I put the onion butter with some Cabot's Seriously Sharp cheddar cheese on a shredded wheat cracker (store-brand, not Triscuit, because Racheal Ray needs to get off my box of Tricuits already!).
Wow! Although my initial taste of the uber-caramelized onions the other night was a little too bitter, this was fantastic! The creaminess and sharpness of the cheese balanced the bitter out, and the salty cracker enhanced the sweetness of the onions. Success! It's been requested for Thanksgiving, even.
ETA: While barely awake yesterday morning, I remembered that there is a song to go along with my little onion butter cheese snack, and nearly laughed out loud:
Pasta Carbonara Florentine Ingredients Cooking spray 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided 1 (6-ounce) package bagged prewashed baby spinach 6 slices center-cut bacon, chopped 1 cup finely chopped onion 2 tablespoons dry white wine 8 ounces uncooked spaghetti 1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 large egg 1 large egg white 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Preparation Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and spinach; cook 1 minute or until spinach wilts, stirring constantly. Remove spinach from pan; place in a bowl.
Add bacon to pan; cook 3 minutes or until crisp, stirring frequently. Remove bacon from pan, reserving 2 teaspoons drippings in pan; set bacon aside. Add onion to drippings in pan; cook 2 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Add wine; cook 1 minute or until liquid is reduced by half. Remove from heat; keep warm.
Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain well, reserving 1 tablespoon cooking liquid. Immediately add pasta and the reserved cooking liquid to onion mixture in skillet. Add spinach and bacon; stir well to combine. Place skillet over low heat.
Combine remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, cheese, pepper, egg, and egg white, stirring with a whisk. Add to pasta mixture, tossing well to coat. Cook 1 minute. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with parsley. Serve immediately.
Things I did a little differently: -I sauteed the spinach in garlic and olive oil instead of cooking spray -I used more than one cup of onion...probably almost 2 cups...I just used the whole onion. I also added 3 cloves of chopped garlic when I cooked the onion. I didn't measure the wine, but since there was more onion, I used a little more wine, too. -I used more pasta, too. a whole pkg. of whole wheat fettucine. -I added an extra egg white to make sure the extra pasta/onions got all nice and coated. I may or may not have added more cheese, too...so much for "cooking light"... :)
The verdict? Yummy! Silky and subtle and great with the Feudo Arancio Grillo Sicillia (also the wine I used in the sauce...I'm not a huge white wine drinker but this one will make more appearances this summer, for sure). Next time I'll add a bit more bacon and spinach, I think, but other than that, a good, simple meal.
Last night I whipped up a pretty easy dinner that turned out really yummy. I was looking to make something that would go well with a Zinfandel I had, and in my research, Italian sausage kept popping up. I also had some gnocchi that I wanted to use. I came across this recipe for gnocchi with Italian sausage and spinach, which sounded pretty perfect.I decided to add baby portabellas and zucchini also.
First I cooked the gnocchi and set it aside. Then I cooked the salsiccia and set it aside on a paper-towel covered plate. I poured off a little bit of the sausage grease, but left about 2 tablespoons of it in the pan. I used this and bit of olive oil to saute onion and garlic (4 cloves) until it was soft and translucent. Then I added the chopped zucchini and mushrooms and cooked until they were just soft (the zucchini still had a bit of bite). then I added the salsiccia back and cooked for a couple of minutes before adding the cooked gnocchi and raw baby spinach. I stirred everything together and cooked it until the spinach was just wilted, about 1 minute. that's it! Pecorino Romano cheese on top, of course!
final product still in the pan: mmmmm...cheese:
here's the wine that started the whole thing: It went very well with the meal. It's a very fruity wine, and complimented the spicy, salty sausage and highlighted the freshness of the zucchini and spinach.
Today I visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I meant to take a closer look at edible plants, but was distracted by all the pretty flowers. I'll have to go back. One tree caught my eye big time. It was in the Climatron, where all the tropical plants dwell. Here's the photos I got of this odd looking fruit tree:
As you can see from the tag in the photo, this is a Myrciaria Cauliflora, otherwise known as Jabuticaba tree. The fruits apparently (you can't taste MOBOT plants, of course) taste similar to grapes, and are indeed used to make jams and wines. I'm tempted to order some wine made from Jabuticaba from Volcano Winery in Hawaii. Or maybe I should take a vacation....Here's a review of the wine. And here's a Food & Wine article about discovering tropical fruits.
Tonight I made some veggie tacos inspired by fellow St. Louis food blog Veggie Venture (please check out her site and others from my new list of St. Louis related links I added to the side bar over there -->). She got the recipe from a Rick Bayless cookbook, and you can't go wrong with Rick Bayless. She added the hominy part, though, which is genius. I love hominy (check out this ancient post where I made a soup with it). The recipe also calls for chipotle, a favorite ingredient in the ironstef household.
I basically followed the recipe as it appeared on Veggie Venture, except I used more zucchini (and a yellow squash) and a 29 oz. can of hominy and more tomatoes (2 14.5 oz. cans diced, no salt added)...so I guess I pretty much doubled the recipe. Anyway, I also added fresh garlic, salt, Mexican oregano and cumin while I was cooking the onions and mushrooms. I also drained most of the liquid from the tomatoes before adding them, and added some sugar. Usually I find I have to add sugar to things I make with canned tomatoes. I forgot to get cilantro (how could I?!?) but I did get some limes, which was a lovely addition squeezed on at the end. Oh, and I used plain old Mexican-aisle corn tortillas instead of the whole wheat ones. It was a great meal. Filling and healthy. I have so many leftovers, which I imagine will taste even better tomorrow. Here's how they looked:
I had it with beer (a Belgian beer with a French-sounding name with a Mexican meal...brilliant!), but here are some tips to pairing wine with Mexican food.
Last night we teamed up to make some pesto. I had gotten some really pretty Opal Basil, which I'd never seen before. It's a deep purple color, and I was hoping the pesto would be really purple, so I could have a Pretty Purple Pesto with Penne. I have a thing for alliteration, you see. Alas, I didn't have enough of the Opal basil, and used lots of the regular green basil. You can still see some of the dark purple specks, though. And it was very tasty. Basically, it was the 2 kinds of basil (one bunch of the opal and a big tub of the regular), toasted pine nuts, 5 cloves of garlic, some parmasean cheese, salt, pepper, lemon juice and lots of olive oil. All blended together in the food processer, served with whole wheat penne topped with shredded parmesan and more toasted pine nuts. Can you say MMMMMM?!?! I had it with some Red Diamond Cabernet, which worked well. It's an extremely fruity wine...kind of sweet even. The combo of that juiciness and the salty nuttiness of the pesto was very nice.
2 weekends ago I went to the St. Louis food and WIne Experience. It's a wine and food show put on to raise money for the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. This is the third year I've gone, and as usual, it was a blast. Basically, you walk around and taste wine. It's a great way to learn about wine, because reps from the wine companies are usually there to answer questions. It's also a great place to find a bunch of wines that are new to you. Most booths have little take away cards so you can remember which wines you liked. I went through our pilke of cards last night, so here's a list of some of our favorite wines we tried that day:
Taltarni Vineyards 2002 Shiraz (I think this was our favorite find of the whole day. I remember we both took a card so we'd be sure to remember this one)
I also came away with a nice informative brochure detailing all of the Missouri Wineries. I haven't been to any besides 4 of them in St. Genevieve. And I didn't realize that there were so darn many!
And in other local wine news, the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran this article about wines with naughty names a couple weeks ago. I love Fat Bastard Wines. I'd like to try some of these other wines with funny names. I know it's more of a gimmick, but darn it, you're gonna resist a wine called "Bitch"?
So I am just starting to settle in after moving. We are way way way closer to work, now, saving around and hour and a half a day of our lives that used to be spent in the car. Woo.
Tonight I'm flying solo. I decided against working out, because I have worked out 3 days in a row, and don't feel bad taking a break. So after work I went to the library. Having so much time, I perused the "New Books" shelf. I came across Read it and Eat, by Sarah Gardener. It basically lists 4 books for every month, each month within a theme (i.e. September is "Celebrate Banned Book month" and October is "Fright Night," so all the books have a common theme). It has discussion questions for each book, then, and this is the neat part, recipes inspired by the book to serve at the book club gathering! What a great idea! There's a catfish recipe for Huckleberry Finn, "Inconcievable! Fritattas" for Princess Bride,and Irish Farm Bread for Angela's Ashes. I really like this idea. Check out the excerpt from Amazon.
After the library I made myself a healthy dinner. I cooked a sweet potato in the microwave, then cut it in half and dumped some curried chickpeas on it. It was a simple meal...I added my curry powder and a few other spices and seasonings to the canned chickpeas, and a bit of water, and nuked them for a couple minutes. It's a very filling and comforting meal. Healthy, too, it would seem.
While I was eating, I flipped to Isaac Mizrahi's show on the Style Network. He's so fun. He had a guy on named Josh Perilo who had the 10 best wines for under $10. Being a big fan of wines under $10, I enjoyed the segment. Unfortunately, the link to Perilo's site doesn't work, and I couldn't find anything much on him with a web search. For now, there are tons of "Under $10" lists out there for us to check out.
Oi. Running late with this week's list o- links again!!! I'm almost ready, but to hold you over a little longer, how about some more food-related postry? This time it's not by me (I know you're disappointed). But it's still good. Check out the Red Wine Haiku Blog! Great stuff!
Over the weekend Jack and I (thanks to a wonderful Christmas gift of 2 tickets) attended the St. Louis Food & Wine Experience at the Chase Park Plaza. So my theme this week is a whole bunch of what I can remember from this event. (I'm sorry there's not more tasting info, I didn't take notes, I just remembered what I liked...there was alot of wine to taste ;)) The wines we tasted and enjoyed: -Ravenswood is an old favorite of mine, and we got to try the old vine Zinfandel. MMMM. -Mad Dog's & Englishmen Shiraz Cabernet Monestrell I do enjoy blends...and this one was yummy -Rancho Arroyo wines -One of my favorite things was finally getting to try some Bonnydoon wines. I have admired the company for their sooper-fun website for quite some time, but haven't had the opportunity to try any of the actual wine. I tried the Cardinal Zin and the Cigar-something (which was only available in the VIP lounge-hoighty-toighty). Very good. Check out their campaign to get rid of corks. -Also, in the VIP lounge, we tried Ice Wine for the first time (sorry don't recall a maker). It was soooooo sweet. 2 sips was enough. I mean there was a certain green-ness to it, but wow...it was like candy. -Guenoc Reserve Wines -Another first...Norton wines. We usually skip over the Missouri wine section at the store, because there's this stigma of being too-sweet grape-juice like wines and the dreaded white zinfandel-esque crowd pleasers. But since we were trying new things, we tried Chaumette winery's Norton, and it was delish! Quite different...very fruity and juicy without being sweet. -Coppola Wines, which besides being yummy, had this wonderful film-geek item-A giant wine bottle with an apocalypse Now DVD in the base! Oh man, when they come out with the Godfather ones, look out...there goes my savings account.
Okay, on the food part. There wasn't very many food booths. -There was Father Dominic the Bread Monk, though. He did a presentation and book signing. I love his show...I whish PBS would start it up again. -The Chef from a new St. Louis restaurant Red Moon was there, too, but we missed his presentation. The restaurant, however gets a hearty recommendation from my good pal (and frequent diner-outer) Kelly. -McArthur's Bakery provided some divine sweets. We kept making excuses to "pass by" that booth. Tiramisou, Brownies, Strawberry Shortcake....slurp. -And jack was very excited to touch a real-live Viking range. Our next food field trip will be to the Viking Culinary Center here in town.
I'm probably forgetting things and omitting essential details, but it was a great experience. Like exploring. And can you blame me, I mean it was pretty much a bottomless wine-glass kind of situation...I chose stem in hand over pen in hand. I encourage you to explore your food favorites, whether it be wines or soups or chocolate or whatever. You'll have fun, and probably learn some stuff. Go on an adventure!
Tips on choosing wines. I usually stick to my favorite reds, ‘cause I can drink red wine with almost anything. Last year, we brought a big bottle of Pieporter Riesling along to share, because my family is the oober-sweet Beringer white zinfandel type (yuck!), and we thought we’d introduce a better sweet wine. It was a big hit.
