Despite my often anti-social tendencies, I decided to go ahead and host a little wine-tasting get-together thingy over the weekend. (I find it is easier to be social if being social does not involve leaving my apartment...) It seemed like a good excuse to hang out with my totally awesome co-workers (and and my totally awesome friend Joe) away from work while eating good food and tasting delicious wine. Thus it was that by Saturday night (after a day scaring Pedro to death with cooking smells) this table of yummy food appeared in my living room:
Sarah came by early to be my wing-man in the kitchen (since Steph was too lame to fly over from Santa Barbara to help out...) and expertly folded the awesome phyllo triangles (embiggened below so you can marvel at her craftsmanship), as well as bringing some awesome fresh corn and asparagus to throw on the grill.
I think the Miniature Jalapeño Soufflés (or "Little Spicy Cupcakes," as a friend in Melbourne called them) were probably the favorite thing I made (the smoked salmon and dill spread that a friend brought was pretty darned tasty as well)... There were a couple culinary hiccups, primarily due to working with different ingredients than I'm used to (the cheddar I used wasn't as good as the Tillamook extra sharp vintage white that I like to use when on the West coast, and the blue cheese in the Chicken Liver and Blue Cheese Pâté was WAY stronger than the kind I usually use, so that turned out a lot more funky-stinky-cheesy than usual... I still actually liked it in a strange way, but it's not at all what I intended to serve to guests, and I didn't get a chance to taste the chilled version and discover this until after guests had come and gone... oh, well...)
There was pretty good variety in the wines, with selections from Cali and Oregon. Surprisingly, Oregon (Erath in particular) really got its ass kicked in the blind tasting. We had an Erath 30th Anniversary Pinot from 2000 (which almost certainly suffered from over-cellaring...) that retailed for $30 at the time it was purchased and a 2007 Erath that sells for ~$15 in stores. These were the two least favorite wines of the bunch. Another Oregon Pinot came in 3rd-to-last, but it suffered from following the night's winner: a wine we would sometimes refer to as "Forty Buck Chuck," (referencing, of course, Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's and the fact that this wine, the Carlson Pinot Noir, was the work of winemaker Chuck Carlson (whose winery I used to work for in Santa Barbara) and cost... $40). This was the 2004 Santa Rita Hills vintage, and it is one damn fine Pinot, I must say... Foxen (also from Santa Ynez) performed admirably as well with a 2004 Santa Maria Valley Pinot. These were both from my stash (as was the more expensive loser from Erath) and weren't necessarily something you can find in stores (especially over here). The other front-runner, however, was the Sterling Vintner's Collection 2007 Central Coast Pinot - a bargain at $15 and much easier to track down at your local wine store...
I went with a pretty easy meal for dinner on Sunday to make up for hanging out in the kitchen scaring Pedro so much on Saturday: Warm Chicken with Lemon Couscous. This is a Donna Hay recipe that makes me very happy, and is super-summery... just in time for a low of 36°F tonight... The grilled lemon is sort of brilliant, and the sage, capers, lemon zest, and almonds in the couscous are an awesome accompaniment to the grilled chicken.
I also had to test out a new (free! woohoo!) ice cream maker tonight, so I made a batch of the most ridiculously simple yet delicious frozen yogurt. You basically just get out a bowl and dump in two 500g tubs of Fage yogurt (I used one 0% fat and one 2% fat) plus 3/4 cup of suger (I would use less next time, I think) and a 12-ounce bag of mostly-thawed-then-mushed-in-the-bag frozen fruit (I went with blueberries) then stir to combine:
Freeze per your ice cream maker's instructions (I know you're not supposed to have solids in there the whole time, but I didn't feel like puréeing the blueberries or separating juices from solids after mushing them up in the bag, so I just dumped it all in there...) and you have delicious and healthy frozen yogurt:
Not bad for 2 minutes of work and 25 minutes of waiting for it to churn... Imagine the possible variations once summer berries are here...
Sarah came by early to be my wing-man in the kitchen (since Steph was too lame to fly over from Santa Barbara to help out...) and expertly folded the awesome phyllo triangles (embiggened below so you can marvel at her craftsmanship), as well as bringing some awesome fresh corn and asparagus to throw on the grill.
I think the Miniature Jalapeño Soufflés (or "Little Spicy Cupcakes," as a friend in Melbourne called them) were probably the favorite thing I made (the smoked salmon and dill spread that a friend brought was pretty darned tasty as well)... There were a couple culinary hiccups, primarily due to working with different ingredients than I'm used to (the cheddar I used wasn't as good as the Tillamook extra sharp vintage white that I like to use when on the West coast, and the blue cheese in the Chicken Liver and Blue Cheese Pâté was WAY stronger than the kind I usually use, so that turned out a lot more funky-stinky-cheesy than usual... I still actually liked it in a strange way, but it's not at all what I intended to serve to guests, and I didn't get a chance to taste the chilled version and discover this until after guests had come and gone... oh, well...)
There was pretty good variety in the wines, with selections from Cali and Oregon. Surprisingly, Oregon (Erath in particular) really got its ass kicked in the blind tasting. We had an Erath 30th Anniversary Pinot from 2000 (which almost certainly suffered from over-cellaring...) that retailed for $30 at the time it was purchased and a 2007 Erath that sells for ~$15 in stores. These were the two least favorite wines of the bunch. Another Oregon Pinot came in 3rd-to-last, but it suffered from following the night's winner: a wine we would sometimes refer to as "Forty Buck Chuck," (referencing, of course, Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's and the fact that this wine, the Carlson Pinot Noir, was the work of winemaker Chuck Carlson (whose winery I used to work for in Santa Barbara) and cost... $40). This was the 2004 Santa Rita Hills vintage, and it is one damn fine Pinot, I must say... Foxen (also from Santa Ynez) performed admirably as well with a 2004 Santa Maria Valley Pinot. These were both from my stash (as was the more expensive loser from Erath) and weren't necessarily something you can find in stores (especially over here). The other front-runner, however, was the Sterling Vintner's Collection 2007 Central Coast Pinot - a bargain at $15 and much easier to track down at your local wine store...
I went with a pretty easy meal for dinner on Sunday to make up for hanging out in the kitchen scaring Pedro so much on Saturday: Warm Chicken with Lemon Couscous. This is a Donna Hay recipe that makes me very happy, and is super-summery... just in time for a low of 36°F tonight... The grilled lemon is sort of brilliant, and the sage, capers, lemon zest, and almonds in the couscous are an awesome accompaniment to the grilled chicken.
I also had to test out a new (free! woohoo!) ice cream maker tonight, so I made a batch of the most ridiculously simple yet delicious frozen yogurt. You basically just get out a bowl and dump in two 500g tubs of Fage yogurt (I used one 0% fat and one 2% fat) plus 3/4 cup of suger (I would use less next time, I think) and a 12-ounce bag of mostly-thawed-then-mushed-in-the-bag frozen fruit (I went with blueberries) then stir to combine:
Freeze per your ice cream maker's instructions (I know you're not supposed to have solids in there the whole time, but I didn't feel like puréeing the blueberries or separating juices from solids after mushing them up in the bag, so I just dumped it all in there...) and you have delicious and healthy frozen yogurt:
Not bad for 2 minutes of work and 25 minutes of waiting for it to churn... Imagine the possible variations once summer berries are here...
1 comment:
Looks like fun! I always love your assorted finger foods.
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