You've Got To Taste This

This past weekend, my dearest friends hosted a baby shower celebrating the fast-approaching (only 7 weeks!) arrival of our baby Parker. They asked if I had any requests, and my only one was a laid back, casual afternoon with the girls. And boy did they deliver! The shower was incredible, and as you can see, so was the food. They went with a wine and cheese spread (and a few other sweet treats, which calmed all my cravings!).

Ok, I know you're thinking, "Wine at a baby shower?" But don't worry, they concocted a fabulous blue lemonade for me! By simply adding a few drops of blue food coloring and fresh blueberries as garnish to Fresh Squeezed Lemonade, the ordinary sipper became a baby shower treat! Here are some other party ideas I picked up on that fun afternoon!

I just returned from a long, relaxing weekend in the Napa Valley area and I’m still trying to sort through all the wonderful information I found while visiting numerous vineyards and cellars. My family and I stayed in Yountville, a quaint town with fantastic culinary cuisine located in the middle of wine country. I wanted to share a few basic tips I discovered in Wine 101.

Five Wine Tips for Dummies… like myself

1.  When you have a freshly poured glass of wine in front of you don’t start swirling a swishing it around. Let it sit for a second then take a little whiff around the middle of the glass. Swirl it a bit and smell again.  The aromas are completely different.  It’s quite unique.  

One of the joys of summer is all the wonderful fresh produce, and an even bigger joy is having a friend with a garden.  Our friend Donnie is very generous and brings me and my husband bags of yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes every week. 

Because I refuse to let any of these fresh veggies go bad, I've been searching for all the squash recipes I can find.  I thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

Squash casserole is one of my all-time favorite dishes, but I didn't have time to make it this week. So, I just cooked the yellow squash and froze it until I'm ready to assemble the casserole.  In terms of the zucchini recipes,  I think my top pick would be the  Zucchini Oven Chips.  It was kind of like eating fried zucchini, but with way less fat.  Yum!  Another great thing to do is to add zucchini to green beans. I've gotta use this zucchini up somehow!  My stand-by recipe, and probably the quickest and easiest thing I do is just to saute thin slices of yellow squash and zucchin in a little olive oil along with chopped Vidalia onion, and sprinkle with Greek seasoning.  This is one of my husband's favorite ways to eat squash  and one of my favorite ways to prepare it because the whole thing takes about 10 minutes.

If you've got a friend with a garden, or have one of your own, check out 7 Ways with Zucchini and let me know about any of your top squash recipes.   I'm thinking Chocolate Zucchini Cake is my next pick.

This summer, one of our local movie theaters has a Summer Movie Camp, where Wednesday 10 am movies are $1.  Yup, you read that right, $1.  And not just for the kids, but whatever adults and family members go with them.  Love that.  So my nearly-seven-year-old son and the babysitter head over there every Wednesday morning to catch the newest movie.

Halfway through the movie, the mid-morning munchies hit and they want something to munch on, but movie theater popcorn tends to be too salty sometimes, not to mention the extra oil.  Cooking Light to the rescue!  I happened to stumble on this recipe for Caramel Popcorn a few weeks ago, and along with granola bars and the occasional trail mix, the homemade popcorn has been a new favorite of theirs.

Super simple to make, with only about 120 calories and 3.6 grams of fat per serving, it's a light snack that packs all the flavor you want, without the added guilt.  We store it in an airtight container, and then they just transfer a little bit to a sandwich bag or lunch bag before heading out. 

Heading on a summer road trip?  This makes a great, tasty treat to tote along.  And with the holidays (gulp!) not too far off, this is another wonderful gift giving idea.  Happy munching!

See the recipe for Caramel Popcorn here .

Milk comes in a box and chicken stock, too – but wine? I was skeptical when I unfastened the plastic spout (I missed the cork already). And I won’t even tell you what my wine geek father said to me when I told him what I was pouring. But you’d be amazed at the tasty wine that is packaged in boxes these days.

There are two types of “boxes” these days: 1-liter Tetra Paks, similar to what some soups and juices are packaged in, and 3-liter boxes that contain an inner plastic pouch (a “bag in a box”). Europeans and Australians have been drinking boxed wine for years (In Australia they call it a cask) but only in the past five years have more premium wines been available in a box, and the Tetra-Pak is gaining favor as the better of the two, since the shelf life is longer (3 years for Tetra-Pak wines versus 1 year for bag-in-a-box).

Why choose the box? Besides the value (you get more wine for less than you’d pay for the same wine in 750mL bottles because the packaging costs are so much less than regular wine bottles, and wineries pass along the savings). They’re portable: the boxes are safe for outdoor venues like concerts. And they’re convenient: the 1-liter bottles are easy to bring along in a backpack for that camping trip or on a boat, no corkscrew required. But the green factor is even more compelling: in the case of the 1 liter Tetra Pak, it weighs about 4 percent of a standard wine bottle and more containers fit in a box, so shipping them requires less fuel and reduces the carbon footprint. According to the Yellow + Blue brand, if 80 percent of the wine sold at retail in the U.S. was packaged in Tetra Pak rather than glass, it would be the equivalent of taking almost 400,000 cars off the road. The 3-liter boxes are completely recyclable and requires 85 percent less packaging waste than a standard glass wine bottle. The 3-liters also reduce shipping costs: they hold the equivalent of four 750mL bottles but weigh almost the same as a half-gallon of milk.

Put down that corkscrew and give a box a chance. You’ll find them in most wine stores; the 1 liters sell for $10-12 and 3 liter boxes for $22-28. Here are a few of the best to get you started: French Rabbit and Le’Bordeaux from France, Yellow + Blue organic wines from Argentina, Hardys from Australia, and Black Box and Three Bandits from California.

The voting closed yesterday at 5pm with Sunshine Crawford's Fruit Pizza winning the MyRecipes.com Best Summer Dessert contest. Congratulations, Sunshine! Thanks to all who voted for Sunshine, and our four other delicious finalists.  We had over 2,300 votes! You people sure are hungry for your summer desserts. 

Easy Fruit Pizza

1 package Sugar Cookie Mix

8 ounces Cream Cheese, softened

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Enough bright, colorful fruit to cover your pizza. You can use fresh or frozen. Just thaw frozen fruit before you place on pizza.

Crust: Preheat oven to 350.  Slightly grease the bottom of a pizza pan.  Prepare sugar cookie mix as directed and spread evenly on the bottom of pizza pan.  Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or until slightly brown around outside of crust.  Cool completely.

Cream Cheese Layer: Beat cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar & vanilla until smooth & creamy. Spread on cooled cookie crust.

I'm the first to admit that generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of pork chops.  The meat just always seems a little tough to me, and I lost interest in it many years ago.  There is one recipe that I love that I make every now and again, but it's nothing that I'm going to get a craving for any time soon.  But then I happened upon a recipe for Bourbon-Glazed Pork Chops and Peaches.  It comes from a Fresh & Easy magazine (one of those special $10 issues) from Cooking Light, and it was the picture that totally did me in.  The charred little bits on the seemingly juicy pork chop.  The fresh ripe peaches with their very own grill marks.  It was enough to make a girl swoon.  Even if it did involve the dreaded pork chop!

In a dish that comes together amazingly fast, you'll keep the kitchen mess at a minimum at your presence at the dinner table at a maximum.  I think, all told, it took me a grand total of about 20 minutes to get this recipe on the table, from start to finish.  And the reward?  Juicy tender bites and fruit that celebrates the season.  Fire up the grill!

See the recipe for Bourbon-Glazed Pork Chops and Peaches here.

While I was in Sonoma, California, I sat down with one of my favorite chefs, John Toulze. John is the Executive Chef and with his business partner and proprietor Sondra Bernstein runs three wildly popular restaurants in Sonoma County: the girl and the fig, the fig café, and Estate. John is passionate about both food and wine so I sat him down to talk about Sonoma wine country cooking. He even parted with a recipe for one of my favorite pasta dishes, Rabbit Pappardelle. (More recipes are available from their cookbook, the girl & the fig Cookbook: More Than 100 Recipes from the Acclaimed California Wine Country Restaurant and on their website, www.thegirlandthefig.com.)

What about wine country inspires you in the kitchen?

Wine country epitomizes the availability of great seasonal ingredients. In our kitchen we are only a back door away from picking fresh herbs or vegetables. At Estate we have a farmer on the property behind us, and in Glen Ellen we are five minutes away from our largest vegetable growers. Obviously all this is instant inspiration and when successful wine country represents a simplistic approach that is built on seasonality and locality.

What flavors do you consider quintessential wine country?

I don’t think of a specific flavor but of a specific style.  To me wine country is simple, fresh, and clean. Successful wine country chefs are driven first by the ingredients and making sure that those ingredients are represented appropriately by our skill.  Few places have our bounty and quality, so we are tasked with honoring that by allowing those flavors to speak at the right moment. 

What is your favorite summer ingredient?

There are so many incredible flavors in the summer but more than anything it is the fruits that shine. From tomatoes to plums and peaches, in no other season do fruits just explode for us than summer. I find myself having entire meals of stone fruits and preparing them in ways I would normally reserve for proteins [meat and fish] like grilling, searing, or braising. 

How can a home cook bring a little wine country into a meal?

Simplicity. Make it simple but focus on seasonality and quality. At our restaurants we have gardens that we use not just to grow various things but as gauges for what we should be preparing in our kitchen.

What is your favorite wine and food pairing?

It really depends on my mood but I am constantly trying to think of wine when I cook.  Wine and food are meant to be complementary and a separation of the two undermines the one. I see wine as an ingredient in the dish. I would never forget to season my food and so I don’t like to eat without wine. The possible combinations are so immense that I hope to not have a favorite for very long. 

What is your favorite varietal from Sonoma County?

Syrah. Syrah really gets to show its varied personalities in the various micro-climates of Sonoma County and really reveals the depth of winemaking talent that has amassed here.

Braised Rabbit Pappardelle with Spring Vegetables

Serves 6

1 fresh whole rabbit (2 ½ - 3 pounds)

2 ounces blended oil (we have a blend of 25% olive oil and 75% canola oil on hand at all times)

1 large carrot, peeled & chopped

2 celery ribs, chopped

1 large yellow onion, chopped

4 cloves peeled garlic

3 Roma tomatoes, chopped

1 cup red wine (we use syrah)

2 bay leaves

1 bunch fresh thyme

10 black peppercorns

5 cups veal stock or chicken stock

3 bunches baby carrots, blanched & peeled

1 red pepper, julienned

1 yellow pepper, julienned

1 red onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, sliced

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

½ cup white wine

1 cup rabbit/chicken stock

1 pound pappardelle

2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

4 tablespoons whole grain mustard

6 ounces diced (¼”) and cooked pancetta

4 tablespoons butter

Break down the rabbit (or have butcher do for you) into front and hind legs and saddle. Reserve the trimmings and rib cage set aside liver for another use. Place the bones and trimmings on a sheet tray or roasting pan and roast in 350’F oven until golden brown. Set aside.

Heat a heavy bottomed pan or similar oven proof pan over medium-high heat. Season the rabbit legs and saddle generously with salt and pepper. Add the oil to pan and sear the rabbit on all sides until golden brown, remove and set aside.

Keep the pot over heat and add the carrot, celery, onion, garlic & tomatoes and cook until ingredients have caramelized. Deglaze with the red wine. Add the herbs, peppercorns, rabbit, roasted bones and trimmings, and stock and bring to a simmer.  Cover and place the entire pot in the oven.  Cook until the rabbit meat begins to pull away from bone (between two & three hours). Remove the pot from oven and let cool until you can remove items with your hands. Remove the saddle and legs from the pot and pull the meat from the bones. Set aside.

Strain the cooking liquid and skim any fat off the top. Place the liquid back in the pot and reduce by half and set aside.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Cook the pasta until just tender or al dente. Toss lightly with olive oil and set aside. 

In a large sauté pan (large enough to hold all ingredients) place 5 cups of the braising liquid, mustard, pancetta, and rabbit. Bring the ingredients to a simmer and cook until the mixture begins to thicken slightly.  Add the baby carrots, English peas, fava beans, roasted garlic and pasta. Cook until heated through, finish with butter, season with salt and pepper as needed.

Portion into six large bowls and serve immediately. 

Recipe and photo courtesy Sondra Bernstein & John Toulze.

Our Facebook fans and Twitter followers are competing to see who makes the Best Summer Dessert.  Vote now until Thursday July 23rd by clicking here and selecting your favorite.  The winner will be announced here on Friday, July 24th.  Good luck! To see more about the (delicious!) contenders, keep reading!

We asked our fans, followers, and users to send us their Best Summer Dessert recipe and, boy, were we amazed at the responses we got.  Tarts, crisps, crumbles, pies, and more... enough sweets to satisfy our grandkids' sweet tooths, assuming we have kids, they have kids, and those kids like summer desserts. 

We painstakingly narrowed the field to the top five, representing a variety of summer sweets.  Vote for your favorite, and read on to learn more about the recipes and their creators. Thanks to everyone who submitted recipes! Stay tuned for our next contest!  (Read More...)

I will be the first to admit that when it comes to side dishes, they are usually an afterthought in my kitchen, for a variety of reasons.  The first, the kids (surprise, surprise) are a little picky when it comes to vegetables.  Well, not my sixteen-month-old daughter.  She pretty much eats anything that's not nailed down, including sticks she picks up from the deck and the occasional rock she finds in the garden.  I'm still working on the what-is-food-and-what-is-not debate with her.  My nearly-seven-year-old son, on the other hand, wants no part of any vegetable that is green, unless I heavily disguise it or hide it.  It's a new phase, what can I sa?.  One that pains me so, since I love most green vegetables myself, but I digress.  When it comes to rice, however, he's like Hoover on a mission, so I can usually add a few, cough, cough, vegetables in the rice and he'll be happy enough to see the rice that he won't stop and pick out the other offending colorful particles, thank goodness.

Enter Mexican Rice.  I have a few different versions that I make, but this one that I found on All Recipes is one of the stand-bys.  With just a few simple ingredients and a recipe that doesn't need a heckuva lot of babysitting, and you're rewarded with a perfect side dish that is family-approved.  Given my propensity to sometimes ignore side dishes in favor of a taking the easy way out, I'm all for that . 

See the recipe for Mexican Rice.