To Donna- Thanks for Getting Me Back on Track of This Blog. ~Dan

 You know its bad when one of your fans yells at you that you haven't written in a week and it's worse when that fan in your favorite Mother In-Law. I've been out the kitchen for over a week now. Noel and I went to Sarasota to visit with my family last weekend and we didn't get much of a chance to go grocery shopping last week. We ate out more than not and I came to notice I am more satisfied with dinner when I cook it at home. Tonight I almost folded and went out for dinner, the dishes needed to be done and Noel didn't get home from work until almost seven (truth be told, it was her turn to do the dishes and I wasn't sure I wanted to wait for her to do them). In the end, I kept to cooking dinner and was I glad I did.

This week while we shopped, we kinda decided on the week's menu. Tonight was Pasta and Chicken Alfredo. Noel made an Alfredo Sauce a few months back and it came out great. She said it was pretty easy to do, so I wanted to give it a try. She was right, easy and fun. I didn't want to make it the same way she did, so I found a recipe that called for white wine. It's a real easy sauce to make: heat up cup of heavy whipping cream, add two cloves of garlic, minced, and slowly add one and half cups Parmesan cheese (next time I would add half cup more) slowly while whisking frantically. After the cheese has started to melt, add one third cup white wine. Now the recipe online said Chardonnay, I don't know why Chardonnay. This is an Italian sauce and I don't think "Italy" when I use Chardonnay. So I used Pinot Grigio. I figured it had the nice lemon that would blend well with the Parmesan. I let all this simmer for five minutes. As this was cooking, I took some chicken breast fillets, seasoned them with sea salt and my own pepper blend (pink, green, white, black pepper) and cooked them in a skillet with a little olive oil. As I flipped them, I also added two table spoons of capers. I then boiled some water for the pasta. A few weeks ago, Shaws had a sale on pasta so we bought ten different styles of noodles, tonight I used the shells. After I added the shells to the boiling water, I cut up some broccoli and added it to the water when there was only about three minutes left. This came out great. Sure its not gourmet but it was better than any of the TO-GO restaurants in Beacon Hill. 

The wine I used in the Alfredo is the same wine Noel and I are enjoying as I write this and watch the Bruins kick the crap out of the Canucks. Its Prendo Pinot Grigio. I LOVE this wine and I don't usually love Pinot Grigio, they tend to be lemon water. This wine has something most others are missing....FLAVOR!! It's  full of honey, fig and citrus with a nice clean crisp acidity. The wine maker Elena Walch is one of the finest wine makers in the world. Noel likes that she is one of the top all time female wine makers in the world. She has set the standard for quality in the Alto Adige. The Prendo label is under her husband's family name but I am sure that is because she doesn't want it to be confused with her main labels. Not that Prendo is cheap (it is inexpensive) but it is many price points lower than the rest of her wines.