A Spicy Sunday

I'm standing in Shaws today, wondering what to make for dinner tonight. I give a longing look at the seafood counter, pretending I was ordering fish. Out of nowhere I hear, "you wanna get shrimp." I was snapped back from my daydream. It was Noel saying this. I knew I had to jump quickly before she changed her mind. I ordered a pound of uncooked shrimp immediately jumped on my phone to find a recipe she would like.

Noel said right away she would like some of the Sriracha she loves used in the meal. While looking up a recipe I came across shrimprecipes.org and found Broiled Cajun Shrimp. I was sold right away, both the shrimp ad the sauce asked for hot sauce. Noel was going to get her meal with her Sriracha. It's a real easy recipe. Marinade the shrimp in olive oil, tablespoon of hot sauce and three cloves garlic for 15 minutes. The broil them for three minutes. While that's cooking in a sauce pan melt two tablespoons of butter with tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, tablespoon of lemon juice, teaspoon oregano and two teaspoons chili pepper. I added a tablespoon of Sriracha to kick it up a notch. It brought it up more than a notch but boy was it good. I served it with Zatarain's Long Grain and Wild Rice. The rice is cooked in an awesome blend of spices and really helped bring the meal to the next level. I roasted broccoli, with olive oil, garlic and sea salt for 20 minutes. This was a great meal and everything went really well together.

Right down to the wine. The website suggested a Riesling, Pinot Grigio or sparkling wine. Any of these wines would have been great with the meal. I didn't have any of them in the house. I did have a Viura from Lagrimas De Maria. Viura is grown in Rioja, outside of Rioja it is better known as Macabeo and is one of the three grapes in Cava. It's light and fruity and often inexpensive. Perfect for seafood, especially spicy seafood. Lagrimas is a great wine. It's medium bodied, with aromas of tropical and fresh fruits that follow on the palate. Perfect wine for a great meal!!  

Sunday Dinner

Sunday is one of my most favorite days of the week. It's a day of rest. It's a day of laziness. I usually get up around 10 am, sit around watching the news or what ever show may be on and drink a few cups of coffee. Around 2 pm I finally get on with my day. Every Sunday, Noel and I head to Russo's and Shaw's. First thing on my list is Sunday dinner. I love Sunday dinner, it's usually the best meal of the week.

This week I thought we were going to have a friend of Noel's over for dinner, so I choose to make a pork loin. When I found out they could not make it I still made a pork loin. I love PORK!! Especially pork loin. I made a dry rub of fresh herbs, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and minced garlic, and roast the pork at 400 F until the pork has reached 150 F. As you let it sit about 10 minutes took gets to more like 155 F and comes out so juicy. I love good pork. Noel really likes sweet potatoes, so this week I took a large sweet potato and cut it into cubes. I covered the cubes in olive oil and salt and roasted them on the same roasting pan as the pork. At Russo's I bought broccoli. I use broccoli a lot. It's easy to steam and George H. Bush is wrong, it's a delicious veggie. Noel has said to me in the recent past she was getting sick of broccoli. So today I pulled out the food bible, The Joy of Cooking, and looked up a way to make broccoli special. Under the steaming recipe the book suggested tossing the steamed broccoli in buttered bread crumbs. The second I saw the recipe, I knew I had some panko bread crumbs. Oh yeah!! I took two tablespoons of butter, teaspoon of rosemary, and thyme and put them in a glass bowl on top of the stove to melt as the roast cooked. As the roasted finished I mixed the butter and panko, put them in a oven safe frying pan and browned them for a few minutes. I then tossed the steamed broccoli in the panko. It turned a steamed veggi into a great side dish. So fancy, so easy, so good!!

I wanted to have a glass of wine with dinner, but I didn't want to drink an entire bottle. So I went over the wines that I plan on showing this week. The Geografico Chianti Colli Senesi jumped off the wine rack right into my glass. Italian wines aren't my usually first choose but I figured a nice bottle of Sangiovese would go lovely with pork. Boy I was ever so right. This bottle comes from Colli Senesi, a hill side village within Chianti that is known for growing outstanding Sangiovese. This wine is no different. Blended with a small amount of Canaiolo. It is smooth, intense fruity, and well balanced. A perfect Sunday night paring.  

Your Eyes Say Yes and Your Mouth Says Gnocchi

I am a big fan of sauces. If you have seen me lately you would know I have become what some would say, pudgy. Noel and I bought some gnocchi a few weeks ago from Russo's. Today was finally the day it needed to be cooked. I was actually threatened with death if I did not make the potato dumplings. I decided quickly that I wanted to make my own sauce with the meal. It didn't take long before I knew I was going to make a vodka sauce. I have master many other sauces, how hard could it be? Right!? Let me tell you, it was real easy and it came out great. Real restaurant quality stuff here. As we were eating dinner, it was Noel trying to come up with the name of this blog post. I started off wanting to make the gnocchi the side dish, but as I started cooking I realized I had a lot of gnocchi, so the meatatarian in me made the steak the side dish. While at Shaws I bought a family size package of baby steaks. Eight tiny little steaks all about an ounce in size.

So vodka sauce is pretty easy to make and you don't need much. Allrecipes.com has a very easy basic one that I went off of. Like I said last post I like to take a recipe and Dan it up a little.

The Sauce
1/2 cup vodka (I used a potato vodka Vesica)
1/2 onion chopped
large clove garlic minced
1/4 cup butter
14 oz can diced tomato (I used fire roasted garlic)
basil
oreganoal
1/2 pint light cream
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

In a sauce pan melt the better on medium heat. Add the garlic and onion until onion is translucent. Add the half cup vodka and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, and herbs and cook for 20 minutes. Stir in the light cream and parmesan, you wanna make sure the cheese really blends with the cream, and cook about 20 more minutes. The last 20 minutes I started the water and cooked the gnocchi. Once the water is boiling they only take two to three minutes. They even start to float when they are done. Foolproof!!

The steak was also easy. I went off a recipe from Alton Brown on foodnetwork.com.
SO EASY:
Take a skillet and stick it in the oven. Turn the oven to 500. When it reached 500 take the skillet out of the oven and put it on a burner on high. Take the steaks and rub a small amount of canola oil and season both sides with sea salt. Cook 30 seconds each side, then stick them back in the oven and cook for two minutes each side. Then let it rest for a few minutes. Perfect medium-rare steak. Thank Alton Brown you are a hero to many of us wanna be chefs!!

Tonight's wine comes by recommendation of the manager at Winchester Wine and Spirits. Justin has a love of the obscure grapes, the grapes that just aren't on the normal path. When I told him of the Pinot Meunier I had last night he turned me on to a Spanish Petit Verdot. Petit Verdot is one the major blending grapes in Bordeaux. It is used in blends as a flavor and tannin boaster, as it is a big, dark, dense fruit grape. This bottle tonight took a long time to open. I contemplated decanting the wine a few times but in the end decided to see where the grape would take me. In the beginning there was a dark inky, stew of hot, tannin, fruity mess, but as it opened the tannin surprisingly calmed down and it became a pleasant spicy cigar box with dark fruit. A great wine, I just wish I had turned on the AC before opening this bottle. Nothing like high heat and humidity to go with such a large wine. The next time I am at someones house grilling red meats, especially lamb I will go and find another bottle of Petit Verdot. Thank Justin for the outside the box pick!!