Dinner For Six

We finally hosted our first dinner party. Noel and I haven't had an apartment large enough to fit the two of us, let alone have six friends over for dinner. Finally we have an apartment large enough. Our friend Jen has been trying to get us to set up a dinner party for a few months now. About two weeks ago I was drinking port and thought how fun it would be to cook with it. I Googled port sauce and found a recipe that screamed dinner party from www.epicurious.com. Next was finding four friends that would like to come over and enjoy the meal. That wasn't hard at all, the first four people I told about the party, RSVP right away. We got our suburb friends Jon and Lucie to brave the big, bad city. Jen had to come because she is the one that put it in my head to have a party and that would have been real shitty to not invite her to our first dinner party. My friend Meg was a no brainier, not only is she a huge foodie but she is a wine rep. and has great taste in wine. She even brought the wine that I enjoyed with the dinner.

Coming up with the menu was the best part. I knew that I wanted to make the recipe that I found the night I was drinking port, Roast Beef Tenderloin with Port Sauce. I also knew that I wanted to make a blue cheese, bacon, potato souffle that Noel and I had made a few months ago. For a veggie I made a quick stir-fry of asparagus, ginger and garlic and I made a quick beets, feta salad with and oil and honey dressing. Jon helped out with the appetizers. A panko, fried green bean dish that we get at The British Beer Company in Framingham, and a duck and fig flat bread that was to die for. The flat bread was so easy to make. I cut in half 15 figs and roasted duck legs that I had bought at the Boston Wine Expo so the meat fell off the bone. I sauteed the figs in about 50 ml (aka a nip, aka an airplane bottle) of bourbon. After the figs soaked up the bourbon I added the duck and sauteed for a few more minutes. Jon then took the naan flat bread and covered it in Gorgonzola and Bel Gioioso cheese and the figs and duck. Then he quickly caramelised some onions and put them on top of the bread before sticking in the oven for about 15 minutes at 400F.

The beef tenderloin came out so much better that I had even thought it could be. The recipe calls for a dry brine to be done 24-36 hours before cooking the meat. To do this you have to salt the hell out of the meat and leave it uncovered in the fridge. You would think the salt would just dry out the meat, but instead of drying out the meat it makes it juicy and tender! The recipe says it only takes 30 minutes in the oven at 450F but I used a meat thermometer and it took 45 minutes to get up to 130F. The port sauce I made the night before. I love making sauces, they add so much to a meal, look really fancy, yet are soooo freaking easy to make. The only thing I would have done different is instead of using three cups of beef broth, I would use two. Also I used a tawny port and I may use a ruby next time. Although I DO LOVE TAWNY PORT!!!!!! This was the best meat I have ever cooked. It came out so tender and juicy, and cooked perfectly medium rare (More like medium medium rare. I would have liked it more pink but the friends I was with told me before cooking they like their meat more medium. So I compromised instead of cooking to 120F I went to 135F.). Perfectly cooked, good cuts of meat is the meaning of life!!!! 

As I said my friend Meg came to the dinner. She too is a wine distributor in Massachusetts, so she too LOVES good wine!! When She walked in the door she took out of her bag a few bottles of wine that she had been pouring at a wine tasting earlier in the day. She told me try the Rioja first. Valsacro is a high end Rioja that danced on my tongue. Dark, full bodied with dark cherries and olives. It was a great treat as I finished cooking the meal. With dinner she told me she brought a wine that was from her private stock, something she bought a few years ago, while she was a wine buyer at Whole Foods. Florestra Apalta a Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 from Santa Rita in Chile. I LOVE CHILE'S WINES!!! Chile is my second favorite wine country, right after France. The climate is perfect, and the quality, and value of the wines are incredible! These Cabernets in my opinion are better than anything Napa can throw at you, and usually at half the price. Full bodied, cigar box, black fruits, cassis, black currants, and nice tannins. This bottle was no different. Plus the perfect amount of age helped soften the wine just a touch. This was the perfect bottle of wine to go with my first dinner party. Thanks Meg for helping me take it up a notch!!!!! 

Every Day Pork Chops Get a Flavor Boost

Everyday, one of the many recipe websites that I've joined sends me a recipe that sounds great. I love these sites, its makes the question, "What's for dinner?," easier to answer. The problem is, many times, I don't have the ingredients at the ready and I forget to get stuff the next shopping trip. Thursday, I got a recipe sent to me from FineCooking.com. I especially love this website!! You can pick by recipe, by ingredients, and so much more. It's like the Joy of Cooking (the ultimate food bible) on steroids!! A lot of the recipes on this site are from people like you and me. You get fancy home cooked meals.

Friday I had some pork chops that needed to be cooked. At first I was just going to make real simple, salt and pepper, pan seared chops. Then I opened the email. "Everyday pork chops get a flavor boost." I thought, "how cool is that? I was going to make pork chops that night anyway." The recipe was Pork chops with cider-dijon pan sauce. The second I saw the words "pan sauce," I was hooked!!! Over the holidays I got really good at making gravies and sauces. I love making a sauce with the meal. It's so fancy and so easy to do!! The best part about this recipe is that I had everything but an apple and apple cider. I had to go to whole foods anyway to grab cat food, so I also grabbed the apple, but could not find cider. They had apple juice, but no apple cider. Being a wine rep. I am in and out of liquor stores all day, so I just grabbed a 22oz Magners cider. They taste the same as regular cider and you get an easy drink pairing for dinner. Plus, by the time you're done cooking, you've cooked the alcohol out. Noel is a bit of a cider snob and I am sure she wished I had used a better cider, after all I only used a half cup in the recipe and we drank the rest of it.

The recipe was pretty easy. What You Need:
2 pork chops (it calls for bone in chops I used regular chops)
2 Tbs butter
tsp salt
tsp pepper
1 sweet red apple halved,cored, cut into small cubes
1 medium shallot
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup cider
1/2 cup chicken stock
Tbs dijon mustard, better if you use the grainy kind
tsp fresh thyme (thyme is my favorite herb!!!)
Pre-heat oven to 425F. Melt the butter is a skillet over medium/high heat. Salt and pepper the chops and cook them on both sides for about two minutes. Long enough to brown them on both sides. Then stick them in the oven for about eight minutes or if you are using a meat thermometer, when it reaches 145F. While they are in the oven, reduce the heat to medium/low and add the apple, thyme and shallots and cook until they are slightly browned, about two minutes. Add the cider, scrape any bits left from the chops, and reduce by half, again about two minutes. Last add the stock and mustard, stir and reduce by about half, yet again about two minutes. Serve the sauce over the chops. This meal looked like and tasted restaurant quality yet was easy to make.

I served it over rice and a side of steam broccoli. The broccoli I steamed in water, chicken stock and tsp butter. That is fat kid broccoli!!! Along with the cider this meal was a perfect end of the week meal!! Fancy enough for Friday, yet easy enough to make after a long day/week of work. I can't wait to see what the next email has in store for my dinner!!

Sorry Bambi But Your Meat Is Just So Good

Its been a long time, too long, since I have last posted. I was going to post about my Thanksgiving Dinner but I figured it was to easy to talk about it. Then I was going to talk about my Christmas Eve dinner that I cooked but I didn't. I also could have blogged about the Christmas Day Dinner but I got lazy. I have cooked some great meals and some not so great meals. I was going to blame it on being busy with work and life, but the truth is I have been too lazy to blog. One of my many New Year's Resolutions is to blog more.

To ring in the New Year, Noel and I went and visited our friends Erik and Sami J on Martha's Vineyard. Two of the best people I have ever met. We had a few great meals, drank good wine and beer, and watched some great fireworks. Erik is the ultimate outdoors man!! One day when he got home he noticed a deer in his backyard. He grabbed his bow and got the doe. How bad ass is that?! I bribed Erik with a few bottles of wine and he sent me home with a few venison steaks and a roast. They had a great cookbook on how to cook venison, and I found a few great recipes, so I couldn't wait to get home and try them out.

Tonight's recipe is Saffroned Venison and Beans from The Complete Venison Cookbook. Sounds easy enough, and I love using Saffron. All you need is a cup Navy Beans (these are called Navy Beans not after their color but because they were a staple in U.S. Navy cooking. I was looking for 20 minutes before reading labels), a  pound of venison cut into cubes, bacon fat (venison is very lean meat and bacon fat helps. Its easy to cook up some bacon for the fat), three tomatoes quartered, small onion sliced thin, can of corn, bell pepper quartered, 1/8 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp saffron, 1 tsp brown sugar, 1/2 cup dry white wine and two tsp salt.

You need to first cook the beans. This is easy, but takes a long time. First, make sure to rinse the beans. Then put them in a saucepan and add enough water to cover the beans. Bring them to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer for two hours. Add the salt and cook for another hour. As the beans are finishing, take a few strips of bacon over medium/low heat in a skillet. Render the fat off the bacon (this is my favor part...eat the bacon). Brown the venison. Add the tomatoes, onion, salt, pepper, saffron, brown sugar and wine. Let simmer until the meat is tender. Drain the beans and add them with the bell pepper and corn to the venison and cook until the bell pepper is tender.

The meal came out well. The beans could have cooked a little longer, I could have used smaller, riper tomatoes and, had I known it would come out more like a stew, I would have cut the bacon up and added it to the mix. But for the first venison meal I've made in more than 10 years it came out better than expected. I can't wait to make the other cuts of venison I have.

So what do you drink with venison? Cabernet Franc, Carmenere, Chianti, Gigondas (or anything from The Rhone Valley), Syrah- the choices are endless. Venison has a great gamy taste that goes really well with many big, bold, bad-ass wines. If I had a Cab Franc in my cellar right now, I would have opened that. But, sad monkey, I didn't have one. So I opened my BOOM BOOM Syrah. This Columbia Valley Syrah comes from one of my favorite wine makers, Charles Smith.This wine is perfect Washington wine. Bright, fresh and smooth. Full Bodied, dark meaty fruit with a touch of spice and sweet tobacco. 

Bubbles and Chicken Pot Pie Make a Happy Wife

Noel told me after her first bite, "This is my favorite thing you have ever made ever." This past week we almost forgot to use chicken before it went bad. I decided on it's sell by date to bake the chicken and refrigerate it to keep it good for a few more days. But what could I make? Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, make Noel a meal she will never forget. Now all I had to do is figure out what wine to serve with the meal that she would like. She's not a big fan of wine and I often have to drink a bottle to myself. As I drove from store to store today I called her and asked her what kind of wine she would like to have. After a few suggestions we both agreed on sparkling wine. I picked a bottle from Loire Valley. I love the wines from the Loire, especially the sparkling wines.

The chicken pot pie recipe I found was real easy to make.The recipe was from pillsbury.com. I liked using this recipe mostly because they suggested using their pie crust. That took out a very important, pain in the ass step!! I've used their pie crusts for apple and pumpkin pies and they taste great. Now that I had the crust all I had to do was make the tasting chicken stew. I baked the chicken breasts two days before and after they cooled I chopped the breasts into tiny bite size chunks. So I had most of it ready before I even started to cook.  Wow was this easy, I should have made this recipe years ago!

Pre-heat the oven to 450. You are going to need a medium saucepan. Chop a medium size onion (I used a red onion) and add it to 1/3 cup of butter over medium heat. After the onion has softened add 1/3 cup flour and a dash of salt and pepper. Mix all this together and gradually add 1 3/4 cup of chicken broth and 1 cup of milk. Stir often until the mixture has thickened. Add the chicken and vegetables and take off the heat. Now this is where I did something different. The recipe called for frozen vegetables. I don't have frozen veggies in my house. I chopped up half a large carrot (quickly steamed the small bite size bits for a few minutes, just enough to soften the carrots), I also chopped up brussels sprouts and asparagus. Add the chicken and veggie mixture to the bottom pie crust and cover it with the other pie crust. I also sprinkled Herbs de Provence on top of the pie before I stuck it on the oven. Bake the pie for 30-40 minutes (until crust is golden brown). 20 minutes into baking the pie cover the edge with strips of tin foil to prevent burning the edge. Why buy pre-made chicken pot pies when this is so easy and you get to pick what veggies you use?

As I drove around today trying to decide what sparkling wine to buy, I came up with either a Lorie Valley or Alsace sparkling wine. I finally got to Liquor Land on Mass. Ave in Boston. I love this place. If you were driving by the store you wouldn't think this store has the selection it has. Sure its a large store but it's kind of in a weird area of the city. It's in  more of an industrial area, but it has a parking lot and is near 93. This store is always packed. Emmett one of the wine buyers has a great palate and has been buying wine for many years. I'm sure he would not like me to tell you how many as it will make him look old, so I'll leave it at many years. He knows almost every bottle that he has in the store, so I knew he was the right person to ask for a recommendation.

He suggested I pick up a bottle of Montlouis Sur Loire Brut by Francois Chidaine. Lorie Valley, as you may know, is one of my most favorite wine regions in the world. There are so many different styles of wines (even from the same grape) so you could never get bored. I mostly drink the reds from Lorie, however the sparkling wines, especially from Chenin Blanc will always make me happy!!  Chenin Blanc is one of the top grapes grown in the Loire. Thanks to the high levels of acidity this grape can be made in several different styles from sparkling to beautiful dessert wines. This wine is fantastic and not all that pricey at $19.99. It has a deep flavor that makes you think of  the great Champagnes. The nose reeks of toast (in a very good way) and the palate is roasted pears wrapped in browned toast. What a great pairing!!

OND = FML

Work is getting busier and busier by the day. This is good for my wallet but bad for my cooking at home. For those that don't know what OND is, it's October, November, December. This is the time of the year that can make or break you. I've been working more and more hours, and when I get home I'm not in the mood to cook. Unfortunately Sundays when we go  grocery shopping we buy produce and meat thinking we will get back on the cooking at home wagon. So today I made myself cook a simple 10 minute meal. Unforgivably all our produce went bad. We thought it could go two weeks. We were wrong; so, we had to skip a vegetable for this meal. The kids in us were over joyed, the hard working adults in us just didn't give a fuck.

So this was a really simple meal. Sunday we bought thin pan fry steaks. I love this cut of meat. They are easy to cook, usually have a little extra fat (I'm a fat kid in disguise after all), they taste great and you get to feel like a giant eating tiny little steaks. Season both sides of the steak with sea salt and fresh ground pepper and you have perfectly seasoned, tiny steaks. Cooking these are the easiest thing. In a cast iron skillet, add a small amount of oil (just enough to keep the steaks from sticking to the skillet), turn the heat on medium/high and wait for the pan to get hot (you when it's ready when the oil starts to smoke a little). Throw the steaks on the pan and cook two minutes for the first side, then take the skillet off the heat, flip and cook for a minute. Yes take the skillet off the heat, it's cast iron and keeps heat for a while, and yes two minutes on one side and a minute the other side. These are thin steaks; any more time and you will overcook them. They came out perfectly medium rare, actually more on the medium side. If I have to tell you how to cook the Mac and Cheese from a box that I had with the meal- then stay out of the kitchen, because you are useless.

As I said, it's OND, and that means in the middle of the day of showing wines, your company can sell out of a wine and you may not get it back for a few weeks. So what do you do with this wine? Well, drink it after a long, grueling day of selling wine. Besides you might as well sell what you got. My job rocks. I can't imagine do anything else. Come on- I get free wine all the time and usually have something open at my house. Today's wine is from Down Under. It's a big, full bodied, jammy Shiraz from Stalking Horse in the McLaren Vale. This is a very small production, single vineyard wine. Less then 1000 cases are made each vintage. This wine has a nose that smells like a hug of dark fruit, bacon (mmmm bacon), and grilled meat. The palate doesn't disappoint with its rich, velvety, meaty, spicy plum goodness. Every sip will make you want more. This wine will make you revisit Australia's wine industry.      

French Wine and To Much Food Makes for Happy People

I know it's been a while since I last posted. I've had the flu, then the next week didn't get a chance to grab anything fun to cook,and last week I had a wine tasting every night after work. Finally this week I wasn't going to disappointing my fans. I bought baby brussels sprouts, gnocchi, lots of cheese and turkey thighs. Noel actually picked out the thighs at first I didn't want to get them, to be truthful at first this meal was going to be with a ham steak but the thighs needed to be cooked. Let me tell you I am so glad I made the thighs instead.

In just over a month the Foodie's Holiday is upon us. I love Thanksgiving, my two favorite things get front and center attention, food and wine!! This year Noel and I drive down to Maryland to have Thanksgiving with my family. The last time we had Thanksgiving there, Noel and I cooked a great meal, but I did almost burn down the house. This time I have had two years to practice my cooking and my skills of taking greasy things out of an oven. I am so excited about this meal, so excited that I am already looking at recipes to make. Thanks to Fall Day I already know the stuffing I am going to make. The other day I was looking at recipes online for some more side dishes and found Pan-Roasted Brussels Sprouts Gratin with Shallots and Rosemary. Everyone is going to want to eat at my parents house this year!!


So all day long I have been thinking about how I wanted to cook the Turkey Thighs. Finally I came across the perfect seasoning. Grey sea salt, little black pepper and saffron, saffron makes everything better!!
What You Need:
2 Turkey Thighs
tablespoon grey sea salt
tablespoon black pepper
3 pinches of saffron
tablespoon of canola oil

Pre Heat the oven to 350. Coat the thighs in the oil, salt, pepper and saffron. Place the thighs in a casserole dish and cover with tin foil. Throw them in the oven and cook until the meat thermometer reaches 175. This is going to take over a hour, so flip the thighs half way, and after a hour uncover the thighs so they can brown. These came out so good and perfectly juicy. This may be the way I even make the turkey at Thanksgiving!!

After I flipped the thighs I started the Brussels Sprouts Gratin. This was fun to make but I didn't have enough brussels sprouts so it came out really cheesy.
What You Need:
1 1/2 pounds brussels sprouts
2 shallots
4 tablespoons of butter
salt
fresh ground pepper
1 1/4 cup Gruyere
1 1/4 heavy cream
1/4 tablespoon fresh nutmeg
1/4 tablespoon cayenne
3/4 cup panko
1/2 cup grated parmigiano
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary

Pre heat oven to 375. In a dutch oven over medium heat melt the butter and cook until brown. Take out a tablespoon and put in a bowl. Add the brussels sprouts and shallots and cook until slightly browned (about 6 minutes). Remove from the heat. In a sauce pan add the heavy cream, the gruyere, nutmeg, cayenne, and salt. Cook until the cheese is melted (make sure not to boil). Add the sauce to the brussels sprouts making sure to mix it all together. In a bowl mix the panko, parmigiano cheese, a pinch of salt and the remaining butter. Mix all together and put it on top of the brussels sprouts. Place in the oven and cook for 15 minutes.

As the brussels sprouts and thighs were cooking I started the water for the gnocchi and the cheese sauce. I found a real easy recipe online for a cheddar cheese sauce. The gnocchi only takes about three minutes to cook so its best to start the sauce first.
What You Need:
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Melt the butter in a small sauce pan. When it's all melted take off the heat and mix in the flour and seasonings. Gradually mix in the milk whisking so they all blend well together. Over a low heat, constantly stirring heat the milk until it has thickened. Add the grated cheese and cook for five minutes or until thick. Add to the gnocchi and serve.

This was a great meal. Everything came out so good!! The turkey was perfectly cooked, the brussels sprout became a wonderful cheesy side dish and the gnocchi was fantastic. But there was way to much food for just two people. Next time I'll need at least four people to help eat all this food.

The Wine:
Even before I knew what meat I was going to have with the meal I knew what wine I wanted. Loire Valley is my most favorite wine region in the world. They are really known for their whites, but in my opinion their reds are the best of the best. The number one grown red in the valley is Cabernet Franc, and the best comes from Chinon. I picked up a bottle of Jean Dumont Les Mureaux 2009 from Beacon Hill Wine and Gourmet in Melrose. This family owned vineyard has vines that average in age of 35 years. The wine has a deep ruby color with well balanced ripe fruit, herbaceousness and round tannins. This was a perfect wine for a perfect meal.

Fall Day Ends With Stuffing and Pie

Today was Fall Day. Thank you Rachel for making this event! It was so much fun. We went apple picking. Yes I went apple picking again, you don't own me. This time Noel and I did not buy a bag but Mikey bought three so we helped him fill a bag. We went to Shelburne Farm just down the road from Honey Pot. It was a really a nice place, small and the trees weren't big enough to climb but it did have a bouncy house and a llama. What's better than a llama?? The trees were very full and there was a lot of fruit close to the ground so the lazy people of the group, and I will confuse I was in that group, we were able to quickly fill our bags. After we got our fill of apple picking, apple donuts, pumpkins and the llama we went back to John and Mikey's house and had an apple party. We played apples to apples, there were fresh apple juice, apple cocktails, Rachel made an amazing double butter apples pie, John made a Brown Betty that sadly I didn't have room to try and I made a corn bread, apple, sausage stuffing thing.

Before we meet up with everyone Noel and I had to go grocery shopping. We hadn't done a Russo's trip in two weeks, and we weren't sure by morning what we wanted to cook for the apple party. As we strolled through Russo's our dish slowly came together. We saw red onion and we just knew that was important. We thought we might wanna use a yellow pepper, but in the end we didn't use it. Noel was very adamant that we use celery, and of course we already had apples from when we went apple picking last month. By the time we got to Shaws we were arguing how we we going to put it all together. We settled on Jimmy Dean's Premium Pork Hot Sausage, and corn bread, not pre-made cornbread but a mix to make our own. When I started to make this I still wasn't totally convinced it was going to taste any good. Boy was I wrong, Noel and I are now planning on making this as our stuffing Thanksgiving Day!!! Get ready Dad and Katie it's going to blow your mind!!

What You Need 
1 red onion
1 stock celery
1 package Jimmy Deans pork hot sausage
1 apples peeled and cut into small slices
1 small block of cheddar cheese cut into cubes
1 package cornbread mix
1 table spoon canola oil

On the stove top under medium heat add table spoon of oil to a dutch oven. Cook the onion and celery for about five minutes. You'll know when it's ready, the smell will be intoxicating. Add the sausage and cook until browned. By this time make the batter for the cornbread. Just before the sausage is cooked add the apples and cook until the sausage is done. Take off the heat and add the batter and cheese making sure to mix it all up so every part has touched the batter. Follow the baking instructions for the corn bread, mine was 400 F for 18 minutes. When it's done take it out and let it sit at least five minutes to cool, plus you want the oils get to get soaked up by the cornbread. I took a small amount and tried it worried that I had just made a gross mess, but WOW, Noel and I came up with an instant hit!! It's good enough to be a meal but will also make a great stuffing.

The Drinks
Mikey came up with an apple cocktail that was out of this world. I have just got over a nasty flu cold thing so I only had a sip of Noel's but boy was it goooood. He better make these at his awesome Halloween party. He made fresh apple juice in his juicer. In a glass that had a sugar/cinnamon mixture on the rim he added fresh apple juice, bourbon, caramel vodka and ginger liqueur. They were.... AMAZING!!