wine and food pairings

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(Belated) Wednesday Wine and Food Pairing

March 4, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 6 comments

Maybe its the recent Mad Men marathon we engaged in that made me feel like cooking something old fashioned or the cold weather and my tired self wanting something comforting. All I know is that I decided last week that I needed to make an easy chicken pot pie.

My sister got me making this recipe in the first place, and I was happy to see how truly easy, versatile, and re-heatable it is.

The ingredients:

1 store bought pie crust

2 cans reduced fat cream of chicken soup

3 chicken breasts, chopped in chunks

3 cups chopped carrot

2 cups string beans (I used frozen because I could not find fresh)

To make the filling, I simply mixed the soup, carrot, string beans, and chopped, raw chicken. I topped it with a good grinding of black pepper and popped it in the oven at 375 for about 15 minutes. In the meantime I stretched and rolled the pie crust to make it fit my pie the best that I could. Then I placed the crust on top of the pie filling and put it back in the oven until golden, about 35 minutes.

Now, I know its not at all pretty. That’s partially because I could not get the crust to stretch and it sort of fell apart. This definitely is not a dish with a wow-factor, but it was really good

Since I only used a top crust, I cut down on the fat and calories of a full pie but still had a bit of that buttery flaky goodness.

It would be easy to vegetarianize the pie by using cream of mushroom soup and omitting the chicken.

The wine pairing of the week? Even before the Austrian wine tasting last week, I had purchased some Austrian wine at the Bin Ends. I decided to pair this creamy, buttery pot pie with a really fresh 2007 Weingut Groiss Grüner Veltliner. The green bottle that this wine comes in is the perfect container as the wine has some great green apple flavors with some of those characteristic Austrian minerals in there. Basically it was refreshing and palate cleansing and went really well with the pot pie. This is a wine that I am excited to drink throughout the spring. Bin Ends has some great deals on Austrian wines, and if you live in the Boston area, you should definitely check them out!

What is your favorite homestyle, throwback meal?

Technorati Tags: chicken pot pie, Food, Gruner Veltliner, wine, wine and food pairings

Tags: chicken pot pie, Food, Gruner Veltliner, wine, wine and food pairings

Wednesday Wine and Food Pairing

February 23, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 9 comments

After creating a couple of dishes to go with thesamples of wine that I received from Jacob’s Creek (You can find the recipes here and here), I thought that it would be fun to do a weekly Wine Wednesday wine and food pairing post. I actually had two more bottles of Jacob’s Creek and since I did not have time to use them for the Superbowl as intended, I wanted to kick off this new series with one of the bottles. I chose the 2007 Pinot Noir to pair with a dish that I created while grocery shopping this weekend: Pan fried golden potatoes topped with eggplant pisto, goat cheese, and olives. It turned out to be one of the best dishes I have made in awhile, so simple, so healthy, comforting, and filling. And absolutely delicious!

The ingredients for the pisto:

1 large eggplant, chopped, salted, and rinsed

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 whole yellow onion

‘1 TSP garlic powder

3 TSP olive oil

Splash balsamic vinegar

I slowly cooked all of the ingredients mixed together for about 45 minutes until everything pretty much fell apart and melted together. The smell was amazing! Once the eggplant was soft enough,( and this took awhile!) I started slicing the potatoes verrrrrry thinly so that they would brown in just a little bit of oil in a pan, just thicker and a little bit softer than potato chips. As soon as they were done, I topped them with the pisto mixture, goat cheese, and Spanish green olives with pimientos.

I was excited to open the Jacob’s Creek Pinot Noir because I had never tried this wine before and because I have been pleasantly surprised by the other wines sent to me on their behalf. The verdict? The Jacob’s Creek Pinot Noir is very easy to drink. There is an obvious ripe strawberry flavor, and it has a smooth, clean finish. I would say that as far as pairing it with this dish, I could go either way. The wine didn’t overpower the dish, but it didn’t seem like they were perfect partners either as it did when I paired the Riesling and fish cakes in Part I of my Superbowl pairing posts. Still, we enjoyed the meal, we enjoyed the wine, and it was all good.

I hope you enjoy my adventures in food and wine pairing each week. As always I am open to suggestions and guest posts on this (or any topic!) I love to hear from all of you about what you are eating and drinking!

Technorati Tags: Food, Jacob's Creek, Pinot Noir, recipe, vegetarian recipe, wine, wine and food pairings

Tags: Food, Jacob's Creek, Pinot Noir, recipe, vegetarian recipe, wine, wine and food pairings

Super Wine and Food Part I

February 9, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 7 comments

Before I launch into a yummy post, I wanted to give you a raffle update. As you may know I am holding a raffle for my Boston Marathon charity, The ALLY Foundation, and I need all the help I can get! Raffle tickets are $10 each and can be purchased by visiting my fundraising site:

http://firstgiving.com/meghanmalloyteamally

I am currently requesting donations for the prizes, and so far I have:

$100 Williams Sonoma gift card

A custom me & goji mix

A one month membership to ALL of Healthworks’ fitness centers

Spread the word!

This year’s Superbowl Sunday was greatly enhanced by a lovely shipment of wine that I received from Jacob’s Creek, along with the challenge to create delicious wine and food pairings. Well, as you may know, I am a big fan of wine and food pairings, and I was excited to try more Jacob’s Creek wine. You may remember I received a bottle of Jacob’s Creek Cabernet Sauvignon to review back in December and used a Jacob’s Creek recipe on New Year’s Eve. Before this, I had only tried Jacob’s Creek Chardonnay, and while it was good, Chardonnay is not my favorite wine so I had very little to go by. I have been pleasantly surprised by the fact that Jacob’s Creek is MUCH more than Chardonnay.

In this football themed promotion, I received a 2008 Pinot Grigio, a 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2008 Reserve Riesling, and a Reserve Pinot Noir.

My task, to make a dish that paired with the wines. Since I was a little pressed for time, I decided to choose two wines and to make Superbowl dishes that ended up pairing magically with them.

My menu:

Jacob’s Creek Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon with marinated steak tips topped with Cabernet “Caramel” Sauce

Jacob’s Creek Reserve Riesling with Spicy Thai Fish Cakes

The ingredients:

Free range, grass fed steak tips

1 cup Jacob’s Creek Cabernet Sauvignon

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Juice of one whole lemon

4 cloves garlic, minced

pinch of rosemary

liberal sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup brown sugar

This recipe is easy and is better the longer you let it sit..

I started out by microwaving the lemon for 20 seconds to get the juices flowing, then squeezed the juice over the steak tips, making sure coat each side of the meat. I let this sit for a few minutes, then added the red wine, garlic, rosemary, and black pepper. I let it sit in the marinade from about 8:00 on Saturday night until 6:00 on Sunday, right before we were leaving for our Superbowl party.

After taking the meat out of the refrigerator and letting it rest at room temperature for about 10 minutes, I thoroughly drained the marinade off. You want the meat to be as dry as possible to get a good sear. I used a dry, very hot pan, and just laid the strips in it, flipping to make sure that each side got browned evenly.

In the meantime, I poured the marinade into a sauce pan and brought it up to a rolling boil. To make sure it was cooked through, I allowed it to boil for a couple of minutes, then brought it down to a slow simmer and stirred in the brown sugar. I let this sauce simmer for a good 10 minutes so that it thickened into a lovely caramel like substance. When the steak tips were cooked through, I plated them, and then poured the sauce on.

The funny thing about this recipe is that I don’t eat beef. But I have reliable sources and was asked for the recipe from a number of party guests, including the Johnson & Wales trained culinary goddess hostess. How did the wine pair?

Well, to start, the meat was marinated in the Cabernet Sauvignon along with the other ingredients, so the flavor profiles were tied together by that. I did enjoy the wine, and as the tasting notes suggest, noted its dense fruit and long persistent finish. According to my husband, the deep, dark fruit in the wine paired well with the slight sweetness of the brown sugar and made a good contrast to the richness of the meat.

Part II of this post will cover the fish cakes which were so good they never made it to the party and the Riesling which I absolutely loved! Check in tomorrow for that recipe and wine review.