Cooking Light Comes Through Again! – Curried Chicken Wraps

Twice recently recipes from Cooking Light made the cut for one of our weekly meals. Last time it was a flatbread pizza that made for an easy summer dinner, and from the same issue. This time I made it for lunch on of the days I work from home. With Margot working in Manchester now she can come home for lunch. Something a little on the gourmet side made by her personal chef is pretty compelling I would imagine!

The recipe for Curry Chicken Wraps with Nectarine Chutney can be found on page 128 of the June 2011 issue of Cooking Light or online here.

( The chutney would be good in many other ways! )

We prepared it similarly, although I had chicken thigh filets, skipped the cucumber and used some romaine lettuce we already had on had in place of the arugula. We assembled the sandwiches on whole wheat pita breads which are a little most substantial than the recommended flatbreads, which is a good thing. The chutney can be a bit messy.

The curried chicken was set to marinate 24 hours ahead and ultimately it was some of the best curried chicken I have ever had. The flavor was pronounced, but not overwhelming and the meat stayed nice and moist through the cooking.

The combination of flavors between the chicken and chutney was fantastic. It tasted like something you might get at an ethnic take out joint. I was pretty proud of my execution and will gladly make these again!

Pairing note: I took two 2010 bottles of our own for a test drive with these, a Viognier and a Sauvignon Blanc. Both wines are challenge to drink so no good pairing can be suggested from experience.

Cheers!

Jason

Making Limoncello

( I took the picture at an angle because that is how things look if you drink too much of it! )

Limoncello was my first ever infusion. I only made it once back in 2009. In the two years since I have infused vodka with all sorts of things, made my own spin on Southern Comfort using the original recipe and inspired friends try it all themselves. It is fun, and if you haven’t tried it, you should.

Making Limoncello is really simple. The waiting in the hard part!

Ancient Fire Limoncello

16 lemons, carefully peeled to get mostly yellow skin and minimal white pith
2 – 1.75 liter containers of 100 proof vodka
1 gallon empty jug with a re-sealable top

Wash & peel the lemons. Put the peels in your empty container. Cover with the vodka. Shake every day for 2-3 weeks. The yellow color will develop within a few days and the depth of the flavor and aroma will continue to grow as you shake it.

After 2-3 weeks strain the vodka to remove the peels and any sediment. Sweeten the nearly finished Limoncello with simple syrup to taste. Just how much sweetness is really is a matter of taste. Because I have lots of empty wine bottles laying around, corks and a corker I fill bottles and seal them for safe storage. Because of the sugar in the drink you really don’t want to store your creation in a container that isn’t airtight. If you have to store it in one container, the refrigerator is a good bet to keep it from getting funky. I normally put a bottle in the freezer a few hours ahead of when I want to serve it, typically in the summer. It comes out super cold and makes for a great way to cap off a meal in the backyard.

Cheers!

Jason

Breakfast for Dinner

I love having what would normally be considered breakfast foods for dinner. I love how much easier those meals can be in comparison.

Last week I made a vegetable frittata that came out perfect. All the vegetables were cooked just right and the eggs for nice and puffy, but not to crispy on top.

Veggie Frittata

1 broccoli crown, cut down into half florets
½ bunch of asparagus, top 2/3 of each stalk cut into 2 pieces
½ large red pepper, sliced thin
½ large red onion, sliced thin
1 cup egg whites/egg substitute from a carton
½ cup shredded low fat cheddar cheese
1 tsp garlic paste
2 tsp olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Steam the broccoli and asparagus just until they were fork tender. Heat the oil in a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Set your broiler on high. Sauté the pepper & onion until tender in the hot oil. Add the garlic to an open spot in the center of the pan and quickly mix into the cooking vegetables. Add the asparagus and broccoli. Sprinkle the cheese over the vegetables and toss to mix. Add egg white to cover the vegetables evenly. Add salt & pepper if you like. Allow the eggs to cook just until they begin to bubble and you can see them have set underneath the liquid top layer. Move the pan to the broiler. Watch it carefully under the broiler until the eggs complete cook and puff up. It should be golden brown on top, but not too brown.

Allow it to cool for just a minute, cut and serve. One quarter of the dish clocked in at just about 3 Weight Watcher points for anyone who is considering how the dish fits into an active diet regimen.

And there you have breakfast for dinner!

Jason

Light & Easy Pasta Bake

Very rarely do I make pasta at home. Margot is usually the one who does and that is maybe once per month. I never really developed an appreciation for it growing up and while I will order pasta when out at a good Italian restaurant, but I don’t often crave it and thus don’t make it at home. This makes Margot sad because she loves pasta, but she understands the issue; and there are many things she doesn’t regularly eat for exactly the same reason.

So it was with great surprise that I should want to make pasta and that I was going to scheme something up to use ingredients we had on hand to make something a little more than cooked pasta with sauce on top. My motivation was the open bottle of wine some new friends has left us.

What I ended up with contains most of what is in a typical lasagna but I used shells for the pasta. When everything was ready it was mixed together and spread into a baking pan and topped with parmesan cheese. It really was simple, and it turned out to be pretty light as well. Not a bad two-fer to get for a dish I don’t often make!

Jay’s Light & Easy Pasta Bake

1 lb ground turkey, browned & cooked through
1 box whole wheat shells, cooked according to package
1 white onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
8 oz light Ricotta cheese
½ jar spaghetti sauce
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp parmesan cheese, seperate (fresh grated or jar style)
1 Tbsp garlic paste
2 tsp frozen fresh oregano
2 tsp frozen fresh basil
Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375.

Mix everything but the pasta and the last 2 Tbsp of the parmesan cheese in a large bowl. Add the pasta and mix well. Pour into a baking dish and spread as one flat layer. Cover with the remaining parmesan cheese.

Bake until golden brown on top.

I served this dish with some olive bread sprayed lightly with white truffle oil and a very nicely crafted Dolcetto wine made by some of our new winemaking friends. It really was a fantastic pairing, and I found that Dolcetto lives up to its reputation similar to that of Chianti for being an easy drinking and very food friendly wine.

Newsflash! I made pasta for a second time in the same week. You can only imagine how excited Margot was. My friend Wayne mine broke his collar bone skiing the same day as I made the first dish, and we made something a little different on Wednesday to take over for a visit. I saw a recipe for “Greek Mac and Cheese” at Kate’s Kitchen and remembered I had a wine from Santorini hanging around, so Greek dinner it was! We all loved the pasta, and Wayne & Meredith really appreciated not having to prepare dinner for one night. Wayne is getting around good, but he needs to try and heal up so his activities as an outdoor adventurer and musician are not permanently derailed from this mishap. I am going to review the wine in a separate post but head on over to Kate’s Kitchen for the recipe for “Greek Mac and Cheese”.

Cheers!

Jason

Super Sunshine Starter Strawberry Smoothie

Mornings typically end up being busy days for me. Cleaning up the kitchen, blog posting, making the coffee and possibly prepping for that evening’s dinner; sometimes I don’t end up with much time for breakfast.

Enter the smoothie. They are so easy to make. With the early morning spring sun showing its face, fruit smoothies taste even better.

They taste sort of like dessert, but generally don’t have excess sugar that is hard for the body to handle. My favorite combination is banana, strawberry, vanilla almond milk and orange juice. For this recipe I used strawberries I picked at Sunnycrest Farms in Londonderry, NH where I live. My wife and I picked them in June of 2010 and they are excess from what we picked to make our award winning strawberry wine. We froze them the day we picked them and take them out of the freezer in small amounts as we need them. Sunnycrest is only a few miles from my home. It is an understated farm with extraordinary produce. We buy a variety of fruits and vegetables in every season from them. We have used their berries and cherries in wine, cider, pies, desserts and of course, smoothies.

Super Sunshine Starter Strawberry Smoothie

1 frozen banana
1 cup frozen strawberries
6 oz vanilla almond milk
4 ounces orange juice

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Serve in a pint sized glass.

Cheers!

Jason

Provencal Tapenade

Brian at @MyFoodThoughts did Silent Sunday and it totally worked. I am doing Tight-Lipped Tuesdays, or at least this week.

Enjoy! --Jason

Provencal Tapenade
3/4 cup imported black olives, drained
4 anchovy filets
1 large garlic clove (or more to taste
2 Tbsp capers, rinsed and drained
2 Tbsp oil-packed tuna, drained
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp brandy
2 tsp Dijon mustard (see Dijon Mustards Rated)
1 tsp fresh thyme (see variations)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (best quality)

1.Combine all of the ingredients except olive oil in your food processor. Process until smooth.

2.With the motor running, pour in the olive oil in a thin stream.

3.Taste and correct the seasoning. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the paste into a bowl and refrigerate, covered until you’re ready to serve.

Vegetarian Red Beans & Rice

I’m not sure what prompted it but last week my wife said she wanted Red Beans & Rice. We’ve only eaten it a couple of times in 15 years so it was a pretty obscure request. No worries though, it sounds good and I can definitely pull that off.

I went looking for recipes to get some inspiration and quickly found a great vegetarian (eating lighter these days) red beans & recipe from the Sortachef blog. I adapted the recipe in three ways. I used chipotle and chili powder instead of straight up cayenne. Margot seems to be more sensitive to cayenne and I wanted her to be able to eat the dish at will. I added 1 tsp of liquid smoke to help offset the missing flavors that you would get in the traditional dish from sausage and/or other meats. I then added the juice of ½ of a lime. I am finding that a slight hit of acid in some dishes helps flavors express themselves.

Vegetarian Red Beans & Rice

2 cups dry Small Red Beans, soaked overnight
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 sticks celery with leaves, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
4 Tbsp olive oil
6 cups water
3 teaspoons of salt (reserve 1 tsp)
½ tsp of freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ tsp of dry thyme
1 ½ tsp of oregano
½ tsp chipotle powder
½ tsp chili powder
1 tsp liquid smoke
Juice of ½ a lime
3 cloves garlic, pressed or finely chopped
8 ounces of tomato sauce
Cooked rice

Soak the beans overnight covered by 2 inches of water. Drain, rinse and pick out any stones, stems or rotted beans.

Heat the 4 Tbsp oil in a large dutch oven. Sauté the onion, celery and green pepper over medium-high, turning occasionally with a spatula. When the pepper has lightened in color and the onions are translucent remove the vegetables from the heat and drain off the excess oil. Wipe out the dutch oven and return the vegetables to it.

Add the beans and 6 cups of cold water to the sautéed veggies. Now add the salt (2 tsp), black pepper, oregano, thyme, chipotle, chili powder, liquid smoke, lime juice and garlic. Mix well.

Bake in the oven at 325°. Put bean pot on the center rack and bake for 2 ½ hours covered, stirring every half hour or so. After 2 ½ hours, add the tomato sauce and last 1 tsp of salt. Remove the lid from the bean pot. Increase the heat to 375° and cook for 2-3 hours, until beans are tender and the cooking liquid has thickened.

( All done and ready to eat! )

Make a pile of cooked rice. Place 2/3 to 1 cup of the red beans mixture on top of the rice. Enjoy with hot sauce if you like some heat!

( Slightly out of focus. Sorry. It was good nonetheless! )

We enjoyed this hearty, but lighter than the classic, dish with a homemade Belgian White beer and the newest episode of the FX cartoon series Archer. The beer has coriander and bitter orange peel in it. Those flavors together with the creamy wheat body of the beer really worked well with the beans and rice. The pairing with Archer is a different sort of pairing all together. Off-color jokes and sexual innuendo are always good for a laugh and made for great atmosphere to enjoy dinner and a beer to on a Friday night.

Cheers!

Jason

Rosemary Cheese Straws

A few months ago Margot and I were watching an episode of Drink Up on Cooking Channel and saw a segment where one of the guest chefs made cheese straws to pair with a featured beverage. We remember the cheese straws, but can’t recall what type of beverage the show profiled in that episode. Oh well, we remember the important part!

We both agreed to tuck the idea in the back of the head for our next wine tasting. When the planning for that occasion rolled around we decided that having all the snacks be cheese themed would add a nice spin to our typical tasting food free-for-all. And, that we would make cheese straws for our contribution.

( How can you go wrong with a big pile of shredded cheese? )

“To the cloud” as the commercials go, in search of a recipe. In the first few search results popped up Cheese Straws from Smitten Kitchen. I knew of this blog through other food bloggers I read so I was sure I would use this recipe. Knowing your source to be a reliable origin for well executed recipes with great pictures always helps.

I doubled the recipe, swapped rosemary for chili flakes and used wheat flour for 1/3 of the flour. I did increase the liquid a bit based on how it came out during the work with the food processor. I used Cabot Private Stock Sharp Cheddar for the cheese. This cheese is one step down from the fresh wheel-cut sharp cheddar you can get in the farmstands all over VT where play on the weekends. I wanted a very rich, super sharp cheese to make the straws pop, and with lots of experience with the Cabot cheeses I was pretty sure it was going to work as expected!

Rosemary Cheese Straws

12 ounces grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
½ cup wheat flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon crushed rosemary (frozen fresh from my garden)
2-4 tablespoons heavy cream

Set the oven to 350°F.

Place everything but the cream in food processor. Pulse until coarse crumbs appear. Add the cream by the tablespoon and process until the dough forms a ball.

Flour a rolling surface and a rolling pin. Separate the dough into two pieces and form each into a ball. Roll the first dough ball into a rectangle that is about 1/8-inch thick. Use a pizza cutter to cut 1/3 in strips along the short edge of the rectangle, making as many as can be. Carefully transfer the strips to an parchment lined cookie sheet, leaving at least 1/4-inch between them. Repeat with the second dough ball.

Bake the straws on the middle oven rack for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the ends are golden brown. Remove them from the oven and allow to cool on a rack.

( Golden brown and with a super cheesy aroma! )

These didn’t last long at the tasting. I paired them with several of the wines and found they were best with the Petit Verdot and Chateau-du-Roi (Rhone blend) from my collection. They also went well with the Rodney Strong Chardonnay brought by our friend Wayne.

( And now for your close-up. )

I would definitely make these again and would vary the herb/seasoning to use them in different ways. You could definitely add more rosemary to this recipe. Flavors are subject to individual preference and the I amount I used definitely suited a range of tastes. I can't wait to try the chili flake version and can also envision using Indian spices, sage, and chipotle for other interesting variations.

Cheers!

Jason

Meyer Lemon Curd Cream & Strawberry Trifle

I hadn’t yet used my Meyer Lemon Curd I made earlier in the month. With friends coming over and needing to make a dessert Margot suggested we find something to make with it. I added that it should be easy to make and something we could do ahead of time. The winner? A Lemon Curd Cream & Strawberry Trifle.

We used the recipe from Mel’s Kitchen Café as a guide, which by the way was publishedoin my birthday last year. That’s always a good sign!!

Our twist consisted of using 100% local strawberries we picked and froze last June, store-bought pound cake and making them in individual servings using clear cocktail glasses.

Strawberry Sauce

3 cups thawed berries, leave behind free running juice
1 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch

Lemon Curd Cream
2 cups whipping cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 - 8 oz jar of homemade Meyer Lemon Curd

Both of the components above were prepared according to the original recipe. The pound cake was cut into cubes. The assembly was done using two rounds of a layer each of cream, cake and berry sauce, finally topped with cream.

When dessert came around these made for a great presentation and garnered rave reviews from our friends. Margot and I had tasted the lemon curd cream when we prepared them so we had some of idea of what to expect. A huge slam dunk!

Cheers!

Jason

Granola Two Ways

( Martha Stewart granola, cooling )

Margot and I are constantly looking for recipes that can replace store bought prepared foods. While there are granolas you can buy from the store that are made with all natural ingredients and offer the high fiber and low fat that make granola a healthy breakfast or snack, not all granolas are created equal!

Making granola is very easy. Once you have tried it you will likely never want to buy granola again! For this this post we picked two different recipes with slightly different ingredients to make at home.

My mother made me a batch of granola as part of a Christmas gift. She used a recipe from Martha Stewart magazine. I thought we would start with that which harnesses maple, a friendly New England flavor.

We made a half batch of the original recipe with a slightly different mix of nuts.

1 ¾ cup rolled oats
1/8 cup chopped pecans
1/8 cup whole almonds
1/8 cup chopped walnuts
1/8 tsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
3 Tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp vanilla

The walnuts will burn if allowed to cook too long. Keep the mix agitated to avoid this.

The resulting granola was quite similar to the gift I received although I felt ours was a bit understated in comparison. I’ll have to ask my mom if she veered off the recipe somewhere. This granola is light in body. The sweet maple flavor intersects with enough salt to keep things balanced.

( ready for the mix! )

For our second recipe we pick the Easy Homemade Granola from the Amateur Gourmet blog. This recipe uses honey and brown sugar instead of maple syrup and adds dried fruit for some extra flavor and texture.

We made the full sized recipe. We used different nuts and fruits and altered the process just a bit.

2 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole almonds
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup dried cranberries

Mix oats, cinnamon and salt together in one bowl. Whisk oil, honey, sugar and vanilla together in microwave safe bowl. Heat the wet mixture in microwave for 30 seconds. Pour wet over dry. Mix well.

Spread on a parchment covered baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Mix after 15 minutes, add nuts and finish cooking. Allow to cool. Mix in fruit.

( how can you not want this? )

Margot and I both believe this is some of the best (Margot has said best ever several times) granola we have ever had. This is definitely a lot sweeter than the first recipe and the addition of the fruit definitely bumps of the texture. I am sure if we continue experimenting with granola we might find some additional secrets, but I would have a hard time not returning to this recipe as the basis for anything else I tried!

( ready to eat! )

I got a tweet, not long after I mentioned I was making granola, asking what the best wine pairing was with granola. I hadn’t thought about it but you can’t ask me such a question and not expect an experiment to happen! Cabernet Franc Ice Wine was my answer. The flavors between it and granola number two were in real harmony. It wouldn’t be something I would do often, but it sure was fun!

Cheers!

--Jason

Curried Pumpkin Soup

Curried Pumpkin Soup

2 cups baked pumpkin
2 cups water
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 shallots, diced
2 Tbsp garlic paste
1 Tbsp ginger paste
2 Tbsp green curry paste
2 tsp cider vinegar
2 Tbsp sugar
1/3 cup non-fat coffee creamer
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp nutmeg

For this recipe I used fresh pumpkin that was baked in October and had been frozen. You can use canned pumpkin if you like.

Place the water and pumpkin in a blender and blend smooth.

In a large saucepan heat the oil and butter over medium heat. Sauté the shallots, garlic paste, ginger paste and curry paste for 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Bring the soup to a simmer and reduce the heat. Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve hot. This soup is spicy on account of the green curry paste we used. My wife added some sour cream to cut down the heat. Alternatively you could produce a less spicy soup using less of the paste and compensating with additional garlic, ginger, and spices of your choosing.

Cheers!

Jason

Easy Baked Crab and Artichoke Dip

( you can see all sorts of stuff going on in here, and you can't wait to eat it! )

During the New Year’s sales at our local Shaws we bought two cans of fancy crab meat, which were on sale for almost 50% off. These are the ones that are packed fresh, must be refrigerated and don’t have a long shelf life. We used the first one at our New Year’s brunch and crab cakes the next week, but the second can’s time was counting down. What to make?

I know. A baked crab and artichoke dip! The recipe below is adapted from several past experiences, both versions we have made and those friends have shared with us. It is really easy and can be ready in a little over 30 minutes.

Easy Baked Crab & Artichoke Dip

1 - 16 oz can fancy crab meat
8 oz of artichoke hearts, chopped
1 package 1/3 reduced fat Philly cream cheese, softened at room temperature
½ cup regular mayonnaise
½ cup fat free mayonnaise
¾ cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
4 green onions, sliced (white and light green part only)
1 tsp garlic paste
1/8 tsp smoked paprika

( these were screaming for a close up! )

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Whip the cream cheese, garlic paste and mayonnaises together. Add the rest of the ingredients and spread into a glass baking dish that has been coated with cooking spray. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until bubbly.

Serve with pita chips, crusty bread or whole wheat crackers. This dip freezes and reheats very well.

We enjoyed the dip for lunch yesterday and with that meal happened upon a great pairing with one of our homemade wines. Margot made a wine from the Symphony grape in early 2010. The wine was tasting very well a few months later and we have shared it with friends several times. We opened a bottle this week and found the fruit was popping with intense flavors of peach. The wine is crisp with a shortish finish, a good all around drinker.

We added a small handful of oak chips to this wine for 3 days during its clarification phase. The effect was to create a slight smoky underpinning. Our initial impression was that it tasted like grilled peaches. This is still present, but has mellowed to just the right place. The creaminess and mix of flavors in the dip went together with the wine perfectly. I’m sure both of us could have eaten all the dip and drank all the wine in one sitting if we hadn’t had other things to go and do!

Cheers!

--Jason

Crab Dip

What’s For Dinner? Five Spice Shrimp!

Shrimp was on the list for dinner last night. I had a choice. I could use a packaged marinade and broil them like I often do or come up with something else. Serendipitously I saw several recipes that included Chinese Five Spice yesterday, and it got me thinking.

I took a quick look around and found several recipes that combined Chinese Five Spice, garlic, salt and pepper to season shrimp for pan frying. I added some homemade 2009 Viognier for additional flavor and to ensure the garlic paste I was going to use wouldn’t burn. I had already planned to serve a mushroom couscous and steamed broccoli with the shrimp, but that didn’t seem complete.

I continued thinking about Asian influences and figured that with a couple teaspoons of Five Spice and some black pepper the shrimp might have a little heat. I could throw some sweetness at the shrimp to keep things in balance. Plums! Something I had on hand to eat which would work nicely here. A plum and onion compote is where I landed.

Plum & Onion Compote

3 purple plums, cut into ½ cubes
½ medium onion, chopped
2 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
¼ cup of water
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp coriander powder
¼ tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
2 oz spiced simple syrup (2x syrup spiced with cinnamon, clove and allspice)
1 tsp rice vinegar
Additional cinnamon & clove to taste

Using a medium saucepan sauté the onions in the oil over medium heat. Add the plums, water, ginger and garlic and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the coriander, salt, pepper, spiced syrup and vinegar. Mix well. Continue to simmer until the plums are soft but not falling apart. Add additional spices, salt and pepper to taste.

Five Spice Shrimp

30 raw large shrimp, deveined and shells removed
2 tsp Chinese Five Spice
½ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp black pepper
2 tsp garlic paste
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 oz dry white wine

Clean and pat the shrimp dry. Toss the shrimp with the Five Spice, salt and pepper. Allow to sit for 15 minutes. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the shrimp and toss to coat with oil. When the shrimp begin to get pink Add the garlic paste and gently mix it in with the shrimp. Add the wine and cook the shrimp through. Immediately remove them from the heat and the pan to prevent overcooking.

For the plating I placed the shrimp overtop the plum/onion compote. The broccoli was steamed using a bamboo steamer and the couscous was the handy boxed kind found in the rice section of your local grocery. We generally season our broccoli with spray butter (Smart Balance to I Can’t Believe It’s Not) and grated parmesan cheese, although that isn’t shown in the photo.

I paired the meal with the 2009 Viognier that I used to cook the shrimp. This particular wine was not as aromatic as I had hoped, but in its later age and mellowing the flavors have come out a bit. It is a great middle of the road wine for a dish that isn’t very rich, spicy or complex.

Cheers!

--Jason

Simple & Tasty Breakfast Casserole

I woke up early on Sunday morning and got right to work on our post on the charity wine tasting held the day before. An hour later I was getting hungry and figured that if I made some noise in the kitchen and got the coffee going Margot would be up soon after. Me, sneaky?

But what to make for breakfast?

We had some chunks of Italian bread and some sharp cheddar cheese left over from the event the day before and a breakfast casserole came to mind. Plenty of eggs in the fridge. With no bacon around I wasn’t sold on the idea, but then genius struck. Forget the meat. I used sliced pears and apples instead. To add some complexity to the dish and maybe flavors reminiscent of meat I used some Chinese five spice with the salt, pepper and cinnamon to season the casserole.

Thirty minutes later we had what turned out to be the best breakfast casserole to ever come out of our oven!

Simple & Tasty Breakfast Casserole

10 eggs
½ loaf of soft bread, cut into ¾ inch chunks
2 ripe pears, seeded and sliced thin
1 ripe apple, seeded and sliced thin
4 oz cubed sharp cheddar cheese
1/3 cup half & half
¼ tsp Chinese Five Spice
Dash of cinnamon
Salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a glass baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Place the bread in the bottom of the dish. Layer the apple and pear over the bread. Sprinkle the cheese over top the fruit. Sprinkle the seasonings over the top. Beat the eggs and half & half together. Pour into the baking dish, covering the bottom. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until a nice inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool a bit and serve.

Cheers!

--Jason