Grillin' season!

Not that we stop grilling during the winter: but with the lack of snow, the warmer, longer days, grilling is much more in full swing. Excepting the baked sweet potatoes [and steak sauce], everything for last nights dinner was grilled. I have felt as though I have been 'slacking' on meals lately (light, easy), and this was a wonderful full-filling dinner.

First up: Steak. I don't recall exactly what type of cut it was, but we bought it fresh from the market that day (rather inexpensively), and simply seasoned it with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. We let it sit, uncovered in the fridge for a couple of hours, then rubbed it with olive oil right before grilling. Simplest is best!

Next up: Veggies. Mushrooms and Sweet Potatoes. As I mentioned before hand, the potatoes were not grilled. Simply pricked with a fork, and thrown into a 400 degree oven for around 40 minutes. The mushrooms were grilled after being de-stemmed, and brushed with garlic infused olive oil. They came out perfect, though we thought they lacked seasoning. It turned out the 'steak sauce' complimented the mushrooms better than the steak! I personally believe basting mushrooms with butter and Old Bay seasoning is the best way to go for grilling them (thanks to my peeps in West Virginia for teaching me that!).

Finally: Fruit. Quite frankly, the best way to have pineapple, is grilled. Just straight cut up and grilled. Especially if your pineapple tastes a little tart raw, grilling brings out the hidden sugars. Mmmm, I can't get enough of it! Grilled pineapple will be served in heaven, I assure you!

Additional: Sauce and Drink. A byproduct of hosting a wine party, is having half drunk bottles of wine filling your fridge. A novice wine drinker brought a [red] Shiraz to a white/blush only wine party... That wine was thus disqualified from judging -but free game for after! In order to 'clean out the fridge' we had the Shiraz with dinner. It turned out to be quite a nice surprise, complementing the meal perfectly! It is entitled "ASS KiSSER", from southern Australia [2007]. It's label, with a red and cream colour scheme, and cute donkey that has lipstick lip prints on his butt, is hard to miss if you want to give it a try.
The sauce I made was a recipe from Bobby Flay. It has a subtle spiciness to it, but almost overpowering in it's flavours. Don't get me wrong: I will make this often, and we loved it -the thing is, the steak was grilled so nicely last night, we didn't need anything to help it along taste wise. It did enhance the mushrooms amazingly, and even tasted good on the pineapple! True story! Please, give this sauce a try, and let me know what you think. Here's how to make a half batch, which is plenty:

Bobby Flay's Steak Sauce Mayonnaise:

1/2 cup Hellman's mayonnaise
1 1/2 tbsp. Molasses
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 tbsp. whole grain Dijon mustard
1 tbsp. prepared Horseradish
1/2 tbsp. Ketchup
Kosher Salt, and freshly ground Black Pepper

Whisk all ingredients together in a medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour [before serving] to allow flavors to meld.

Springtime Wine & Cheese Tasting

Wow! What a great time! This being our 2nd wine tasting, we were a lot more organized this time around. Easier scoring cards, written out instructions/rules, and keeping the food 'simple' helped this go smoothly. Each time it has been a learning experience -but the biggest thing we learned is holding a wine tasting generates a huge interest! I also think it was a great hit doing a seasonally themed tasting. As it is spring, white and blush wines were allowed only. This kept things narrowed down enough to really taste variations in the wines. In keeping with the light spring theme, we served flavour infused oils, fruit, and goat cheeses.

Many thanks to my friend Jessica Rivers, who just so happens to be a professional photographer, for taking all these photos. You can check out some her multi-talented work here.

The cheeses provided were a goat cheese Brie, goat cheese rolled in herbs, and a regular Havarti. Crackers were available for the cheese as well.
I made Garlic, Rosemary, and Cayenne Pepper infused oils that went very well with the wine theme.Making infused oils is wicked simple and easy to do! Here's how:
Just take some olive oil, and put what ever you want to infuse into it in a jar and let it sit for a week or two. If using herbs, make sure to 'bruise' them beforehand.  Though, for the Cayenne oil, you actually have to carefully simmer it on the stove top for it to infuse properly. Crush up dried Cayennes (the amount depends on what heat level you want- I used 3 whole large ones for a medium-hot heat), add olive oil to a pan with the crushed pepper, and simmer just under the oil's smoke point for 15-20 minutes. Strain, jar, let cool, done!  
Use bread as a dipping medium for the oils. I personally suggest a plain French loaf, and a multi-grain French loaf in order to let the true flavours shine through.

 

Two types different types of grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, and pineapple were also served. We had a deli sandwich platter too... Having something a little more substantial than fruit and cheese is advised when hosting a party centered around alcohol!

All in all, a marvelous experience... We hand out a prize for the wine judged 'best tasting'. It turns out our most junior guest brought the best one! It was a Moscato by Barefoot, and won by a landslide. It's a very sweet wine -like a dessert wine. I've never even had a Moscato before and I loved it!

How to make wine sacks

Wine sacks are a simple and easy way to dress up a bottle of wine. Perfect to make as gift bags, or for a 'blind' wine tasting. Here's how I did it step by step:

Pick any fabric of your liking. Cut a piece 14" X 12 3/4" . 
This size will fit almost any style 750ml wine bottle.

With the fabric wrong side up, fold over and pin a 1" hem across the 14" side. 

Sew the hem. This will create the pocket for the ribbon closure.

This is what your sewn hem/ ribbon pocket will look like.

Now, fold the fabric in half, with the right sides facing each other. 
Pin the bottom and open side.

Sew the pinned bottom and side seams. 

NOTA BENE: Do NOT sew all the way up the side. 
You need to allow space at the top hem to thread your ribbon through. 

Now, take the ribbon you have chosen for your closure (make sure it's long enough! At least 18" for this pattern) and attach a safety pin to one end.

 

With the sack still wrong side out, take the end of the ribbon with the safety pin and guide through your top  hem (ribbon pocket), pulling all the way though. Remove the safety pin once pulled through. 

Turn the sack inside out so the right side of the fabric is showing, 
and you're done!

ENJOY! 

If you are making these for a wine tasting, just add a numbered tag to the ribbon. I was able to bang out 12 of these start-to-finish in about 2 1/2 hours (with the aid of a sewing machine). And trust me, the safety pin step is necessary. It is the best way to fish through any ribbon or string through a closed pocket. Keep that little factoid in mind next time the pull string on your hoodie disappears, and remember to thank me :)

Flowers, wine bottle sacks

It may have been only 1/2 and inch or so, but we woke up to snow. To bad I already entered my 'spring' picture to the local newspaper, because this would have made a nice submission. Well, maybe except for the cable running to the Christmas lights (yes, they are still up) in it. And, just in case you didn't find that hillbilly enough, the picture I did submit I had to crop out the random PBR beer cans in the background. I still think it came out nice though:

From that refreshing breathe of down-home-ness, let's enter the world of suburban bliss. Yesterday I was busy making wine sacks [among other things for] a blind spring wine tasting we're holding.

I made 12 of them easily using a sewing machine. I usually laud the merits and enjoyability of hand sewing, but I banged out all these sacks in a few hours with the machine. I used left over material from my Flower Girl dress at my best friends wedding. Little did she know, she had the perfect colour green for a spring party years later! Only 2 seams were needed to sew in order to make beautiful functional sacks for wine. I would have tapered the sacks more, but everyone brings their own favorite wine to be judged: the sacks are a drawstring design to accommodate different styles and sizes of bottles. A label can then be attached to the drawstring for judging purposes. I am working out the sewing pattern I made up to be easily understandable that I will post next so you can make your own.