ooooooh, that is an ambitious title.
We are having an “at home” weekend to catch up on things. So we had one of our fun Friday dinners, where we all add things.
Ok, so from the title I gather you have deduced what we cooked…
They were very yummy too. eeeeeps that wasn’t what we made though… omg that is big. lol… phone 911
A day off, woo hoo, to sit in the sun and just flop.
well I guess we could have done that. hmmm perhaps we should have?
I was going to say I had a busy week, but we all did. The weather this weekend was grand. Finally. wait, where is the exclamation mark…. !
It was sunny and warm woo hoo, we could tan!
But I wanted to go for a run. Not a long one, I mean I don’t have a bike… so it was just 5k. I like the 5k run, about 2.5 k away there is a nice chip truck… what? but they put on gravy and cheese curds. so it is a healthy snack.
Megan said she wanted some Poutine (psst that is what it is called), so she said she was going to come along… then Jill heard .. my quiet run was going to be more fun… and Aimee too. woo hoo, see if exercise has a reward…
It was great, so sunny, the blossoms are on the trees, everyone is happy, so lots of waving.
Creative Dinner Night, that is what we call it.
When we all contribute, but without any pre-planning. It usually works out, sometimes it is just… blech. lol
So, four roommates working in the kitchen, in case you haven’t been following along, of course I am one of the four. Yes there is a lot of hi-jinx and giggling. Often quite a clean up afterwards too. That is what makes it fun!
So what did we cook tonight? oh gawds.. we have to name it? *checks the rules* nope, no names are required.. hmmm, perhaps we should change that rule.
ok on with the hmmm dinner, that is it.
What to blog about today
food
ok well then
Olympics
darn.. searches for another blog idea.. oh I know.. reaches for my phone and sends a text.
hums while I wait for the answer… I am a good hummer, I know all the words…
psssst I asked Aimee what kind of wine is the most sought after.
woo hooo, she answered.. darn I can’t copy and paste from a text message.. oh well…
oh, it won’t take long to copy her answer….
Ambersssss it is a long weekend.. who cares.
*giggles*
oh well.. it is though, for us anyway. It is a civic holiday.. *nods* some famous person crossed a river and discovered something and his name was Mr. Civic….. wait.. googles to check.. darn that is not it either.
Oh well, it is a long weekend, so off to the cottage for us. *smiles eagerly* and not long before we leave too… woo hoo
Well I know Aimee will pick some good wines for the weekend. we are cooking a roast in the crock pot. it is going to be very hot again and humid, so that will give us a nice meal or two without heating up the house. I will bbq it a bit before I put it in the crock too. And we will make some wine coolers too. omg we have made some good ones this summer.
Oh and we can watch the olympics. I heard that golf is going to be an event in 2016… hmmm, bites my tongue.
Oh Tae Kwon Do is coming up, think it is five days away now, that will be an exciting event to watch. *nods lots* *sighs too* But I will be watching. *gets ready to cheer*
Have a great long Weekend everyone… or just a great weekend for those that are stuck with a short one. psst I am stuck with a short one too… oh oh, I am going to get a punch for that one…. *giggles*
*giggles and checks the clock again*
Yup, back to food. Well we have to eat don’t we?
Do you live to eat, or eat to live?
A basic question, but it is not as light a question as it appears. Those that live to eat, enjoy food, and take pleasure in it. They tend to do so with other things as well. Life is to be enjoyed, how ever you do it.
On the weekend I took my Parmesan cheese to the cottage to make my noodles Alfredo, but never following a recipe it ended up probably not being noodles Alfredo.
First, I didn’t us Alfredo noodles, choosing Penne noodles instead. I like how they fill with the sauce.
now, for my pasta I had red bell peppers, portabella mushrooms, sweet onions (vidalia), chicken breast, garlic, white wine, the pasta, cream and the cheese. We used a table cream, whipping cream is good to, but it is very rich.
a bbq too.
I seasoned the chicken breast and heated the bbq, I also sliced the mushrooms into strips and seasoned them, tossing them in some olive oil, I did the same with the onion.
The red pepper I cut into larger pieces and also seasoned it and tossed it in olive oil.
The garlic I took two bulbs and cut the tips off, put them in foil and drizzled more olive oil on them, then wrapped them tight. I put them on the grill right away along with the peppers.. skin side down.
I sprayed the chicken breast with a veggie spray, to help keep it from sticking and when the grill was hot put them on. If the grill isn’t hot the chicken sticks. blech.
I have a little metal pan that is for the bbq, it has lots of holes in it, it is great for when you bbq smaller things, like meat balls, shrimp or mushrooms and other veggies.. in went the mushrooms.
mmm it was smelling wonderful.
When the peppers are blackened (on the skin side) a bit they come off, and I rinse them off and remove the skin. Cut them into strips and put them aside.
I dont want to dry out the mushrooms, just to caramelizes them a bit, so I don’t brown them, just cook until tender, I tossed the onion in then, I don’t want them to brown, just turn translucent. Then they all come off and are put aside for later. You don’t need a lot of pepper and mushrooms and onions, the sauce is the star, they are just to make it better.
Don’t over cook the chicken, It dries out fast. So watch it carefully. I use a temperature probe and when it hits 160 it comes off and I wrap it in foil, it will cook more in the foil and not dry out.
By then the garlic is probably roasted too. Squeeze a bulb to see if it is soft. They don’t take that long.
off goes the bbq and into the cottage. woo hoo, everyone was getting hungry now, all those smells.
The pasta is boiling now, It is handy to have an Amiee lying around, you should get one. *nods lots*
She also had a cream sauce simmering and the cheese was melting in it, she added some white wine but not an oaked one. She used a Pinot Grigio, I knew this because that is what we were drinking at the time.. *grins*
How much cream, and how much cheese? *shrugs* we don’t measure. The cheese is strong, so you don’t need gobs of it, so add some, maybe a half a cup ( it really depends on how many you are cooking for) and taste it after it melts in, you can keep adding some, but it may become too rich if you add too much. The same with the wine, in a cheese sauce, perhaps 1/2 a cup and be sure to simmer it so the alcohol cooks off.
I chopped up the red peppers, now without the skins and roasted tender, and the garlic, which is also roasted. The roasting changes the garlic a lot, it becomes richer, sweeter or less bitter and not overpowering. The peppers roasted really pop with flavour.
They get tossed into the sauce to allow their flavour to meld with the sauce.
Then the onion and mushrooms go in.
Now you can cook everything together, like a stew, and it is great, but cooking them like this and adding them at different times layers the flavours, you can taste each one.
presto, it is done
You can toss the pasta into the sauce and mix it, or serve them separately and let everyone choose how much of each they want. The chicken breast is sliced into thin strips, and placed on top. I like to sprinkle parsley on it, not just because it looks nice, but I really like parsley. Also I sprinkle on paprika. I don’t like to cook paprika as it cooks very fast and will become bitter, but on top when serving, it is great.
I am getting hungry again. drat.
I would tell you what Aimee made for desert… but drooling on the keyboard is bad. Perhaps tomorrow.
It is so hard to pick just some, or a few cheeses when we go to this shop, I am sure it is because they give us tastes and that teases us… it is an evil plan *nods lots*
We managed though, and had lots of tastes while we were doing it. That is the best part, the tastes and the looks exchanged to see if we both like it, and the grins that follow. One of our favorites looks like this, but don’t ask me the names, we seldom remember them. Usually it is the orange one, or the green one, when we try to remember.
When I found this picture I also found this: five counties cheese because of the different cheeses that make up its five layers. These cheeses are: Double Gloucester, Caerphilly, Cheshire, Leicester, and Cheddar… woo hoo, now I don’t have to remember. lol. It is really good. we love it.
We also bought a big wedge of Parmesan, because I am going to make a noodles Alfredo this weekend. And it is great with crackers and wine too.
We have had this one before too, it is very nice, called Wensleydale, it has cranberries in it. There is one like it with apricot too. We had it at Christmas, it is very nice with a Pinot Grigio or Pinot Gris (as they are the same thing), but then most things are nice with Pinot Grigio.
And an apple wood smoked cheddar, it is really yummy with Shiraz. We bought Havarti with dill too. The dill flavour is very pronounced, not like the ones in the supermarkets that are just sort of green specks, this one is very creamy with a great dill flavour. Think I am getting hungry again.
We picked up a green cheese that has sage in it, that is what made it green, a brie that has peppercorns, it is really good on crackers, I hope it lasts to the weekend.
We picked up three or four other ones too, some soft some smoked.. They are all great. Aimee keeps testing them, her excuse is that she wants to match them up with wine… don’t think she is fooling anyone though, but it was a good try.
This is the savory candy of the world. *nods wisely*
candy?
well it can be so decadent, so it must be candy.
We stumbled across a cheese shoppe a while ago, we would visit occasionally while living in the dorms and carefully choose a selection of cheeses… counting out our coins… on a Friday night, take them back to the dorm with some very nice crackers or bread… select some wine, I let Aimee pick the wine, she is very good at that. We both picked the cheese. It was bliss. The cheese was sooo good.
Walking into the shop, you expect to be assaulted by the smells like you would be in a bakery… but that is missing from a cheese shop, probably because they are all nestled behind glass, teasing and tormenting with their rainbow of colours, shapes or interesting looking skins.
We learned cheese, like books, can not be judged by their appearance. (just like people)
The ones that look so tempting may not be the enticing treat you expect, and the plain cheese sitting all alone, well it may be the one that becomes your best friend.
ok, time for a picture, I was going to look for a bunch of little pictures to tease you with, and stumbled across this one, and it just makes me drool. There are so many different kinds of cheese.
We are stopping there on the way home, to pick a few for the weekend. We love doing this, because when you point to a cheese they pull it out of the cooler and slice off some for you to taste, if there are others in the store, they slice off some for everyone… it is a dastardly trick, because everyone then buys some.
Sometimes we pick our own, some that we remember, some that catch our eye… and that is fun, but we learned that if we say we want to buy a mix of cheese, about.. and we name a price.. then they pick them for us.
And that is when we get a great variety, hard, soft, creamy, aged.. they do so great picking them and never seem to pick one we don’t like.
Oh we did try one in the store once, that was different. *nods*, it was chocolate cheese. *makes a funny face*
She sliced some off for us and I popped it in my mouth… instantly went “blech” and blushed… while Aimee and the girl behind the counter giggled. pssst, we didn’t buy any of that.
Blue cheese, Megan said that is an acquired taste and hoped we would never acquire it… but alas, just like cheese in general, there are a lot of different types of blue cheese. So she (the girl behind the counter) one day slices off a very interesting looking cheese that has different coloured layers.. and we tasted it…. WOW. It was great. It was made up of a few cheeses… so of course I asked what kinds they were… and the one in the middle was a blue cheese… *pouts* yup, we acquired the taste. LOL.
They are not all strong and yucky, some are very smooth, and with the right wine… omg.
So tonight Jill and I have been entrusted to pick some good ones. We have some instructions but they are not written in stone.. checks the list.. nope is paper… We always try to get something different and something we know we like a lot. There was one with mushrooms in it last time, it was great. But we try not to get the same type two times in a row, and with so many to choose from, that is easy to do.
I love smoked cheese, and hard cheese, and soft cheese…eeeps, I like them all, lol, but soft cheeses… and there are so many soft cheeses, that on crackers.. double creams, triple creams. omg.. I am going to drool if I am not careful.
*dances off dreaming about out trip to the cheese shop tonight*
Well you won’t find cheese here, but just like cheese, you will find people from around the world with different looks and packages that you shouldn’t judge, but just enjoy.
Hugs aimee for helping with this one.
Wine glasses. There are different ones. Oh most know there is one for red and one for white… but nope. It is more confusing than that.
huh?
yup, wine is very confusing.. oh wait, that is after you drink it…
lol, but it is confusing before hand too, there are ways to enhance your pleasure.
Different glasses are different for a reason. Different shapes, sizes and openings do things, they allow more of the aroma to waft into your nose, they also place the wine on different parts of your tongue.
Why?
Well your tongue experiences different sensations, or tastes in different spots.
so placing wines first, on different parts of the tongue will change the way you perceive a wine. Easy right? The shape of the glass and opening will direct the flow of wine to different parts of your tongue.
The size of the bowl will change the intensity of the aroma, a larger bowl will give you much more than a small one as there is more surface area.
Some shapes will emphasize the fruitiness of a wine. *nods* grapes are fruit. Some the tannin in the wine. (pssst, that is the pucker.) There is more tannin in red wines, because they are made with the skins, that is where most of the tannin is in grapes. Tannin also comes from oak, if the wine is aged in wooden barrels.
look a handy picture to show you which glasses to use for the red wines.
and for the white wines:
see how the shapes and sizes of the bowls are different? *points*
aimee said I have to do the other wines too, so shows you one more picture:
Glasses that have wider openings allow your nose to slip into the glass, so you can take a deep breath and enjoy the complex aromas. Big bowls allow the air to mix with the wine, this is important to allow the flavour out.
Oh and I am told you don’t fill the glass to the top.. drat… only about 1/3, so you can swirl the wine and let it mix with air. (it is ok to have a second glass, you don’t have to fill it to the rim.. )
White wines have smaller openings, this is to keep them cool longer. They also have less aromas, so a smaller opening will help contain them.
Oh and aimee says it isn’t being snobby to have specific glasses for different wines. You are just pampering yourself by getting the maxim enjoyment from this simple pleasure.
And if you drink and drive I will smack you. *makes a stern face* I am serious too.
While walking home today, after writing yet another exam, with aimee one of my roommates, I said I should write my blog about good wine. She thought that was a great idea, and even offered to write it. I expect it would have been in French or German so I said I could manage it. lol, to keep it simpler rather than a dissertation. .. *nods proudly* cause she has written quite a few of those.. pssst she is very smart and will have her first doctorate soon… points out I said first..
Okies, enough background, so I asked her how do you know when it is a good wine.
She has been inflicting her wine knowledge on us for a while and we have to suffer through having a fairly extensive wine cellar in our house. So she matches up a wine with our meal and is always right.. grumbles and giggles, is so hard but because she is so cute we put up with it.
She said there are a lot of ways to judge a wine, and it depends on how deep or thorough an answer you wish, are you judging a wine for the dinner table, or trying to impress “wine snobs” *tries to imitate her face when she said that… giggles*, or working in a winery and looking to create a vintage that will make the world tremble with excitement?
Ummm, the first one I said nodding. Don’t think I want the world trembling with excitement just yet.
So here we go, from information garnered from my walk.
Are you still with me?
The first thing you do is open the wine and sniff the cork. (I knew this), Why? Because most wine bottles are sealed with corks.. and corks often will make a bottle of wine bad. This is a wine that is contaminated with .. uhm… TCA, from either the cork or the barrel. A lot of wine is effected this way but most people can’t taste it and don’t return it. It has a musty taste or aroma. They call this a “corked wine” *nods knowing I am impressing you now.” and it is a terrible taste.
Ok, so you probably can’t tell if the wine is corked, so we will move on….
Back to the aroma.. nods.. you take a sniff before you chug.. I mean sip the wine… you are suppose to use the correct wine glass as the shape of the glass will enhance the smell and place the wine on your tongue in the place best suited for that type of wine, just thought I would toss that in now.
But you stick your nose in the glass and take a good sniff. Now some really good wines may not smell great, so this isn’t an end all.. gently swirl the glass to let it breath and then sniff, you are just looking for pleasant smells. Because just like eating a good meal, the fragrant aroma drifting up from the plate enhances your taste sensation, a wine with a nice bouquet will be enjoyed more.
Now, I often see people swirling a glass of wine and looking at the side.. so I asked if that is a good test..
She giggled
It means there is alcohol in the wine she said. But wine snobs like to swirl and look at them. “oh it has good legs” is often the comment.
Well she said to be fair, it is worth doing, because it is pretty. When you swirl the wine and let it settle you will see lines and arches form on the side of the glass. This is called the legs, aimee said it is tears. The French refer to it as tears rather than legs. aimee says the grapes are giving you their last tears so you will find happiness.
Back to the testing.
Balance. There are four things to look for sweetness, acidity, tannin and alcoholic content. This varies with individual palates, but a good wine is balanced. Too much acidity and the wine is sharp, too little and it is flabby. The tannin give the wine its pucker, aged in oak will increase this. You don’t want the tannin overpowering the grape, it isn’t tea it is a fruit drink and the sweetness needs to be in balance with the tannin’s. The alcohol level is usually around 11 to 13 percent, if it is too high you get a burning feeling on your tongue. Blech
Depth is the tastes you discover in the wine, the complexity of it. A nice wine gives you many tastes that come in waves, and are at times repeated.
Now when the wine has passed your lips, how long do you enjoy the taste.. this is the length, a good wine has a long length.
You also look for faults, these are things that have damaged the wine. Oxidation, the wine has been open to long or was exposed to air during the process. It is not a nice taste and the colour is usually off, reds become brownish and whites darken.
oh and don’t keep an open bottle of wine around for a long time. It will oxidize, after the second day it will start to fade quickly, it will end up tasting like cardboard, blech’s again. is terrible taste.
Sulfur is a bad sign. There are a few causes for it apparently but the wine is not worth drinking if you detect that smell.
aimee said to open your wine and let it breath, now that doesn’t mean take out the cork and wait, because there is not much breathing going on in that tiny opening at the top of the bottle. Decant the wine carefully into … waits…. a decanter, the wine will improve so much with this process before you enjoy it. She said to pour it carefully down the side of the decanter and wait an hour or more for a red.
Gawds, there is a lot to it isn’t there?
So not to overwhelm you, as there is a lot more.. I asked if there was a shortcut to discovering a good bottle of wine.. she said yes.
Wow
She leaned in close to my ear so she could whisper the secret.. pssst.. a good bottle of wine, is one shared with someone special.
*Grins*, we had a good bottle of wine tonight.
sensuousamberville 