Kitchen playtime: Summer produce is finally here!

Well, I've been here, there, and everywhere, or that's how it seems. The past month and a half has included trips to North Georgia, Athens, Dallas, Seattle, Okanagan Valley, and Vancouver. I do plan to blog on some of those, but I wanted to get back to the basics. I'm ready to get serious about reporting on my kitchen playtime, which I will try to do every week. Yes, I hear you scoffing. That only motivates me further. Hmph.

Here in the South, we have four seasons:  rainy, pollen, hot/humid, and dark too early but pleasant. You can guess where we are now with highs in the nineties and humidity that makes my naturally curly hair shrink up about an inch every time I walk outside. Mindfulness teaches us that nothing is all good or all bad, so as much as we hate going outside in the summer, we do get the benefit of amazing summer fruits and vegetables. Here in Atlanta we have several farmers markets that focus on local organic produce, and Hubby and I hit the Freedom Park market yesterday after we ran the Braves Country 5K. Yeah, next year I think I'll go back to my "no races during the summer" rule.

My first two recipes are courtesy of the July and June 2015 issues of Cooking Light, respectively. In the first, Greek Tomato Cucumber Salad with Farro, they return to a familiar combination of tomatoes, cucumber, feta, and vinaigrette that they first introduced me to in the early 2000's with wraps, which I couldn't find the recipes for. Let's play compare the pictures. Here's what their salads looked like:

And here's mine:

Yes, it's in a big bowl because we doubled the recipe so we could have leftovers for lunches. But aside from the plating difference and the fact that their recipe hides the farro and includes the cheese, I'd say I got close. The farro cooked quickly, and the biggest hassle of the recipe was all the chopping, but even that wasn't so bad, especially since I got the pre-halved, pitted kalamata olives. The best part - it didn't heat up the kitchen.

The next recipe, Tomato-Leek Pie with Quinoa Crust, didn't have that advantage. It's not a quick recipe, and it, too, has a lot of chopping but this time in a kitchen with a preheated oven. We were so hungry by the time it was finally done I didn't get a picture until after we'd gotten into it:

I have a habit of buying berries when they're in season and then freezing them with all the best intentions of making smoothies. This can result in us having several "vintages" of berries. Since the oven was already on, I decided to go ahead and clear out last year's vintage as well as a few stray strawberries from 2012 (don't ask) and make a mixed berry cobbler:

Oh, and some of the blueberries had already been used for pancakes this morning:

The cobbler recipe came from The Joy of Cooking, and the buttermilk pancakes from Cooking Light. Links not included because I couldn't find the CL one, and the Joy of Cooking is a book not a website.

Finally, our wine of the week is the Thralls 2014 Rosé of Pinot Noir. I once overheard one guy say to another at a rosé tasting, "If you're a dude drinking pink wine, you're going to have to take some [stuff]." It's really good, and even if you're a dude drinking this pink wine, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Hubby, who is notoriously picky about rosé wine actually likes this one. It pairs well with vegetables, light grilled meats, and hot flashes. We're in the wine club, so we got a discount, but this one is well worth the price.

So where do you go after all that lovely vegetable-ness? We ordered pizza tonight.

Oh, and to share my kitchen dumbassery of the week, I found out that when berry juice goes all over your counters from berries that thaw way more quickly than you expect, it looks like someone was murdered.

Have a lovely week! Just a reminder, if you'd like to sign up for my newsletter to find out about my books, sleep tips, and extra wine info, click here. I only send one out every one to two months, so you don't have to worry about getting them too often.

Tasting Notes: Charity Case Wine

As you know Hubby and I like to drink for a good cause. Okay, we like to drink period, but when we can do so for a good cause, even better.



We recently had the opportunity to try the current offerings of Charity Case Wine (their image, cropped, above). Founded in 2008 after a rainy season caused a surplus of juice from the grapes, it's made from a variety of grapes across Napa Valley. All the juice, labor, and shipping are done by volunteers, which leaves the proceeds to go to a variety of Napa family- and child-focused charities.

There are currently two types of wine available, a Rosé and Sauvignon Blanc. We took the opportunity afforded by the warmer weather to try both.

The 2008 Rosé has a lovely color and plum-cherry nose. It's on the dry side and tart with berry flavors, mild tannins, and a fruity finish. We originally paired it with a spicy honey chicken thigh recipe from Cooking Light, but the chicken killed the wine. A much better pairing was a Chicago-style pizza with roast tomatoes, coppa, and basil. I liked it with food and on its own. Hubby, who is very picky about rosé, didn't find it to his taste.
Rating: Good

The 2009 Sauvignon Blanc surprised us at first with its smoky vanilla nose, and Hubby asked, "Are you sure this isn't a Chardonnay?" Obviously we hadn't looked at the tasting notes, which indicated that it had been aged in new French oak, first. The vanilla continued on the palate with pineapple/melon as the predominant flavor with others around the edges.

We didn't have this one with food. Its perfect pairing was a warm spring afternoon on the back patio, which is how I like to drink oaked whites.
Rating: Good to Very Good

The bottom line is that these are both good spring wines and worth a taste now that it's warming up. At $11.99 a bottle, they're a great value. Now if only their retailer would ship to Georgia…

Disclaimer: These bottles were sent to us free for review purposes. This did not influence our review.

Tasting Notes: Pink Stuff at JavaMonkey

I was going to put this post off until after I covered some of the Wine Bloggers' Conference material as well as the post-conference adventures. However, Dave Kell of inDecatur made a cameo appearance tonight to sample some wine, so I thought I'd go ahead and get the notes up for the full lineup. Conference posts forthcoming this weekend, I promise!

I'll confess, I have an ambivalent relationship toward rosé wine. One of the first wines I ever liked (note the past tense) was White Zinfandel, you know, that syrupy sweet stuff that you could get in the grocery store. My friend (whom I will not name to protect the guilty) and I would go to the old Vincent's in Birmingham, load up on chocolate pastries and a bottle of white zin, and go to the house of whoever's parents weren't home, watch girly movies, and have a giggly sugarfest. Yes, I was supposedly the "responsible" one at 21, but hey, we weren't drinking and driving. I still remember doing that with A Midsummer Night's Dream the summer after I graduated from college. Now that friend has two kids, and I'm jaunting around the country drinking wine... Who's the responsible adult now?

That's a rhetorical question. You really don't have to answer it.

So, back to the pink wine... Rosé wine is so much more than white zinfandel now. We even brought back some from our recent travels. Hubby is very picky about his pink wine because, as one of our tasting compatriots once noted, "If you're gonna be a dude drinking pink wine, you've gotta be prepared to take some..." You can fill in the blank.

Here's the lineup. For visualization purposes, I've included the exact (according to me) shade of pink for each selection.

2007 Kluge Estate SP Rosé (Albemarle County, VA): 95% Chardonnay, 5% Pinot Noir
You may remember this one from the last post. It's still good, kind of tart at the beginning of the tasting with overtones of butterscotch.
Rating: Good to Very Good
Shade: Blush pink

2009 Sauvion Rosé d'Anjou (Loire Valley, France): 80% Cabernet Franc, 10% Gamay, 5% Pineaud d'Aunis, 5% Grolleau
Smooth, light, and fruity, this one stood up well to food. Maybe it was the power of suggestion, but it did have some pear notes with some citrus in addition to the expected rosé berries.
Rating: Very Good
Shade: Cooked Atlantic Salmon

2009 Artazuri Rosado (Navarra, Spain): 100% Garnacha
Raspberry nose, a little flat on the palate with a buttery finish.
Rating: Okay
Shade: Pretty in Pink

2008 Saddlerock Rosé (Malibu, California): 100% Syrah
I liked the 2006 vintage from last year's Pink Stuff tasting better. This one had some mustiness on the nose, some floral and melon in addition to the "chewy" fruit on the palate.
Rating: Okay
Shade: Barbie Shoe Pink (c'mon, ladies, you remember them, the two-toned pink and white Barbie shoes!)

2009 Château de Ségriès Rosé (Tavel, Côtes due Rhône, France): 50% Grenache, 30% Cinsault, 15% Clairette, 5% Syrah
Strawberry pie in a glass with buttery fruit.
Rating: Good
Shade: Crayola Fuschia

2009 Castaño Rosado (Yecla, Spain):
Strawberry-raspberry juice, but I liked its straightforwardness.
Rating: Good to Very Good
Shade: Raspberry

2008 Hendry Ranch Napa Valley Rosé (Napa, California): Proprietary blend of Zinfandel, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Malbec
Strawberry, citrus, and pink grapefruit smoothed out by overtones of stone fruit.
Rating: Very Good
Shade: Prom Dress Pink

Before you take my color designations too seriously, please keep in mind that I'm not a girly girl and have maybe owned two pieces of pink clothing in my lifetime. I'm happy to say that I've moved beyond my white zin preferences and biases, so I hope that you will give the pink stuff a try, too. You might be pleasantly surprised.