Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Sunday Supper

We all remember my friend Regina who took the beautiful pictures of our Chardonnay throwdown and the author of her own photography blog www.chaperonphotography.blogspot.com. She is the queen of her palace shall we say, which includes her husband Toby and beloved Golden Doodle named Holly. Regina's backyard has undergone a complete transformation since they purchased the house a few years back. With the addition of a stone patio, fire pit and outside lounge furniture we've taken to referring to it as the Lido Deck.

When Gina approached me about doing a wine pairing dinner to open the season on the Lido Deck I was more than happy to oblige. I love summer cooking...it's light and easy. Gina did a beautiful tablescape with linens and fresh flowers and I decided to do simple 3 courses: Tropical Shrimp Salad with a Pineapple Vinegarette, Creamy Lemon Chicken Pasta for the entree and a chocolate raspberry confection to pair with a dessert wine I had in mind from our Jam On It post a while back. The salad would go well with a rose, the main with an oaked Chardonnay, and the sweet Shiraz with it's red fruit flavors could honestly be dessert in itself.

We selected a Portugese Rose from winemaker Casal Garcia. This wine was super inexpensive and recommended by the store owner. It was truly delightful and perfect for a starter wine at our party. It's slightly effervescent with red fruit flavors, strawberry being the most prominent, and good acidity. I had grilled the shrimp for the salad after marinating them in olive oil, salt and pepper. I marinated overnight but as long as you give it a couple of hours the shrimp will be good. The rest of the salad was as easy as you can get: bed of greens, your choice, I used mixed field greens, sliced red onion, pineapple chunks, the shrimp and then the pineapple vinegarette. The dressing is also super simple...you want about 2/3 pineapple juice to 1/3 part extra virgin olive oil, a splash of a white vinegar of your choice (I used a rice vinegar) and a good amount of salt and pepper, taste as you go. Just whisk it all together and you have a delicious, light dressing for your salad. I toasted some crostini topped with gorgonzola cheese to serve with the first course and voila!! We were on our way.

Clos Du Bois out of Sonoma in my opinion does some good wines, again at very affordable prices. I had decided to do a creamy lemon chicken pasta after Regina told me she had 3 lbs of chicken breast she had bought fresh and froze it that she wanted to use in the entree. Once that was figured out, I knew a Chardonnay with some butter and lemon would be the perfect accompaniment...shocker I know since I never really drink Chardonnay (enter sarcasm here). I cooked the pasta, fettucine, in chicken stock and 1/4 cup lemon juice...I was using the whole box of pasta given that dinner was for 7 people so I used 3 cups of chicken stock. The pasta cooks in that for about 20 minutes boiling...that way it absorbs all of the liquid and there's no straining necessary. From there, reduce the heat down and add 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, 1 cup heavy cream, 1 tablespoon flour and lots of fresh lemon zest to top it. I had grilled the chicken ahead of time after marinating it in olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper so the preparation of the entree was about 30 minutes in total and I didn't have to miss all of the gossip! You can find the Clos Du Bois Chardonnay in almost any liquor store that has wine. Chill in a bucket of water and ice or in the refrigerator before serving. Because of the creamy pasta with the lemon flavors it was a great compliment to the food.

Our friend Jill took dessert off of my hands when she made chocolate raspberry cupcakes that had a raspberry filling. These cupcakes quickly became my best friends and worst enemies all at once. If you remember from the Jam Jar post this wine is a lot of jammy red fruit so the raspberry and the chocolate dessert created a literal match made in heaven. If you're interested in the cupcake recipe email me at tricia.bielinski@yahoo.com and I can see if Jill will relinquesh the secrets!

Obviously Regina needed to snap some shots of the whole thing, below are a few samples of what she took.