Pesto+Pasta v1.0

The basil is plentiful here in Louisville right now, and that means we’ve been eating a lot of pesto.  My favorite way to enjoy pesto currently is to have it drizzled over raw vegetables, especially baby fennel and carrots.  Though on the relatively cooler days, when I actually feel like boiling water, I opt for my second favorite way to enjoy pesto, and that is with pasta.

My pasta of choice for with pesto is orecchetti.  I’m sure this pairing will make some orecchetti traditionalist very upset.  Non mi preoccupo.  It tastes good.  Though, as good as some very lightly dressed, perfectly cooked pasta can taste, I’m in the habit of mucking it up even further by adding something more.  

Orecchetti with pesto, caramelized onions, and barely cooked tomatoes

1/2 lb pasta

3 T pesto - any kind you like, but I think homemade is always better

1/2 lb grape or cherry tomatoes 

3 spring onions

S & P

1/2 tsp honey

grated cheese

Slice spring onions on the bias into about 1 inch pieces.  Slice tomatoes in half lengthwise.  Heat up a pan with a little oil, and toss in the onions.  Add a pinch of salt and the honey saute on high heat until the onions are nicely caramelized.  Add the tomatoes and turn off the heat.  Set aside while you cook your pasta.

After the pasta has cooked, reserve about a cup of the cooking water, and then drain the pasta.  Put the pasta back in the pot and turn the heat to medium and add the pesto.  Cook for about 30 sec, adjust consistency to your liking with the reserved cooking water.  Plate the pasta and top with a portion of the tomato-onion mixture.  Grate fresh cheese over the top and/or add a few pepperoncini if you like.

Bad Grapes

Todd and I went to visit some friends over in Indiana this past weekend to have some delicious Lebanese home cooking (thank you Duke and Robin!), and after lunch we went for a walk in their garden.  I couldn’t help but notice the grape vines near the back door because they weren’t looking so good.  Duke was really upset about the vines because they were a birthday gift from Robin, and because they seemed to have gotten sick overnight.

I think it is probably Black Rot, but I’m not 100% sure.  Anyone have any suggestions?

July 4th, the wines: Veramonte, Au Bon Climat, Leeuwin, Clos de Papes, & Chateau Bellerive

Veramonte, Sauvignon Blanc Reserva, Casablanca Valley, 2007:  

Very light colored, barely there in the glass.  A very forward nose of grapefruit, lime, and melon.  Very light bodied, with very high acidity and a truly rowdy amount of ruby grapefruit flavor in the mouth.  A great apertif wine, and a steal at the price.

Au Bon Climat, Pinot Gris/Pinot Blanc, Santa Barbara, 2006:  

Medium yellow.  Subdued nose of green apple, citrus, and nuts.  Medium bodied, with lots of spice and green apple flavors.  Too little acid for me, but I find most Pinot Gris seems this way to me.  A very medium wine for me, though I’m sure a lot of people would really like it.  I’m also pretty sure I’m biased against this wine considering it was drank in between two much more forward wines.

Leeuwin, Art Series Chardonnay, Margret River, 2002:  

I bought this Chardonnay when I first started drinking wine in ernest a few years ago and thought that I knew something about wine because I was reading The Wine Spectator cover-to-cover every month.  I’m glad I bought it even though it was for all the wrong reasons then.  A very, very intense gold-tinged yellow in the glass.  Like, BANANA yellow!  The nose was all sweet vanilla spice and tropical fruit.  It smelled how this looks.  Medium + body, with medium acidity, and fruit and spice that continue on the palate through to the lengthy finish.  

A HUGELY different style of wine than what I would chose to drink everyday, but nevertheless a very pleasurable wine.  

Clos des Papes, Chateaunerf-du-Pape, 2003:  

This wine, much like the Pegau from the same vintage, was quite a surprise.  Both times I was expecting a completely different wine…

Opaque blue-tinged crimson.  Brett, garrigue, and cherry on the nose.  Very weighty in the mouth, with cherry, dried herbs, and a little animale.  Medium acidity with nice ripe tannins.  Is this the face of The New Old-World?  A freakish vintage yes, but overall a much more elegant wine than what I was expecting.  

Chateau Bellerive, Quarts de Chaume, Cuvee Quintessence, 1996:

This is why I love Chenin Blanc.  A deep orange-gold color and highly viscous in the glass.  A nose of honey, peach, smoke, rose, and turpentine.  The flavor is like this particular honey we have here in Kentucky that is made from different types of flowering trees.  It also feels as heavy as honey in the mouth, with just the right amount of acidity to keep it from getting too cloying.  It went really well with the raspberries and vanilla ice-cream we had from dessert.  I only wish I had more…

Best. Burger. Ever. (well, best one without a fried egg on top!)

So it’s officially Summer now, and I’m definitely in the mood for “summer food.” You know like cherry pie, icy beverages, and hamburgers.  

Well, the cherry-pie post will have to wait (because I spent the entire time shooting the cherry dessert I made without the flash-card in my camera!), and the ice-cold drink is in the works (I’m thinking delicious gooseberry-ade), but we did get to have some hamburgers last night, and man, were they ever good!

I’m especially proud of these burgers because they represent a tough choice that I made.  

So, I was in the store shopping for a few ingredients needed for the burgers that we didn’t already have at home.  I found the meat I wanted to use pretty easily, but I must have spent thirty minutes walking back and forth across the store looking for some decent sort of hamburger bun.  Sure, there were plenty of things that would have worked for the bun, but they all had like a million ingredients, and looked so smushy they would never have held up to a juicy burger.  

It was in the very sad, plastic-bagged bread isle that I said to myself, f*ck it, make your own damn hamburger buns!  So I did.  I made hamburger buns despite the 85 degree heat, despite the fact that I have had nothing but bad luck with bread since we moved to Louisville, and despite the fact that I just wanted to have something really easy to make for dinner. 

What’s funny is that we really did have something easy for dinner, the burgers. Todd and I were able to drink a bottle of wine (the Radio-Coteau Timbervine), watch a few episodes of Wine Library TV, and just relax while the burgers/buns/sides/condiments were being made.  Yes, it took over three hours from start to finish, but it was so easy.  

I’m sorry that I don’t have a recipe for the burgers, but I know I will be making them again, and I will put the recipe up when I do.  I can tell you they were made with Kentucky bison (about a pound), 1/4 stick of butter (in a micro-brunoise), garlic, serrano chilies, and tons of black pepper.

The recipe for the buns comes from bwraith over at The Fresh Loaf (mine were slightly different as I used bread flour instead of AP, and no sesame).  

The burgers were dressed with some oak-leaf lettuce, tomato-onion confit, homemade mayonnaise, and slices of very sweet fresh onion.  

I’m sure some people would say these burgers are too foo-foo and busy, and that a perfect burger is just plain old meat and bread and maybe some ketchup or mustard, and I would agree that that type of burger would also be good, but these I think, are better.

OMG!

We’re going to The French Laundry in August!

Two articles worth reading, McGee & Patterson on wine stuff

Interesting Harlod McGee article in the Times about aroma compounds in wine. 

Look here.   (Oh great, now their going to start synthesizing the stuff and use it to further spoofify wine!)

And, on a different but related note, a nice article from another of my food-world heroes, Chef Daniel Patterson.  

 

Recent Drinking

2005 Jean Fournier, Fixin, “Les Petits Crais” 

Second time tasting this wine.  Cranberry, strawberry, and rhubarb on the nose.  A little bit of metal comes through on the nose, sort of like old stainless steel.  A little rustic and pretty ripe.  Flavors are echoed in the mouth perfectly.  Medium+ acidity and medium length.  I like this wine a lot, but I don’t think that it is anything particularly mind blowing, just soild. 

2001 Ninth Island Shiraz, Limestone Coast

Bright, opaque garnet, turning to brick at the edges.  Quite a bit of sediment.  Mostly secondary aromas on the nose with very little fruit.  Black pepper, roasted red pepper, tomato, cinnamon, bacon, and a little black cherry.  Similar flavors in the mouth, but with an added aspect of hibiscous.  Beautiful texture in the mouth, it seems very polished (i.e. by time, not technique).  There is just the right amount of acid to keep everything in line, and to help balance out against the tannins, and to carry the finish along for a nice long time.  I don’t know much about Austrailian Shiraz, besides what comes out of Barossa, so this was a big surprise to me.  A really killer wine, and probably the best $13 bottle of wine I have ever had.  

2006 Bodegas Naia, Las Brisas, Rueda

A blend of 50% Verdejo, 25% Viura, and 25% Sauvignon Blanc.  Big nose of ripe fruit.  Apricots, mango, and peach skin.  There is also some really interesting chalkiness in the nose along with some green herbs (mostly cilantro, and a little basil).  Flavors are very similar in the mouth.  All the fruit is very ripe, but there is a kicking acidity to liven it up, and a bunch of flavors from the “other” category to keep things interesting.  Definitely a great wine for Summer drinking, and much more interesting than it’s $8 price tag would lead you to believe it is going to be.  

2007 Chateau Saint Martin de la Garrigue, Rosé Tradition, Coteaux du Languedoc

Killer rosé.  Fresh nose of strawberry, watermelon, and stone.  Very juicy in the mouth, with great acidity, and a surprising amount of body for a rosé.  I went back to The Wine Market to buy more, and they had already sold out.  The guys in the shop liked this one a lot to, and sold it to anyone that asked for a rosé.

 

Mixed Bag of 2004 Californian Wines

Arietta 2004 Variation One

I really hope something was wrong with this bottle of wine.  A very burnt/charred nose.  Nothing but acid and tannin on the palate.  Oh, it burns! Yuck!

Rivers-Marie 2004 Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon

On the nose:  black raspberry, mulberry, watermelon, almonds, mint.  In the mouth:  nuts, cherries, kirsch, brownies, and tobacco.  Very good.

Woodenhead 2004 Buena Vista Vineyard Pinot Noir

Disclaimer:  This might be my favorite red wine in the world right now.  

Nose:  tons of spice from the wood, but it is so well integrated that it feels like it just wraps itself around the other components.  Sandelwood, vanilla, ripe raspberries, strawberries.  

Mouth:  elements of the nose are echoed perfectly.  Velvet, velvet, velvet.

Rosenblum 2004 Rockpile Road Vineyard Zinfandel

I shouldn’t like this wine, but I do.  Huge over-the-top fruit and mouthfeel, but a little acid to back it up.  The most surprising thing is that it doesn’t seem that hot, despite it’s ridiculous 16%+ abv!

 

Open Source Food

I just came across this site, which lets you share both recipes and photos of your food really easily.  

I found two recipes that I would consider making in the first minute I was there, so I thought it would be a good idea to join up…

Lunch with Mom at The Cook’s House

Mom and I went out for lunch a few days ago at The Cook’s House, which was the second time in as many days, and luckily I remembered to bring my camera the second time around.

The place is run by proprietors/co-chefs Eric Patterson and Jennifer Blakeslee, and I think that it is hands down the best restaurant in Traverse City.  Besides having really good food, I think that it is awesome that these two are doing their best to source as much local product as possible, and I really love being at a place where the guy who raises the rabbits can come in during lunch service and drop off some freshly skinned rabbits and have a little chat with the chefs!

Things you must try:  Pozole (sorry about the bad focus on that picture), pulled pork sandwich (the Lamont cheddar from Grassfields is amazing on it), vanilla roobis (from Light of Day Organics), and the rhubard tart

Apparently this place is getting a lot of press all of a sudden, so I guess Mom and I were lucky to have been able to just walk in for lunch.  Eric said that they are going to have to start suggesting that potential patrons make reservations for lunch, as well as for dinner.  Though there are a few drawbacks to becoming popular, I’m so happy that a place like this is doing well in T.C., as I would never have guessed that it would.  

The Cook’s House doesn’t have it’s liquor license yet so there is no wine list, though I bet if you ask nicely when you make your reservation they would say it was o.k. to BYOB.

The Cook’s House

439 E. Front Street

(231) 946-8700