Featured Chef: Jaime Nelson

Hello everybody! Meet Jaime Nelson! One of my favorite people in the world. On Friday, we were all getting together to have game night, and while at work during the day - I got a craving to cook! AND, I found this wonderful recipe via Twitter and Southern Living's "What's for dinner" special post. So I texted Jaime, and she was game for cooking in before our gathering. Here is the documentation of our cooking adventures, and the delectable results!

The recipe that I found was for a crayfish etouffee, but we substituted shrimp for a lack of crayfish at Harps. We also opted to bake some cheese biscuits to complement the meal. We just bought the mix from the muffin and cornbread section at the store - all you have to do is add water, bake, and voila! We also paired the meal with a Malbec, which went quite well with the meal. See our pictures and the link to the recipe below:

Recipe:

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1646467

This was a really yummy meal, and Jaime makes a really cute chef too. She's super fun to cook with. :o)

Pour me some wine... because I'm not pregnant!

So this post isn't so much about food, but it definitely relates as everyone knows that a good wine pairing can really make a great meal even better if you know how, and one of my favorite events of the month are my wine club gatherings. A good friend of ours, Will Morrow, works for Gallo and started this wine club this past summer. A growing group, we meet once or twice a month and each bring a bottle of a specific type of wine - typically alternating between red and white. Then each individual or couple presents their bottle describing the vintage, vineyard, why the chose that particular bottle, and any other information they find relevant or entertaining. Then we place each bottle back in their brown paper sacks and Luke secretly pours everyone a taste of each one at a time. Kirsten serves as our recorder and keeps track of everyone's scores (on a scale of 50-100) and comments for each of the different bottles. At the end of the night, we tally them up - and whoever's bottle received the highest average score wins a wine related prize brought by the previous meeting's winner. As evidences by our group's self selected club name ('Pour me some wine... because I'm not pregnant!' Haha.), we aren't very sophisticated nor do we have very refined palates, but we are advancing and our analysis as a group seems to be improving - especially since we would initially regularly select the Barefoot variety as our favorite of the night when we first started meeting, lol.

Anyhow, our last gathering was Malbec Night! So, I figured I'd first tell you a little about Malbec and then describe our group's findings after tasting seven different varieties - including two bottles of one type, which always makes things interesting. Anyhow, about the malbec: originally a French wine, it is primarily produced and considered to be Argentinian nowadays. Will has called it a very "up and coming" wine whose popularity is steadily growing but is also still fairly under appreciated. As a result, it is pretty reasonably priced. When sampling an Argentinian malbec, one should expect a medium to full-bodied red wine with ripe fruit flavors of plums and blackberry. Also, the tannins are typically a bit tight and the earthy, wood-like appeal makes for a fairly rustic, yet versatile wine. Malbecs pair well will red meats and is adaptable enough to stand up to spicy Mexican, Cajun, Indian or Italian fare (especially with tomato-based sauces). Also try with barbecue, chili, and sausage. Malbec is a particular favorite of my own.

Like I said before, our group sampled 8 bottles of wine - 7 different varieties, as pictures above. Our favorite as indicated by the highest average was the Gascon followed by the Noveciento. However, our least favorite was the Terrazas - and by quite a margin... Generally, we found different 'berry' flavors in each of the wines and varying degrees of complexity. I must admit that we have some very interesting commentary from each of our wine club members - some of my favorites from this gathering included, "fruit bomb," "oak monster," "awkward in your mouth," and "green smell." Haha, most importantly though, we all have a great time together.

As inspired by Kirsten's diligent note taking, I found a wine journal at Borders recently and have been keeping track of all the wines I've tasted since acquiring it, including each of the 7 different bottles tasted at Malbec night. I have really enjoyed being able to keep track of them all - and it should certainly come in handy when selecting an appropriate wine for meals! I will continue to include my wine pairing notes with my blog posts as we go along, so stay tuned! :o)

The Lippert Family Christmas Dinner

This year, for the very first time!, my mom asked me to make the Christmas day feast for dinner with my family. I was very excited to take on the task, and I am just as excited to document it below!

Hors d'oeuvres Table Menu

Fresh Fruit with Lemon Yogurt and Caramel Fruit Dips

Homemade Fudge

Pumpkin Bread

Cream Cheese Pumpkin Dip with Graham Crackers

Cheese and Crackers

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Greek Hummus with Triscuits

Christmas Dinner Menu

Baby Spinach Green Salad with a Raspberry Vinaigrette

Rock Cornish Game Hen in a Cherry Glaze

Traditional Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows

Roasted Fresh Green Bean Bundles tied with Green Onions

Bowtie Pasta in a Almond Garlic Cream Sauce

Fresh Homemade Rolls

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie

Dinner Recipes

Baby Spinach Green Salad with a Raspberry Vinaigrette:

I found the recipe for the vinaigrette on MyRecipes.com which I have linked below. I had made a raspberry vinaigrette before with a different recipe that was thicker and used fresh raspberries which added a pretty pink color. The two offered very different flavors - both of which were good, but I think next time I will add the raspberries for the texture and color that I liked for the first time I made it. For the salad base, I simply used a bag of baby spinach and then garnished with candied walnuts and parmesan cheese. Here is that link: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1046883.

Rock Cornish Game Hen in a Cherry Glaze:

To cook the hen, I just followed the directions on the back of the packaging which simply required you to fully thaw the chickens and then roast them in the oven for about an hour and a half at 350 or 400 degrees continuously basting with butter throughout their cook time. As opposed to the recipe directions for the sauce below, I chose small enough hens so as to be able to serve each of my guests a whole chicken to make for prettier plates. Also, I probably actually cooked the hens for almost two hours basting them every 10-15 minutes or so and I flipped the hens in order to brown them a little bit on the underside after the first hour and a half. Despite the extra cooking time, they turned out wonderfully moist, and I didn't have any complaints! For the glaze, I found the recipe on FoodReference.com which you can find here: http://www.foodreference.com/html/cherrysauce1.html. The only alterations I made to this recipe were that we didn't have any rum around the house, so I replaced it with brandy instead. Also, I cut the cherries in half before I added them to the sauce, because I found them too large in their original condition for my taste. The sauce was *very* fragrant, which had me a little worried, but I thought that it actually complimented the hen meat very well afterall!

Traditional Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows:

I found this recipe on Food Network's website. I followed this recipe pretty closely, but I doubled the cinnamon and almost another whole cup of marshmallows to top them. This was a delicious recipe for sweet potatoes - and even my mother, who doesn't like sweet potatoes, thought they were good. My daddy said they were the best he'd ever had. Yumm! Here's that link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/heavenly-sweet-potatoes-recipe/index.html.

Roasted Fresh Green Bean Bundles tied with Green Onions:

To make the green bean bundles, I picked out a handful of fresh green beans per person in the produce section at the grocery store, and trimmed the ends. Then I laid them out on a cookie sheet and brushed them with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I put them in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 and then turned them at the half way point. We all decided that they could have been in the oven for a bit longer - probably almost another ten minutes or so. With about 5 minutes left, I put the green onion stems in the oven to soften. After the green beans and the green onions had cooled a bit, I put the green beans in the oven and then tied them with the green onions. Then I salted and peppered them again before serving. I actually love doing this with asparagus, but my family preferred green beans - so I switched out the vegetables.

Bowtie Pasta in an Almond Garlic Cream Sauce:

I found this recipe on Epicurious.com. However, I left out the peas. I also think that I added quite a bit more butter than the recipe called for. I did have to blanch the almonds which I had never done before - because I could only find whole almonds with the skins on. To blanch the almonds, you boil water, and pour over the whole almonds - let them sit for 1 minute (not longer). Then strain the almonds and run cold water over them. At this point, you should be able to slip off the brown covering. I had also never worked with a whole garlic prior to this - as I usually buy the garlic cloves in the jar, but I never use them all in time before they start to mold, ew. I thought it was really neat to peel the fresh garlic and then crush the cloves. I will definitely use it from now on - it's much cheaper too! The pasta turned out great - and my sister even took the rest home. I had made it a part of the menu just for her because she is a vegetarian (so the game hen wasn't going to cut it for her). But everyone seemed to enjoy it. See the full recipe here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/pasta-in-almond-garlic-sauce-352291.

Fresh Homemade Rolls:

To make pretty rolls, my mom has always just bought Rhodes frozen rolls. So I figured why mess with perfection. To bake, we start by greasing a muffin pan with shortening and then greasing the frozen rolls with shortening (to prevent sticking to plastic wrap). You put 2 rolls per muffin cup, and then loosely cover with saran wrap. Let set for about 3 1/2 hours at room temperature to rise (this depends on room temperature - they will rise faster if kitchen is really warm). After risen to desired height, bake at 350 degrees 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Brush with butter for a shiny look. Remove from pan promptly to cooling rack or to a basket lined with cloth towel - to prevent bottoms from getting condensation from cooling. Be careful pre-baking so as to keep the rolls from falling. I prefer to serve my rolls with a strawberry jam and of course a pad of butter. They are always a huge hit.

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie:

For dessert, I wanted to make something traditional, so I went with an apple pie recipe that I found at Epicurious too. I bought the amount of apples indicated in the recipe (3 1/4 lbs.) plus one apple or so. When I went to cut them, I felt that there were too many apples for just one pie, but not quite enough for two pies as they sank a little bit so I probably should have cut the extra apples too. I did go ahead and make two pies, so I doubled the filling ingredients to coat the apples. Also, I didn't care for the crumble topping - I wanted it to be more apple-crisp like but this was more like sugar clumps on top. It tasted good though, just wasn't quite what I was expecting. Do make sure to serve it warm and with the ice cream though! Here is the link: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cinnamon-Crumble-Apple-Pie-108650.

I felt that the meal made a pretty plate, and it was certainly delicious. I paired the game hen with a Chenin Blanc - which I felt was a great complement although it isn't my favorite white wine. I also thought that each of the sides went well with the hen. I'm sure that my family would have told me that they enjoyed it whether they did or not, but I think their compliments were sincere! And I am pretty hard on myself, but I thought that it was a great Christmas dinner - especially for my first ever!