What I’m Drinking: Domaine du Penlois Beaujolais Blanc Chardonnay du Chatelard 2009

Here is the wine that I am absolutely obsessed with right now.  Which is funny, because I am not usually a fan of Chardonnay (This fact may be obvious based on the glaring absence of Chardonnay from the blog thus far).  Generally, I find the oaked versions to be too oaky and the unoaked versions to be, frankly...boring.  But all of that changes now, because I just really love this Beaujolais Blanc.

First of all, it is a Beaujolais Blanc - not your everyday occurrence.  Secondly, it practically screams summer.  The color is a pale sunshine gold, and the nose just bursts with ripe fruit.  Think peach, lychee, lemon, and pineapple, all mixed up with a little touch of honey.  The aromas are of above-average intensity and just on that edge between youthful and something a touch more complex.

Despite the overtly ripe character of the nose, however, this wine is dry and bright, with acid on the higher side of medium and a moderate alcohol level.  The body is robust, but not heavy, resulting in a palate experience that is at once rich and refreshing.  Flavors are slightly less ripe, but equally as intense, as the nose and the taste leads with acid (lemon, gooseberry) and rounds out with the riper richness of lychee, honey, and peach in a thriving finish.

This is a good quality under-$20 wine that is one to snap up if you can find it!  I have been keeping (or not keeping) a bottle on hand every week since the beginning of July.

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Broccoli with Carrot “Cheese” Sauce

I’m not generally a fan of “faux” food.  Recipes that try to approximate a missing ingredient feel misguided to me in intent - why linger on what is not there instead of celebrating what is?  The sentiment seems to come from a place of deprivation instead of from a place of abundance.  And who wants to focus on deprivation?  So let’s just call this Broccoli with Carrot Sauce and leave the “Cheese” out of it!

Coming from a place of abundance certainly applies to my experience in testing this recipe.  I was a little skeptical when I happened to flip on the Rachel Ray show and see The Galloping Gourmet (Graham Kerr), whipping this up.  But I was also drowning in both carrots and broccoli, thanks to our most recent CSA delivery.  And while the original recipe uses cauliflower, I was confident the broccoli would be a suitable stand in.  One little can of evaporated skim milk and I was ready to go.

There are recipes that deliver on their promises, and recipes that don’t.  This recipe, thankfully, delivers.  Despite the lack of fat, the combination of pureed root vegetable, dijon, and spice tastes deceptively rich.  The combination of carrot and cumin is particularly successful.  I was generous with the spices - adding an 1/8 tsp of the cumin and cayenne in place of the “pinch” - and maybe a little liberal with the parmesan.  Other than that, following the recipe pretty much worked out.  Just be careful not to let the evaporated milk reduce too much as the carrots are cooking or the mixture will be a little thick.  I am going to suggest this recipe to my parents, who will love the bold flavors sans fat!

You can find the recipe for Broccoli (Cauliflower) with Carrot (“Cheese”) Sauce here.

Strawberry-Cinnamon Frozen Yogurt

While there were many, many upsides to our recent European extravaganza, one obvious downside was that it happened to take place right smack in the middle of our region’s strawberry season.  Before leaving, our CSA newsletter poured a little more salt in the wound - the best two weeks of strawberries would take place exactly during our vacation.  Since our household can make a couple of quarts of strawberries disappear pretty much like magic, this was a tough blow.

But it turns out that the gods (perhaps we came in contact with some “god of the strawberries” ruins while in Rome?) were smiling on us in a strange way.  While we were gone, our CSA share, which we split with our friends Anna and Nick, accidentally got delivered to the wrong house!  By the time it was determined that it had gone to Anna and Nick’s neighbors, it was too late for the vegetables to be returned in good shape.  Our CSA gained new members in the neighbors, but we were out of a share...until, of course, our CSA could make up for it.

The day after Kevin and I got back from our trip, I got a message from the CSA.  One of the options to make up for the missed share?  Strawberries!  It was perfect.  So last Monday night, 15 quarts of strawberries were delivered to Anna and Nick’s house.  It was great...but using them before they went bad required some strategizing.  Enter the Strawberry-Cinnamon Frozen Yogurt.

Anna actually discovered this recipe from ReadyMade magazine and the book Spice Dreams last summer as a great use for those ice cream makers that we had both received as wedding presents.  While the cinnamon may sound like an unlikely match for the strawberries, it works beautifully, and the unexpectedness of the combination is one of the reasons that I like it so much!  There is quite a bit of zingy lemon in this frozen yogurt as well - enough that I think it should even be included in the name.  The recipe calls for dried lemon zest, but since I was juicing a lemon anyway, I used fresh instead.  One tablespoon of fresh zest is about equivalent to one teaspoon of dried.  I made this recipe for my parents while they were visiting for the July 4th weekend and they absolutely loved it.

You can find the recipe for Strawberry-Cinnamon Frozen Yogurt here.

Excursion: Barolo

Kevin and I just returned from a two week excursion to Italy and France, which included, among many other stops, two days in Barolo, Italy.  Thanks to importer Joe Miretti, we were able to stay at the Hotel Barolo, which is owned by the Brezza family, the family behind that delightful Dolcetto that I wrote about earlier this year.  The Hotel is situated perfectly to overlook the picturesque village of Barolo and the grounds also include a lovely swimming pool (the only one in Barolo, it appears) and the Restaurant Brezza and Brezza tasting room.

Barolo is a small wine village of about 700 inhabitants, surrounded by hills of vineyards - gorgeous and somewhat remote (well, more so than, say, Rome and Venice, where we’d spent the earlier part of our week).  While we mostly relied on trains to take us from place to place during our trip, getting to Barolo required the service of a car.  We arrived in Torino late on a Friday afternoon, secured what seemed to be the only automatic transmission vehicle in all of Italy, and were off in our Mercedes A160.  Despite the merely suggestive nature of maps in Italy, and some precariously winding mountain roads, we managed to make it to the hotel in a little more than an hour, arriving around 5 PM.

What greeted us was a breathtaking view of the hills of the Langhe region, where Barolo is situated within Piedmont, with hill after hill covered in vines and the next two villages visible through the slight haze on hilltops in the distance.  Barolo itself snuggled before us, with its several restaurants, tasting rooms, inns and homes, one castle (now home to the Wine Museum), and a church bell that tolled the hour and every fifteen minutes in between.  Despite it’s very reasonable price, our room was large, with modern amenities and shuttered floor-to-ceiling doors leading out to a lovely balcony.

Though I’ve been told that there are several excellent dining options in Barolo, after dining at the Ristorante Brezza the first night, we just couldn’t resist going back the second night.  The homemade pasta was certainly the highlight, with light and angelic “tajarin” (tagliatelle), topped with meat sauce the first night and olive oil the second, and “agnolotti del plin” (tiny meat-filled ravioli) gracing our plates.  We had Brezza wines with dinner both nights as well, enjoying the deliciously fresh and fruity Langhe Nebbiolo the first night and a more complex Barbera the second.

Though we certainly didn’t have enough time in Barolo overall, we were able to spend Saturday afternoon exploring the Wine Museum, wine shops, and cafes along Barolo’s main street.  The best part of our visit, however, was Friday evening before dinner, when we were lucky enough to taste wine with Enzo Brezza, Brezza’s winemaker.  Our tasting started with a tour of the winery, where we saw the original barrel-vaulted structure, built in the late 1880s when the family first started making wine (Enzo is the fourth generation winemaker in his family).  This room is now used for barrel-aging, and the giant casks dwarfed my 5-foot frame!  After seeing the newer wine cellar, we got down to business tasting wines.

We started with the Dolcetto and Langhe Nebbiolo, which we were happy to have again.  While we tasted, Enzo used his detailed map to show us the vineyards where the grapes for each of the wines had been grown, and we snacked on thin, crunchy breadsticks and some of the best cheese we’d had all trip.  Then it was on to the Barbera bottles, more full and complex wines.  We chatted about Enzo’s winemaking education and the places he has visited around the world to make wine.  We discussed the design of the wine labels, which he has been revising.  Then, on to the even more complex Barolo.  We tasted two more recent vintages before getting to the crown jewel of our tasting - the 2001 Brezza Castellero Barolo.  This was by far one of the best wines I have ever tasted.  I couldn’t resist purchasing a bottle right from the source, even if I had to chance it home in my suitcase!

It was very difficult to leave the Hotel Barolo, and everyone in the Brezza family who had made our stay so memorable.  But on Sunday morning we said goodbye to Enzo’s sister Tiziana and hopped into our A160 to leave...but not before Enzo’s mother Carla gave us a bag of delicious hazelnut cookies to take on our way!

Farro with Early Spring Veg

While we were in Davis, CA last fall, our friends Deb and Kip took us to a fantastic shop owned by their friends in town.  The original mission was related to Bauer pottery (a mini-obsession of mine), but Kevin also managed to find a beautiful cookbook there that turned out to be the perfect marriage of my two favorite things - fresh, seasonal food and excellent wine.  It’s called The Winemaker Cooks and it’s by Christine Hanna, who is a food writer, cooking teacher, and president of Hanna Winery & Vineyards (incidentally, that sounds like just about the perfect job to me...).  Anyway, this has become one of my go-to books in the kitchen and was the starting point for the Farro with Early Spring Veg dish that I made earlier this week.

Farro is a delicious, nutty grain that has become a foodie favorite recently, and for good reason.  It’s easy to make (all you need is some boiling water and a little bit of time) and the flavor is rich and satisfying.  The first step in this dish is cooking the farro, which is accomplished by adding a cup of farro and a tsp of salt to boiling water, covering, and simmering for about 50 minutes, similar to cooking rice.  The farro grains will pop open when ready.  Just drain and set aside until the vegetables are ready.

The original recipe in Christine Hanna’s book is Farro with Sauteed Ramps and Asparagus.  I think that that sounds delicious, but ramps are still a little hit-or-miss in terms of availability this early in Chicago.  So, I called in the next best thing - a bunch of green onions.  And a bunch of asparagus.  And, the most important part - a head and a half of bok choy.  By the way - have I mentioned that this dish is great in the case of CSA overload?

Cut the onions (white part only) into rings.  Roughly chop the asparagus and bok choy on a bias.  Melt a tablespoon of unsalted butter with a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet with a lid. Add the vegetables, a large pinch of salt, and a few turns from a pepper grinder.  Cover the pan and let the vegetables steam until they are tender, but not mushy.  This took 10-15 minutes for me, but it really depends on the pan, the quantity of veg, etc.

Once the veg are ready, add about a half tablespoon of regular butter and the farro to the pan.  Stir to combine and serve drizzled with very good, green olive oil.  So delicious - especially with an appropriately balanced Chardonnay.