Cooking Class at Cakebread Cellars

On the last "official" day of our vacay to Napa Valley, we participated in a day-long cooking class at Cakebread Cellars. This event and reservation was the pivot of our whole trip to the West Coast. We found out about this class a year ago in November and bought tickets as soon as we could last February. There were only 17 tickets available and they sold out almost instantly. The tickets weren't inexpensive, so we made sure to plan all our other vacation events and schedule around this one singular day and it could not have been more perfect!

Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for Cakebread, as it makes the first Chardonnay that I fell in love with as a wine drinker. Also, not too many people know this about me, but I have a culinary degree (another life) and any food-centered event makes my heart go pitter-patter. And this class was a true make-it-yourself-in-the-kitchen-culinary-class...not some fancy chef prepping stuff in front of you whilst you sip Chard. I think this put some people off, as they didn't realize they were actually going to have to work for this meal...heck, some people didn't even realize the class lasted almost 6 hours!

The Menu:

Now, I have to apologize if some of the pics are fuzzy, as we were busy prepping and cooking in the kitchen. There weren't really any good opportunities for photos in the kitchen, and certainly not for a SLR camera, so I used my cell phone. 

So, me and my husband, along with 13 other strangers, made this entire meal. We teamed off and we each made one of the items off the menu: we had the Cioppino. Now, I did not tell anyone about my culinary background (I never do), but I practically swooned when Chef Brian Streeter complimented me on my knife skills! In the culinary industry, that's a high compliment...but I take that with a grain of salt, as I'm sure Brian was just thankful that I knew how to hold a knife. :-)

The meal turned out phenomenally and I have to say, and without bragging, the Cioppino was the best dish IMO! :-) We really did love the Roast Crab and the Salad as well. The teamwork and the communal dining experience was really special, especially since we knew we would be coming back 2 days before Thanksgiving and wouldn't be spending it with other people. So, in a sense, this WAS our Thanksgiving dinner!

If I lived in Napa and could afford it, I would attend ALL of Chef Brian and Tom's classes...hell, I'd probably ask if I could volunteer or work for them! This whole experience made me think about the choices I made in the past to leave the culinary industry and how I missed working in a restaurant kitchen (sometimes), but at the very least, it reinspired my cooking game to bring it up a notch! 

Visiting Napa Valley

Napa Valley was such an amazing experience. After the hustle and bustle of San Francisco, we were ready to slow down, enjoy the view, and drink some wine.

And let me tell you, there wasn't a bad picture to be taken in the whole place. I wonder if the residents that live there year round ever get blase about what they see around them everyday? I suppose they do, as it's just what happens. The're probably like, "Yawn...another perfectly gorgeous vineyard. Ho-hum." If you ever plan to visit Napa, go in November when the tourists are gone, the leaves are changing, and the air is crisp. The views, the pace, and the afternoon sun were simply dreamy.

Hubby and I were taken aback though by the culture, which was MUCH more chill, health oriented, friendly, and back-to-the-land than what we expected and have here in Virginia. I told my husband, "These are our people!" There was so much focus on local and quality food; it was really tempting to imagine living there. Still, I think I will always be an east coast girl!

And of course, there was the wine. We didn't go too overboard, but mainly stayed with wineries that we had targeted to visit and made reservations. By the end of our trip, our palettes were fatigued and we didn't want to even see another glass of wine!  Another highlight of our trip was being able to visit the Heirloom Bean Mothership...Rancho Gordo Beans!

 

 

Potato, Bacon, and Leek Soup with Horseradish

This is the view we had for an impromptu picnic at Linden Vineyards this past weekend, isn’t it gorgeous?


We spent the afternoon drinking mulled wine, nibbling on some cheese, and pinching ourselves for the fact that we are actually able to experience fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains in person. Every day is like Christmas up here.


The weather is finally cooling off and what better way to celebrate than with a hearty bowl of soup? I found the New England Soup Factory Cookbook by Marjorie Druker and Clara Silverstein a few months ago and have been drooling over the recipes. This recipe for Potato, Bacon, and Leek Soup with Horseradish is a modification from their original recipe in the book simply because I had some gorgeous leeks that needed a home.

The soup is like an over-the-top baked potato soup and isn't as heavy as it looks. The horseradish really makes is something special. It is definitely a keeper recipe and would be transcendent with a roast beef and cheddar sandwich.

Potato, Bacon, and Leek Soup with Horseradish
Recipe Source and modified from: New England Soup Factory Cookbook

2 tablespoons butter
4 whole cloves garlic, peeled and minced
*2 medium leeks, white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise, then sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced
8 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
6 cups chicken stock
2 tsps onion powder
2 tsps garlic powder
1 cup sour cream
2 cups light cream (I used whole milk)
4 tablespoons bottled minced horseradish
4 dashes Worcestershire sauce
4 dashes hot sauce
1 cup crumbled, cooked bacon
1 bunch fresh chives, minced or 2 green onions sliced small
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

*Note: Be sure to rinse sliced leeks well, as they tend to be very sandy

In a stockpot melt the butter over med-high heat. Add the garlic, leeks, and celery. Saute for 7 minutes. Add the potatoes and stir to coat with the butter and vegetables. Add the chicken stock, onion and garlic powder and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until the potatoes are soft and tender, about 30 minutes.

Remove from the stove and puree the soup with a hand blender or working in batches with a blender or food processor until smooth and creamy. Add the sour cream, light cream, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. Puree once again until everything is incorporated. Return the pot to the stove and simmer for 10 more minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve in soup bowls and garnish with the chives/green onions and bacon.

How Merlot Can You Go?

Life has been busy lately and I am guessing it’s the same with you. Halloween is just around the corner and I HAVE HALLOWEEN SPRINKLES THAT HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN USED! What’s worse is that these are last year’s sprinkles! I’d better get busy.

The Squash Chronicles have been adventurous this year. I’ve managed to attack two unusual squashes that I’ve never even considered before and they were delish! Too bad the recipes I used were either meh or FAIL due to operator error. I must talk to you about risotto.

Hubs and I racked off a true wine kit Merlot yesterday that we ordered from Cellar Craft. Now, according to many die-hard wine makers, you are not a wine maker unless you make wine with grapes. I’ve only been playing wine maker with my imaginary friends for the past two years, see. Whatev!

This Merlot was amazing! I have to say, this is one of the few rare wines that I’ve made that was yummy even at a young age. We started it ohhh, in September (?) and I had my doubts about it for sure, but it’s a winnah. It’s so good that I might not even give any away!

The Canning and Preserving class is still in the works, but we are having a hard time finding kitchen space to use for classes. You’d be surprised at how many food businesses don’t own a range-top stove and use hot plates. Le sigh.

Red Rubies

Last week, hubs and I bottled up this year's batch of Strawberry wine. Look how beautiful the bottles were when the morning sun shined on them the next morning!

If you can follow a recipe, you can make wine! This wine really turned out to be a Strawberry Raspberry blend, as I didn't have all the ingredients the original recipe called for. So I mixed in some raspberry juice concentrate in with the strawberries and waited. It turned out very tasty indeed.

I'm getting better with every batch.

Riesling Bound

Where have I been lately?

Well, dear friends, hubs and I just got back from a badly needed vacation up to the Niagra/Finger Lakes area, and I couldn’t very well have posted HEY, THERE’S NO ONE AT OUR HOUSE RIGHT NOW! I suppose I could have posted some sort of silliness in the past week or so, but we completely unplugged.

No computers, no phones, no internets. Sweeeeeeet!

I have lots of pics…some awesome, but a lot that really sucked. Insert sad clown face here. I thought I would be better with my camera by now, but I obviously need a lot of work. If it’s any consolation, I made up for it in sheer number. Folks, I’m talking many, many gigs of memory!

Let me just say this: we have to be the only dorks from Florida who go to Canada when it is cold AND GET SUNBURNED!

An ohhhh, the wine! Did you know that Wayne Gretzky had a winery? Neither did we. So does Dan Akroyd. We had raw milk cheese, Cuban cigars, and even a touch of poison ivy. Awesome! We saw signs for Fries Poutine, more water falls that we could shake a stick at, and THE FLOWERS! Oh, the flowers!

Le sigh.

I’ll follow-up in the next couple of posts with pics and lots of adventurous stories.

How Do You Get Your Bottles So Pretty?

Meh...it's Wednesday again. It's not that I haven't had a lot to talk about lately, I've just been busy and uninspired. I've been taking photography classes and still training with my running team. Good news is Hubs is down 11 lbs. and I'm down 8 lbs. since the beginning of January.

Woot!

So, today I am going to show you just how we go about bottling our wine and making the bottles look "pretty". I often get a lot of questions on how I make the bottles look like they were bottled professionally, so I thought I'd let you have a look. It may look like a lot of work, but Hubs and I have a sort of assembly line system down, plus it's fun to taste while we're working! The last time we bottled was around the holidays, but don't worry...there's always another batch-a-brewing, just waiting for the right time.

First I clean the bottles with a cleaning solution called BeBrite, which is basically an oxidizing solution like Oxyclean. It's safe and helps remove any seen and unseen debris, which can ruin wine. Like my sophisticated "Poison Control" label? Don't worry, we don't have kids.

After rinsing very well, I spray the inside of the bottles with potassium metabisulfite (kmeta), which is basically a sterilant used to help sterilize the bottles. Any bateria, residual yeast, or wild microorganisms that weren't removed with the BeBrite will be taken care of with this.

Next we add the wine and cork. We use a corking contraption that basically squeezes the corks into a size that can be pushed into the bottle neck. A lifesaver for sure!

After being corked, the bottles get a good wipe down with a damp rag, are dried, then labled. I do this by hand and "eyeball" the correct height and placement. I know there are little contraptions I can build with scrap wood that will help make this easier, but I haven't found the need for it for such small batches of wine.

Lastly, the bottles get their sleeves. The bottle sleeves are slid on the neck then shrink wrapped to the bottle using a heat gun. See? No fancy schmancy equipment here!

See how pretty they are? These babies are ready for some lovin'!

Superbowl Sangria

My head hurts a little today. Maybe it's because I drank too much of this last night:

Spanish Sangria
Recipe source: Barbara Hansen's Mexican Cookery (1981)

1 bottle, dry full bodied red wine
2 tablespoon orange liqueur (Grand Marnier)
1/3 cup of simple syrup
1 lime thinly sliced
1 orange thinly sliced
1 lemon thinly sliced
Juice of one orange
1 cup club soda

Combine wine, syrup, brandy and orange juice and stir. Add sliced fruit and just before serving add the soda water. Do not let the fruit slices sit in the Sangria for more than one hour before serving as the peels can cause the drink to be bitter.

Simple Syrup

1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Bring water and sugar to a boil and simmer until liquid is clear and the sugar has dissolved. Pour in to jar and refrigerate. Keep for 3 weeks.

Servings: 4

Happy New Year: Wine In Review

This past year has been an exciting journey into wine making. If you had asked me 5 years ago if I saw myself making wine, GOOD wine, I'd say you were crazy. So far (knock-on-wood), all my experiments have been delightful, with some even good enough to be repeated or improved upon. Of course, wine tastes are subjective and what I think is good could taste like the back of an L.A. schoolbus to another. Thankfully, I have good friends who are more than willing to be guinea pigs.

Here's to another great year filled with good friends, love, health, and good wine!


“Cock of the Walk” Cherry Red – A semi-dry, vanilla-oaked cherry wine made with organic cherry juice, dried cherries, cranberries, and raisins. This batch was made in June and when tasted in December, it had strong potential to age into a nice Pinot Noir type red. It is still very young and probably won’t be drinkable for at least a year. The original recipe said it would be “drinkable in 6 weeks”…HA!

Florida “Spiced Orange Meade” – A sweet honey wine made with Florida oranges, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and organic, Florida honey from Frederickson Apiaries in Eustis. This is a sweet desert wine that can be served chilled or heated for those frigid Florida winters! I made two batches of this meade this year, one with raw honey and one with filtered honey. Both turned out beautiful.

Florida “Strawberry Muscat” – A semi-dry, blush with a wonderful strawberry bouquet and a delicate strawberry flavor. I made and bottled this in April and it needed a good 6 months to age to perfection. This wine surprised people, as they expected a wine that was sweeter and not as complex. It was blended with a Black Muscat from Washington State and was outstanding when chilled. Will definitely make a bigger batch this year!

Kathy’s “Lemongrass Mint” – An herbal wine made from my own recipe of organic lemongrass and spearmint. It turned out to be very crisp, dry, with a clean lemon flavor, and was spectacular with any kind of seafood, or spicy dish such as Latin, Thai, or curries. However, I felt it needed some more body, a little less acidity, and more of the mint to shine through. I’m starting my second batch this week, which will be made out of lemon balm and mint from my garden.

Mary’s “Harvest Fig Blush” – This wine was inspired by a dear friend that lives in Deland. Every year she blesses me with fresh figs grown on her property, so it seemed perfectly fitting to make a wine in her honor. This wine was started in August and bottled in October and we haven’t tried it since bottling, but it appeared to be drinkable even then! I can’t wait to really taste it in a few months. It was made with fresh figs, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, oranges, lemons, and dried fruit.

Kathy’s “Banana Grigio” – This wine should really be called a banana Chardonnay, as it is extremely full bodied. I made this in May and when tried in July, it nearly punched me in the mouth! I didn’t like it! However, after 6 months of aging, we tried it again and were completely BLOWN away at how good it turned out. It mellowed out into a full bodied, almost-desertish fruit wine. The banana is definitely there, but it’s not cloying and would be phenomenal with any kind of Latin food.

Meade Making 101 (Continued)

So after 7 weeks, your meade should have stopped fermenting and cleared up nicely. In this picture, you can see where the fruit is still floating on the top and the sediment (the lees) have settled to the bottom. Mine is still a bit dark, as I mentioned that I used unfiltered honey. If you used the typical, storebought filtered honey, your meade will be perfectly clear at this point.

When your ready, put a hose into the clear part of your meade and siphon off the golden nectar. You can put a small cloth at the end of your hose for a filter, but I've never had to do that. I'm just careful to not siphon up any of the sediment and stop when I'm close to the bottom. It helps to move your meade jug to the "siphoning spot" several days before you siphon. That way, any sediment stirred up during moving will have a chance to settle at the bottom.

Once you're done, cork your gallon jug and stick it in the refrigerator! As I said, this is a very sweet, complex dessert wine, so it's best to drink in very small amounts as if you would a cordial. It can be served chilled or warmed (for those frigid Floriday nights), and you will find that it has a wonderful honey/orange flavor with hints of spice.

Your meade should look like this (in the pictures above, mine still has a way to go before it's perfectly clear). What's up with my husband's pinky finger????

And that's it! A lot of people like meade for the fact that you don't have to add sulfites. Honey is an amazing preserving agent all on its own, which makes this experiment so darn easy and forgiving. We bottle ours in small bottles (since it is so sweet) and plan to give them as gifts this year for Christmas.

Meade Making 101

Recently, I've had a few people ask me how I am making my Orange Spiced Meade, and I've promised to give a demonstration. For those of you who aren't meade savvy, meade is wine made with honey. Sometimes it can be as dry and complex as a top-notch wine, and sometimes it is as sweet as a cordial.

In this case, I am making a very sweet dessert wine, which has flavorings of oranges and spice and everything nice. This was my very first meade, and from my experience, it is the easiest to make. From start to finish, this meade will take approximately 8 weeks.

For this example, I am using unfiltered, raw honey, but I recommend that a beginner use filtered honey. This is my second batch; the first batch I made with filtered honey, was much easier to clear and not as finicky. You can buy a gallon of filtered honey from any Big Box store like Sam's for around $20.

Orange Spiced Meade - 1 Gallon
Recipe from: Joe Mattioli

Ingredients:
3 1/2 lbs (56 oz) Clover or your choice honey or blend
1 Navel or other seedless orange (later cut in eights or smaller rind and all)
1 small handful of raisins (25 if you count)
1 stick of cinnamon
1 whole clove (or 2 if you like - these are potent critters)
3 allspice berries
1 teaspoon of Fleishmann’s bread yeast (Active dry)
Balance water to one gallon

Equipment:
- 1 gallon glass jug
- 1 wine airlock – you can either find these online at either wine or beer hobby sites for around $3, or see if there is a wine/beer hobby shop near you.
- An airlock rubber cork (this is basically a rubber cork with a hole in it where the airlock fits).

Process:
Use a clean 1 gallon carboy (a carboy is the same thing as a glass jug) . In these pictures, I am using a 3 gallon carboy...hey we do things big around here!

Wash orange well to remove any pesticides and slice in eights -- add orange, rinds and all to carboy.

Dissolve honey in some warm water and pour in carboy using a clean, food-use only funnel (please don't use the one from your dad/husband's garage).

Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick, and allspice berries. Fill carboy with water to 3 inches from the top with cold water. (leave room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few day yeastie frenzy).

Shake the heck out of the jug with top on, of course. This is your sophisticated aeration process.

When at room temperature in your kitchen, put in 1 teaspoon of bread yeast. Don't use grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away in the 90's! You don't have to rehydrate it first. Give water mixture a gentle swirl.

Install water airlock. Put in dark place (in my case, the spare bathroom). It will start working in about an hour. After major foaming stops in a few days, add some water and then keep your hands off of it. (Don't shake it! Don't mess with them yeasties! Leave them alone except to remove the airlock to smell every once in a while.)

Racking --- Don't you dare
Additional feeding --- NO NO
More stirring or shaking -- You're not listening, don't touch!

Leave your meade alone for 7 weeks (do not leave longer on the fruit for more than 7 weeks or the meade will taste bitter)

STAY TUNED FOR WHAT HAPPENS NEXT....!!!