Monthly Archives: November 2018

So it would appear Winter has hit Atlantic Canada.  -12 with a wind chill of -22.  Yes, Winter has definitely hit.

Time for some comfort food and wine.

Last week I told you about the Chicken Carbonara my sister and I enjoyed at a restaurant.  I make a pretty good pasta dish of my own.

 

Linguine With Green Olive Paste and 4 Cheeses: 

Paste:

In a blender combine

1 cup of green olives

A good helping of Olive Oil

A splash each of Red Wine Vinegar and Lime Juice

Basil

Garlic

Blend.   It’s supposed to be a paste, but a liquidy paste.  Not solid paste.  Again I apologize for no amounts, I never measure.  Which is why I cook better than I bake.

In the mean time, cut up chicken breasts into bite size pieces and cook.  I cook them in Maple Syrup sometimes just to add a different flavor to the pasta.  Set aside.

Boil your pasta, I like using fresh Linguine.   You can use your favorite pasta.  Here’s something you must do.  When you drain your pasta, RINSE it in water.  It gets rid of that yucky taste and add about a teaspoon of olive oil and stir throughout the pasta.  Trust me.

I use the pot I cooked the pasta in and combine the chicken, paste, real bacon bits and the 4 cheeses.  You can vary on the cheeses, but I always use Parmesan and Mozzarella and Asiago as my base .  The other cheese can vary.   I use Jarlsberg or Cheddar, but you can mix it up,   Add cream.  Lots of it.  Don’t forget the bacon!!

Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes

And here are a couple of Italian wines that is heaven in a bottle for this pasta dish.

The Frescobaldi family was one of the first to introduce traditional grape varieties to Italian grapes and thus create Super Tuscan wines.  This Remole Toscana is one of those Super Tuscan’s, and is a blend of 85% Sangiovese and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon.  Medium bodied with hints of cherries and black pepper, this wine is perfect for it which pasta dish because it’s compliments, not overpowers

This Cielo 1908 Appassionatamente  it’s a fantastic wind to go with any Italian cuisine.  This wine is Merlot, Corvina, and Sangiovese.   This is the delicious Venetian wine with light spicy notes that again will make the food the star of the table.

And now for my wine of the week…

At this past year’s Festival of Wines, I got to try a real treat, and I thought I would share this treat.  Roger Trinchero is the President and CEO of the winery and says each wine is a representation of their family’s journey through seven decades of wine making in the Napa Valley.  This BRV version has been given 93 Points by both Robert Parker and James Suckling.  Personally, I give it 95 Points.  Full-bodied with rich flavour of licorice and cigar box.  It’s a treat at $105 a bottle, but everyone deserves a treat once in a while, right?

The struggle is real.  Thanks for reading, till next week Cheers

Darlene

 

 

Well winter seemed to arrive in a hurry.  Last week we were seeing temperatures in the double digits and this past week we saw them dip to -17 with a windchill.  My sister and I were heading to Moncton to watch her son play hockey, but she got delayed because of a storm.  The news media were calling it the ‘the most intense storm on the planet’.   I don’t know if I would agree with that, but snow and wind cause flight cancellations, property damage and a whole lot of inconvenience.  Personally this is how I like to spend cold winter evenings.

And I do have a wine for that.  Let’s start with this Italian beauty

I Had this wine a few weeks back, buying it from a boutique wine store.  Moi Primitivo from Pyglia is an easy to drink affordable wine.  It is soft , and full-bodied with notes of liquorice, and it’s definitely a wine I would buy again.   It’s a nice little treasure for under $15.

Here is one of my favourite people in the world, my nephew Riley.  And this weekend I’m up in Moncton watching this talented young man play hockey.   Regular leaders of this blog well remember Riley from when his family and myself went to Barbados in May.   We are actually just staying outside of Moncton in a gorgeous hotel called Hotel  Shediac in the small community in New Brunswick of Shediac.   They have a spectacular restaurant in the hotel called St. James Gate.

Both my sister and I had the Chicken Carbonara, out of this world.  And the wine…

The Masi Ripasso Campofiori  was so very smooth and rich.   This particular dish and this particular wine seemed to go together like peas in a pod.  This wine is made with partially dried grapes which gives it a rich raisinated flavor,   The grapes in this particular wine are mostly Corvina with some Molinara and Rondinella.  All the grapes in this wine are  grapes originating from Italy.   This is a great wine and although I don’t think it’s available where I live, here are in New Brunswick you can bring it home for under $24.

And now for my wine of the week….

If its  all about the flavour at a great price point, this would be your wine of the week as well.  From the Languedoc region of France, this is La Baume Syrah.  In the late 1800s a pest outbreak  destroyed much of France’s vineyards, but in 1882 a man by the name of Jean Prat took over Domaine De La Baume.   It has changed owners since then, but in 2010, this Syrah was given the title of the worlds best Syrah.   It’s mind blowing when you think about that, it’s even more mind blowing that this wine is under $19.  Smooth, silky with soft tannins,  this is truly an incredible wine at an incredible price!

Have a great week, till next week cheers!

Darlene

 

 

This past Wednesday evening saw a group of friends and myself head out on the town for dinner and a Movie.  The movie was ‘A Star Is Born’ starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.  Bradley Cooper not only starred in the movie but directed it as well.  Lady Gaga blew me away.   Not only her singing talent, but that girl can act.  I especially fell in love with Charlie the Dog, who is Bradley Cooper’s real life rescue dog, and recently had a twitter hashtag calling for Charlie to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

So let’s talk about the food and the wine.  We started with appetizers of dried ribs, which is an appetizer I fell in love with while living out in Western Canada.

It seems people either love them or hate them, and I am definitely in the love category.  Hard to pair a wine these, but we sipped on the wine from the bottle we ordered.  Honestly, though, I paired the wine to the meals we ordered, and not the appetizers.

Someone had the honey garlic steak, and it looked delicious, which my friend Sandra confirmed.  Blackened chicken was ordered, which was nice and spicy and I had the lettuce wraps.  So the wine I picked was this Italian beauty…

A beautiful Italian Ripasso from Folonari.  It’s medium bodied but packed with flavor, after those Valpolicella grapes are passed over the Amarone must and skins.   This wine features notes of fig, raisins, cherries and toasted oak.  It was a great pairing for the foods that featured the spices, like the blackened chicken and the steak.

I said I was going to take a picture that evening once the wine arrived and forgot.  But here are some of my friends, however we are missing Sharon from this picture.  I am so blessed to have the greatest friends in the world.

Till next week, Cheers

Darlene