A Jeanne in the Kitchen

After bottling our beautiful new wine, Midnight Malbec The Bottling Project it was time to celebrate our efforts with a feast. All vintners celebrate the harvest and the bottling with a feast, so now that we are vintners, we had to continue the tradition. Besides, I will take any opportunity to cook up a feast. 🙂

All the food is authentically Argentine, and from my cookbook Seven Fires, Grilling The Argentine Way, by Francis Mallman, or at the very least, inspired from that book. 🙂

The name Seven Fires refers to the seven different types of grilling methods used in Argentine cooking. They are:

1. Asado – The Argentinian barbecue technique that involves slow cooking meat over wood coals on a brick surface. The word asado comes from the Spanish word asar, which means “to grill”.

2. Chapa –  A cast-iron griddle used for cooking thinner cuts of meat and vegetables.

3. Parilla – A barbecue grate used over live coals.

4. Infusion Grilling – Wood is placed near the grill to release a gentle smoke.

5. Don’t touch – A principle that states to not move food once it’s in contact with heat, as this can break the crisp surface and dry out the food.

6. Use a spatula – Instead of poking the meat to check if it’s done, use a spatula to flip it. Poking the meat can cause the juices to run away and potentially catch fire.

7. Adjust the grill height –  Authentic Argentine grills have adjustable grills so that the height can be lowered to slow down the cooking temperature and time.

Grilling meats is an artform in Argentina, and it is taken very seriously. The Argentines value quality meat and believe that slow cooking meat is better. They also consider the asado to be a gathering of friends and family to enjoy each other’s company. So in keeping with the Argentine tradition, I offered this delicious spread. My asado.

Beef Tournedos Wrapped in Bacon and Sage

To make these tournedos even more authentic, I topped them with chimichurri sauce.

Argentina is known for its great quality beef. Beef dishes are very prominent in the Argentine culture.

steak rounds, also known as tournedos or filet mignon, about 1 inch thick and 5 oz each

thick bacon for each piece of meat

4-5 fresh sage leaves for each piece of meat

coarse salt & fresh ground black pepper

I cut off the excess fat, then used a round cookie cutter to shape my meat.

Once the meat is cut into rounds, pat them dry with a paper towel, then lay each piece on a piece of wide cut bacon with sage evenly spaced on the bacon. Roll them up and tie tightly with cooking string to keep everything in place.

After each tournedo is rolled, season them with coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper on each side. I prepped these in advance, then took them out of the refrigerator about an hour before we placed them on the grill to cook. We cooked them on the grill, but you can also sear and cook them in a cast iron skillet on top of the stove too.

The cooking time depends on the thickness of the steak. But for a delicious, juicy medium-rare, start with about 2 minutes per quarter side, then flip until all the sides of the bacon are cooked, with some charring. Once the bacon is cooked, turn it meat side down and cook the meat for 2-3 minutes, then flip and repeat. Obviously, if you like your steak cooked a bit more, cook it a little longer. But for me, a rare medium-rare, somewhere between a 2-3, closer to 2, is perfect for me. 🙂

I topped all the tournedos with chimichurri sauce, which is a sauce of fresh herbs, garlic, olive oil, and vinegar used to accompany barbecued meats or churrasco (grilled beef or chicken) that originated in Argentina and is also popular in Uruguay. My chimichurri sauce was authentically Argentine as well.

Chimichurri Sauce

This is a simple sauce with lots of fresh chopped parsley, garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar, coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper and just a dash of lemon juice. You can also use red wine vinegar too if you prefer.

1/3 cup olive oil

2-3 TBSP balsamic vinegar

1 heaping TBSP garlic

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1 tsp red pepper flakes or to taste

coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

a dash of lemon juice

Mix everything together and set aside. Then use it for your meats and anything else you want to top with it. Chimichurri sauce is the Argentine salsa, and goes with everything.

!Desfruta! Enjoy!

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

As you know, the wine is done. We bottled it yesterday. This too was quite a project. Once again, we are used to all the technology that InVINtions has, and it was a lot different doing it the old fashioned way, on our own. But it was still fun and still an adventure. Midnight Malbec is finished and in the bottles.

Once again, Priscilla donated to this Argentine event by donating these beautiful glasses for us to use for our new wine making adventure.

Before bottling the wine, we racked it twice more and cleaned and sanitized all the bottles. We also soaked the corks in warm water for a few minutes.

Then we all gathered out on our back deck to let the bottling begin. It was definitely a group effort.

We found out that not all bottles are created equal. The juicer worked for some bottles, but not for others. So we put those aside and filled them with a funnel from the good bottles.

Once the bottles were filled, we corked them. Our little corker is a lot more difficult and challenging than InVINtions’ larger corker.

Once the bottles were corked, Bob put the foil toppers on and sealed them with his heat gun.

And …. SUCCESS!!!! Midnight Malbec is created and bottled. We are toasting our success for another fun and good day of wining adventures.

We were all very pleased with the results and the wine came out very good. We were all a little surprised at how good it did come out too, actually. In fact, we liked it so much, we have already purchased two more wine kits. One will be a chardonnay and the other a Pinot Noir. There is more wine making in our near future once again. Cheers! Slainte! Salud! A Votre Sante! Raise a glass in celebration.

Have a great day and make everyday great, and even better with a little wine. 🙂 Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

I made the things I can make ahead of time yesterday, such as my Cremona bread, the empanadas (they still need to be fried), and my chimichurri sauce. Everything else will be made today.

My friend Priscilla, is Argentine/Italian. She is actually in Argentina right now too. She has approved of my Argentine menu and has given it two thumbs up. But then, she did give me the cookbook, Seven Fires, by Francis Mallman, and my recipes all came from there. The name Seven Fires comes from the seven different types of “fires” used in Argentine cooking.

I am always making and trying out new things, new recipes and new learning techniques. As you know, I love to make bread, but there are so many different kinds of breads to be made. So I try them out one at a time. A new bread for me was my Cremona bread, also known as pan de Cremona. Mine didn’t come out exactly as it was supposed to, but not bad for a first attempt. This just means I need more practice, and need to make more. 🙂 This is my version.

This is how it is supposed to look. Oh well. Next time. 🙂

Cremona bread is an Italian bread, and most of the Argentine population is of Italian descent. The city of Cremona is known for being the home of the Stradivarious violin, since it was the home of Stradivari, the creator. It is also known for its bread. The Cremona bread traveled to Argentina with the Italians, when the Italians flocked to Argentina between 1870 and 1960 to escape economic hardship and the devastation of both world wars and they brought the Cremona with them. This bread is popular in Argentina – probably even more so than in Italy. The fringed horseshoe shape looks cool – great for feeding a crowd.

Cremona Bread

As with so many other delicious breads from around the world, it is made with simple ingredients. What makes it so special are the love and techniques used to make it. From start to finish, this bread takes about 4 hours to make.

Originally it was made with lard, but I used butter instead. Next time, I will use garlic butter too.

2 1/4 tsp dry active yeast

1 1/4-1 3/4 cups water, as needed

4 cups flour

1 TBSP coarse salt

1 TBSP olive oil

6 TBSP melted butter

Dissolve the yeast in the water and whisk together. Let set for about 5-10 minutes. Mix in the olive oil

Combine the yeast and salt in a mixer, then add the yeast mixture and mix together, starting with the paddle attachment and mix just until blended.

Switch to the dough hook and mix again at low-medium speed for about 5 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Shape the dough into a round ball and dust with flour. Cover and let rise for an hour, or until it doubles in size.

Roll the dough into a rectangle about 24 inches long and 8 inches wide and about 1/4 inch thick.

Brush the melted butter on the dough, then fold the shorter, wide sides into the middle, flip the dough, and repeat. You want two folds. It is similar to making puff pastry. Let it rise again for about 30 minutes.

Roll it into a rectangle and brush with the melted butter again. Then fold the dough over lengthwise, leaving about 1/2 inch of the bottom half exposed

With a sharp knife, cut slices all along the edge, making fringe or fingers.

Bring the edges together to make a flat circle. I think my problem was then I made it into a circle, like the recipe said to do, rather than making into a semi -circle. See, once again, I followed the directions, and it didn’t turn out. 🙂

Cover and let rise again for about 45 minutes. Preheat the oven (or horno) to 400*F or 200*C. Brush with more melted butter, if you like, and bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until it is golden brown and crisp.

I will reheat it again right before serving, so it it will be nice and hot. I did take a little sample. It is very good. !Disfruta! 🙂

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Not all winged creatures and things that fly are birds. Lately, I have been seeing a lot of other things that fly too.

There are lots of grasshoppers all around these days. I don’t remember so many from years past.

We also have a lot of bees, which is a very good thing. We need our bees.

We also have quite a few moths fluttering around too.

Size doesn’t always matter. Just like with diving, sometimes we need to focus on the smaller animals too.

Yesterday I hinted at a “wining weekend”. We had a slight change of plans though.

We were out literally all day yesterday, and from the first event, we were going to go to a wine party at InVINtions after. But things didn’t quite work out as planned at our first event, and we decided to pass on the wine party. It had already been a very long day, both for us, and for the fur babies, and there will be other parties in the future. Plus, I lost my good camera and I was really bummed out about that. Now I have to get another one, and soon. I use it EVERYDAY!

We have made wine plenty of times from InVINtions, under their expert guidance and tutelage, but this is the first time we made our own wine, all by ourselves. There is definitely a lot more to it than what we thought.

A friend of Lauren’s had given her a wine making kit, that somehow we kind of inherited, though I guess it technically belongs to all four of us; Mike, Lauren, Larry and I. Larry and I watched a winemaking video a few times, then purchased the juice and all the ingredients necessary to make the wine.

The four of us started the winemaking process, and Larry and I did everything else.

Step #1

We sanitized all the equipment first then started mixing everything together.

Taking the first specific gravity reading.

Once we finished this part, we had to let it rest for a few days.

Step #2

The first racking of the wine. We had to rack the wine before adding more ingredients and mixing it all up.

Daddy had some very curious helpers.

Adding the wood chips.

Again, we had to let it rest again. This time for about 10-12 days before moving on.

In the meantime, we cleaned and scrubbed our recycled bottles. This was quite the chore. We need 30 bottles. No problem. We have plenty. We will sanitize them right before our bottling process begins tomorrow.

Step #3

We had to rack the wine yet again and added the bentonite. Then we had to stir vigorously to de-gas it.

Doing another specific gravity reading.

Once this was done, we had to let it rest again for another 10 or so days. And tomorrow, it will be time to bottle it. We followed the instructions to a tee, and watched the video before every step. We took a few “barrel” tastings, but nothing more than a sip or two each time, just to note the progress. So far, it tastes pretty good. I have to say, not bad at all for first time vintners. 🙂

We will rack it once more and then bottle it. We made a Malbec, and since it will be close to Halloween, we named it “Midnight Malbec”, using our “panther” Nicky or Nicodemus, as our model.

Tomorrow will be the real test though. Mike, Lauren, Janet, Bob, Erik and Shannon will all be joining us for the bottling, followed by an authentic Argentine dinner. I decided on an Argentine menu since Argentina is known for it’s fantastic Malbec wines, and Malbec is what we made.

I will drink wine any day that ends with a “Y”. 🙂 Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well, the wine really helps with that, by the way. ‘Til next time.

Starting today, and all weekend, I will be a-wining, in different ways. I will be busy all day, but should have a enough of a break on Saturday and Sunday to fill you in on all our new wining adventures. Stay tuned. Don’t touch that dial. Cheers!

We have one tree in our backyard that the hummingbirds seem to love. They flock to this tree and greet us when we sit out on our deck to dine al fresco. Most of the time I can’t get good shots of them because they are so backlit, but they are still fun to see. I never stop though, because I just may get lucky sometimes and I get some good shots too.

These are the shots I normally get. Not bad, but not great either.

But with luck and persistence, every now and then I get some good shots too.

The moral of the story is …. Never give up. Have a great day and make everyday great. You never know. Today could just be your lucky day. 🙂

Thanksgiving is quickly coming. For our Canadian friends, it is coming in just a few days. This year, it will be celebrated on October 14. In America, we still have about a month and a half to wait. Soon, everyone will be busy planning menus and getting things ready to spend the day with loved ones. Leftovers are always a part of the Thanksgiving traditions as well. But what do we do with all them? How do we plan to use them up? Here are some delicious ideas for using up those holiday leftovers.

The reason I am writing about this today is because I have been asked by Rent/Redfin to do a post about using up Thanksgiving leftovers. The article is set to publish in October on the Rent. Blog, which saw over 2 million in traffic last year.  This is a big honor for me and I am very excited to participate.

Here are just a few of my recent ideas for using up those delicious Thanksgiving leftovers. These can easily become part of your holiday traditions as well.

1. Thanksgiving Leftovers – Turkey Enchiladas with Pumpkin Cream Sauce Thanksgiving Leftovers Transformed into Turkey Enchiladas with a Pumpkin Cream Sauce

Enchiladas in general are a great way to use up leftovers, but why not make them festive as well. I had just enough pumpkin puree for this dish, and then I also used up some of the turkey and vegetables to make these very tasty enchiladas.

2. Curried Thai Turkey and Vegetables – More Leftovers From Thanksgiving

Pasta is always a good way to use up leftovers of any kind. Why not turn your leftover turkey and vegetables into a festive pasta to continue the festive celebrations. You can dress it up even more by turning them into an ethnic dish too if you like. The pasta possibilities are endless.

3. Potato Pancakes – From Leftovers To Potato Pancakes

Almost everyone has mashed potatoes on their Thanksgiving table. Sometimes you have leftovers and sometimes you don’t, but if you do, turning those potatoes into potato pancakes is always a delicious option of repurposing them. No one will ever know they came from leftovers.

In fact, all these delicious options I have provided, no one will know they came from your Thanksgiving Holiday leftovers. The only way they will know is if you tell them. 🙂

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Our fall colors are a little late this year, but they are beginning to pop out. We are at a lower altitude than the mountains, so our fall colors tend to be behind the mountains by a couple of weeks anyway. They may not be numerous yet, but the colors that are coming out are already beautiful.

Here are the fall colors around my lakes.

I just love fall. It is my absolute favorite season of the year. I love all the colors and the cooler, crisper air. I love everything about fall.

We had some pork loin down. Larry was in the mood for something Asian to be made with it. No problem. I can do that. I was inspired by a honey garlic pork recipe I saw and went from there. We tend to like our foods with a little spicy kick, so I spiced it up a bit and added vegetables to top it off.

Spicy Honey Garlic Pork

My spice came from adding red pepper flakes as well as topping it with a a little extra spicy chili mix. Just a dab will do you, since the spicy chili mix really packs a punch. You can substitute chicken for the pork too if you like.

2 lbs pork

2/3 cup honey

salt & pepper to taste

1/4 cup chicken broth

2 TBSP soy sauce

2 TBSP garlic

2 TBSP apple cider vinegar

1 1/2-2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 TBSP cornstarch

red chili spice as a topping, optional

Combine all the ingredients together and mix well. Marinate the pork in the sauce for at least 30-60 minutes before cooking.

When ready to cook the pork, preheat the oven to 400* F or 200*C.

Spray a baking dish with cooking spray.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until the pork reaches an internal temperature of about 160*F or 72* C and/or the juices run clear.

I served my pork over wild rice and then topped it with vegetables as well. For my vegetables, I used some green beans, red pepper matchsticks, red onion slices and mushrooms.

I boiled the beans for about 5-7 minutes and sauteed the rest in butter and olive oil, with salt & pepper until they were ready.

Once everything was done, I layered them up, starting with the rice, then the pork, the mushroom mixture, green beans, and then finished it off with a little dab of spicy chili sauce.

I served this with a cabernet. Pork is one of those dishes that goes well with either red or white wine, but because my sauce was a rich, brown, spicy sauce, I chose red wine. It was a perfect combination and all the flavors just popped to life.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.