dinner by peter!

We went over to our good friend Peter’s the other night for a lovely dinner!  This entry is somewhat of a guest blog entry… I’m writing it, but the dinner was all Peter’s work!  The meal centered around a Capture Sauvignon Blanc Les Pionniers 2009 that he had discovered recently.  Amazing.  It was crisp and citrus-y at the beginning, then got increasingly more herbaceous as it breathed and warmed to room temperature.

We brought along some good ole Humboldt Fog cheese (Whole Foods and Screwtop are both carrying it right now!), and it was a GREAT match.  Peter added champagne grapes for a perfect side spread.

Capture Sauvignon Blanc Les Pionniers 2009, Humboldt Fog, & Champagne Grapes

Peter cares a lot about where his food comes from, which is just awesome.  He gave us all the background details, so I will include them all!

The main dish was Chicken Pesto Pasta.  The pesto was made from scratch the day before with homegrown basil, store-bought pine nuts, shredded romano cheese, parsley, and garlic. Here it is being prepped…

Peter's Homemade Pesto (photo credit: Peter)

The chicken (from Magruder’s) was marinated overnight in lime juice, extra virgin olive oil, lemon pepper, and garlic seasoning.  Yum!  Then it was sautéed with a store-bought onion, pepper, and yellow squash from Biggs Riggs Farm in Romney, West Virginia.

Chicken Pesto Pasta

Dessert was amazing, in a jaw-dropping way!!  Peter sliced up some peaches from Toigo Orchards in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania and paired it with Trickling Springs Ice Cream from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.  He topped it all with Trader Joe’s Vanilla Almond Granola!

By the way: I have not been to Pennsylvania many times, but I happened to have traveled to both Chambersburg and Shippensburg before!

Vanilla Ice Cream with Peaches and Granola

Thank you, Peter!  The meal was deliciously fresh, and the Sauvignon Blanc was so memorably intriguing!  What a perfect summer meal.  :)

a bachelorette party spread!

As the matron of honor (I know, “matron” sounds so old!), I was in charge of throwing my dear friend Lauren a bachelorette party!  She wanted margaritas, a request I was happy to comply with, so I planned the spread to be mostly Mexican-themed. :)

Bachelorette Party Spread

MENU

• Margaritas (2 shots quality tequila, 1 shot cointreau, 1/2 shot lime juice, 1/2 shot agave nectar for 1 strong serving)…  very pure and lovely margs!
• Lemonade
• Barbacoa Sliders
• Mini homemade pizzas (pepperoni and cheese options, garlic & herb dough from Trader Joe’s)
• Exotic Fruit (thanks to Julianne)
• Homemade Guacamole (avocados, lime juice, fresh cilantro, sea salt, and pepper)
• Salsa (thanks to Kim)
• Tortilla Chips (thanks to Kim and Carrie)
• Queso (thanks to Chaney)
• Spicy Artichoke Dip (thanks to Carrie… I sure need to get this recipe!!)
• Cheese-Stuffed Peppers (Poblano & Sweet Peppers stuffed w/a ricotta, cream cheese, cayenne pepper spice, & red pepper flake spice blend… then coated in olive oil and broiled!)

It all turned out AMAZING, and I was so thankful to have great contributors help out!  Lauren had a wonderful time, and felt very celebrated.  Hooray for love, and for good food! :)  Here is a close-up of the sliders… I used the same barbacoa recipe from this post… I added lots more jalapenos and such, but still couldn’t get it very spicy!  Oh well, still good.  The coleslaw was from the recipe I referenced in this post.

Barbacoa Sliders

I was inspired to make Barbacoa Sliders, because of my obsession with the happy hour at La Sandia in Tysons.  Seriously, their happy hour has SUCH great deals on food and drinks.  In fact, they just extended happy hour until 9pm on weekdays!  You bet I’ll be there on Friday before seeing the new Harry Potter movie!

easy seafood meals.

This is a post about nothing revolutionary… just two meals I’ve made lately that are EASY and involve seafood.  First, salmon!  It is my goal to cook salmon once a week.  (We’ll see.)  Today I was skimming an article on the Spanish Mediterranean Diet (from one of Chef José Andrés’ websites), and it really affirmed me in this meal:

Salmon w/Broccoli & Brown Rice

I think I tend towards Mediterranean ways in general… it’s probably the Greek in me.  For this meal, I used organic broccoli, brown rice with NO added anything (so the rice took 45 minutes or so to cook), and Atlantic Salmon (thanks, Harris Teeter, for your half-price deal!).  The salmon marinade consisted simply of garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt, and pepper… and I cooked the salmon in 5 minutes on our George Foreman.  I finally watched Food Inc the other weekend, and it inspired me to eat as purely as possible!!

Of course, to balance out Food Inc, I suggest watching this.  The other extreme… so funny.  :)

Here is the second seafood meal I made recently:

Garlic & Basil Linguine w/Shrimp & Spicy Tomato Sauce (w/Broccoli & Squash)

The caption describes what’s going on here.  The garlic and basil linguine is from Trader Joe’s (I love it, because it cooks in just around 5 minutes or so.).  I made the spicy tomato sauce (really an “arrabiata sauce“) from tomato paste, water, and tons of different dried spices.  I was going to put ground beef in the sauce for a standard meat sauce concoction, but Chris and I had just eaten Elevation Burger for lunch (YUM!  And so in line with Food Inc… grass-fed, free range beef, and fries cooked in olive oil!), so we decided to go with fresh shrimp in the sauce instead.  It was a lot lighter, but still filling.  Delicious! :)