A Spanish New Year's Eve Dinner (in pictures)

Happy 2011! It's finally here! A new year and a fresh start.  I just love that sense of newness that comes with the start of another year.  It's sort of like staring at a crisp white blank sheet of paper while holding an inky black pen, ready to start filling up the page with all of the events and happenings of another year of life.  Possibilities seem abundant and hopes are high that this will be a great and memorable year.  To help welcome 2011, I had some friends over on New Year's Eve for games, adult beverages and of course, food.....

Sangria got the party started!

We dined on Spanish food because cuisine from that region tends to be bold and packed with bright and exciting flavors, which seemed to be a fitting way to start the new year.  Also, a meal of pork served with beans is said to be very lucky to eat on New Year's Eve.  (Pork is said to signify prosperity and well-being and beans are said to symbolize wealth.  Finger's crossed, right?)

Fiona made out-of-this-world pork belly lettuce wraps

Served with corn and black bean salad and homemade spicy tomatillo salsa

I made a veggie paella-inspired rice 

Sarah made awesome cheese stuffed peppers with herbs and aged sherry vinegar

And for dessert, Cheesecake Flan

Sweet, creamy and cool..recipe to follow tomorrow

Happy 2011! May you're year be off to a great start!

'Burbs, Wine and Bunny Rabbits

I was kind of kidding the other day when I jokingly made the statement that I hadn't been out of the city and into to the "suburbs" in a about 2 months.  Then it hit me that I really hadn't.  So when I got the invite to a wine tasting at Urban Grape in Chestnut Hill from Michelle, who write the Economical Eater, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sample new wines and take in a little change in scenery.

Having never been to Urban Grape before, I really didn't know what to expect.  It is tucked away from the congestion that is Rt 9, and is a small, narrow space of a store.  But you certainly can't judge this store by its size because nestled inside this little shop are over 750 various wines (and beers too).  They stock all of the well-known labels (Kendall Jackson, Mondavi, etc) but also sell numerous lesser-known varietals from all over the globe.  There's also a section off to side, when you first enter, that allows you to try a sampling of selected wines.

When I first met the owner, TJ, I noticed right off the bat how passionate he was about what he does.  And he's totally living the dream: making a living off of what he is most passionate about.  He was beaming and had so much excitement and energy as he talked about the different wines that we sampled.  It was fairly evident that when you walk into his store, he's there to make sure you leave happy.  He even stopped our demonstration several times in order to personally help customers make their selection.

My favorite part, besides the level of passion that TJ has, is his knowledge.  I was totally engrossed in what he had to say.  I also was fascinated by the unique layout of the store.  Clean, bare bones and with the emphasis on the wine, the shop is also organized by how heavy the wine is.  To explain this better, he used the metaphor of milk.  On one spectrum, skim milk tastes sort of watery.  On the other end of the spectrum, cream is thick and heavy.  He categorizes his wine according to this scale and affixes his opinion of the wine's heaviness to the back of the bottle.  This trait is important to note in wine because it help you pick the ideal cooking wine or the perfect wine to serve during a particular time of the year (heavier for colder months, lighter for warmer).

Throughout the evening, we sampled many wines.  My favorite, surprisingly enough, was a Bordeaux.  I'm not typically a fan of French wines, but this one was fantastic.  It had so many flavors to it that all seemed to come at you individually and on cue.  One right after another.  My second favorite was again a shock; a Cabernet from Napa.  I usually don't reach for New World Wines but this one was brilliant.  A little heavy, but would be absolutely fantastic to enjoy on an icy winter evening.

Michelle and Urban Grape, thank you for hosting such a fun event.  It was also great to catch up with some blogger friends: Lara, John and Melissa.  It was all totally worth making the short trek out of the city for!

To top off my little trip to the 'burbs...I saw actual wildlife on my way home tonight....look!  Aren't they kinda cute?  Maybe I'll venture out the 'burbs a little more often...

Wine-ing About A New Pasta Sauce

Last night it rained in Boston.  It was kinda humid and weirdly chilly at the same time.  That meant a couple things to me: I wanted to stay in, take the night off to relax and curl up in some sweatpants with a glass of wine and some pasta.

I love, love, LOVE pasta.  I think I feel about pasta the same way some people feel about chocolate cake.  I crave pasta and could keep eating it and eating it and never get sick of it.  To me, pasta is the food equivalent of your favorite comfortable sweatpants.  It's cozy, it's comfortable and exactly what you need on an relaxing stay-at-home evening.  I love making pasta dishes on nights like this and I even bought a special little baking dish that serves one, so I won't have leftovers.  (Again I'll draw on the parallel to chocolate cake.  I just can't have leftover baked pasta sitting around!)

My favorite go-to pasta dish is a simple cheesy baked pasta that I made here.  But last night I was feeling like I wanted to get a little creative and change things up a bit and lately it seems my newest obsession is roasted red peppers.  I don't know what it is about them but I just cannot get enough of them!  They are just so sweet and when added to a sauce, they add this layer of rich natural sweetness that you just can't get from anywhere else.  So roasted red peppers were the main inspiration and focus of the sauce and then a last minute game time decision included me tossing in about 1/4 cup of Malbec (a nice red wine typically hailing from Argentina).  This little addition gave my sauce a deep brick-red color as well as complimenting and balancing out the sweetness of the roasted red peppers.  It provided another delicious layer of flavor.

For cheeses, I had some left over ricotta (from my Lemon Blueberry Ricotta muffins that I made the other day) so that went in as well as some torn up Ciliegine, which is just small balls of fresh mozzarella.  That all got melty and oh so yummy.  This dish totally makes the pasta recipe rotation.  I will definitely be making this for my next rainy-day-stay-in evening!  This would also be a great dish to serve for a dinner party because it is a little unique, can be made a day ahead and then just thrown in the oven.  This would be a total crowd pleaser served with a side salad and some garlic bread.