Wine and Food Pairings

I had never been to a wine and food pairing dinner before last night. 90% of my posts are recipes and 8% are about weather, so now I'm making 2% about this experience because I feel like it's worthy of a post. This is a food blog after all! If you have never been to one of these, take some time to find one and shell out the extra few bucks to go. It's a super fun experience getting to try so many different foods with all the wines they offer you. What's even better is going with your mom or someone like my mom (aka someone whose pallet isn't quite as diverse as yourself and doesn't drink as much as they give you). 

The dinner that I went to was at Tall Oaks in Pasadena, MD. It started out with some appetizers like cheese, crackers, and veggies which was nice cause I was already starving. Then the show began! The wine rep told us about every wine as we were being served and why it paired well with each dish. The chef of the restaurant even came out to do a cooking demo to show us how the second course was made. The whole thing was so informative and an amazing deal at only $45. By the second course though, my wine was going rather quickly so one of the nice young men got me an extra glass of wine while I waited. (I feel so old saying that, totally turning into a grandma at the ripe age of 25) Then my mom didn't finish 2 of her glasses AND we got 2 wines to try with the fourth course. It was neat how they were showing that a red and a white could work with the same dish. Needless to say though, by dessert I was feeling awesome.

Overall, I feel like I must have gotten spoiled for my first wine and dine experience. The staff and owners/chef were all so kind. Every single person took the time to ask us how we were doing and the owners and wine rep all sat down at our table with us to talk, just to chit chat. I am going to be waiting impatiently now for the next time Tall Oaks has one of these dinners. If you all live in the area, you should probably check their site frequently so you'll know when it is too! If you don't, check some local wineries for events. Here are some pictures of our dishes, my phone is a dinosaur and was acting up and then died so some are better than others. 

First Course: Garden noodles with lemongrass vinaigrette 

Second Course: Veal Scallopini with balsamic drizzle and couscous

Third Course: Crab stuffed artichoke hearts with fontina cheese

Fourth Course: Ahi Tuna with soy ginger glaze

Dessert: Peach Betty (whatever that is, I call mini peach cake muffin)

Tall Oaks has no idea I'm writing this so no one made me do this, I was just that impressed. 

Cheesy Beer Bread

I'm going to apologize now in advance for my next few postings. I left my Canon camera charger at my parents house so I have been using my old camera for all these pictures lately. I am getting my charger today though so this will only be temporary and maybe my pictures will be more appetizing soon! 

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I was supposed to have that yard sale and postponed it because all the weather models and forecasters were saying RAIN RAIN RAIN. I woke up Saturday morning at 7:30 and it was SUNNY! Whomp, whomp. At least it got cloudy within an hour but it didn't even rain until 1:00 PM and I totally could've had my sale. I just got a pedicure instead so that helped some. Alas, I will just wait until May 12 since we've rescheduled it for then. Come on by if you are in Crofton, I'll have cupcakes! 

Onto the subject of matter. Beer bread has always been one of my favorites but I haven't had it in years. My mom used to make it a lot because she got those Tastefully Simple packages. I used to feel so cool when I ate it cause it was BEER bread and I totally wasn't 21. Now I just feel super uncool for feeling cool. Yesterday my boyfriend bought some beef shoulder to make some BBQ brisket (recipe coming later this week) and he told me he always has it with beer bread. I was about to head over to see my family so I didn't have much time but I was like ok, I'll figure something out real quick! Want to know what really makes me even more uncool? I used Natural Light for this recipe. It was all we had so I changed up your typical beer bread recipe a bit just for fun and it was definitely a good idea. 

2 cups flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon honey

1 12 ounce beer (any beer works depending what type of flavor you want, I'd recommend a pale lager)

1/2 cup cheese (I used pepper jack, cheddar works well too) plus a handful for the top

4 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Then pour in the beer and honey and mix well. Last fold in the cheese. Grease your bread pan and pour 2 tablespoons of the melted butter in, then pour in your batter. Next pour the last 2 tablespoons of butter on top of the batter. Bake for 55 minutes. When there are 5 minutes left, take out the bread,  sprinkle a handful of cheese on top, and place back in for the last 5 minutes.

Nutella Chocolate Cupcakes

Yay Friday! I was super excited about this weekend because we were supposed to have a yard sale tomorrow and all the proceeds were going to go to my Crohn's walk. The darn weather had other plans for us though. This warm front and low pressure are saying "Sorry, but you're just going to have to wait to raise money for the CCFA!" That's not very nice, is it? Guess I'll have to wait two weeks since that's the next time we can do this sale. What is nice though, is this post! This is way more about the cake than the frosting too. It just so happened I put some serious frosting on these bad boys. I wanted to test some different chocolate cake recipes and when it came time to make these I realized I had NO chocolate chips. So I resorted to the next best thing, Nutella. These didn't taste especially Nutella-like but it must have done something because these were the best chocolate cupcakes I've ever had... hands down. 

Nutella Chocolate Cupcakes

Yield ~18 cupcakes/48 mini cupcakes

1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup Nutella
1/3 cup oil
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/ tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk


Vanilla Frosting
Frosting recipe without the coconut

Melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl, add in the nutella and mix. Next mix in the vanilla extract, oil, and sugar, then the eggs. In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and flour then make a well in it. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry and mix together. Last fold in the sour cream and milk until completely mixed. Pour batter into cupcake tins and bake for about 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. I made some of these regular sized and some mini so baking time will vary. The minis took more like 15 minutes. 

Pineapple Upside Down Muffins

Hurry! If you're still at home and haven't left for work you might be able to make these little guys just in time for your breakfast. You really should since they're pretty heavenly. The whole idea for these started with pineapple upside cake. I've been reading Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books for almost 3 years now. I am now onto book 18 even though it came out in November. I just was able to get my hands on it at the library. Anyway, Stephanie Plum's favorite dessert is Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I make enough desserts at my house that I didn't need another cake sitting around for me to gobble up. That pie from Sunday was almost enough to make me diabetic considering it's gone already. So I thought muffins sounded like a good way to make it a little healthier, not so sweet, and a nice spin on a fantastic dessert. When I brought these to have the morning after the bachelorette party I went to this past Saturday, there were some very happy ladies!

Pineapple Upside Down Muffins

Yield ~12 muffins

2 tablespoons brown sugar 

1 10-ounce can pineapple chunks

3/4 cup whole-wheat flour

3/4 cup  flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2 eggs

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

2 tablespoons pineapple juice

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 8-ounce can crushed pineapple, (not drained)

1 large carrot, grated (~1 cup)

1/2 cup oats

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar in each of the muffin slots along with 2 pineapple chunks. In a bowl whisk together whole wheat flour, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, brown sugar, oil, pineapple juice, and vanilla extract together. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the liquid mixture in and mix together. Stir in crushed pineapple, grated carrot, and oats. Pour into muffin wells. They will be very full so don't worry. Bake for about 16 minutes or until slightly brown on top. 

Banana Brownie Pie

When it's raining outside and 42 degrees all I want to do is curl up with a blanket on the couch... or bake. I did both yesterday, with more of the curling up with a blanket on the couch, almost 5 hours of it to be exact. By 8:30 last night my boyfriend decided it was about time for me to migrate to an actual bed so yesterday was the epitome of lazy Sunday. The only reason I even made this thing is because my  mom told me she and my sister had been wanting pie. She took a crust out of the freezer and told me to make one when I got up from my first nap. I started brainstorming but there was absolutely NO fruit in the entire house, so any type of fruit pie was instantly not an option. Then I checked the pantry for sweetened condensed milk so I could make a pie with that; nope. This meant the only thing left to do was make it chocolate and maybe add in some peanut butter or something. I settled on a brownie pie but then I saw it. A single almost blacky brown banana. Hmmmm... I like chocolate and bananas. I also had just dipped a banana in Nutella that morning so obviously I like it. I just mashed it up and added it into the batter and thus the banana brownie pie was born.

Banana Brownie Pie

Yield ~1 pie

1 pie crust

3/4 cup butter

2 tablespoons water

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 banana, mashed

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Disclaimers:
1. You will have a little bit of extra mix, especially if you don't use a deep dish pie crust.
2. If you have a hard time restricting yourself from eating batter/dough/mixes, don't make this. If you are ok with eating all the extra mix, make this immediately.
3. Don't say I didn't warn you when you get a sugar belly ache from eating entirely too much of this mix and the actual final product of pie.
4. Don't mind the Christmas dish the pie is on. It's only 4 months past but I don't know. I don't have an excuse.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave. Add in the sugar, water, and vanilla and mix together. Next mix in the eggs. In another bowl mix the flour, cocoa powder, and salt together. Mix into the liquid mixture. Last mash up the banana and mix that in with the chocolate chips and chopped pecans. Pour into unbaked pie crust. Bake in oven for 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted to center comes out clean. Indulge!

Herb Crusted Leg of Lamb

Ladies and Gents, it's time for our first guest post! No, it's not the dogs but it is the dog's owner and she also just happens to be my "manager". She hears of all of my KBTM woes on a daily basis so I figured it'd be fun to have her chime in for once. Without further ado... Jill.

So I have a habit of only buying food that’s on sale that day. In fact, I have a hard time paying retail for something when I know I can get it for cheaper another time.  I blame groupon and Extreme Couponing for this obsession. It has also made me buy things that I never do because it’s too good of a deal to pass up.  And that’s how I bought a leg of lamb. It was half off, how could I pass it up?

I also don’t like spending too much time in the kitchen. I always have two distractions at my feet that I constantly trip over, so I try to make dinner as fast as I can. This is what I threw together:

Leg of lamb ~4lbs

5 red potatoes quartered

4 cloves garlic minced

4 tbs room temperature tears of Paula Deen (reference for PD tears aka butter)

3 tbs of chopped herbs  (I used rosemary, parsley, and thyme)

Salt and pepper

I mixed the butter, herbs, salt and pepper together and spread most of it on the lamb, covering the top. I tossed the remaining mixture with the potatoes.  I put the potatoes in a large glass baking dish and placed the lamb on top. I baked it at 500 degrees until it browned and then reduced the temperature to 400 and covered the dish with foil. I continued cooking it until the meat temperature reached 140 degrees. Let the lamb rest for a bit before serving.

Being the thrifty person I am, I cut up the leftover lamb and potatoes and made a stew for the next day. I added the leftovers to beef broth, and added celery, carrots and onions. Simmer the soup until the lamb is the texture that you like and serve it with crusty bread.