It Finally Came!

Okay I am a bit late in telling you guys about the saga of the wine. Part of being a featured publisher with food buzz means that I get to try cool products from time to time. So I let no moss grow under my feet when they offered up free wine. Yep you heard me, free wine. Free. Wine.

This offer was months ago and thanks to the joys of living in the fine state of Virginia and ABC laws aimed at…. Oh hold up… that is another blog all together. Lets just say getting the wine to me, because of the craziness that is Virginia ABC law, proved to be a long arduous process. Sadly when FedEx came to deliver said wine, we were out of town. Finally, through hoops and hoopla, we were finally permitted to have my husband drive to the FedEx depot to get it. Only to find out they sent it out for delivery again. Sigh… I got it.

The wine was Black Box, Sauvignon Blanc. My understanding about the company is that they are trying to reinvent the perception of the box o’ wine and target a…hmmm… lets say, more discerning clientele. Let me say, I have no problem with the concept of the box of wine. Really, it prevents air from getting to the wine, thus prolonging shelf life, yadda, yadda,. I have even had a decent box o’wine (I think my friend go it at Target). So I was pretty psyched about it all. Plus I like Sauvignon Blac, so we were in business. The day it came I put in the fridge to chill. The next day I made carbonara for dinner to go with my fancy dancy box o’ wine.

Pour….sip…. Huh??? Sad. Sad Vanessa. I love Sauvignon Blanc. If I were to have one complaint with them over the past…3 years or so is they have gotten bit homogonous. Homogony would not have been bad for this wine. It was watery. It did have nice acidy to it, but it was watery, and flat and…well sad. It retails for $20 a box and a box is 4 bottles. So not expensive. However, Trader Joes has some far better wines for the same price or less (in particular a vino verde that is 3.99 a bottle).

So my over take…

Would I get it again? No.

Was I glad it was free? You betcha.

Was it at least the effort to get it? Very questionable.


Sigh. Free Wine, since when is that not all it is cracked up to be?????

Contest and One Great Evening

Okay guys it is 10 days until the deadline for the contest and it is time to announce the prize. I will be sending you a selection of my two favorites things from Bende. This includes Tarhonya Egg Noodles (this are dense little noodles similar to spaetzle, but packed with fiber surprisingly?), and smoked boneless pork loin (this is great for cooking with to add flavor as it is super smoky or for slicing super thin and serving with cheese). If anyone that enters is a vegetarian, let me know and I can come up with an alternative for you. So remember to get entry in to me in the next 10 days. For more details http://mommygourmet.blogspot.com/2009/04/contests-and-sage-butter-agnolotti.html

***UPDATE** I forgot about the secondary contest, as to the evening someone would most like to be a part of. Whoever wins that will receive a collection of recipe cards from me, containing my favorite recipes (some not on the blog).

So in keeping with the theme of the contest Joel and I decided to do little entertaining ourselves. There is a couple whom we really enjoy spending time with. Sadly, to this point, we had not had them to our house for drinks/food. I decided it was time to put and end to that and invited them on over. As is a bit typical of me, I went a bit overboard with the food. I will see something and think, “Oh that will be perfect.” or “I think they would really enjoy that.” Before I know I have enough to feed army.

So here was the spread…..







We had St. Andre and this wonderful truffle pate that I got at Trader Joes (God I love that place). Got to love the pipe coming up from the coutner. Ahh the joy of near 100 year old houses!!






These are dates stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in bacon. I should have used a toothpick to secure the bacon (this was thicker bacon that I useally use so didn’t stay in place as well.) We also had some kielbasa from Fresh Market that I coated in honey and stone ground mustered and broiled. Just an aside the kielbasa was okay but looked and tasted like knockwurst to me?





We enjoyed a plate of Humbolt Fog (a personal favorite) and aged gruyere, with a rosemary ham (also from Trader Joes.)



We had wine and vodka gimlets and a wonderful time. After seeing them off we were shocked to see it was 12:30!! It had been such a perfect evening I thought it was more like 10:00 when we came in and could not believe my eyes to see I lost 2.5 hours. But… what a great way to loose them!!!

Shrimp and Smoked Pork

If you have not been to Bende (to the right under “sites I love”) you really should check it out. They have lots of really lovely things. Among my many favorite is their smokes pork loin. It traditionally is sliced thin and served as part of a cold plate (with other meats and cheeses). I will often use it to cook with. It is super smoky and imparts a wonderful flavor, however it is a super lean cut of meat. I would tell you a really good smoky bacon would be a good substitute, but cook the bacon and blot prior to putting in the sauce.


3 tbs smoked pork lion (or smoky bacon)
½ onion sliced
2 tbs butter
½ lb shrimp cleaned and chopped into bite sized pieces
1tbs olive oil
1 red bell pepper diced small
1 cup dry white wine
2tbs flour
1 c. half and half
½ lb pasta
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Pinch of sugar
Salt and pepper
Squeeze of lemon (if you have it)

In a pan heat butter and oil.
Add onion and loin.
Sauté for 10 minutes.
Add flour and stir to coat, then add wine, shrimp and bell pepper. Cook for 5 minutes.
Add bell pepper and cook. It should be thick.
Add half and half , nutmeg, sugar, salt and pepper (I suggest a lot of pepper). Cook about 3-5 more minutes to heat half and half and thicken just a bit. Toss with pasta and squeeze a little lemon over.

Mushroom Chicken

2 tbs butter
1 tbs olive oil
1 onion sliced
3 large chicken breast bone in skin on (3.5 lb)
4 tbs of flour
4 c. chicken broth
2 c. of quartered mushrooms
1 c. dry white wine
2 tbs marjoram
1 Turkish bay leaf
½ c Greek yogurt or sour cream

I could not have been more pleased with the way this came out. It was creamy and earthy and wonderful (if I do say so myself!) I, have a love affair with Greek yogurt. It allows me to have all the yummy goodness of sour cream with ¼ of the fat and calories. My husband, who I can’t get to eat anything that is adjacent to light and healthy loves it and told me I could stop buying sour cream. For those of you that hate mushrooms (and I know you odd things are out there) you could omit them and substitute peppers or potatoes. I used bone in/skin on chicken. I think keeping the skin on made this a very rich and wonderful dish, but I think you could easily (and I did) take the skin off the chicken and eat the meat without it, I just recommend cooking with it.

Add butter and olive oil to stock pot or Dutch-oven and melt butter.
Add the onion and sauté over medium heat for about 10 minutes.
Salt and pepper chicken (I also used a little onion salt) and lay on bottom of pot.
Sprinkle with 4 tbs of flour then add 4 cup of chicken broth and bring to a boil.
Once boiling reduce to simmer and simmer for 20 minutes. Add 1 cup of dry white wine, mushrooms, bay leaf and 2 tablespoons of marjoram and simmer for 40 minutes.
Take about ½-1 cup of hot liquid and add to your yogurt or sour cream, stir, and then put the mixture back into the pot. Doing this keeps the milk from curdling.
Heat for 5 more minutes and serve.

For those of you doing weight watchers this would be about 9 points per breast the best I can tell (they don’t give you a raw, bone in skin on choice??) . I served this with mashed potatoes that I put skim milk and about 3 tbs of greek yogurt in and it was great and about 1.5 per ½ c. serving.