Nasturtiums

From the garden: Nasturtiums.

 

Nasturtiums, reaching out, to the left of the mint.

We discovered nasturtiums at a family meal where one of our cousins brought them to the table, literally. She's a professional landscape-artist-awesome-gardener; and her backyard is a mini-farm with just about every produce item you could imagine. The typical tomatoes, zucchini, peppers; but also blackberries, hops, asparagus, raspberries, radishes - anything that could possibly grow on her hillside in central Vermont! At this particular dinner, she presented a gorgeous salad of homegrown greens, freshly made vinaigrette dressing and these little, sweet-looking orange blossoms scattered on top.

For garnish?

Also for eating.

Yes, the blossoms and leaves are a nice, tasty touch to a salad. They are spicy! Not loaded with many Scoville units of heat; but they do offer a delicious, peppery touch to the dish. And they look wonderful!

When in the ground, they tend to spread out, so if you have a garden bed in your yard, they could fill it well. The lily-pad-round leaves present a beautiful appearance as ground cover. We've just been growing them in containers on our porch, so they kind of spilled out the front and created this wonderful cascading "waterfall" of bright orange blossoms. They blossom in shades from white to butter-yellow to fluorescent orange and hot red.

Nasturtiums are also super-easy to care for, so if you have a spare spot in your garden next summer, try them! You'll be able to create the most impressive salads, garnished with Nasturtiums; and bring them to all your picnics and pot-lucks.  Your friends will love it - ours do!

PA Taxes

...just discovered a secret reason why PA's state-controlled wine prices aren't so desirable.  Yes, if you live in Pennsylvania (Commonwealth residents know and disdain this), you have to purchase any wine or liquor at the Liquor Control Board's stores.  Yet, beer is sold separately at distributors; six-packs are available for take-out at some restaurants.  It is difficult trying to explain this system to out-of-staters, because - yes! - it is ridiculous, out-dated and seems to just be in place for the Commonwealth to make money off its resident-consumers.

H'okay, here's what we learned last night:  there is a "Johnstown Flood Tax" that has been present since the flood happened in 1936.  What was meant to be a temporary tax to raise funds to rebuild Johnstown was never repealed.  Suppose the Capitol still wants that money coming in, eh?





Here is an information site about the JFT:

http://www.johnstownfloodtax.com/

If you're a PA resident who purchases wine, consider what's going on here.  The personal is political.  Maybe we can vote to repeal this; in the mean-time, Delaware is a short drive away (for some of us).  *sigh*

Coastal White

Bartlett Maine Estate Winery is absolutely at the top of our list of favorite wineries.

Now, keep in mind that we've never been to France, Italy, Oregon, California...

...but that's irrelevant!

We have been to Maine and have visited the gorgeous grounds of the Bartlett Winery and have tasted almost all they have to offer and it's WONDERFUL.  Kathe Bartlett is one of the most gracious and witty women we've had the pleasure of meeting.  All we've gotten from Bob B. is a wave from the back room, as he's always busy working, working; but Kathe has taken us on tasting journeys through the fruits of their labor.

Bartlett Winery became Maine's very first winery ever in the 80s; since New England's climate happens to be super-hostile to grapes (not so much with the sunny, bucolic hillsides).  Thus, Bob & Kathe decided to pioneer Maine fermentation with what was growing in abundance:  blueberries.  Basically, we're drawn to their kick-startin', diligent, energetic attitude toward the craft they love.

Also, they've won like a bazillion awards for their many wines and their new distillery products, Pear Eau de Vie and Fine Apple Brandy (very fancy).

Seriously, though, their dry blueberry wines surpass a lot of red grape wines (that we've experienced) in deep flavor, sensuousness, color; but we'll get to those later.

Now presenting:

Coastal White

Apple & Pear Wine

 Bartlett Maine Estate Winery

Gouldsboro, Maine, USA

"Fresh and fruity, this medium-dry wine is popular served with Maine seafoods, poultry, pasta or picnic by the sea."

It's good.  It's so flippin' good.  You could drink it with every meal.  Even breakfast (though we don't encourage this).  Even a sumptuous roast-turkey-dinner.  Even ice cream at 11:00 PM.  Coastal White is sweet on the tongue, but leaves no syrupy film in your mouth.  It's fruity and pleasantly tangy; yet, being a semi-dry wine, holds up to meals of fish or pork excellently.  We had some tonight and it made our grilled chicken come alive.  There are very faint notes of clove at the end of each sip - perhaps derived from the apple half of the blend.

If you ever end up in the easternmost state, do yourself a favor and pick up a bottle (or a case!) of Coastal White or any of the other Bartlett wines.  And if you're way Down East, be sure to stop in to the winery in Gouldsboro for a sweet visit - you'll love the tasting room, set behind fragrant Maine spruce & pine.  It seems like every time we go for a tasting, we end up taking home a variety case - because they're all so delicious.  With a great story and absolutely splendid, award-winning wines; visit, and you'll find out why Bartlett Estate is one of our most favoritest wineries.

Anyways, the Bartletts' Coastal White is a great choice for pairing with lighter meals - or just as a refresher in the afternoon.  Try some!

Roast Chicken

  

Step one on how to roast a chicken: 

Own a Crock Pot.

CROCK POT CROCK POT CROCK POT!!!

This is crucial if you want a great and easy and efficient way to cook.  You can stick stuff in it; and as long as there's sufficient liquid, you can let it cook all day, while you're at work; and it's so easy it is even fun.  Also, there is no need to heat up the whole house with the oven on or spend your time inhaling hot steam from a pot on the stove-top; all just for a simple batch of chili.

So far, we've had great success in cooking meats and poultry in our Crock Pot.  The best thing to do is to grease the inside of the pot-insert (butter/oil/lard - your preference), plop down a hunk o' meat (a small bird, a pork butt, a slice of beef) and top it off with your favorite herbs, spices, onions; and add some liquid.  About a half-cup of water or stock will moisten your bit of meat and keep the edges from drying out to burntness.

Today's bird is covered with wedges of onion, copious amounts of whole garlic cloves; and the time-honored "Scarborough Fair" blend of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.  All herbs in this recipe were home-grown, of course!  We hope that we can someday say the same for our chicken.

Step two in roasting a chicken:  grease the inside of the pot.

Step three:  fill with a chicken, fresh herbs, onion & garlic, salt & pep and chicken stock.

Step four:  set on "low" to cook all day

Step five:  pull it out, slice and enjoy!

It is possible for us to elaborate all day about the endless potential and advantages of crockery cookery, but we will save that for another time.

Thanks for joining us!

G & K

Pasta Salad

Something easy for dinner (or picnics; or pot-lucks), here we go:

1.  Pick stuff from your garden.
    Wash it, chop it up into bite-sized bits (our medley includes cukes, zucs, peps, basil, tomatoes).

2.  Cook one pound of your preferred shape of pasta (bow-ties, elbow mac, wagon-wheels).
    Drain, rinse with cold water.

3.  Open one or two cans of black olives.  Drain & dump into a bowl.
    Add cold pasta & pile of chopped vegetables.
    Toss with your fave vinegar-based salad dressing.  Newman's Own Greek or Oil & Vinegar are tasty.

4.  Add shredded cheese if you want.

5.  Go on, eat it!

Borsao Rose

It's pink!

It's tart!

It's Borsao!  ...whatever that means.

Borsao Rose

Bodegas Borsao Estate

S.A. Borja, Spain 

2011

It it only fitting that Bodegas Borsao, home to the best Garnacha vineyards in Aragon, makes their rose from these wonderful grapes as well.  The first thing you notice about this wine is it's (sic) luminescent color which evokes images of sun drenched strawberries.  Bright red fruit aromas and delicate spice flavors fill the palate making this the perfect wine for an aperitif or light meal.

We've found that this wine is:

Tart!  Like a strawberry or a pineapple, perhaps.  It's got this great, refreshing mouthfeel with kind of a lingering fruity finish.  It's not on the sugary end of sweet though; quite the opposite.  A sip of this is similar to that lasting flavor right after biting into a fresh Fall apple - tartness all the way down, which is pretty great.

Tingley!  After uncorking and pouring, we noticed a very slight effervescent on the tip of the tongue.  This rose doesn't seem to be officially carbonated, but gives a tiny ping.  Yum.

Tasty!  On the whole, we've really enjoyed this bottle of wine.  It's got loverly fruit notes without the syrupy finish that sticks to your gums.  At $7.99, we may buy a few more bottles...

On Salsa

Folks, you've just gotta admit that chips and salsa make for one of life's greatest snacks.  Crunchy and salty meet juicy and tangy  ...oh, the joy!

If you want to make your salsa taste anything like good salsa, it's got to include copious amounts of lime juice and cilantro.

CILANTRO!!

One of God's great herbal gifts to cooking:  it is so very fresh-tasting, and adds a little piquancy and a lot of green delightfulness to your Latin American and East Asian dishes.  Did you know it's also called "Chinese Parsley?"

The other day, we picked several kilos of tomatoes from the garden.  There were Pink Beefsteaks, Purple Cherokee and a standard red variety whose name we've forgotten.  It's heirloom; promise!  One pink beefsteak weighed in at 2.25 pounds.  You can't convince us that that isn't impressive.

Tomatoes were chopped, onions minced and hot peppers diced.  We decided to do a sort of salsa verde with the yellowy German Stripe tomatoes, with some green olives added.

Olives in Salsa:  this is a marvelous idea.  On our honeymoon, in Portland (MAINE, not the other Portland), we found in a little wine-and-specialty-foods shop a jar of Gin and Green Olive Salsa.  Now, we adore olives, salivate over salsa and appreciate a refreshing gin cocktail.  Dirty Martinis, of course, rank high on our list of favorites.  That said, we had to nab a jar of this stuff.

Olives!  Gin!  Salsa!  Rolled into one... this stuff (whatever else was in it) ended up being far too ridiculously spicy to truly enjoy.  Honestly, we tried eating the tiniest dollop on a tortilla chip, and it was still killer!  Just to get through the jar, we ended up mixing it with a small block of cream cheese, which barely took down the heat.  Disappointed with our inability to enjoy this seemingly wonderful concoction, we chose to make our own (tolerable) salsa with diced-up manzanilla olives in it.  Mediterranean and Mexican meet, marvelously.

Pictured below are a straight-up tomato salsa (left:  many tomatoes, chile pepper seeds, cilantro, garlic, a little lime juice) and the salsa verde (right:  German Stripe tomatoes, jalapeno peppers,olives, cilantro, onion, a lot of lime juice).

We liked the green salsa a bit better, possibly because of the higher ratio of lime and cilantro to tomato.  The red one ended up being a bit too juicy.  Also, the difference between garlic-in-salsa and onion-in-salsa seems to be that garlic offers a subtle, sweet tang, whereas onion gives more of a bite with crunchiness.

However hard it is to wait to enjoy your fresh, homemade salsa, it is a great idea to let it sit in the fridge for a few days to let all the flavors marry.  Do so before serving at a party to really impress your friends!