Towandaaaaaa!

This episode of Fresh Food Wednesday is brought to you by one of my all time favorite movies: Fried Green Tomatoes.  Why?  "I'm older, and I've got more insurance!"

BLfgT Sandwiches
"That frying pan did more than fry tomatoes that night."

Ingredients purchased at The Farmers Market
Green Heirloom Tomatoes
Mixed Greens
Spring Hill Garlic Quark Cheese (You can buy it through their website.  Don't say I never did anything nice for you!)

From the Grocery
Bacon, Sourdough bread

From the Pantry
Flour, Eggbeaters, Breadcrumbs, Salt, Pepper, Cooking Oil

 Slice the tomatoes into nice, thick slices. 

Arrange three bowls.  The first bowl has flour (salt and pepper to season).  The second bowl has Eggbeaters (you can substitute 3 beaten egg with 1/4 cup of milk).  The third bowl has bread crumbs.  Put a tomato slice in the flour bowl, turn to coat.  Then put the same tomato into the eggbeaters, turn to coat.  Finally the breadcrumbs, turn to coat.

While you are preparing the tomatoes, heat 1/4 inch of oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  Fry the tomatoes on both sides.

Toast the sourdough bread slices.  Spread one side with Garlic Quark Cheese.  Holy Cow is that good cheese.  I mean come to mama, oh heck no, I won't share, good cheese!  On the other side place your mixed greens.

 Stack the tomatoes on the greens, top with bacon, and cover with the quark coated slice!

"Oh, what I wouldn't give for a plate of fried green tomatoes like we used to have at the cafe. Ooh!"

Serve with sides of your choice.  I suggest oven roasted french fries with garlic and parmessan cheese.

My mouth is watering just talking about it.

Oh, and the wine?  Trefethen Riesling. 
You will have to wait until Friday for the details though...

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I wanted 8 kids.

But then I got pregnant.  Boy, did I hate being pregnant. 

So instead we have 3.  Three amazing, wonderful girls who light up our lives.

And sometimes I drink a wine called Seven Daughters. 

Close enough, right?

(My daughters are much older than this now, but I am pretty sure they couldn't be cuter!)

Seven Daughters
A blend of Syrah, Merlot, Zinfandel, Carignane, Cabernet Franc, Alicante Bouschet, and Cabernet Sauvignon. 
I would describe it as fruit forward with a full mouth feel.  Young... but intriguing.  Great with pizzas or sitting on the deck on a crisp fall evening.
$13.99

Fresh Food Wednesday

I am introducing a new feature on my blog: Fresh Food Wednesday.  We have been meaning to get to the local farmers market since we moved here.  We finally got our acts together yesterday.  Holy Cow was it amazing.  It was small in scale, but the produce was gorgeous.

The idea for the feature comes from today's trip.  Tim and I are big nerds.  Food nerds, that is.  Tim is a chef by trade, and I worked in hotels and restaurants my entire life.  We love eating and cooking good food.  This is important because you will think I am incredibly nerdy when you read our idea...

Challenge:  Dinner Tuesday night comes from the farmers market.  All items, other than meat, or pantry staples must be purchased at the market.  Menu planning may not be done in advance.  You must create from what you find!

I warned you we were food geeks!  But it sounds awesome, right?!

We purchased:  Beets, Organic mixed greens, Valencia oranges, lemons, farm cheese, and pluots.  No we didn't make anything with the pluots, but the Goose really wanted them! 

We stopped at a local market on the way home and picked up Red Snapper to go with our farmer's market finds.

Dinner?  Mixed greens with beets, oranges and farm cheese tossed with citrus vinaigrette and panfried snapper with citrus buerre blanc

The prep:

For the beurre blanc: slice 1 shallot and put in a small pot.  Add 1/4 cup juice.  I used half of an orange and half of a lemon for the juice.  Add 1/4 cup white wine.  Cook over low heat until reduced by half.  (you can work on other prep while it does this.  It takes some time.)  Add 2 tbsp of heavy cream.  Stir and simmer until thickened.  Add  1 stick of butter, cubed and very cold.  Remove pan from heat.  Whisk until butter is melted.  Strain to remove shallots.

Boil the beets until tender.  Run under cold water and sluff off the skins with your fingers.  The skins come off quite easily.  Wear gloves if you don't want to have purple fingers!  Chop and set aside.

Supreme the oranges and set aside.  Oh, if supreme is a term you are unfamiliar with, it basically means to section the orange.  There is a really easy way to do it, but that is for another post!

Wash greens and set aside.

Take the juice of one orange and one lemon and place in a tall mixing glass with olive oil, some roughly chopped basil leaves and a little bit of white wine vinegar.  Mix the bageezus out of it.  I like to use a stick blender.  If you haven't ever used one, buy one.  They are great for salad dressings, smoothies, sauces, and my personal favorite, soup.  It is definitely $26 well spent!  Buy it here.

Toss the greens in the dressing, top with beets, oranges and crumbled farm cheese. 

For the snapper.  Season with kosher salt and cracked black pepper.  Heat your skillet for a minute or 2 on high.  Add olive oil and let that heat a moment too.  Put the snapper in the skillet and lightly fry on both sides.

Top with Beurre Blanc.

Simple and delcious! 

Enjoy! 

A quick tribute to my husband, who actually cooked this dinner.  I just licked my plate at the end.

Thanks Honey!

Fiat Lux!

Today we took Megs to UCLA 

Erin started at Northwestern last week.

To say I am proud is inadequate. 

They are amazing, strong, beautiful, thoughtful, kind, smart, funny women. 

I am blessed to call them my girls and my friends. 

I LOVE THIS WINE!

And I don't say that very often.

Especially about a wine this cheap.

I swear to you, I love it.

And it is even better after it has been open awhile.

You should buy it... tomorrow.

Blackstone
Sonoma Reserve
Rubric
2007
A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (55%), Malbec (14%),
Cabernet Franc (8%), Petit Verdot (8%), Tannat (7%),
 Merlot (5%), Petite Sirah (3%)

$13.99 at Trader Joe's and worth every freakin' penny.
Big, Full-bodied, Delicious.
Buy it!  Drink it!  Tell me you love me!

(oh, and I wish there was a picture... but my camera is a piece of crap.  Santa please take note.)

This is suppose to be a wine blog.

When I was young I was passionate, outspoken, and deeply opinionated.  It came from a good place.  A place of righting wrongs, and speaking for the underdog.  I was often brash though, and reckless.  And as I look back now, sometimes I struggle with the picture of the girl I was.

As an adult, I have become quieter.  I hate conflict, and while I still hate injustice, I am more apt to keep my opinions to myself.  Some of that comes from feeling as though everyone is entitled to their opinion, and some of it comes from not wanting to be told mine is wrong.  I don't know when I changed.  Maybe it was when my mom died, but I'm not really sure.

The point is that I usually keep both my religious and political views to myself.  Yet here I find myself, days before September 11th, caught up in a media uproar about how we see God, what it means to be a Christian and an American, and the fundamental differences between being patriotic and being prejudiced. 

I am of course speaking of The Dove World Outreach Center, Pastor Terry Jones, and their plan to burn as many Qurans as they can get their hands on this coming Saturday, September 11th.  They believe that "Islam is of the devil." and that they are standing up to the terrorists who committed the horrors of September 11th.  The broad, sweeping generalization of this statement scares me.  The Quran is the holy book of Islam.  It is a book filled with the teachings of The Prophet Muhammad.  Much of the book is filled with peace and love, just like the Bible.  It is religion from another perspective, and who are we to judge it. 

Certainly, Pastor Terry Jones and The Dove World Outreach Center has a right to their demonstration.  We are blessed to live in a country that allows us to say what we think, regardless of the harm it may cause.  It is called Free Speech.  I will say this though.  I don't believe that their choice to burn the Quran on September 11th has anything to do with Free Speech.  It is hate mongering dressed up in a free speech prom dress.  As a Christian and as an American, I am disappointed at the deepest levels of my soul. 

So this Saturday, I will be praying.  I will pray for peace.  I will pray for understanding.  I will pray for tolerance, but mostly, I will pray for a miracle.