I’ve never been a fan of fruit wine. (Yes, I know, grapes are a fruit, but they are in an entirely different classification that is NOT fruit wine.) When I think of fruit wines, I think of sticky sweet, thin, bodiless, alcoholic cousins to fruit juice, and distant distant relatives to real wine. I can’t help it. And I’m only sort of sorry I feel this way. But! I’ve recently taken another look at fruit wine.

Several months ago, my husband started home brewing. He’s done beer here and there in the past, but always from kits. Now, he’s making his own mash and wort for beer, and diving into fruit wines. His first fruit wine was a cran-apple. We spent hours coring and juicing apples, and I kept thinking: This is going to be a waste of time. I HATE fruit wine!!! I was stunned when I tasted it, and it tasted like, well, wine! Not exactly wine wine, but not a sticky sweet, thin, bodiless, alcoholic cousin to fruit juice either. This had a lot of body, depth, and flavor.

Our next venture was a strawberry pomegranate wine. We bought pounds and pounds of frozen strawberries from Costco, thawed, boiled, and mashed them, added pomegranate juice, sugar, and yeast. We had to tinker with this a little. The pomegranate over powered the strawberry and made it quite tart. Too tart, really, and since this was already made to be an off-dry wine, instead of an semi-sweet like the cran-apple, the combination of dry and tart was too much. We bought strawberry nectar and added it after racking the first time. (Racking is simply a fancy term for moving the liquid into a new, clean container (called a carboy) to get it off the bottom sediment.) That did the trick! The wine turned out beautifully! Lighter bodied than the cran-apple, but tons of flavor that unfolds at different times in your mouth.

If we have any leftover by the time summer hits, I’m thinking we should turn some of it into wine coolers. I also want strawberry-pomegranate vinegar… And don’t you think this color is just beautiful for Valentine’s Day?

Now, we’re trying to think of what to make next. If you have any ideas, please comment!

There is a pizza shop in town that advertises on their website a Northwest Territory Pizza that I wanted to try. We called to order it one night, and they had no idea what we were talking about. Apparently, they are a regional chain, and our chain doesn’t carry that particular pie. Truth be told, I’m not much of a fan of this pizza joint anyway, so it wasn’t too disappointing. A few weeks later, I gathered similar ingredients and made my own version. I wasn’t satisfied with it, however. It was too salty, and the cheese wasn’t right. Like the pizza advertized, I used Gorgonzola and Parmesan, but the combo was overkill and you couldn’t taste the other delectable ingredients. I shelved the idea for a while and came back to it a few weeks ago. This time with great results!

I don’t think pizza should have a bunch of rules and measurements. I think you should use the ingredients in good balance, and use more of those particular ingredients you like or whose flavors you want to emphasize. When I made this pizza, I opted for more apple and sundried tomato, and went light on the walnuts and mushrooms. I also went light on the cheese, using just enough mozzarella to cover most of the pesto sauce, and a light sprinkling of Parmesan over the toppings. Choose a pesto sauce you really like, because you’ll definitely be disappointed if your pesto sauce isn’t appealing.

Ingredients:

(see note above regarding measurements)

pizza dough
apple, sliced (choose a variety that has plenty of crunch. We like Cameo and Fuji.)
mushrooms, sliced
sundried tomatoes, sliced
walnuts, chopped
pesto sauce
mozzarella cheese, grated
parmesan cheese, grated

Guidelines:

Form your favorite pizza dough into whatever shape and size you want. (I like to prebake mine for about 8 minutes in a 375 degree oven so the crust is a bit crispier, but this is optional.)

Heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Spread the pesto over the crust. Top with mozzarella cheese. Spread your ingredients evenly on top of the mozzarella, and sprinkle with grated Parmesan.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

It’s so easy to pack an unhealthy lunch. Cookies, chips, crackers, sandwiches piled with processed meats and cheese and slathered in mayo. Yick. I don’t keep any of that stuff in my house. If we’re craving it, we have to drive to the store and get it. Usually, it’s not worth the hassle. And the “not in my house” rule has made for much healthier (and tastier) packed lunches. Yes, it requires cooking, but I take Sunday afternoon to listen to the football game(s) and cook for the entire week. Here are some of my favorite recipes from three of my favorite sources. Buy these cookbooks, and visit the blogs, and try them for yourself! (Our lunches usually consist of some type of sandwich or burrito, a green salad, a bean or grain salad, yogurt, fruit, and a granola bar, muffin, or other homemade sweet treat.)

Cookbook: Food to Live By: The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook by Myra Goodman

Corn and Black Bean Salad
Black beans, sweet corn, tomato (I prefer red pepper for a crunchier texture), red onion, and parsley (I substitute cilantro), mixed with a great dressing of olive oil, vinegar, chile powder, cumin, and more. Good warm or cold.

Moroccan-Spiced Bulgur Pilaf
Pictured above, this is an absolutely delicious grain dish that combines the nutty flavor of bulgur with the sweetness of apricots and raisons. The dish also includes pine nuts, and a dressing of garlic, cumin, coriander, olive oil, lemon, and more. Very yummy! I was surprised at how much I loved this recipe.

Cookbook: Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites

Quinoa Black Bean Salad
Packed with protein, quinoa is a small grain that’s fast cooking (15 minutes max!) and great tasting. This salad combines fiber rich black beans, bell peppers, fresh chiles such as jalapenos, tomatoes, and a tasty dressing of olive oil, lime juice, cumin, coriander, and more. Fresh cilantro makes this dish pop.

Barbeque Beans
For a quick batch of BBQ beans with some spunk, try this recipe. It uses some store-bought sauce, but adds dried mustard, maple syrup, onions, garlic, cider vinegar, and hot sauce. Tasty and easy.

Sweet and Sour Lentils
Sweet and savory combine in this Indian inspired recipe. Apple juice, ginger root, onions, garlic, carrots, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and other ingredients make these lentils a hit. Lentils are high in iron. Delicious served hot or cold.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos
Hands down one of the most delicious burritos I’ve ever had! And there is no cheese involved! The sweet potatoes add a creamy, sweet texture, so there is really no need for cheese. In fact, I think cheese would ruin this burrito. I make huge batches of these, wrap them in wax paper, and freeze them.

Blog: 101 Cookbooks by Heidi Swanson

Big Sur Power Bars
I’ve blogged about this recipe a gazillion times, but it’s truly genius! Nuts, toasted coconut, and espresso powder in a granola-ish bar! Watch the video, and get the recipe for yourself.

Berry Beer Baked Beans
Beans and beer! But not any beer—Lindeman’s Frambois Lambic! Hello! Lindeman’s is a sweet raspberry beer, and boy is it yummy. (And that’s coming from a girl who loves porters and stouts, and isn’t a fan of sweet alcoholic beverages.) Check out the recipe here.

Triple Ginger Cookies
Way too addicting! Be careful with these! Fresh ginger, ground ginger, and fine chunks of crystallized ginger team up to provide a sweet and spicy kick. Go here to try these for yourself.

I was recently sent a sampling of POM Iced Coffees which included 2 of their 3 flavors—Chocolate and Cafe au Lait. Their 3rd flavor is Vanilla, which I’m excited to try. In general, I’m not a huge fan of packaged coffee drinks, as they tend to have this slimy mouth-feel that’s, to put it simply without curse words, wrong. Luckily, neither of the POM Iced Coffees has this strange texture.

(As an aside: My husband and I joke about what ingredient imparts that slimy feel, and he kind-of-but-not-really jokingly mentioned propylene glycol, which is often used in oral pharmaceuticals, cosmetics such as toothpaste and lotion, food colorings, saline solution, coolant, and has a host of other industrial uses (yummy, huh?). Wikipedia lists propylene glycol’s characteristics as faintly sweet, colorless, nearly odorless, clear, and viscous. Viscous = thick, sticky, glutinous, gelatinous, gluey, tacky. Yep, sounds about right. And he could be right, though I have yet to see propylene glycol listed as the exact ingredient. I wonder if it has other names…)

Both coffee drinks had good flavor. The Chocolate was reminiscent of chocolate milk, with a coffee kick, and the Cafe au Lait definitely had strong espresso undertones. All POM’s coffee drinks contain their POMx antioxidant, which is an extract of their pomegranates. Apparently, this antioxidant is more potent than those found in red wine, green tea, and grape and acai extracts! (Which is why POM calls their Iced Coffee the “Healthy Buzz.”) (Oh, yeah, it contains loads of caffeine—175 mg per bottle.) I’d be curious to try their coffee mixes before they added the extract, to see what flavor the extract imparts on the drink… As another plus, POM uses Rainforest Alliance Certified shade-grown coffee beans, hormone free milk, and organic cane sugar. Could it get any better? It can? Oh, yeah—I forgot to mention their cute animated sheep. What, you ask? Check out their website and you’ll see!

Over Labor Day weekend, hubby and I met my dad and his long time lady friend in Eastern Washington for a wine tasting tour. The “tour” only ended up consisting of 2 wineries—Blackwood Canyon (in Benton City) and Kestrel (in Prosser)–but we spent 3-4 hours at each place. A very interesting 3-4 hours, I might add, where we tasted more wine than we knew we could handle. The Eastern Washington experience is far different from what I’ve found in Sonoma, the Willamette Valley, and, um Santa Fe. (As for the latter, well, there are better wine growing regions. Much better. Sorry Santa Fe.) I’m sure other wineries in the country (and abroad) are as lively, personal, and eccentric as those we visited, but I must say, it would be hard to top our experience at either place! Talk about a trip!! (I’m hoping the resident Wine Guru, aka Dad, aka Dan) will talk about Blackwood Canyon in a later post, as it was his mighty fine selection. In case you must know more right now, however, just Google Blackwood Canyon, and you’ll get an “earful.”)

At Kestrel, our tour guide, Ken, walked us through the bottling area where we had a glass of their red blend “Lady in Red” before we hit the barrel storage room to try some samples. We tasted the ‘07 soon-to-be-bottled Old Vine Cabernet Sauvignon (really looking forward to this release!), Co-Ferment Syrah, Mourvèdre, and a Cabernet Sauvignon that’s tentatively labeled “2 Ton.” (Talk about YUM!!) After the barrel samples, we headed back to a private room to snack on cheese (brie, domestic bleu, aged cheddar and herbs, and gouda) salami, crackers, and focaccia, and more wine. We tasted the current releases of all of the above, plus their Old Vine Merlot, which I’ve always loved.

But I’m here to talk about the Mourvèdre, however, so let’s do that, shall we? (By the way, Mourvèdre is pronounced Moo-Ved.) Kestrel’s Mourvèdre consists of 75% Mourvèdre, 19% Syrah, 5% Grenache, and 1% Viognier. It’s in the Winemaker’s Select Series, which allows the winemaker to express his (or her, but in Kestrel’s case it’s a he) creativity. Kestrel’s winemaker prefers to co-ferment his wines instead of blending them, and the Mourvèdre is no exception.

The currently available Mourvèdre is from 2006, and right out of the bottle it’s—as Ken put it—”tight as a tick.” While at Kestrel, we ran the Mourvèdre through a Vinturi, a sleek and compact wine aerator, and it opened right up. (Forgive me if I’m not using proper wine terminology! Maybe I should say it blossomed??) I’ve never had a Mourvèdre before, but the flavors I picked out were currant, cherry, raspberry, floral, and something earthy. But what exactly? I’m still searching out that particular aspect. (Luckily we have another bottle!) The Mourvèdre flyer lists red currant, rose-petals, cherry, dried herbs, tea and spice. I’m not sure I discerned any tea, and I can’t think of which herb might give it that mysterious flavor I’m picking up, but on my next tasting, I’ll think about them. What’s particularly interesting about this wine is the floral undertone the addition of Viognier (a white grape pronounced Vin-Yay) gives it. It’s a fun, elegant, and somewhat unpredictable (meaning I didn’t expect to taste what I did) wine to drink, and I would expect it to get better in the next year or two.

Check out Kestrel Vintners online.

A classic Philly Cheesesteak is made with thinly sliced steak, onions, and cheese (often American). Well, the only part of that sandwich that’s edible to me is the onions, and while today’s Philly often includes ingredients such as peppers and mushrooms, they’re still not my kind of sandwiches. I don’t eat beef, and American cheese, not to mention Cheese Whiz, which is a popular Philly spread, bothers me. I’ll refrain from say disgusts, but really… In my sandwich, I substitute turkey breasts for the steak, and a good stinky provolone for the American cheese. I also use onions and red and green peppers, as well as a spicy chipotle sauce. And I grill all of it. It’s really not a Philly since I’ve taken the Philly out of it, but it’s inspired by, so I’ll use the name to describe it.

Ingredients:
2 large turkey breasts (find these next to the chicken breasts)
1 large red onion
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
6-8 large deli-style slices of Provolone cheese
6-8 hoagie style sandwich rolls

2-3 chipotle chilies
2-3 tsp. adobo sauce (the chipotles come packed in this sauce)
2-3 tbsp. honey (depending on taste)
2-3 tbsp. olive oil (depending on desired consistency)
1 tbsp. white wine or apple cider vinegar

Guidelines:

Butterfly the turkey breasts so they are of even thickness. Coat them in a high flashpoint oil, such as canola, and salt and pepper.

Remove the stem and seeds from the peppers and cut them in half. Coat them in a high flashpoint oil, such as canola.

Halve the onion and peel apart the layers. Coat the slices in oil.

Combine the chipotle sauce ingredients in a small bowl and mix as well as possible. It should be slightly chunky, as the chipotles like to hold their structure. I use a spoon to chop them apart.

Place the turkey breasts on the grill over moderate heat. When they are ¾ of the way done (they take up to half an hour), place the vegetables on the grill. At this point, take about half of the chipotle sauce and transfer it to another bowl (or paper plate, etc.) for brushing over the turkey breasts. (You don’t want to contaminate all of the sauce with any uncooked turkey, as you will be using the remainder to drizzle over the sandwiches.)

Once everything is cooked, let cool, then thinly slice everything.

Place one slice of cheese on the hoagie sandwich roll and toast in a toaster or regular oven until hot and bubbly.

Heap the onions, peppers, and sliced turkey into the roll, and drizzle chipotle sauce over the filling.