CSA Box Meets Kitchen Garden

One of the best challenges with the CSA has been figuring out how to use new ingredients, not necessarily the ones we would choose while shopping at the farmers market.  Watermelon radishes are beautiful and they offer a nice crunch.  The radish tops make nice hearty salad greens. However, they are pepper bombs when raw! … Continue reading

Watermelon Radish Salad & Lioco Rosé

A refreshing glass of rosé and a nice salad are just right on a hot summer night.  Continuing on our local theme, much of this salad is built from a our CSA box and local farmer’s market produce.  The combination of peppery crunch from the radishes, the sweet fruit and the salty feta provide satisfying … Continue reading

Spring Pea Basil Risotto and a Pair of Piedmont Wines

I might not choose to serve risotto on the hottest day of the summer, but it makes a fine dinner on days when the A/C is off and the windows are open.  Risotto’s historic home is the Piedmont area of Italy, so we decided to match the meal with wines from the same area.  We … Continue reading

Eat Local – CSA Veggies, Lamb & a Summer Syrah

Bossy Acres CSAWe received our first Bossy Acres CSA box this week!  It’s a little like opening the mystery box in those cooking shows on TV, but that’s part of the fun. Radishes – Summer Salad Stars 1st challenge: We would be getting radishes in this delivery.  Radishes aren’t one of our everyday vegetable choices, … Continue reading

More Mourvèdre Please

Say that three times fast! We usually try to match the wine with the food pretty carefully, but sometimes “Eat what you like with what you like to drink” is what happens.  On this particular Sunday afternoon, I was knee-deep in my Mourvèdre investigation, and we decided we wanted to try a couple of recipes … Continue reading

Mourvèdre: Unpronounceable

So you want to buy some Mourvèdre, but how in the world do you pronounce it? “Move Over Dear?”  You’re in luck, just click here.  It’s kind of fun!  Of course, the French ones will be Bandol, which is easier but less fun to pronounce. Today we’re trying another Bandol classic with an American Mourvèdre … Continue reading

Meatless Monday Chili & FoodBeerClick?

True Confession Honesty is the best policy: drink beer with your chili. When I set out on this Meatless Monday, I knew I wanted to try a chili.  I modified the recipe to use wine for the liquid instead of beer.  I kept the spices on the tame side. I tried a lean red low … Continue reading

Whatever’s in the ‘Fridge Flatbread

We love flatbreads and pizza for weekend lunches.  Sometimes we have a plan and sometimes we just root around in the refrigerator and see what we have.  You might like trying your own version with whatever you have in your ‘fridge.  Flatbreads seem to taste great with a wide variety of wines, we usually just … Continue reading

Tweet Your Recipe

Tweet Your Recipe Imagine squeezing a recipe with local ingredients into a single 140 character tweet.  Recently, Rick Bakas challenged his readers to tweet food pairing submissions in a competition featuring a different Washington State wine every day.  Sponsored by @2DaysinSeattle, the wine assignment for Wednesday was Andrew Will Sorella 2004, a bordeaux style blend … Continue reading

CSAWineClick!

Are you a CSA (community supported agriculture) member?  We’re trying our first CSA cropshare this summer, so we’ll have lots of opportunities to try pairing wines with a wider variety of vegetables than usual. Bossy Acres Bossy Acres is the name of the farm; Karla and Elizabeth together are the Bossy Chicks (aka the farmers).  … Continue reading