Kitchen Roselli

Dining out with my love is one of my all time favorite things! This weekend we enjoyed a meal at one of our favorite local restaurants, Kitchen Roselli. I love going here to eat not only because the food is excellent, but I love the atmosphere.

A few years ago, a lovely couple renovated one of our last remaining historical buildings and turned it into a restaurant. I was thrilled because I used to work in this building when it was a "General Store" that sold everything from bib overalls to  Christmas knick knacks. The building was also featured once in a short film called Two Soldiers that won an Academy award!

Their menu is flavorful and hearty Italian fare. When we dined there this week they were featuring a steak special. I do adore a filet mignon! I devoured every delicious bite
 of this little beauty that was cooked to perfection in a red wine and mushroom sauce.

Morgan enjoyed a hearty pasta dish, which unfortunately I did not take a picture of because I was too intent on eating my own meal.

My steak was also accompanied by a side of spaghetti, which was also delightful.

To compliment our meal, we enjoyed a bottle of wine  (as we often do!) Morgan discovered this wine when we dined at Roselli's back in April and it is now one of our favorites. We are big supporters, and by supporters I mean drinkers, of Yadkin Valley wine, but we try not to be snobbish about wines not made in our own appellation. This lovely wine is made in Sicily and sipping it makes you feel like you are there. It is so smooth and the flavors of blackberry and fig give it the barest hint of sweetness although it is a dry wine. After taking a bite of our antipasti salad with salty olives and salami the wine tasted even sweeter. We plan to find out where we can buy this wine and have at home because we love it that much!

Of course, no good dinner out is complete without dessert. At Kitchen Roselli, getting dessert can be a little cut throat. The restaurant's most popular dessert is a cream puff and there are not always enough for everyone. Sadly, we were told all the cream puffs were gone when it came time for us to order dessert. We do enjoy a cannoli so we were going to settle for that. And then, a most wonderful thing occurred. A cream puff was liberated and delivered to our table! We were beyond thrilled.

And then something even more amazing happened, the server offered us an after-dinner drink! Why is this amazing? My whole life, our town and county has been dry. The fact that we can even enjoy wine and now liquor at a meal out is quite amazing. I enjoyed a very soothing glass of Amaretto. Yum!

Cheers!

Wine for supper

I'm sure this never happens to my food blogger idols like the Pioneer Woman, but sometimes supper just doesn't work out like you hoped it would. There are some nights you plan to go home and get into your pjs straight after work and have wine or perhaps a can of icing for supper, but some days it's just a last resort.

My Dad (bless his heart) tried to make hamburgers in a basket for our supper tonight and it was a dismal failure. Perhaps dismal is too strong a word. It really wasn't horrible, it just wasn't good but we are apparently food snobs in my family and refused to eat it. Hamburgers in a basket is sort of a 70's fabulous dinner item that is an old favorite of ours. We haven't had it in quite awhile and Daddy thought it was a good idea to break out an old favorite.

The recipe is simple. You put a hamburger patty in a packet made of tin foil and top it with sliced potatoes, onions, carrots and green pepper. Season it all well and put it in the oven for about an hour. The secret is in the seasoning. My Dad always accuses Mamma and me of over salting everything. The secret to the recipe really is in the seasoning though. You have to coat this stuff down with salt, pepper, seasoned salt and Worcestershire.

***We interrupt this blog post with a message from Mamma***

"Why are you putting that recipe in a blog. I've always hated that recipe. It's not good. The potatoes don't cook up crispy enough in that foil," says Mamma. 

Well, clearly after all these years Mom has decided to confess her hatred of hamburgers in a basket. I agree with her that the potatoes don't get crispy. However, if it is seasoned correctly I still think this is a fast and easy weeknight menu item. One pot (or packet of foil, as the case may be) meals are always good for busy week nights.

Unfortunately, Daddy seems to have a seasoning phobia and failed to put enough salt, pepper, seasoned salt or even Worcestershire sauce on the burgers in a basket. Flavorless meat and veggies are just a major bummer. If you decide to try burgers in a basket, salt, pepper and season till your heart's content. I promise it will be good. I think some Tony Cachere's would be great on it! Maybe I'll try that next time.

Sadly, tonight's supper was a failure so we ended up eating cheese, crackers, olives and wine for supper.

Really the only downside to having large amounts of wine and cheese as a meal on a Tuesday night is that it may make you feel like crying at random commercials like the University Phoenix of Commercial. Are they really using Amazing Grace as the background music?

Steak and Pumpkin Cake

Our annual Pumpkin Festival is this weekend and I volunteered to bake some pumpkin goodies for a charity bake sale. I really wanted to try to bake these pumpkin nutella muffins, but I decided instead on this pumpkin pound cake recipe.

Pumpkin Pound Cake

I thought the overall flavor of the cake was nice, although it could have been more pumpkiny (is that a word?) The cake called for a glaze, but frankly, I'm just not a glaze kinda girl. Since it was for a charity bake sale I also thought it would be less messy without any icing. If I make this recipe again, I would definitely ice it with a cream cheese frosting.

When fall arrives, I become a pumpkin junkie! If you know of any other great pumpkin recipes I should try, please let me know! And now on to my other culinary adventures of the evening. . .

Tonight for dinner we had one of my all time favorite meals ever, steak, baked potato and salad. Sadly, I have realized that I am actually quite content to just eat steak and potato and forget the salad. Oh, yes, and garlic bread. I do adore garlic bread! Yum!

Steak, Salad, Wine & Garlic Bread. Yum! Yum!

Since we are such good friends, I will share my secret steak recipe with you. If you are a steak purist, like my boyfriend, you may not care for this, but if you like a steak with a little kick, you will love it! I put a small splash of olive oil in a deep pan and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, then I lay the steak in the pan. I prefer a t-bone, preferably one with a large filet side! I sprinkle both sides of the steak with an unflavored meat tenderizer, white pepper (you know it's my favorite!) and garlic powder. Then I coat the entire thing in Tony Cachere's creole seasoning. I adore creole seasoning! I think I could actually just eat this stuff right out of the container. Ok, maybe not, but it is yummy! After I put the creole seasoning on the meat, I sprinkle a few more dashes of Worcestershire. I like to let this marinate for a few hours, but even if I don't have time for all that, I still use this same method and it makes the steak very flavorful. A few minutes before putting on the steak on the grill, I add a sprinkle of kosher salt to the meat. This steak is so good I actually lick the bone when I'm through! YumEE!

I always like to serve a nice hearty red wine with steak. In the above photo is a bottle of Castle Rock Petit Verdot that I bought at the beach this summer. (I confess this was taking awhile back as I was too intent on chowing down to actually take any pictures tonight.) Tonight we had Cupcake Malbec, which was excellent!

Cheers!

Fine Dining in a One Horse Town

I'm from what you call a "one horse town," make that county. The county refused to allow the railroad line to go through in 1871, 1885, and again in 1908 and we've been a little behind the times ever since. Restaurants are one of the things we are severely lacking in, especially nice restaurants. As a transplant from NYC once told me, "popcorn shrimp ain't exactly fine dining." As our wine region continues to grow, however, we are beginning to see some improvement in our dining options as well. (What kind of wine does go with popcorn shrimp, I wonder?)

Tonight, Mom and I had dinner at Sanders Ridge Vineyard & Winery and we found it a delightful evening all around! Enjoying something other than a hot dog (or fried seafood) in a beautiful log building nestled in the woods is a great treat for us one-horse-towners. The menu is not extravagant, in fact in mainly involves salads and sandwiches, but there are some intriguing entree specials as well.

View from the porch at Sanders Ridge

We began with a cheese course that featured blueberry Stilton, granny smith apple, candied cashews and grilled foccacia. It was simply wonderful. I could have stuffed myself with bread and cheese and been perfectly content.

For the entree course, I ordered the grilled rib-eye smothered with bleu cheese, grilled onions and overnight tomatoes. I'm sad to say I did not take a photo, but it was a sight to see! The steak was huge! My boyfriend will be extremely jealous when he hears about it, he does adore a rib-eye! I think he would probably have enjoyed the dish more than I did. While it was good, I have come to the conclusion that rib-eyes are just a little too fatty for me and I found the bleu cheese a tad overpowering to the dish. The garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus were seasoned perfectly, however!

I was jealous of Mom's entree. She ordered what they were calling a "stuffed chicken" which was actually a very unique interpretation of chicken cordon bleu. It was a fried chicken breast stuffed with honey ham and pimento cheese! We (yes, that's the royal we!) love pimento cheese! 

Being at a winery, we naturally chose to enjoy a glass of wine with our meal. Mom had the Carlos Muscadine wine. If you grew up in the south, and ever had a fresh muscadine grape right of the wine, you will certainly identity with this wine. Of all of the muscadine wines I have had, theirs tastes the most like a fresh muscadine! 

I had a glass of the chambourcin (ok, I had two!) I plan to do a future post all about chambourcin soon, because it is one of my favorites. The Sanders Ridge chambourcin has a very intense smoky flavor and a very unusual tartness, reminiscent of rhubarb! It paired nicely with both the Stilton and the steak. 

Sunset at Sanders Ridge

Having such a restaurant nearby is such a joy for us and the lovely setting is really the best part. This evening as we were leaving, there was a beautiful full moon rising over the vineyard. As much as I love my iphone, it really couldn't capture the true beauty of the scene. 

Moonrise over the Vineyard

If you are in the Yadkin Valley area for any reason, you should definitely plan to do a tasting and dine at Sanders Ridge. If you are the adventurous type, you can also go zip lining as well! Let me know how you enjoy it if you do get a chance to go.

Cheers!

Wine 101

Award winning wines at Hanover Park Winery.

The very first wine I ever had was Boone's Farm. Go ahead, you can laugh! After only consuming Strawberry Hill and the like, my first job as a wine reporter for a small newspaper was very enlightening. As a reporter in a small town you have to be a jack (jill?) of all trades. From house fires to car accidents and the annual gingerbread house contest, I photographed and wrote about it all. Reporting on wineries and new bed and breakfasts, where they fed the reporter during the interview, were certainly the best perks of the job.

Having a job where tasting wine was a requirement made a huge impact on my life. I am now an oenophile and a big proponent of this growing industry in my community. The Yadkin Valley Wine region in North Carolina is still very young, but it is continuing to grow and mature. There are currently 17 wineries in the Yadkin Valley region and a total of 112 wineries in the entire state. (My goal: Visit them all!)

Many farms that produced tobacco for years are now growing grapes and many people in the bible belt who used to think drinking wine was a sin are now enjoying a glass with their evening meal! For me, it wasn't exactly something I took to right away. Sure, the sweet wines were one thing, but sampling those dry reds for the first time wasn't always a enjoyable. When you visit our local wineries, they will begrudgingly tell you that their sweetest wine is their biggest seller. I say there is no reason to be ashamed of that. The locals (and even some visitors from exotic metropolises like Charlotte) are still growing into this wine thing too! Believe me, I drank a lot of muscadine wine before I was brave enough to drink more than a sip of a merlot or cabernet. 

Bottom line, I say drink what you like, but don't be afraid to try new things. As I continue to visit my favorites and some of the 112 NC wineries I have yet to explore, I will share my thoughts with you here. Please come back and visit soon. 

Whether you are an NC native looking for a relaxing weekend or planning a visit to our great state to sample the wines, be sure to check out www.visitncwine.com. 

Cheers!