Kentucky Wine!

One of the things I've noticed about Kentucky is the lack of users on yelp.  Yes, businesses have a page but there are usually only a handful of reviews, so I'm trying to help that by throwing in some of my own.  I thought a good place to start would be to review all the wineries we have visited since moving to Kentucky!

The first Kentucky winery we went to was Chrisman Mill's tasting room in Hamburg, see my yelp review here.  The wine was not so good, the server didn't really answer our questions but he was nice, and the tasting room was very cute, that about sums it up!  After tasting wine there we were very nervous about Kentucky wine in general and worried that we might not be able to find any that we liked.

Our next free weekend we drove out towards Frankfort to try some wineries out there and had a nice meal at Holly Hill Inn (review here).  Our first winery was Prodigy (review here) which was a good stop, not really what we expected but still glad we stopped by.  Our second stop was Equus Run which we loved, and highly recommend!

Our next wine trip occurred during RoB's birthday bash, and you can read his details about it here.  We started at Grimes Mill which was a very friendly place with good wine, and also was interested in hiring RoB (talk about a great birthday present!) he now works there and blogs for them.  From there we went to Talon, which we had a groupon for, it was a  good deal but the wine was VERY hit or miss.  Last stop that day was at Jean Ferris, where we also ended up eating dinner.  My yelp review is just pertaining to the wine tasting, which was weird.  I wish they had a separate tasting room and not just the bar in the restaurant.  Their wine is great, but the wine tasting experience there wasn't great.

One day about a month or two later we were heading to pick up Angel from doggie day care and saw that Acres of Land winery was right around the corner, so we took a detour.  The wine was just ok, but the tasting experience was a bit awkward, I really hate it when you have to pay before you taste, and that's what they did here.

That sums up my most recent yelp dump, at some point I also plan to add Blackbarn and Harkness Edwards since we went to both of those during the McConnell Springs Barrel tasting.

30 by 30: Part 1

I've seen this started on other blogs and I was the one who gave Rob the idea for it.  I thought that it was time to start my own!  (Actually I've had ideas for quite a while which means I've already accomplished one of them...) All of this needs to be completed by Dec 21, 2014 (balls, that sounds not as far away as I want it to).  I'm very open to suggestions, so please leave some in the comments!  Here are my first eight:

1. Own some sort of property

2. Work as something other than a control systems engineer

3. Go watch Michigan play in a bowl game as a fan

4. Take Rob to a foreign country

5. Take Rob camping (Done!)

6. Enter a dog agility competition

7. Nordic ski to the Glacier Point hut in Yosemite

8. Learn a new flute piece (I haven't learned a full one since high school)

The table was set, it must've been fancy...

To recap, we spent a week in Tahoe for a short summer vacation.  Some of the highlights were 2 days spent backpacking, and one day painting preschool equipment.  We also cooked my parents a fancy-ish dinner as a birthday present!

Both of their birthdays happened over the summer and since we hadn't seen them until our recent trip to Tahoe we thought it would be a good time to take advantage and do something nice for them.  Luckily, Rob is a very good cook, and I am very good at telling him what to do.  So we I decided we he should cook this really great dinner for the main course, something including buttercream for dessert, and I had my eye on a few different appetizer recipes.  I also thought it would be nice to have a wine to pair with each course.

For the appetizer I decided to use this recipe for a blue cheese and leek bruschetta.  Rob was skeptical because he has a problem with serving something we've never cooked for ourselves.  But I knew my superior cooking skills would come through, and they did!

mmm...bruschetta

We paired this course with a Sonoma cab from Mutt Lynch Winery, Canis Major.  These were an overall hit, and very simple to make.

For the main course Rob cooked this wonderful Julia Child's recipe again.  He poached sole in a dry white wine and then covered it in a parisienne sauce (not really sure what this is, but it tasted good!).  This was served with a side of asparagus and multicolored carrots.

I was so excited to eat that I almost forgot to take a picture

We paired this course with a dry white wine (that was also used to cook the fish in) that was on sale at Whole Foods (although we'd recommend just using two buck chuck, that's what we did last time).

For dessert we made shortbread and buttercream.  Using the buttercream skills he learned we made the most simple one.  It normally uses Cointreau to give it an orangy flavor, but I wanted to try and use Chambord since I love raspberry and chocolate together.  We compromised and did half with Cointreau and half with Chambord.  For the shortbread we used my grandma's secret recipe (Ok not really secret, I just don't know it, but I'm sure Rob could tell you).  We paired the dessert with a red port from Kaz Winery.  We had made waaaay too much dessert (probably enough for 8 people), luckily we had friends coming into town that night and they finished most of it!

I think my parents really enjoyed it, we really tried to make it a nice atmosphere, too.  It's normal for us just to cook them dinner so actually setting the table and using nice place settings and glassware made a difference.  Eating on my parent's back deck with a great view of Lake Tahoe is a perfect backdrop for a nice summer dinner.

Fancy table

nice view



Baked Green Tomatoes

I've recently discovered green tomatoes and the wonderfulness of frying them. The dp (formerly bf, actually he doesn't need to be anonymous since he has his own blog where he calls himself ~RoB, but I think that is kinda stupid, so I'll just call him Rob) fried them the first time I brought them home from the farmer's market.  Then I saw a post over on my friend Mandy's blog about green tomatoes.  She did something a little different though, she baked them! And then she topped them with blue cheese and basil vinaigrette!

So I told Rob the next time I bought green tomatoes that we should try doing it her way, and guess what? He listened to me! You can see the whole recipe over on her blog (and check out some of her other recipes, they are awesome!) but I'm just showing you the finished product here!

Delicious!

They were very tasty and I loved a new idea for the toppings, not sure if the baking part won me over, I think I still like fried better, but if I'm trying to be healthier I guess I could work with it.  As you can see in the picture we paired it with a lovely wine, Bardessono Petite Sirah, that we got at Uncorked in Tahoe City.  Oh, and I started the meal with a little cheese that we happened to have have left over, one of which is my new favorite, Drunken Goat (you can get it at whole foods).