January 21, 2011 new recipes

Dinner on 1/21/2011 had a fabulous new dish for us, Persian Style Chicken, with Walnuts, Onion and Pomegranate Sauce (Fesenjan), from the Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl, and Flemish Brussel Sprouts, from Everyone Eats Well in Belgium by Ruth van Waerebeek. They were both quite good, but they did not seem pefrectly suited for each other.

The wine was a 2003 Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay, which worked very nicely with both dishes.

January 1, 2011 new recipes

New Years Day, 2011. We made Chicken with Juniper Berries, from Ruth van Waerebeek's Everyone Eats Well in Belgium Cookbook. We also made Fresh Chanterelles with Shallots from Epicurious.com, and a green salad. Both were new to us.

Our usual green salad is made with a very simple vinaigrette--olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a little Viandox. Viandox is a Knorr product, which our friends Anne and Gilles introduced us to when we visited them in France. We have not been able to get it in the US, so we tend to return from France with a bunch of bottles in the suitcases! It is a salty sauce with yeast extract, some spices, soy sauce, and beef extract.

Being New Years Day, we also had to have black eyed peas. I modified the Curried Black Eyed Pea Soup recipe on Epicurious.com. I didn't use bacon, just olive oil and the smoked paprika for the smokiness of bacon. It was really nice! The chanterelle recipe also came from this site.

I can't remember what red wine we had with this.