New recipes, December 21, 2013

Roast Chicken with Walnut Pesto from the December 2013 Food and Wine. We used game hens. Both the birds and the pesto were good, we didn't really see the benefit of combining them. We give this a 3.
Served with an off the cuff salad--arugula dressed with walnut oil, white wine vinegar and Viandox, with perfect pears, toasted walnuts. This was great--we give it a 5.

Wine: Brophy Clark Santa Barbara Pinot Noir 2009

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.