February 19, 2011 new recipes

This was a fabulous dinner! I continue to be amazed by Mario Batali. I've really liked pretty much everything in Molto Italiano, which is the source of these 2 dishes. We started with Eggplant Bruschetta . Since we did not find Italian eggplant, we used 2 small regular eggplants, which worked just fine. We enjoyed that while we were making Duck Ragu. The original recipe was Garganelli with Duck Ragu. Rather than handmake the garganelli, we substituted penne. And this evening we used chicken legs instead of duck legs. We will certainly do this again with the duck!

The wine was a Santa Margherita 2006 Chianti Classico. This wine was a gift and if I could remember who gave ti to us I would be thanking you again!! It is a rich wine with the flavor and aroma of dark cherries, cocoa powder and oak, with gentle tannins. I am definitely going to look for this wine. It was a wonderful match to the food.

We finished dessert with homemade Profiterolles, which Anne showed Carl how to make. Time to go for a run!

January 27, 2011 new recipe

Dinner on 1/27/2011 was Shrimp and Scallops with Asian Eggplant, which Carl served over rice. This is yet another recipe from Epicurious.com. Epicurious aggregates recipes from a number of sources, and we have been very happy with most of the recipes!

The wine was the 2009 Leitz Out Rheingau Riesling.