Creamy and comforting…

Ingredient list:

8 oz fresh baby spinach leaves
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
12 oz dried penne
3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola
kosher salt and pepper from the mill
3 T minced fresh chives

Rinse the spinach in a colander in the sink

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and toast the walnuts until dark golden brown, about 6 to 7 minutes

Cook the Penne according to package directions and drain over the spinach (in the same colander), it will soften the spinach some

While the pasta is cooking, make the sauce by putting the cream

gorgonzola, a grind of pepper and a pinch of salt in a large dutch oven

cook on medium high,stirring frequently for a few minutes until slightly thickened. Reduce the heat and add the pasta, waltnuts and chives. cook, stirring constantly until some of the sauce is absorbed by the pasta. Add a little of the reserved cooking water if necessary to make it creamy.

I took my plate out on the deck with a glass of Chianti and toasted garlic bread drizzled with some nice olive oil…

Mama Mia!

Adapted from Fine Cooking Magazine

This post is in honor of the letter Z and part of Jenny Matlock’s Alphabet Thursday. For more “z” posts, please click here http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/

Yippee!!!

I have been craving fresh guacamole, but the tomatoes this time of year are pretty sad. So when I went looking for a solution to the problem and found this recipe in a Rick Bayless cookbook (Mexico, One Plate at a Time), I tried it out. It isn’t quite the same as fresh guacamole with tomatoes from the garden, but it’ll do on a day when you feel like if you don’t have something fresh and green, you might not be able to get out of bed in the morning… Here’s the recipe:

2 medium fresh poblanos
1 medium tomato (I used two)
2 unpeeled garlic cloves
3 T fresh parsley
3 medium avocados (I used two)
Salt
2 T fresh lime juice
2 T Mexican queso anejo cheese (I used Romano)

Lay the poblanos, garlic and tomatoes on a baking sheet

Roast under a hot broiler, turning every few minutes, until the peppers are blistered and the tomatoes are softened, about 12 or 13 minutes.

Place the peppers in a bowl, cover with a towel and let sit for 5 minutes, then wipe off the blistered skin, remove the seeds and membranes and rinse under cold water

Remove skins from tomatoes and chop

remove the paper skins from the garlic

In a food processor, make a coarse puree of the garlic and poblanos

place in a bowl with the chopped tomatoes and parsley

Cut the avocados in half all the way around

remove the pits and scoop out the flesh, add to the bowl

mash with a spoon or potato masher, add salt and lime juice to taste, sprinkle with cheese and serve with tortilla chips and a crisp Mexican beer with lime. You might be able to fool yourself into thinking it’s summer for a few minutes ( just don’t look out the window until the guacamole is all gone!)

Progress! Some days it seems like nothing at all gets done (probably because Dick never even showed up), but some days the house looks entirely different when I get home.

As the outside sheathing goes up and the house starts to take shape, I can’t help but be excited. I race home every night to see what progress has been made and some nights I sigh with disappointment because nothing has been done, open a bottle of wine and have dinner in my little trailer.

Some nights, however, I can see actual progress and I run around with my camera and take pictures, trying to imagine what it will look like when it’s done.

Those nights make me believe that this might kinda sorta be worth it someday…

stairs!

I spend my entire day talking to, writing to or emailing attorneys. Is it any wonder that I drink?

When I get home from the office most days, the first thing I do is open a bottle of wine, put something fun on the stereo and start chopping vegetables. On the evenings that I get home before dark, my kitchen is usually dappled with the subdued light of late afternoon. In the summer, I open the kitchen windows so the silky mountain air can fill the room. It doesn’t matter much what I’m making, what matters is the ritual: The pop of the cork as I extract it from the bottle, the satisfying sound the wine makes as I liberate it from the bottle and into the glass. The setting sun lights up the glass as I toast the end of the workday and the beginning of a well-deserved evening.

Try it sometime, you might be surprised at how creative you can get in the kitchen…

Then there are those nights when the beauty of the mountains takes my breath away. On those nights, I take my wine out on the deck with some bread and cheese and call it a day.

Do you have a nightly routine? Does it involve wine? lol…. Do you always make dinner or do you sometimes goof off on the deck with cheese? Inquiring minds want to know.

xxoo,

RMW