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Pear, Beet, and Arugula Salad with Zinfandel Reduction

October 13, 2011 in Food, recipe, wine by traveleatlove | 8 comments

Fall seems to officially be here, and we have definitely started to make a shift in our eating habits. Gone are the heirloom tomatoes (I had some AWFUL ones earlier in the week!). Brussels sprouts are back with a vengeance, and I have been loving pears, apples, and butternut squash. Fall can be the best time of year to make salads, mixing it up from those tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn and adding a little sweetness from pears, apples, and beets, and that’s just what I did the other night.

I started with three blushing pears and three large, earthy beets.

While I got the beets cooking in a pot of boiling water, I cracked open a bottle of wine for the dressing, a Zinfandel from our visit to Amista. The dressing for the salad? A simple Zinfandel reduction, made by bringing the Zinfandel up to a boil, then reducing it and keeping an eye on it so that it doesn’t reduce too much. You want it slightly syrupy, but not completely stuck to the pan. The smell of simmering wine is pretty darn delicious!

The salad base was a wasabi arugula which promised to have a kick. Sadly, it did not. However, I did try a new product I received to review, Clearly Fresh BreatheWay bags, and they made a HUGE difference in how my greens kept throughout the week. I tend to buy a ton of greens like kale, spinach, lettuce, and arugula, and since I can’t eat them all immediately, they often get black and rotten very quickly. I transferred each group of greens into its own Clearly Fresh bag, pushed out the air, and sealed them up. A few days later, the leaves were dry and perfect. I am pretty excited about these bags and being able to preserve expensive produce a little bit longer.

Once the Zinfandel was reduced and the beets were peeled and cooled, I just tossed everything together and topped with crumbled honey goat cheese.

I love how a simple, easy-to-make salad can make a meal feel special. Even with just a few ingredients, this delicious combination was kind of spectacular. The fact that it was a healthy addition to our main course, an AMAZING chicken tortilla soup, made it even better.

I guess I can say that I am starting to get into the whole change of seasons thing. The food, and of course three new pairs of boots (Have you tried ShoeDazzle yet?! The shoes I got definitely aren’t the best quality ever, but they are so inexpensive, making it a fun place to shop for trends or short-term use/seasonal shoes and boots. ) make it a little more appealing!

How do you keep your diet healthy and full of veggies and fruits once the summer starts to wane?

Tags: Amista Vineyards, arugula, beets, fall, pears, salad, Vegetarian, wine

Lemony Arugula Pesto Tortellini Salad

August 2, 2011 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 8 comments

The title is a mouthful, isn’t it? And this easy pasta salad was too, a mouthful of lemony, garlicky, summery flavors, perfect for a late Sunday dinner at sea.

Making food for boating is tricky. It needs to be something that will keep fairly well and that will fit in the small fridge or in our cooler bag. And it has to be enough for a five or six hour trip, usually for four people. One of the things I learned early on as a little boater was that eating is imperative. It’s actually when you don’t eat that you get more sick. So packing substantial food is key, and being creative is always important to me.

So important that Saturday night I could not sleep because I didn’t know what to make for a dinner outing with friends. We had cheese and crackers, pretzel thins, cookies, and salami, but we needed more. At around 4 am, I finally figured out all of the ingredients for this Lemony Arugula Pesto Tortellini Salad.

While a container of Trader Joe’s spinach tortellini and a half a bag of orrechiette boiled, I whipped up a simple pesto made with several cups of arugula, a cup of baby spinach, garlic, juice of a well-juiced lemon, olive oil, sea salt, and parmesan cheese.

The pesto was just so bright, due to the lemon, and slightly creamy from the parmesan and olive oil. It was bursting with flavor, and my warm pasta drank it in.

To the pasta I added a can of artichoke hearts, rinsed and chopped.

And two cups of sweet grape tomatoes, chopped in half.

Three chicken breasts were chopped, tossed in the pesto, and baked until done. Them using my vegetable scissors, I shredded the meat to top the pasta salad.

Once chilled, the salad was the perfect light summer dinner, packed with protein and flavor, keeping us full as we bobbed along the waves and watched the sun go down over Boston. I am definitely going to be brainstorming more creative pasta salad ideas for the summer, just hopefully not at 4 am.

Do you have any pasta salad combos you love? Like me, do you do some of your best thinking in the middle of the night?

Tags: arugula, chicken, Food, pesto, recipe, salad, summer

the girl + the fig

March 14, 2011 in Food, Travel, wine by traveleatlove | 16 comments

One of the biggest highlights of last week’s visit to Sonoma was undeniably getting to see my friend Robin again. I have referred to Robin in past posts, like the time we met at Bistro du Midi and had dinner at Towne, but she is probably most famous for the Venge wine dinner she hosted in September. Robin is a ton of fun, an amazing chef and blogger, and overall just one of those people who you just have to have a good time with!

On a very warm and sunny day (last Tuesday), Eric and I went to Robin’s house where we reunited with her adorable dogs and very sweet mom. I also finally got to meet Cynthia Cosco, the winemaker at Passaggio Wines and someone I have been tweeting with for some time. Luckily, she kindly brought me a bottle of her highly-acclaimed Unoaked Chardonnay. I can not wait until it arrives in Boston (via NJ, stupid MA wine laws!) with the wine we shipped from California.

We also got a sneak preview of Cynthia’s first rosé, which has yet to be released. It was absolutely beautiful.

Robin had made lunch reservations at the girl + the fig, a restaurant I was eager to try since we cancelled reservations last March, due to our being on East Coast time and staying pretty far away.

the girl + the fig is located on Sonoma Plaza, and on this particular day, the weather was perfection. The restaurant touts country food with a French passion, and both the outside and inside are wrapped in cozy French country meets Sonoma warmth.

Once we were situated at a big round table near the back, we let the winemaker among us order the wine, a dry rosé, Maison Bouachon from Tavel France, an area known for its dry rosés. Did I mention the weather was perfect? Rosé was a perfect choice, and after we returned the first bottle, which was corked, we were all happy with the wine.

To start, we shared pastis-scented steamed mussels and frites.

Served with grilled bread and a tarragon aioli, the mussels were fragrant and perfectly-cooked, and the frites were nice and crispy, perfect for dipping.

The table also shared the grass-fed steak tartare which Robin somehow convinced me to try. It was good, but while eating raw tuna doesn’t bother me, I couldn’t get over the raw beef factor.

It was back to veggies for me. I ordered the arugula and fig salad; I figured I must have figs at the girl + the fig. Lightly dressed with a port vinaigrette, the arugula was spicy, the goat cheese creamy and fresh, and the figs like sweet candy.

Robin had the wild flounder meuniere.

And Eric had the beet salad with pretty pink beets.

We were all too full from dessert, but I am hoping a return trip to the girl + the fig is in our very near future. Who knows when we will be in Sonoma again?