Roasted Shrimp for One

I call this "Dinner for One" because, quite honestly, it is my favorite thing to eat when I have a weeknight home alone. The shrimp in this recipe are marinated briefly in lemon and garlic and flash-roasted to utter succulence. The red peppers seem to complement the dish nicely, and the crusty rustic bread is essential for sopping up all of the wonderful juices that are released from the peppers and the shrimp marinade. The shrimp and vegetables are all prepared in a single pan, requiring very minimal cleanup. By all means, feel free to "scale up" this recipe for a crowd. The shrimp, served alone, make a wonderful appetizer that really sing when paired with a dry, white sparkling wine.

This evening I picked up a bottle of Monkey Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2007 from New Zealand to drink with the shrimp. The bracing acidity and flavors of grass, minerals and citrus are just right with the shellfish - a wonderful weeknight indulgence in just under 30 minutes!

Roasted Red Peppers

1 red bell pepper

2 t olive oil

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper.

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Line a baking sheet with foil. Core and seed the bell pepper and cut into long strips. Toss the peppers strips with the oil, salt and pepper on the baking sheet and roast for approximately 20 minutes. Peel away pepper skin, if desired.

Serves 2

Roasted Garlic and Lemon Shrimp

6 to 8 large peeled and deveined shrimp (thawed if frozen)

1 to 2 garlic cloves, minced

Juice of half a lemon

1 T olive oil

Kosher Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 450 F. Toss all ingredients in a bowl and let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Dump the shrimp and the marinade on a foil-lined baking sheet and spread out to create a single layer. Roast the shrimp for 3 to 4 minutes, until just barely cooked and still tender. Serve immediately.

Serves 1

Serve the shrimp with roasted red peppers and plenty of crusty, rustic bread to soak up the juices from the shrimp.

Avalon Napa Valley Cabernet, 2005

A complex, elegant Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon under $15 a bottle? Not possible, right? Wrong!

Normally, I would not dedicate an entire blog post to a single wine, but this bottle inspired me to do so. The 2005 Avalon Napa Valley Cabernet is really something special. Avalon Winery makes only Cabernet and has succeeded in producing an earthy, complex wine under $15 per bottle. Good Napa Cabernet normally does not come cheap - $50+ per bottle is pretty standard.

The 2005 Avalon Napa Valley exhibits dusty, dark fruit aromas with flavors of black cherry, red pepper and a touch of vanilla. The best quality of this wine is its finesse. Many times, Cabernet is a really big, "muscular" wine. The balanced tannins and relatively low alcohol (13.8%) content of this wine gives it a restrained elegance, no doubt a result of the careful blending performed by the winemaker for this vintage: 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Syrah, 6% Merlot and 1% Petite Syrah.

Avalon Winery has two Cabernets on the market - this bottling and a lower-priced one with an orange label. Their lower priced bottling is quite decent, but the Napa Valley Cabernet is amazing. This is definitely a wine to purchase by the case!

Pork Cutlets with Pears and Port Sauce

Pork and pears are a natural combination. Both are most appealing in the fall/winter months and conjure up images of the kind of delicious fare one might find at a farmhouse in France. This dish is what I would call quick comfort food – certainly practical for a weeknight, yet satisfying enough to make your family look forward to dinner. Here is the recipe:

Pork Cutlets with Pears and Port Sauce

2 Bosc or Bartlett pears, ripe but not soft, peeled, cored and quartered
2 T unsalted butter
8 boneless pork cutlets, sliced thin
flour for dredging
1 t dried thyme
2 T olive oil
¼ c minced red onion
½ c Tawny port
¾ c low sodium chicken broth
1 T flour
1 T unsalted butter
salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet (not nonstick!), melt 2 T butter and saute pears on medium heat until tender, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl and set aside.

Prepare a dredging plate of several tablespoons of flour with the thyme leaves, a pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Heat 1/2 T of olive oil in the skillet until hot. Lightly dredge the pork cutlets in the flour and saute 1 to 2 minutes on each side until just cooked and lightly browned. Work in batches of 2 cutlets at a time with 1/2 T olive oil per batch and transfer pork to a platter kept in a warm oven.

When the pork cutlets are cooked, add the red onion to the pan and saute about 2 minutes until slightly tender. Pour in the port and deglaze the pan for 2 minutes, scraping the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Pour in all but 1 T of the broth and mix the remaining broth with the 1 T of flour in a small bowl for thickening of the sauce. Add flour mixture to skillet. Cook on medium heat until the sauce reduces by half, about ten minutes. Add 1 T butter to the sauce as well as salt and pepper to taste. Return the pears and pork to the sauce and combine.

Transfer the pork, pears and port sauce to a platter for serving.

Serves 4

Slowing Down Dinner

Slow down dinner...is he kidding? Shouldn't we be trying to speed things up? Yes, it is true, there are some days during the work week when nothing but the quickest, most efficient dinner preparations will due. However, on weekends and other days when we aren't as pressed for time, we can and should slow things down and enjoy the pleasures of a leisurely paced meal with our family. One of the best ways to do this is by preparing and sharing an appetizer and enjoying a glass of wine before even giving a thought to making the main course.

Appetizers, hors d'oeuvres, nibbles or whatever you like to call them need not be complicated or overly fussy. The days of trays of hot canapes passed by tuxedo-clad waitstaff are over. Modern appetizers tend to be more rustic and simple - small foods designed to whet the appetite and allow good conversation. A chilled glass of white wine is optional, but highly recommended!

The delicious plate of foods in the photo features a tasty spread of pureed edamame on slices of rustic bread. This appetizer sounds complicated, but it's a breeze to make. Here is the recipe, loosely adapted from a feature in Williams Sonoma's Wine and Food:

Edamame Crostini

1 c thawed and shelled frozen edamame (soybeans)
1/4 c olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T fresh orange juice
1/2 t kosher salt
3 dashes Tabasco sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
3 T chopped mint
About 20 Crostini (slices of toasted rustic bread brushed with olive oil)

Heat the olive oil in a small frying pan on medium and add the garlic. Cook until fragrant but not brown, no more than one minute. Add the edamame and saute for five minutes, until the beans begin to soften. Dump the contents of the pan into a food processor and add the orange juice, Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper. Process until smooth, adding a bit more water or olive oil to make a cohesive paste, if required. Scrape the mixture into a small bowl and stir in 2 T of the mint.

Spread the edamame puree onto the crostini and garnish with the remaining mint leaves.

Serves 4

Wine: We like to have these crostini with a glass of well-chilled Sauvignon Blanc. The grassy, herbal flavors of the wine are delicious with the garlic and mint.

Dinner with Friends

Last night, we had a couple of our close friends over for dinner and enjoyed a delightful evening of good food, wine and conversation. Having friends over for dinner is a wonderful way to personalize your time together and make sharing food and wine a special event. There really is not, in our opinion, a better way to spend an evening.

Inviting friends over for dinner does involve more work than going to a restaurant - making sure the house is clean, choosing food and wine that will please your guests and setting the table to let your friends know that they are welcome in your home. With a little planning ahead, you can easily create an evening that everyone (including the cook!) will enjoy together.

Last night, we ended dinner with poached pears and a small slice of Ciambella, an Italian ring cake. The pears were especially welcome after all those heavy holiday desserts of the past month. Here is the recipe:

Spiced Poached Pears

2 cups bottled orange juice

1/2 c dry white wine

1 c. water

1/2 c sugar

1 cinnamon stick or 1/4 t ground cinnamon

5 whole cloves or 1/8 t ground cloves

5 cardamom pods, lightly bruised

1 t vanilla extract

4 Bosc or other pears, peeled with stems intact

Combine the first eight ingredients in a medium-sized saucepan or Dutch oven and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and add the pears. The poaching liquid should cover about three quarters of each pear. Add a bit more water, if necessary.

Gently poach the pears for 20 to 30 minutes, keeping the liquid at a bare simmer. Turn the pears now and then to cook evenly. The pears are done when they can easily be pierced with a knife but are not falling apart. Allow the pears to cool in the poaching liquid when done.

The pears can be served warm, drizzled with the poaching liquid or can be chilled (overnight is fine) in the refrigerator to serve cold. Allow 1/2 to 1 pear per person.

Serves 4 to 8, depending on portion size

Variation: You can serve the whole pears as a dessert by themselves by slicing a small section off the bottom of each pear to stand upright on a plate. Drizzle with a thickened chocolate sauce, allowing the sauce to puddle around the bottom of the plate.

Bread for Dinner

What is it about homemade bread that makes a dinner special? The crisp outer crust with a tender, feathery interior - perfect for soaking up all the delicious juices that run over the plate. That seductive, yeasty aroma coming from the kitchen immediately lets everyone know that good things will be happening at the table that night.

In its purest form, bread is really the simplest combination of very humble ingredients - flour, water, salt and yeast. In more elaborate forms, it may be enriched with butter, eggs, milk and countless toppings and fillings to make it something even more special. Bread truly represents culinary magic - combining just a few ingredients to create something utterly unlike anything that goes into the recipe.

It is true, the best artisanal breads made at home do require time and patience. Long, leisurely rising times are the key to well-developed flavor in bread. That is not a reason, however, to forgo making bread for dinner altogether. Take these dinner rolls in the photo, for instance. The dough for dinner rolls can be quickly mixed, allowed to rise in the late afternoon and be shaped and baked right before dinner. They are very delicious with a pat of butter and ensure that your dinner at home will be a special event.

Dinner Rolls

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking, Parker House Rolls

1 c whole milk
2 T unsalted butter, softened
1 T sugar
3/4 t salt
2 T warm water
2 1/4 t yeast
1 egg
3 1/2 c flour

Heat milk in a small saucepan until warm. Stir in the butter, sugar and salt until the sugar dissolves. Allow to cool to lukewarm.

In a large bowl, combine the yeast and warm water. Allow the yeast to dissolve for 5 minutes. Stir the lukewarm milk mixture into the bowl with the yeast. Beat in the egg.

Stir in about half of the flour with a spoon and knead in the rest. The dough should be smooth and slightly sticky. Adjust the amount of flour slightly to achieve a smooth dough. Place the dough ball into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 60-90 minutes.

When the dough has risen, turn onto a lightly floured surface and shape into two logs. Cut one dozen uniform pieces of dough from each log, and shape into the desired form. For round rolls, shape the dough into a round, pinching the loose edges of dough at the bottom of the roll.

Place rolls on greased cookie sheets, twelve rolls to a sheet. Cover with a damp kitchen towel, and let rise for about 30 minutes. Bake in a preheated 425 F oven until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack, and serve the day they are made.

Yield: About 24 rolls

New Holiday Cookie Recipes

This year for Christmas, I was once again attempting to shake things up and try something new. It was a busy month at work, so a lot of the traditional cookies I would normally make (Rum-flavored sugar cookies, Mexican wedding cookies and others) did not happen in 2008. Along with the traditional molasses spice cookies (somehow, these always get made...), I decided to make a type of "holiday" rugelach. Having never before attempted these beautiful Jewish cookies, I turned to Ina Garten, whose recipes, while heavy on the butter, have never failed me.

Ina's recipe for rugelach (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/rugelach-recipe/index.html) is very easy-to-follow. I substituted a mixture of chopped pecans, dried cranberries and raisins for her walnut/raisin mixture to make them more "Christmas-like". Be forewarned - these cookies are not for the beginner! The recipe involves chilling dough, rolling out dough and carefully assembling the cookies with their filling. The result is very rewarding - a tender, not-too-sweet cookie that practically melts in your mouth. These cookies received rave reviews from family and friends alike. Definitely a keeper!