Napa and Cooking Catchup

8:43 PM

The BF and I went to Napa over the weekend to celebrate his new job and to relax and get out of town. We drove up on friday night after work and had dinner in downtown Napa at a tapas place named Zuzu. The next day, we spent the morning at Oxbow public market checking out the farmers market, had some mexican breakfast fare and coffee and then headed out wine tasting along the Silverado Trail. We hit up Mumm, Miner Family, Robert Sinskey, Chimney Rock and maybe another? After we got back into town, we had some oysters inside of Oxbow at Hog Island Oyster, bought some cheese and charcuterie from The Fatted Calf. Saturday night, we had dinner at Bounty Hunter in downtown Napa and then Sunday, we had a picnic with the cheese and charcuterie goodies that we picked up at Oxbow along with a bottle of merlot. It was so much fun that I forgot to take pictures :)


I haven't posted many of the meals that I've cooked in the past month only cuz most of them were what I cooked on the fly and served just to fill the purpose of putting food into my mouth. Below are the more memorable meals (the ones I actually put effort into)

Meal 1: Not sure when we had this but we had some wings (from Safeway), caprese salad, noodles with broccoli and pancetta and roasted chicken, most likely cooked with fruit of some sort. We paired that meal along with The Bruery's Trade Winds beer which is like a light, fruity saison or farm style ale.




Meal 2: This is mango curry chicken from the blog Steamy Kitchen. I love Jaden's recipes and this one was super easy to put together and cook and really tasty. I paired it with a quick version of Asian Chicken Noodle Salad. Didn't follow the recipe exactly, but it was still pretty tasty. 




Slow Cooker Dish 1: This was the first time that I've pulled my slow cooker out in about a year or so. I'm really paranoid that the whole thing is going to blow up or set on fire so I had to be there to watch this one cook. This recipe is a breakfast recipe from Make it Fast, Cook it Slow and was a egg based frittata with portobello mushrooms and onions. It turned out a little watery which could be prevented just by cooking more of the moisture out of the portobellos. 

The dish starts by sauteing two sliced portobellos and an onion in a saute pan until soft. I should have cooked it longer at this point. 
Then you add the mushroom and onion mixture into the bottom of the cooker, add some cheese (recipe called for feta but I only had blue) and then pour 6 (half the recipe) eggs on top. 
Set it on high and cook for 2 hours until the eggs have pulled away from the sides and have browned. 


Came out a little weird looking but not too bad for a first try with my cooker

Slow Cooker Dish 2: These are turkey, apple and cheddar meatballs from the same book that I made tonight. These were pretty good. I grated the green apple and smoked cheddar with my food processor to cut out on the arm work. The apple and cheddar are mixed with ground turkey, an egg, dried cranberries and some spices and formed into meatballs. Stack the meatballs into the cooker and cook on high for 4-6 hours.

I cooked mine for about 4 hours and it turned out a bit drier than I would have liked, so this probably would have done well with just 3 hours of cooking. I served this along with a pasta with an olive oil, pea, shallot, garlic and lemon sauce and we had two english muffins from a Napa bakery that were SO good. I also made homemade blackberry jam with some fruit that I couldn't finish from the weekend. The jam was made by boiling the blackberries (mashed a bit with a potato masher) and maple syrup for a sweet and slightly smoky flavor. We paired all of this with a chardonnay from Carmel Valley Vineyards.


Now that I'm done with school, I'll spend more time cooking through some of the wonderful recipes that I can't wait to try from my cookbook haul :). Enjoy!

Wishing you good eats, 
Janine

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