Thursday, February 7, 2013

Getting in touch with my Foodie Side; Chef Paul, Carmenair Wine, Pontificis, Shrimp Ravioli

I have not had the time to update ye old blog in a while so thought it would be fun to post some of my recent food creations and some wine I have been into lately. Enjoy!


This was some lemon dill salmon the wife prepared. She used the majority for sashimi but I was able to talk her into creating something else. She used some fresh dill and some lemon infused olive oil and a spritz of honey balsamic vinegar that gave the needed light hint of sweetness to it. Was a wonderful dish we enjoyed with some white wine which unfortunately I have forgotten the name and label. My bad.
This was another salmon dish that I oven baked using some Chef Paul Salmon Magic. Trust me on this, if you want amazing salmon simply buy the aforementioned spice and apply it liberally. Whether you are grilling it or oven baking, or even a quick sear-you simply can not go wrong with the Chef Paul.

This was a tri tip I did on the grill. It was on sale at Fresh and Easy and while I had never picked up a slab of meat like this before, I was impressed with the quality. Sure its not the Beef Palace but for the price certainly better than Stater Bros or some of the other local markets. For this cut I finally tried ground coffee as part of the dry rub and it did not disappoint. It had a savory, smoky flavor that worked for sure. The quick details, I dry rubbed using a bevy of mixes in the spice cabinet and the coffee. I then turned the grill for a semi indirect heat and cranked the left burner to maximum and seared all sides for roughly a minute or two, and the top racked the roast and kept feeding the smoke chips for the next half hour or so. Red meat/Red wine-you are a wondrous melange of flavors that vegetarians and non-alcoholics dont deserve to experience.

Carmerair wine from Trader Joes. Maybe the best chilean wine I have ever had. The Carmenair along with the Pontificis wine have been two great best buy TJ wines. I think the carmenair is probably a little more user friendly, but after aeration and opening up a bit the Pontificis was fantastic and gave off far more flavor than you would expect for the bottle price. Must buys for you TJ's fans! Jason of Jason's Wine Blog fame, offers up a great in depth review of the 2010 PontificisWine.