A Taste Of East Tennessee for our Wine Club - Part 2

In my last post, I discussed the September meeting of our wine club with the theme of “Food and Wine from East Tennessee” where each couple brought a bottle of wine from our area for the tasting and a small plate dish from this area or the southern mountains. 

Our selections were wild boar sausage gravy with buttermilk biscuits and a peach wine from Chestnut Hill Winery in Crossville. 

A Taste Of East Tennessee for our Wine Club - Part 1

We hosted the September meeting of our wine club and selected a theme of “Food and Wine From East Tennessee” so each couple was asked to bring a bottle of wine from our area for tasting and a small plate dish from this area or the southern mountains.  The photos are courtesy of Big Daddy Dave and should give you a sense of the evening.

We began with appetizers of pickled watermelon rinds, pickled beets, and Bev's pimento cheese stuffed celery washed down with some wine and margaritas.

Pork Tenderloin and Salad

Since this was such a simple meal of grilled pork tenderloin, salad, and garlic cheese toast, I had not intended to post it, but since both the meat and Bev’s salad looked so good, I couldn’t resist.

I pulled the meat from the grill at an internal temp of 138* in the thickest part, tented, and let it rest about 10 minutes.  It was very juicy and just a little pink – just the way I like it – and the small end went to those who prefer theirs more done.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

9/28/14 meal date

Corn & Cheese Chowder and Cornbread

Bev had a dozen ears of good, fresh, young corn and since the weather had cooled, she decided to make it into corn chowder.  She checked the web and decided she liked the recipe from Pioneer Woman for Corn & Cheese Chowder, but she adapted it a quite a bit - click on the link for the original.  I would like Ree’s site if she didn’t show a half dozen photos of adding salt to a dish – a slight exaggeration.

Arroz Con Pollo (Rice With Chicken)

When I saw this recipe on Chris’ Nibble Me This blog, I knew I wanted to try it and I considered it for my BD dinner but it didn’t satisfy my easy, little mess criteria.  Chris made it with the goal of replicating the version he had eaten at the Knoxville Pelancho’s Restaurant - the place that contributed the most to my margarita recipe. 

We basically followed Chris’ recipe with three deviations:

1. We used chicken breasts as that’s what we had.

2. We had no sazon spice and made our own  - ½ t coriander, ½ t cumin, ½ t garlic powder, ½ t salt, ½ t paprika (or turmeric for yellow)

3. We made the queso sauce with what we had on hand and needed to use. 

Green Chile Lasagna

As soon as I saw this recipe on Heathers blog, Rocky Mountain Cooking, my first thought was this had to be tried with the roasted Hatch green chiles we had in the freezer from last fall’s western trip – Heather actually took us to the place we bought them in Denver.  

Birthday Dinner & Football

Like most families, Bev grew up in one that insisted your birthday meal be something special and she still likes to do that – ala Pat’s recent meal.  She’d been asking me what I wanted and several things were considered but I finally decided I wanted something good but very easy for both of us with little mess.

And a couple of days before the meal, rotisserie chicken with vegetables, all cooked on the grill, showed up on Penny’s blog at Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen and it looked like a great solution to my meal criteria.