It's official, my winter garden is done.  We picked the final 8 pounds (!) of Fava beans this weekend and pulled the plants.  Its bittersweet - I'm going to miss the Fava beans.  This was my first attempt at growing Fava beans and they did wonderfully.  We got 3 harvests of beans; although the last harvest was rather big and could have easily been split into two harvests.  Of course the good news is that the end of the winter garden means the summer garden harvests are quickly approaching.  First up will be the garlic and sweet onions.  Ok, technically, they are from the winter garden, but they don't get harvested until late June, so in my book that's a summer garden.  Ah, but I digress, I was talking about Fava beans.

Each year when my vegetables are ready to be harvested the question is always the same.  What to do with way to many pounds of whatever vegetable?  Sometimes it's easy, as with tomatoes, but when it's cucumbers, zucchini or in this case Fava beans, the answer can be more difficult to find.  I planted the Fava beans with a specific recipe in mind but I wasn't going to make that yet again!  Luckily I found a great recipe that was wonderful once we adapted it to our tastes.  The recipe is Fricassee of Beef and Fava Beans from Bon Appétit.  We followed the basic recipe but we had 8 pounds of Fava beans (before shelling), we only used 1 pound of meat (which given the cost of beef tenderloin was a good thing), and we used half-and-half instead of whipping cream. We also added some vegetable broth to the sauce before cooking to increase the amount and we made mini-penne pasta and mixed it into the fricassee.  But otherwise we followed the recipe - what was left of it that is :).

The result, if I don't say so myself, was wonderful.  The sauce had a wonderful complex flavor that blended and balanced the flavor of the meat, the lemon juice and the Fava beans well.  As a pasta dish, the recipe was an all-in-one meal, which is one of my favorite types of meals.  And with the added broth the sauce was plentiful enough to fully coat the pasta.  We've definitely got another reason to grow Fava beans next year!  To bad it'll be nearly a year before we make this dish again...

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On Saturday and Sunday we visited about 10 wineries.  We've made this trip before so most of the wineries are long-time favorites but we always seem to find new favorites to add to the list whenever we visit.  Favorites that we hit yet again included Ch. St. Jean, St. Francis, BR Cohn, Davis Bynum, Hop Kiln, and Belvedere.  While both St. Francis and Ch. St. Jean are fairly large we continue to find great wines that keep us coming back.  Belvedere and St. Francis were the best wineries during this visit.  Our Belvedere choices were primarily from the Bradford Mountain label and include their Syrah, Zinfandel and Sangiovese.  At St. Francis we had a hard time limiting ourselves to only a few wines but ultimately we liked the Wild Oaks Syrah and the Petite Syrah the best.  We also visited Valley of the Moon and Rodney Strong wineries for the first time.  We particularly enjoyed the Rodney Strong Reserve Zinfandel and Reserve Pinot Noir. 

But Sonoma isn't only about wine its also about food.  On Saturday we were really tired from tasting and went for a very casual meal at Lasalette which specializes in Portuguese cuisine.  I had Mozambique Prawns which are served in an interesting tomato-peanut sauce with rice and plantations.  The sauce was an excellent blend of peanut and tomato so that neither was over powering.  The plantations were my favorite part of the dish; smothered in the sauce they melted in my mouth.  But the best part of the meal was the Fig Cake we had for dessert.  The title definitely does not do this amazing dessert justice.  The fig cake is about a 1/2 inch thick slice that is split in two and filled with almond-vanilla ice cream to make what appears as a triangular ice cream sandwich.  On its own this would be good but the real clincher was the Madeira custard sauce.  The custard perfectly complemented the fig cake.  I'd go back for that Fig Cake dessert anytime!

Sunday we visited "the girl and the fig".  Sondra Berstein has truly created an amazing restaurant.  I had the "Light as Air" special which consisted of spring vegetables (Fava beans, peas, baby carrots, pearl onions) in a pastry puff with a morel sauce.  It was divine!  Since I'm not a big meat eater I was a bit concerned I wouldn't find something suitable on the menu but this special was not only perfect for my tastes but perfect tasting as well.  The vegetables were all perfectly cooked, nothing hard and nothing mushy, and combined well with the sauce.  Husband had the Pork Chop which he quietly devoured.  At first I thought maybe he wasn't happy since he was so quiet, but then it was exactly the opposite, he loved it and simply wanted to eat it without interruption!  He said "it was the best pork chop he's ever had". 

On our last night we made our first ever visit to "Cafe La Haye".  This small restaurant packs a big punch.  The restaurant itself surprised me both with how small it is and with its tin roof.  We ate on a relatively cool evening yet it did get a bit warm in the restaurant - or at least I thought so although Husband felt it was fine.  Either way I'm not sure I want to see how hot it gets in the summer.  Temperature aside, the food was simply amazing.  I had the "Pan roasted pork tenderloin with bacon-apple cider sauce and house made whole grain mustard-fennel-apple slaw".  Now, as I've said before I'm not a big meat eater but I devoured this dish and really wouldn't have minded eating more of the meat!  The pork was extremely tender, moist and flavorful.  Even without the sauce it was excellent but the sauce elevated even more with a wonderful blend of sweet apple and salty bacon.  I can assure you none of the sauce went to waste...

We had some other meals but these were really the highlights.  We also drove over to Napa to try out a couple of wineries on the way home.  We found some great wine but I think after nearly a week in Sonoma we were - wined out (gasp!).  But that's ok it just leaves more for us to try on our next visit...

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Nestle and Hershey are pressuring the FDA to allow them to label items "chocolate" even though they will not have the traditional ingredients of cocoa butter or cocoa powder but instead cheaper ingredients like vegetable oil and whey (the thin liquid that is a by-product of making cheese from whole milk).

YUCK!

Today they can produce stuff with those ingredients but must call it "chocolate-flavored" not chocolate.

All in the name of the almighty dollar. Sounds terrible to me, so please go to www.dontmesswithourchocolate.com and let the FDA hear your opinion.

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We were really surprised to find Penalolen, Sauvignon Blanc (Limari and Casablanca Valley's Chile) on the list and we were even more surprised at the wine itself.  We liked that the wine was oak free, absent of residual sugar and not overly acidic.  We've enjoyed New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc ever since exploring the Marlbourgh region during a visit in 2000 but Chile was certainly not on our list of places to get Sauvignon Blanc.

We also really enjoyed the Maquis "Lien" which is a red blend of Syrah (50%), Carmenere (23%), Cabernet Franc (12%), Petit Verdo (8%) and Malbec (7%) from the Colchagua Valley in Chile.  Surprisingly Syrah is the primary component.  Syrah is definitely not the first thing that comes to my mind when considering South American wines but it seems that the South American wineries have produced Syrah for quite a while but only recently have started exporting it.  The wine is full-bodied with plum aromas.  We really liked it and felt the blend was very balanced and gave a clean finish. 

We were less enamored with the other two wines. The Tempus Alba, "Preludio", Tempranillo, 2005 (Mendoza, Argentina) was our first try at a Tempranillo.  Tempus Alba produces some highly rated Malbecs so it may be that we are just not accustomed to Tempranillo but whatever the reason it seemed to lack complexity and really didn't offer us much in comparison to our other tastings. 

The Malbec was a Andeluna "Tupungato Reserve" from Mendoza, Argentina.  This wine was good but we felt $20 was a bit costly for what it offered.  We've had lots of other Malbecs that were better yet only ranged from $9-$15.  Sure $20 is not a huge cost but this Malbec didn't really stand out from anything else we've had to justify the added cost.

We also tasted 6 different Spanish cheeses.  These included Iberico, Ibores, Mahon, Manchego, Urgelia and San Simon.  My favorites were the Urgelia and the San Simon but they all were great cheeses.  I find it interesting that Spanish cheeses are always paired with South American wines.  I know Argentina and Chile produce some cheeses but I haven't found any in my local shops.  

We enjoyed the tasting and especially enjoyed learning of the different varietals from South America.  If anyone else has some non-Malbec favorites from South America - or some South American cheese they'd recommend I'd love to hear about them.

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1.  Cooked over an open flame - I'm definitely not a fried hamburger kinda gal.

2.  Bacon - A hamburger without bacon just seems naked to me.  While this generally means the bacon is on top I've seen some recent variations with the bacon inside which sounds rather intriguing.

3.  Cheese - Everything is better with cheese and hamburgers are no exception.  My personal favorite is Cheddar but any cheese, except generic American cheese which I don't actually consider to be a cheese, will elevate your hamburger.

4.  Breadcrumbs - Ok so I admit I'm not actually a huge fan of breadcrumbs in my hamburger but Husband loves them in his.

5.  Crispy onions - A local brewery (Tied House) has a hamburger topping called Santa Fe Onions that are amazing.  They are very thinly sliced pieces of onion with a very thin bread coating that are deep fried.  They add a great crunch component to the hamburgers.  Of course they also add a bunch of fat but that's why we don't have hamburgers but 2 or 3 times a year at most!

6.  A hearty roll -  A great hamburger is not just the meat and toppings!  The roll is equally if not more important.  Ever had a hamburger with a weak, limp, roll that turns to mush as you eat the hamburger?  Well, at that point the meat and toppings could be the best thing in the world but the hamburger is going to be horrible.  A great hamburger has a sturdy and substantial roll that can stand its own against any amount of meat and toppings thrown its way.

7.  Greens - the healthy crunch!  If the crispy onions were just too high in fat but you still want a crunch factor to your hamburger then greens are the way to go.  Anything will work but I like lettuce that has some power to it like a nice piece of Romaine or even some simple, nutrient lacking iceberg simply to add crunch.

8.  Mushrooms - This is another husband favorite.  Sautéed (or grilled) mushrooms.... yum.

9.  Proper cooking - Over cooked hamburgers are dry and flavorless but so are hamburgers that are pressed while cooking.  In high school, I was a grill cook at a small restaurant and they had a weight to put on the hamburgers so they would cook faster.  Unfortunately the result was all of the juices were pressed out of the hamburgers.  Patience works best with hamburgers.

10.  Proper assembly - It all goes in the same place so what's it matter how its assembled?  Well, I would have to disagree.  First, you have to assemble the burger so you can eat it without it falling apart - beware the slide factor!  Too much sauce or slippery greens can make the hamburger slide off the roll.   Second you want the flavors to complement each other and be evenly proportioned - this is why bacon in the burger appeals to me.  And perhaps most importantly you want the burger to be able to fit in your mouth - don't make a Dagwood! 

Enjoy!

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Before I describe the menu, I must admit that it’s not exactly following the seasonal rule because its spring and the menu includes butternut squash and apples.  Clearly these are not really the ideal spring fare; especially since I have Fava beans waiting in the garden to be picked, but this was such a good meal that I'm hoping you'll forgive my lack of timing.

We started the evening with an appetizer of Shrimp Butter Toasts.  These are small triangles of buttered toast with a Shrimp butter spread.  I found this recipe in a recent Gourmet but I didn’t think I’d actually make it because I do not make appetizers very often.  When I invited our friends over for dinner I decided to give the Shrimp Butter Toasts a try.  They were good but I'm not a huge seafood fan so I'd have to say it was my least favorite part of the meal.  Another recipe in the same Gourmet article was for Cheddar Rice Balls.  Since I love cheese I suspect I'd have enjoyed these more but my guests love seafood so I went with the shrimp. 

The main meal consisted of a Butternut Squash Lasagna served with a side of roasted green beans and tomatoes.  I had one butternut squash remaining from my fall garden and had been waiting for the right meal to use it.  My friends are not big meat fans making this meal the perfect use for the squash.  This isn’t your typical lasagna - it is not a red sauce based lasagna; in fact it doesn't really have any particular sauce other than layers of a ricotta cheese spread.  I modified the original recipe, from Bon Appétit, by reducing the ricotta to 32 ounces and tripling the mushrooms to a pound and a half.  To add some color I served the lasagna with a side of roasted green beans and tomatoes.  I really wanted to serve roasted Brussels Sprouts but they aren't available right now.  Still, the green beans and tomatoes added a nice color and flavor contrast.

For dessert, I choose a fairly simple dessert that is not very sweet or rich - Apple Upside-Down Cornmeal Cakes.  This tasty treasure consists of individual serving sized cornmeal cakes with an apple walnut topping and a small dollop of homemade whipped cream.  Fresh out of the oven they smell wonderful and taste even better.  I've served these before and everyone always loves that they are fairly light.  I love that they really easy to prepare and are already in individual serving sizes. 

And that's it! We prepared the shrimp butter the evening before and everything else the afternoon of the dinner.  Combined, it's a couple of hours of preping and cooking but none of the dishes are very difficult.  If you're looking for a dinner menu give this menu a try and let me know how it works for you!

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