It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything about the Sunset recipes we’ve done this year, so I’ve got a few backlogged. Rather than write about each of them individually, I’ll just talk about them all here. The first was a Shrimp with Bacon-Cheese Polenta:

This was served with a really, really nice Chardonnay. K really liked this recipe; I was so-so on it — the polenta was too rich for my taste (it has a ton of cheese and bacon in it!). I really like the shrimp and the sauce that was served with it, though.

The other Sunset recipe we’ve done recently is the Red Pepper, Fontina, and Prosciutto Calzones, which were positively scrumptious:

This recipe is probably my second-favorite of the ones we’ve done this year, behind the red curry chicken that I blogged about a few weeks ago. It was served with a sauvignon blanc, which is definitely high on my list of “wine types I enjoy”.

As always, you can find the original recipes on the Sunset website, as well as lots of other yummy items!

We made another of our Sunset wine club recipes a few nights ago; I think this was one of the best recipes we’ve gotten from them ever! I really liked it, and will definitely be making it again (it’s also incredibly easy, which helps a lot — some of the recipes are good, but take too long to make on a weeknight):

As always, you can find the recipe on the Sunset Wine Club website. The only change I made to this recipe was to use red curry paste instead of panang curry paste, because I couldn’t find the panang curry. They’re very similar, though, so it was ok.

The wine was a Pinot Gris, which was very good too — I didn’t think it was the best pairing with the meal, but K thought they paired very well.

Yum! Definitely going on the “make again” list. But first I have a whole bunch of things to make with eggplant.

We haven’t cooked anything with lamb in quite a while, so when we got this sunset dinner for lamb and risotto, we were pretty excited!

It was supposed to be paired with a “Straight Line Tempranillo”. I’ve never heard of that kind of wine before, but I think whoever designed the label had had a little too much of it to drink beforehand:

It was a delicious dinner! The original recipe (which you can find here) called for mint instead of basil, but I couldn’t find any at the store. I think the basil worked just fine.

Last weekend was a cooking frenzy for us!  My mom was in town, which generally means that we cook a lot, and eat a lot, and then go on lots of walks.  It’s like a spa vacation, except more fun!

This particular visit was nice because she got to meet a lot of our friends over meals.  I think there must be some sort of adage that people who like good food attract, because it seems like we know a lot of people who (a) love food and (b) cook great food.  And I love that!

Anyways, the moral of that little story was that we had a lot of fantastic food.  D is continuing to iron out his pasta recipe, and put together a pretty delicious fettuccine Alfredo for Friday night.  Sunday night, a large group of us went out to a local German restaurant (and by local I mean 45 minutes away, so I’m not sure if that’s quite the right term to describe its proximity).  The restaurant is owned by the children of German immigrants who originally opened the restaurant in 1991.  The style is similar to the Bavarian inns of Germany, and is heavily decorated with hunting conquests.  Heavily decorated.  The food was delicious, and it was a great evening to spend out!

Saturday night, I actually cooked the entire meal.  That’s right – the entire meal.  This is pretty unusual for me, since D is an excellent cook and also often gets home earlier than I do.  Plus, it makes for a nice divide where he cooks and I do the dishes.  But it was a special occasion (my mom was out), and D was tired of cooking, so I turned to a trusty Sunset Wine Club dinner.  It was delicious!  So much so that I’m planning on making the sauce for the chicken again sometime to wow and amaze my friends.  =]

Later, for dessert, we had delicious individual portions of pear and cranberry crisps with whipped cream.  I thought I had pictures, but you’ll just have to imagine!  (They were even better for breakfast the next morning.  =]  )

When K’s mom was out visiting a few weeks ago, we had one final Sunset dinner that she wanted us to make: crab cakes. Apparently she loves crab cakes, and was not going to be deterred when I told her we couldn’t get crab in the Midwest. She went so far as to find a number of seafood markets in the CU area that we could check out; we drove by one of them, and it didn’t exist anymore.

So, we (or maybe I) decided that we would make shrimp cakes instead. I find that shrimp is a decent, but not perfect substitute for crab in most cases. The result? Big cakes that looked like the amazingly awesome lump crab cakes you can get in Maryland. Trouble is, the only person of the three of us who actually liked them was me. Oh well…

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We’ve had a couple of Sunset Wine Club dinners sitting on our shelf for several months now that I haven’t done anything with; so we had some friends over for dinner a few nights ago, and decided to pull one of them out:

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So I was browsing through my camera backlog, and realized I had a couple recipes that I’d done several weeks ago that somehow never got posted. I don’t really know what happened. So, anyways, here’s one of them. This was another of our Sunset wine club dinners, which we made while K’s mom was out visiting. I thought it turned out super-tasty!

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Our anniversary was a couple weeks ago, and we decided we would make another one of our Sunset Dinners. We also went to see The King’s Speech, which is hands-down one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. You should go see it.

Ok, shameless plug over. Back to the food.

On the menu for this dinner: spinach, banana, and bacon salad, a mushroom ragout, cranberry pork tenderloin, and the mystery dessert of mystery! You’ll find out about that tomorrow.

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As you might recall, K’s mom got us a subscription to the Sunset Wine Club for Christmas this year, so we decided that a perfect time to try out one of the recipes would be on New Year’s, when we had some awesome friends (M and M’, who are getting married in May!) visiting us. M’ is… shall we say… a bit particular about her foods, so we decided to not make the pork and mushroom dish, and instead make something she might have a chance of eating. Cuz we’re nice like that.

So we settled on a Chicken Stew with Olives and Lemon, together with an Orange, Radicchio, and Oregano salad and Chocolate Hazelnut domes for dessert. All of the recipes are available online, but I’ll replicate them here as well. This meal was to be paired with a bottle of wine from The Infinite Monkey Theorem. And really, how can you go wrong with wine that looks like this???

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