Welcome to the Boston Girls 'n Grapes Wine Club blog! I'm your blog host, Katie, and I'm here to guide you through our wine selection and recipes for April's meeting.
WINE BREAKDOWN:
Jaimie bought us a primer wine, a tasty white which we enjoyed while we waited for people to arrive.
We started with the Petit Chenin Blanc, which was lovely and light, then headed to the Indaba Sauvignon Blanc and Excelsior Chardonnay, two other nice choices.
Next up was a smokey LB Pinot Noir and a delightful Walker Bay Pinotage.
To end our night, we enjoyed some low alcohol California orange muscat wine with a slight bit of carbonation. Very sweet and a good end to a lot of wine, having only 4% ABV.
FOOD BREAKDOWN:
I traveled to the South End Food Emporium (yelp link) to buy injera. Injera, if you haven't partaken of Ethiopian food, is the flat, crepe-like, spongy sourdough used to both plate and eat your food. It is made of a grain called teff, which is one of the smallest cereal grains on the planet. I also picked up some berbere
, which is the spice commonly associated with the Ethiopian cuisine. A bag of injera is $5, and 1/2 pound of berbere goes for something like $7.99. It's worth a trip out there to get it, but fair warning, the bread doesn't last long in your pantry. I've had good luck freezing it, however.
Anyway, these are the dishes I made:
-Ethiopian split peas. (made according to recipe, except I didn't pre-soak the peas; instead, I threw everything into a crock pot to cook while I was at work. If you do this, add at least an extra cup of water.
-Ethiopian Green Beans and Potatoes. Added two carrots, chopped, didn't seed the jalepeno (I never do), used can of regular diced tomatoes instead of stewed, and used maybe 1/2 the recommended green beans.
-Yemiser Wat. Used red lentils and only 1/2 of the can of tomatoes. Also, instead of the spices, I just used a couple tablespoons of berbere, no tomato paste, and water instead of veggie broth.
There was other food, but I'll let the chefs post their own recipes. Patti brought bread and cheese, Laura made a honey/cinnamon tofutti spread and brought cheese, and also made cherry raviolis with soy vanilla "ice cream" (loving the non-dairy shout out) and shaved chocolate. Also in attendance were a couple cupcakes, vegan mint-chocolate and margarita varieties.
It was a wonderful way to spend a Friday night!
