Turkey Day Practice
Diligent Gentle Readers will recall that this past January we took a wonderful trip to Brazil. You will also recall that in the midst of afore-mentioned gastronomic excess we had a wonderful lunch in Rio with some very neat and creative food, most notably a cheese/shrimp mixture inside a pumpkin
At the time it struck me that how cool would that be back here in Gringolandia for Thanksgiving?
Well, since we have some Outlaws and Relations coming, I thought it best if I gave it a trial run this weekend.
Of course, I also decided that I’d best subject myself and my poor Bride to a trial run of wine as well, as I just simply could not inflict untested wine upon our Dear Guests
This wine, at $28, ain’t cheap, and it had a 93 or so rating from Parker. It just didn’t do a lot for me, frankly. My Beloved Bride liked the faint smoky character it has, but to me it was rather tepid and plain. Oh well, it still contained alcohol.
Anyhoo, I bought me a few mini pumpkins, which are surprisingly hard to find post-Halloween,
and hollowed the suckers out
and put them in a 325º oven to roast for, oh, 25 minutes or so.
I then took my Costco brie
and cut off the outer rind and placed it, along with some diced red bell pepper, two shakes of dehydrated onion and cracked black pepper in a double boiler (my Bride’s idea)
and let that gently meld and merge and then I glopped it into the pumpkins, added a few pre-cooked shrimp and some more black pepper
and then back into the oven for another 20-25 minutes of cooking while I made the saltimboca
At this stage the first bottle gave up the ghost and I moved to the next potential Turkey Day wine
This was another Not Cheap wine ($30) and I was again underwhelmed. Yes, it had a more pronounced butterscotch and ripe melon character than the previous wine, but dang it still to me was not worth this kind of money. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
I have to say the timing worked out pretty well, as the time it took, all of 20 minutes really, to prepare the saltimboca was just the right amount of time for the pumpkins to get all bubbly cheesey in their goodness
and the flavor was quite tasty, especially when topped with fresh cilantro and you scraped some of the rich pumpkin flesh onto your spoon with the cheese.
As far as the wine goes, well I’ll just have to buy a few more different bottle and keep experimenting.
Dang.
Swill Food and Grog | Mr. Bingley | 
November 16, 2013 9:34 pm
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I’ll forgive you the murdered pumpkins because that looks so DAMNED beautiful. Oh, WELL DONE, little brother!
Three words…
Dee Lish Us!
If you can find it, Grgich Hills make a wonderful Chard, but it is expensiver that the ones you tried. Best I’ve ever had, I think.
(No, Grgich is not a typo…)
This home video of Mr. Bingley growing up may explain his fascination with pumpkins.
And it features appearances by The Tree Hugging Sister™, NJSue, and other familiar faces!
Claude? Claude?
I think you should try my default Chardonnay – Dreaming Tree. I get it at Buy Rite on Newman Springs Rd., Red Bank. Let me know what you think.
I’ll give that a look, Chancy!