Curried Turkey Salad Sandwich

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday last weekend! Mine was great, and it put me back in touch with some of the many things I have to be thankful for: spending time with my family, my friends, and of course, good food and wine!

Of course, all of the yummy leftovers from dinner on Thursday were also a highlight, and I was very excited to try this turkey leftovers recipe submitted by one of our blog readers. The recipe is for Curried Turkey Salad, and it is very, very delicious. 

To make this curried turkey salad, all you need is leftover turkey (about 2 cups of white meat, chopped), four stalks of celery, one green onion bunch (chopped, with only the green pieces included), one or one and a half teaspoons of curry powder, and some mayo!

It can be eaten either in sandwich form on a croissant, or wrapped up in bib lettuce for a crunchier, healthier snack.  I went with the sandwich version, because I can never resist a croissant.

To put this salad together, just chop the celery, green onions, and turkey, and throw them all together .

Then you just add as much mayo as you like. I added about 1/3 cup, but depending on how much mayo you like you might want to add a little less or a little more.

Last step: toss in the curry powder!

Mmmmmmmm…

Sooo good!

Pair with a fruity white, such as our Tepusquet Viognier, for instant pairing yumminess.

Thank you so much to our submitter for sharing this easy and delicious recipe!

Curried Turkey Salad

2 cups chopped turkey (white meat)
1 pack of green onions chopped (just greens)
4 stalks celery chopped
Mayonnaise to taste
Curry powder about 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoons.
Salt and Pepper to taste.
Serve on croissants or on bib lettuce leaves.

Calling all Southern Californian Cambria fans! If you are going to be in or around Newport Beach on Thursday, September 29th, you may want to attend our Cambria Wine Dinner at the Hyatt Regency!

The Hyatt has put together a night of delicious food and wine pairings for the evening, all featuring our Cambria wines! The dinner will feature dishes paired with our Tepusquet Viognier, Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay, Julia’s Pinot Noir, Tepusquet Syrah, and Late Harvest Viognier. The dinner is also going to include some just-harvest Cambria grapes that will serve as “edible centerpieces” during the night.
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Here’s a look at the menu:

 If you are interested, you can RSVP by either calling (949) 729-6057, or by e-mailing onie.carreon@hyatt.com. We hope you can make it!

It’s June, summer is almost here, and I can’t wait to sit out by the pool in a swimsuit! Unfortunately the weather has been strange cool here lately, so although I’d planned to do just that this Sunday, I think I may have to wait for another, sunnier weekend. So until then, I’ve decided to make do with some summery recipes instead, starting with this one for panzanella salad!

I decided to make panzanella the other night while trying to figure out what to do with a loaf of day-old bread. The bread was this delicious, crusty sourdough from a wonderful local bakery near my house, and I didn’t want to just throw it away. At the same time, I wanted something made with fresh, summery vegetables, something refreshing and healthy and light.

The solution?

Panzanella!

Panzanella is an Italian bread salad that makes good use of day-old crusty bread by cubing it and then mixing the bread cubes with chunks of fresh, juicy tomatoes, cool slices of cucumber, crunchy red onion, and fresh basil. After being mixed together, everything is tossed with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Then the panzanella is allowed to sit for a little while, sometimes half an hour, sometimes longer, so that the juice from the tomatoes, the olive oil and the balsamic vinegar soak into the pieces of bread, making them full of delicious flavor!

I love panzanella because of the combination of so many different flavors, textures, and colors. Between the tangy balsamic vinegar, the nuttiness of the olive oil, the soothing coolness of the cucumber, the zinginess of the onions and the juiciness and acidity of the tomatoes, panzanella salad has something for every tastebud, and still manages to be light and healthy!

But the best part? It brings back wonderful summer memories to me every time.

Panzanella Salad

Ingredients:

• Some crusty, day-old bread, cubed, around 4 cups worth
• Two or three large, ripe tomatoes
• Half of a red onion
• Half of a cucumber
• Fresh basil
• Three tablespoons olive oil
• Two tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Cut the bread into one inch cubes.

Chop the tomatoes so that they are the same size as the bread cubes.

Slice the cucumber into ½ inch wide slices.

Cut a large red onion in half and dice.

Roughly chop 10 basil leaves.

Place everything together into a large bowl, and mix it until everything is evenly distributed.

Set aside.

Measure out three tablespoons of olive oil into a small bowl.

Add two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and mix. Once loosely combined, pour the olive oil and balsamic mixture into the bowl of bread, tomatoes, cucumber, onion and basil, and toss everything together.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.Let the salad for half an hour, or until the chunks of bread have absorbed most of the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Serve and enjoy!

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Today our Cambria widget suggests forgoing the usual April Fool’s Day tradition of playing a trick on somebody by making them a “fool” for dessert instead. A “fool” is also an old-fashioned mousse-like British dessert made out of fruit and cream. While they are usually made with berries, those aren’t in season right now, so our widget suggests getting creative and trying to make a tropical-themed fool, with either bananas or mangoes instead.

I’ve never been one for playing tricks on people, and I have never come across a dessert that I didn’t like, so this morning I decided to try this myself! Another reason I wanted to make this? A fool traditionally only requires several ingredients: heavy whipping cream, sugar, and fruit. And as you’d expect with something that uses so few ingredients, they are incredibly easy to make!

I am a mango-lover, so I picked out the ripest one I could find at the store and headed home. And then, all I had to do was to dice the mango,

whip the cream,

flavor the whipped cream with a little vanilla and sugar,

puree half of the mango in the blender, and then layer everything together!

So easy, and really delicious!

And, as always, made even better with a glass of wine!

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 mango

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Makes two large servings

We are approaching the end of the months which contain an “r” in their names, which means that this is the tail-end of oyster season in the Northern Hemisphere. Oysters taste best when they are harvested from cold, cold water, and as the ocean begins to warm up during late spring and early summer, they begin to get watery and diluted in flavor. That means that if you love oysters, now is the time to go and enjoy the last ones of the season!

I love oysters with almost anything, but having oysters with a crisp, refreshing white wine is always a good idea. Traditionally, oysters have been paired with Sauvignon Blanc, which often has the kind of racy acidity and citrus fruit characteristics that pair well with raw oysters. Taking a sip of a refreshing Sauvignon Blanc can be just like a fresh squeeze of lemon, because both cut through the rich, succulent texture of the oyster, and prepare your palate for another with their brisk acidity. But there is another varietal that’s been gaining popularity as a pairing option for oysters: Pinot Gris. In the past couple of years, the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition has been selecting Pinot Gris entries more and more as members of their top ten best oyster wines for their annual oyster and wine pairing competition.

For those of you who are still unacquainted with Pinot Gris, you should definitely seek it out! There are some really amazing Pinot Gris from all over the U.S., including some absolutely incredible ones from Oregon, as well as really delicious ones from California, where Pinot Gris more typically goes by the name Pinot Grigio. In case you are wondering why there is a difference in names, the answer is that there is a difference in styles. Both Pinot Gris and Pinot Grigio are made from the exact same grape, but Pinot Gris tends to be made the way they make it in Alsace, which means that it is more fruity, and has a fuller body and mouthfeel. Pinot Grigio, which follows the northern Italian winemaking styles, tends to have crisp, bracing acidity and a focus more on minerality than on fruitiness.

Our Pinot Gris is kind of in the middle of the two styles. It comes from the coolest blocks on our property, the location where the fog lingers the longest, and therefore has a lot of bright acidity. However, the long growing season allows our fruit to slowly develop mature fruit flavors, so it does have a lot of citrus fruit flavors, and it ages for five months in neutral French oak, which gives it that slightly rounder, fuller mouth-feel.

I had a hunch that our refreshing Cambria Tepusquet Pinot Gris would be a great oyster wine, and so last week my fiancé Shaun and I brought a bottle to our favorite local seafood restaurant to test out my hypothesis. We ordered a dozen of Kumamoto oysters, the small sweet, briny, and creamy oyster species that are originally from Japan. And guess what? The pairing was great!

The Tepusquet Pinot Gris was delicious with these oysters. Its bright acidity and vivid, citrus aromas and flavors helped cut through the strong umami flavor, and the delicate fruit brought out the oysters’ hint of sweetness. The lemon-grapefruit-tangerine notes were also a great complement to the oysters’ complex brininess and minerality.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you probably know that I haven’t mentioned the Cambria Pinot Gris before. The reason for that has been that our Pinot Gris is produced in such small quantities that we only offer it through the tasting room or the Wine Club. The wine is so good, though, that I didn’t want to neglect it, so hopefully all of you who have the chance to stop by our tasting room will try it!

And if you don’t get a chance, you should definitely try out some other Pinot Gris producers! The list of winners from the 2010 oyster and wine competition are a good place to start, or you can always experiment with other Pinot Gris brands to find your perfect wine and oyster moment of bliss!

If you don’t have anything planned for St. Patrick’s Day this weekend…

you should come and visit us at Cambria! We’ll be throwing our annual St. Patrick’s Day party this Saturday, March 12th, from 11:00am – 3:00pm, and we’ll be going all out in our festivities this year! Besides the great atmosphere, you should come to hear traditional Irish music, to take advantage of the wine specials we’ll be offering throughout the day, and to have some of the delicious food and wine pairings that we’ll be serving! Dolce Catering will be providing the food, all of which has been selected to pair beautifully with Cambria wines.

On the menu will be Seared Irish Sausage, Pinot Noir Braised Beef Short Ribs with Garlic and Mustard Roasted Baby Potatoes, and Wild Rice and Barley Stuffed Mushrooms. And for dessert: Apple and Raisin Bread Pudding! We’ll be pairing our Tepusquet Syrah to go with the meatiness of the Seared Sausage and the earthiness of the stuffed mushrooms, and the short ribs will actually be braised in our Bench Break Pinot Noir, which should make the combination of short ribs and Bench Break a perfect match! We’ll be matching our wonderful Rae’s Chardonnay with the apple and raisin bread pudding.

I hope you can make it out and celebrate with us! There is supposed to be beautiful weather in Santa Maria this Saturday, so between the sunshine, the delicious wine, and some seriously mouthwatering-sounding food, it should be a great day!

Dungeness crab season started in Northern America last month, and so if you like crab, now is the time to have it! My family and I enjoyed our first crab of the season last week, and it was amazing. My brother-in-law had gone out crabbing with a friend of his early that morning, brought home the freshly-caught crab, cooked and cleaned it, and brought it over that same evening. The crab was delicious: so fresh it had that almost sweet quality to it, as well as this rich, succulent juiciness that is only found in crab that has just come straight from the ocean.

Some wine and food pairings are classics, and this is one of them. Chardonnay and Dungeness crab are a perfect match, and depending upon the way you cook your crab, any of Cambria’s Chardonnays would make a great accompaniment. Our Katherine’s Vineyard or Unwooded Chardonnay would both go beautifully with steamed crab, where the fruit of the Chardonnay will play with the delicate sweetness of the crab meat. Our Benchbreak Chardonnay has a little more oak and would be fantastic with fire roasted crab, which has a bit of a nutty flavor to it. But really, any Chardonnay will make a tasty combination with crab if it is something that you love and will enjoy!

We ate our steamed crab with Katherine’s Vineyard, melted butter for dipping, and warm, crusty French bread spread with butter as a side. Fresh, sweet crab + French bread + Chardonnay equaled pure deliciousness!

I don’t know about you, but as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I start wishing that I could celebrate it all over again. Which is why I was very excited when I saw this recipe, which calls for turkey and butternut squash. Something about those two foods give me the warm, fuzzy feeling that I get just thinking about Thanksgiving.

Cambria Estate Chef Taki Laliotitis designed this recipe for a pairing with Cambria Chardonnay. As he says, “The sweet buttery flavor of butternut squash pairs perfectly with our Cambria Chardonnay.” Since I know from experience that Taki is an incredible chef, I was very excited to try this out, and I was not disappointed.

This recipe is delicious, and is the perfect way to use up your turkey leftovers! It calls for everything you would normally need to make risotto – butter, turkey or chicken stock, onion, Arborio rice, white wine and parmesan cheese – and then adds in butternut squash and turkey. What really takes it to the next level is the addition of crème fraîche at the end of the recipe. This makes the risotto taste incredibly creamy and delicious.

Best of all, it is super-easy to make.  Taki made it so that it can be cooked in under 30 minutes, and pretty much all that it requires is the ability to assemble the ingredients and stir them all together. I appreciate this, because I am a very inexperienced cook.

Believe me, if I can make this dish, you can too.

While making this, I first assembled all of my ingredients.

You are going to need about 1 ½ cups of cooked turkey meat, either shredded or diced.

Then, you are going to need about 1 cup of butternut squash or pumpkin puree. I was originally going to go with the canned pumpkin puree that is in my ingredients photo, but because I wanted to try making fresh butternut squash puree, I took some pre-cooked butternut squash,

threw it into the blender,

and pureed until smooth.

Then, assemble the rest of your ingredients! Produce,

rice and dairy,

and stock.

I used chicken stock, but if you use turkey stock it will bring out the turkey flavor even more and would probably be even more delicious.

Heat your stock over high heat until you bring it to a boil, and then turn the heat down. It should be warm as you slowly add it to the risotto.

Melt your butter in a large pot over medium-high heat, and then add the minced onions. Cook for about two minutes.

Then add the cup of rice, and stir so that it is lightly coated with the butter. Cook for another two minutes. Be careful not to let the onions caramelize.

Add your ½ cup of white wine. This is the perfect opportunity to open whatever white wine you are going to be drinking with your meal, and to pour yourself a glass after you add the 1/2 cup to the recipe.

Stir until the wine is absorbed into the rice, and then add 1/3 of the heated stock.

Cook until the stock is almost fully absorbed into the rice. It will look something like this:

Then, add some more stock. The stock should be added a little bit at a time. I added it ½ cup by ½ cup.

When the stock has all been added, add the butternut squash puree and the turkey. Heat until they are warmed through, and then add your lemon juice, Parmesan, crème fraîche, thyme and parsley. Stir it all together…

and serve!

Turkey Risotto with Butternut Squash & Crème Fraîche

1 ¼ quarts turkey or chicken stock

4 Tbsp. butter

¼ cup onion, minced

1 cup Arborio rice

½ cup white wine, such as Chardonnay

1 cup butternut squash puree or pumpkin puree

1 ½ cups cooked turkey, diced or torn

1 lemon, juiced

¼ cup Parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp. crème fraîche or mascarpone cheese

1 Tbsp. fresh thyme, minced

1 Tbsp. fresh parsley, minced

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

In a 2-quart pot, add the stock and bring to a boil.

In a separate 4-quart pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Once the butter has melted, add the onions and cook for 2 minutes. Add the rice and cook for another 2 minutes, without caramelizing the onions. Deglaze the pan with wine and cook until dry.

Add 1/3 of the boiling stock to the rice and stir until fully absorbed. Turn down the heat to medium and continue stirring. Continue this process of adding small amounts of stock until rice is cooked. Total cooking time will be approximately 20 to 25 minutes.

Add the butternut squash puree and turkey, heat for 1 minute or until ingredients are warmed through. Season with lemon juice and add cheeses and herbs. Adjust final seasoning with salt and pepper.