French bistro dinner

We had Shirley and Phil over for the weekend, so figure it was a good time for some more home cooking! We still had a couple packages of duck confit, so we figured it was a nice easy-but-tasty meal to have with friends. Since the duck confit was already cooked, all we had to do was throw it in the over for 20 minutes, putting it on broil for the last 5 minutes to crisp the skin. We used the same recipe for duck fat potatoes as last time we had duck confit, which takes around 20 minutes as well. Finally, we just steamed some green and yellow beans from Trader Joe's so we can have a lighter vegetable dish. With our main course, we drank the David Bruce Pinot Noir 2004 that we got from Santa Cruz Mountains Passport Day a while back. It was lighter than I remembered, probably because it's been a couple years and it got a lot more age to it.

After dinner, we had some cheeses...forgot to take a picture since we were having too much fun! I still had a bunch of cheeses left over from the AWF party a little over a week ago, so it was nice to be able to finish them off. For the hard cheeses, we had Manchego, Dorset Drum English Cheddar, and an aged Gouda, while the soft cheeses were Brillat-Savarin, Humboldt Fog, and Gorgonzola Dolce. Shirley doesn't usually like blue cheese but we've converted her with the gorgonzola dolce with some honey, on a slice of cran-walnut bread. Yum! We started on the Ridge Old School Zinfandel towards the end of our main course, and the cheeses gave us something to munch on while we finished the rest of the bottle. I gotta say, I don't think I've ever had a bottle of Ridge that I didn't like...still one of my favorite wineries!

For dessert, Phil and Shirley brought us some yummy desserts from a pastry shop in Cupertino. I didn't think we could eat much more, but we somehow found room for the napoleon, cheesecake, fruit tart, and chocolate mouse cake. We also wound up opening a 2007 Henry of Pelham Reisling Ice Wine that's been sitting in my wine fridge for over a year now. It was light, fruity, and not too sweet, and went very well with all the desserts (even the chocolate!).

It's fun cooking for me and Uly, but it's even better when we get to share some of our good cooking and good wine with people who can enjoy it! Thanks Phil & Shirley for spending your weekend with us!