Dine in the Vines-Dinner under the full moon.

Wow, it has been a while since we posted last and many things have been happening in FDK and at the winery.  Our Chef's Garden is now starting to produce, we are serving dinner six days a week and there will be a couple of new wines to be released shortly, one which is a really nice red blend.  Summer also brings out our Dine in the Vines event.

Dine in the Vines is a dinner that we set up down the middle if the Vineyard on nights of the full moon.  Each night starts with a meet and greet with the owners, winemaker, vineyard manager and chef this includes a glass of wine and appetizer.  Our guests then proceed to the beautiful candlelit table and enjoy their dinner.

This year our first Dine in the Vines was a with a ten course (turned out to be 12) dinner on June 23rd which happened to be the night of the "Super Moon".  I will post pictures below of the dinner and some of the food.  Most of the pictures or the good ones anyway were taken by Tanner of Tanner Wolfe Photography.  Here is the link to his website  http://tanner-wolfe.com.  Thanks Tanner for the great pics.

We have three more Dine in the Vine night scheduled this summer, with the next one coming up on July 21st.  This one will be a multiple course Italian Family Style Dinner theme.  The other two will take place in August which will be another 10+ course dinner and we will finish off the summer in September with a Lobster Boil. I will post more details on these as we get closer.

Sangria Popsicle with Four Daughters Moscato

Scallop, Cucumber and Kiwi Salad with Chive Blossom Vinaigrette and Sriracha Caviar

Parmesan Pudding with Grilled French Bread, Roasted Local Asparagus and Prosciutto Chip

A couple of our guests after lighting their lantern

Tempura Chive Blossom

Beef Tenderloin

Great Evening at the Winery

For more information or to sign up online for these nights visit the winery's website 

http://www.fourdaughtersvineyard.com/at-the-winery

New Desserts Starting 3/27/2013

We have been making some fun and fresh desserts for spring and we can't wait any longer for it to arrive, so we will just have to pretend.  Here are a few new desserts that we will be adding to our menu tomorrow.

Strawberry Pound Cake

The Strawberry Pound Cake starts with vanilla pound cake that is buttered and sugared then grilled.  Layered between the pound cakes is mascarpone cheese that is whipped with honey and vanilla.  It is finished off with macerated strawberries, whipped cream, orange zest and juices from the berries. 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae

Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae is made with a cookie that we bake to order on a cast iron skillet and top it with vanilla bean ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, candied walnuts and a cherry.

Blue Cheese Cream Brulee

Bleu Cheese custard that has sugar burned on top and is served with strawberry, basil and black pepper salad and balsamic caviar.

Key Lime Pie

Our key lime pie is made with a key lime mousse, toasted graham cracker crust whipped cream, candied lime and hibiscus flower syrup.

We are pretty excited to add these to our dessert menu.  Hopefully spring will follow!!!

New Menu Ideas

We have been working on some new menu ideas in the kitchen this week and have come up with some tasty and fun things.

We will start with the Burgers!!!

We have created two Burgers, both are hand ground fresh in the kitchen. 

The first on is a steak burger.  This burger starts with fresh flank steak that is ground together with our own house cured bacon.  We then pan fry the burger to seal in all of the juices and also crisp up pieces of the bacon.  The burger is served on a toasted pretzel roll with mixed field greens, sharp cheddar pub cheese, roasted onion rings, tomato confit and bacon jam mayo.  Ask for extra napkins when you order this one!!!

The other burger is a fun little twist.  It is a lamb burger.  We grind fresh leg of lamb with a unique blend of seasonings that include cumin, allspice, cinnamon and chili flake(just to give it a little kick).  We then pan sear the patty and cook it with a balsamic vinegar and butter glaze.  This burger is served on toasted garlic naan bread with arugula that is tossed in lemon oil, an olive and feta cheese relish, Dijon aioli and drizzled with lemon oil.  Lots of flavor happening with this burger.

 Here are two new sandwiches we are playing with...

The first one is an egg salad sandwich that is served on naan bread with an anchovy-green olive tapenade, roasted asparagus, arugula, sliced heirloom tomatoes(if winter ever ends), red onion and sliced Farmer Gus's eggs.  It is then drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with smoked sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.  This is a delicious, fresh, light spring-summer sandwich.

 The second is a Chimichurri Steak Sandwich.  Chimichurri is an sauce that is mostly used for grilled meats is usually made from finely chopped parsley, minced garlic, olive oil, oregano, and white or red wine vinegar.  We add a bit of cumin to ours.  OK back to the sandwich...We start by thinly slicing flank steak and marinating it in the chimichurri sauce.  The steak is then grilled and put on toasted French bread with avocado, tomato, red onion, shaved cabbage and a roasted red bell pepper cheese.  the sandwich is the topped with more chimichurri sauce to really bring out the flavors.

New Pizza

Smoked Salmon and Shaved Asparagus Pizza.  This pizza starts with our house cured salmon that is smoked over grape wines that are pruned, chipped and dried straight out of our vineyard.  These add a nice gentle smoke flavor and work great when smoking fish.  We start this pizza with a lavosh flat bread that we brush with lemon oil, it is then topped with Gruyere cheese, grana cheese, smoked salmon, red onions, chili flakes and shaved asparagus.  when it is out of the oven we drizzle it with a little lemon oil and sprinkle it with fresh dill.

And finally a new Brunch item...

Chilaquiles with fried eggs and grilled pork belly topped with diced onion, radish, feta cheese and fresh cilantro.  Chilaquiles are a traditional Mexican dish that is made with tortilla chips that are simmer in a salsa or sauce until they have softened.  I like to use tomatoes, jalapenos, red onion and garlic cloves to make my sauce.  These vegetables are roasted at a high temperature to add that charred flavor to them, then they are boiled in chicken stock and pureed until smooth.  Great traditional breakfast dish.

We will be adding these and others over the coming weeks...

EAT. DRINK. WATCH.

This week we played Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for our EAT. DRINK. WATCH. movie night at the winery.  For the menu we put a bit of a twist on Violet's gum meal and we also made a dish dedicated to the Batch family.

Here is the Menu.

Bucket Family’s Cabbage and Bread Soup

Layers of French bread with cabbage and kale that is baked in a rich chicken broth and topped with fried sage and brown butter

 This was a fun dish.  We made a rich cabbage and kale soup and strained out the vegetables.  Then layered the bread and vegetables in a pan and baked it with some of the broth to make a baked bread pudding type soup.  We added more broth to the bowl and spooned some brown butter over the top.

Violet Beauregarde’s Bubblegum Meal

Tomato soup

with roasted garlic and rosemary

Roast Beef and Baked Potato
Herb crusted roast beef with horseradish cream, baked red potatoes with crispy prosciutto and mascarpone served with grilled asparagus

Blueberry Pie and Ice Cream
Blueberry and Goat Cheese Pie with vanilla ice cream

Here is the lineup for the next four movies at the winery.  I posted a link for information on each movie below.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding-March 13, 2013

Easy to guess that we will be doing a Greek influenced dinner for this one.

Click Here for info on My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Swingers-March 27th, 2013

Wannabe actors become regulars in the stylish neo-lounge scene; Trent teaches his friend Mike the unwritten rules of the scene.  Great movie!!!  

Click Here for info on the movie Swingers

Tampopo-April 10th, 2013

We will be slurping noodles this night.

Click Here for info on Tampopo

The Brady Bunch Movie-April 24th, 2013

We are doing a fun play on T.V Dinners this night...Not like the ones you remember growing up on.

Click Here for info on the Brady Bunch Movie.

We are looking forward to the next group of movies coming up.  Contact the winery events@fourdaughtersvineyard.com for information on how to make reservations.  

The Left Handed Course

I mentioned in the previous post the "Left Handed Course", so I thought that I should explain it.  During one of our Thursday Night Chef's Dinners we were plating a small intermezzo course (i think it was a sorbet) and we were garnishing each plate with a spoon.  Being left handed himself, Nord had placed all of the spoons on the left side of the plate and I asked him what was wrong with these plates.  He looked at them for quite a while and couldn't figure out what was wrong.  I told him that the spoons were on the wrong side and he quickly came back with "Well this is our Left Handed course!"  So ever since that night Nord has has a Left Handed Course in each of our Thursday Night Dinners.

Science has quickly become a big part of the Left Handed Course.  For Christmas I bought Nord a molecular gastronomy kit that has been a fun learning project in our kitchen.  Each Left Handed dish is very conceptual,  and Nord works on taking something traditional like the Bloody Mary and turn it into something just a bit different like Shaved Pickle and Celery Salad with Bloody Mary Foam.

You can Find this Kit at Uncommon Goods

Here are a few of our Left Handed Dishes

Root Beer Float Sushi-Root Beer geletin sheet wrapped around vanilla ice cream with green sugar cookie dough(wasabi), pickled ginger and Root Beer(soy sauce) poured into ramikin cups.

Spiced Wine-mulled wine spiced encapsulated in sphere with 4D Big Boy poured around.

Shaved Pickle and Celery with Bloody Mary Foam

The Split Decision -Sparkling Moscato with Big Boy encapsulated in sphere.

Chef's Dinner-Thursday February 21st 2013

Another fun Thursday Night Dinner this week.  We featured lamb as the entree and had a total of 7 courses.  Two of of guests were celebrating their Birthdays with us this week...its always fun to get the sparklers out.

As usual we started the night with a tour in the production room and served three hors d'oeurves and one of our new mixed drinks, The Blushing Brianna (notice the spelling D).  The hors d'oeurves were a bleu cheese wrapped red grape crusted in walnuts, white bean and bacon crostini and a spinach, mushroom  olive and goat cheese "Hot Pocket" wrapped in puff pastry.  Unfortunately we usually always forget pictures of the hors d'oeurves...I will try to remember next week.

Here are the rest of the courses

Salad

Warm Goat Cheese-Spiced walnut crusted goat cheese, red onions, oranges and smoked pork belly tossed in a balsamic-orange vinaigrette

Soup

Yukon Gold Potato Soup-Smoked salmon and garlic confit

Sorbet

Strawberry and Basil with Balsamic Caviar

Entree

Dijon and Herb Crusted Lamb Leg-Mashed cauliflower, warmed grilled vegetable salad and Castelvetrano olive vinaigrette 

The Castelvetrano olive is a bright green olive that is nice and mild in flavor, not heavily brined or salty and it has a buttery texture.  It worked great in this warm vinaigrette as it enhanced the lamb without over powering the dish.

      

The Left Handed Course

Our Left Handed Course this week was a fun play on the Root Beer Float...Sushi Style.  Nord made a gelatinous sheet of root beer and wrapped it around vanilla ice cream.  It was served with green sugar cookie dough (wasabi), fresh pickled ginger and root beer (soy Sauce).  

Dessert

Raspberry Cake-Layers of white cake, with raspberry buttercream, fresh raspberries and chocolate ganache and sweet cream sauce

Blue Duck Day-Cocktails!!!!

Today we Blue Ducked cocktails with wine.  We had a great time putting concoctions together.  We will be mixing these in the Tasting Room in the upcoming days.  Just a few finishing touches before we release our new Specialty Drink menu.  Here are a couple to look forward to....

Spring-gar-ita (above)

Starts with our Edelweiss wine then we add margarita mix, cucumber slices and fresh mint leaves.  This is a great refreshing drink.

Blushing Briana (above)

This one has our Briana wine, pear nectar, cherries, cherry juice and ginger ale.

Some others include the Tini-Orangealini, The Musky Navel and the Red Mos-cito.   We will continue to add more as we do more experimenting.  The Specialty Drink menu will be available soon.