Hi Everyone! Just got back from a visit to Madison where I finally got a chance to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We opted to stay in and cook rather than eating out because we wanted to have some fun leisurely cooking, eating and drinking wine. For the candlelit dinner we enjoyed a cheese course (cave aged cardona, brie and Ader Kase blue cheese) served with a warmed crusty baguette, followed by sausage, sundried tomato and spinach pasta stack ups and roasted asparagus for the entrée and finished with apple cinnamon clafouti. To go with dinner we had some Warres Otima 20 year-old tawny port and Wollershiem’s white port. While the other one is in love with the Warres port, I was super excited for the Wollershiem port because only a limited quantity is made each year. This year since I have been in Madison, I hadn’t been able to track any down. Now the hard part will be to actually bring myself to drink it, rather than stash it away for safe keeping.
While this dinner sounds incredibly time consuming, it the opposite! I will definitely be posting the different parts of our dinner, for today I wanted to share with you the pasta stack ups. I can not emphasize how simple, quick AND delicious these were. The sweet tanginess from the sundried tomatoes complements the spices in the sausage and garlic. The next time you want to try out a new recipe this is one you should reach for. The only tricky part may be locating the sun dried tomatoes that are not packed in oil. As luck would have it, we stumbled upon some at a gourmet food store. However, I found out today that you can get at least three different varieties at Whole Foods. Continue reading