Dinner Time!

I had a very interesting dinner tonight.

To begin with, I had been reading about brining for some time.  I decided I'd make a go of it.  I made a mix with onions, garlic, peppercorns, green chilis, peppercorns, and quite a bit of salt.  I boiled it for a few minutes, let it cool, and put a turkey breast in it.  That was yesterday.  Today, I cooked it as I usually would a turkey breast (mmm).

I have to say, I think it made a difference.  Now, I don't think it necessarily made a difference in flavor.  I didn't really taste the pepper or chilis or cayenne pepper.  But I will say it was probably the wettest turkey I've ever had.  I had juices positively flowing down my knife when I cut into it, and it was tender and delicious.  I don't think I'd add all the different spices to it, but I'd definitely brine turkey and other poultry again.

What else did I have?  I made some delicious mashed potatoes.  This may be old-hat to some, but I love throwing in a few cloves of garlic with the potatoes and cooking it longer.  Then I mix it all, along with some butter and milk.  It is good.

But that probably wasn't the most unusual part of my meal.  I've been thinking for a while about making wine.  Even in my area, anyone can get some great concentrate, etc., from some mail order places.  But I decided to start a bit smaller.  Namely, I decided I'd make some wine from Welch's Concord Grape Concentrate.  Not only that, but I used bread yeast instead of wine yeast.

The results are interesting, and not entirely unpleasant.  I started this batch about three weeks ago, and I had the results with (and a bit before) dinner.  Overall, I have to say it's not bad.  What it comes down to is a wine that is pretty sweet, with (as you can imagine) a strong concord flavor.  It is really about the same as a very fruity wine of any other variety.  I liken it to an immature pinot noir or beaujolais nouveau, just with a distinctive flavor that is very different from those two.

I may have to do it again to see how I can tweak the flavor.  I'll also probably work on some 'real' grapes to see what I can do.  Overall, rather fun.  Even though it's just grocery-store-concentrate, it's nice to drink something I made.

Tomorrow: leftovers!!