Cooking with wine

When an occasion is special you want a meal that is extraordinary and memorable. Braised leg of lamb with wine, lemon, and oregano is easy yet impressive to serve, and everyone loves the delicious Greek flavors.

Garlic Lovers Pork Chops have a mildly sweet and fragrant garlic flavor that doesn’t overpower or overwhelm the taste buds.

Trust me when I tell you that they will be some of the best pork chops you’ve ever eaten!

This recipe for Delicioso White Bean, Fennel & Italian Sausage Soup is one I found, and adapted, from Cooking Light Magazine. I didn’t change the recipe much, but I did add more fennel (because I love the light anise flavor of fennel a lot lately), and I also increased the amount of white beans from the original recipe, and I omitted the sage and parsley because I forgot to purchase them at the market. Doh!

Other than that, this recipe I’m sharing is pretty much just as it was written in the magazine. I DO NOT take credit for this recipe, but I do take credit for sharing it with you here on Kudos Kitchen in case you missed it in Cooking Light Magazine. I strongly urge you to make this soup. It’s delicious!

The day I saw him make it, I kept waiting for chef Symon to add heavy cream to his dish while he was cooking his skillet chicken thighs (I think it was for a Five in Five), but he never did. I wanted to, so I did. I also omitted the mustard, added shallots, and didn’t shave my Brussels sprouts. I quartered them.

There is nothing quite like bringing the family around the #SundaySupper dinner table with something comforting and delicious.

With only a few minutes of preparation, you can enjoy the wonderfully tempting aroma of this Best Ever Dutch Oven Braised Pot Roast for hours as it cooks in the oven with minimal ingredients. For me, that’s one of the best parts of an oven braised meal! The anticipation!!

Imagine if you will, deeply caramelized onions (cooked in a slow cooker) with red wine, butter, beef broth and thyme until they’re sweet and pungent. The onions are stuffed into large, perfectly cooked pasta shells until they’re practically overflowing. The stuffed shells are then layered on top of toasted, garlicky French bread, topped with an abundant mixture of grated Swiss, and Gruyere cheeses, and popped into the oven, so the cheese melts into a blanket of golden, gooey, goodness…Be still my French onion loving heart!

Once cooked, you can use this White Wine Poached Chicken Breast with Bay Leaf for all sorts of salads, sandwiches, and casseroles. You are only limited by your imagination with how you’ll use it. Of course, you can eat it plain too. It’s that good!

When it comes to French Onion soup, I can’t decide what my favorite part about the soup is. Whether it’s the deep rich broth, the abundance of sweet caramelized onions, the hearty slice of bread crouton that’s soaked in the broth and floats the perfectly browned and melted cheese.

Since I love every part of the soup, I’ve incorporated every part into my recipe of French Onion Chicken, including the bread crouton that sits atop the abundance of sweet caramelized onions, and acts as a platform for the moist and meaty chicken thigh and the melted cheese! Be still my heart!!!

Moist and meaty chicken thighs, along with red potatoes are cooked low and slow in a white wine caper sauce for this Italian classic of Slow Cooker Chicken Vesuvio. Sometimes when I have an idea for a recipe or method I need to make it without delay! That was the case for this Slow Cooker Chicken Vesuvio. So much …

This is by far the quickest and tastiest recipe for spaghetti that I’ve had in a long time, and it’s all thanks to fellow food blogger, Trish Rosenquist, and her brand new cookbook: “100 Creative Ways to use Rotisserie Chicken in Everyday Meals.”