Day 2: Chicken in Riesling

Is it wrong to admit that I spent the morning dreaming about lunch? Not in my book, at least not when lunch is leftovers from a great meal.

For Day 2 of Restaurant-Free Month, we were a little more ambitious. I don't normally cook new recipes for company, in case something goes horribly, horribly wrong. But I really wanted to try a Chicken in Riesling recipe from the now-defunct Gourmet magazine, and we really wanted to see our friends A. and D. I decided to make an exception.

I love a good stew, and I welcome any chance to pull out my beloved Le Creuset casserole dish. The Chicken in Riesling recipe is similar to a Coq au Vin, only with white wine, a finishing of cream, and a lot less cooking time. I made very few adjustments to the recipe. (I didn't want to deal with a whole chicken, so I bought thighs and legs; I added a spoonful of sour cream since our market didn't have creme fraiche; and I left the skins on the red fingerling potatoes for more color.) The stew takes only an hour to make and calls for browning the chicken then braising it in Riesling with carrots and leeks. Parsleyed potatoes and a little cream finish the dish. It was incredibly good and tasted like it had been cooking all day. We sopped up the sauce with crusty bread... otherwise we'd have licked the bowls.

In case the stew went terribly awry, I decided to make one of our favorite appetizer/salad dishes so that there would be at least one good thing on the table -- endive with walnuts and blue cheese in a white wine viniagrette. This is so easy and delicious: buy two or three heads of endive, pull off the largest, prettiest leaves, then chop the rest of the endive and toss it with blue cheese, toasted walnuts and a homemade viniagrette (I whisk together two or three tablespoons olive oil with two or three teaspoons of white wine vinegar and add a little salt and pepper). The chopped salad mixture is served on top of the whole leaves. It doesn't keep well, so the end of the night saw me picking at all the leftover pieces so we wouldn't have to throw them out. (It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.)

Our friends brought a delicious bottle of homemade (!) sparkling (!) red wine and a pumpkin cheesecake. We ate and drank very well and stayed up late talking and laughing. It was a great start to the new year.