Guest Column: Wine & Dinner of the Month Club -- April

We’re back with the April installment of the Wine/Dinner of the Month Club for my lovely Christine. This month we took a trip to a Kentucky state park for a little weekend R&R. I don’t think the state parks allow alcohol so I can’t divulge the actual location, but it rhymes with Pine Mountain. We rented a log cabin which comes with a small kitchen outfitted with limited equipment, so we had to bring some of our own cookware and all of necessary ingredients for the meal. The wine this month was a dry, sparkler, which regular readers of TNV know is a very versatile wine, pairing with many different kinds of food. We decided on a brunch menu. Due to the limitations of the cabin kitchen, I kept it fairly simple, but the results were delicious and the wine was a delight.

Menu
Easy Quiche
Ten Minute Cinnamon Rolls
Sautéed asparagus

Wine
Les Rocailles Brut Sparkling Wine

I started by making the cinnamon rolls. About half-way through I realized we did not bring enough butter for the entire meal, so I sent Christine to the grocery store in town while I continued to work. The prep on the rolls took only about 15 minutes and they bake up in about 10 minutes, so I set the unbaked rolls aside while I made the quiche. As you can see, the recipe for the quiche is very simple with everything being mixed in one big bowl and then poured into a pie pan for baking. Baking the quiche took about 50 minutes, which gave me time to do a little clean up, and about ten minutes before it was done, I sautéed the asparagus. As you can see from the picture, the quiche came out lightly browned and bubbly-licious (yes, that’s a real word).

We plated everything up and had brunch on the cabin’s outer deck. We both loved the wine, the bubbles cutting through the egg and cheese of the quiche, letting all the flavors come through. It also went very well with the asparagus. But what about the cinnamon rolls?

After the quiche, we took a little break while I baked up the rolls. These are not the cinnamon rolls you may remember grandma making. There is no yeast in the mix so they come out more like cinnamon biscuits, but they are still very tasty. They came out of the oven golden brown and we let them cool just slightly before trying them with a little of the sparkling wine. I don’t think the sparkling wine was a particularly good match for the rolls. The sweetness of the rolls really overwhelmed the dryness of the wine. They were much better with the coffee we brewed up in the cabin’s drip coffee maker.

After the quiche, asparagus, rolls, coffee and a bottle of wine between the two of us, we took a long afternoon nap, like the slugs we were that weekend.


If I had to do anything different, I would have started the quiche and then made the cinnamon rolls. The 50 minutes it took to bake the quiche would have given me plenty of time to prep the rolls so they could be popped into the oven as soon as the quiche came out. No matter, it was still a great meal that kicked off a great weekend away. Next month we’ll no doubt be back at home with another delicious meal and wine pairing. Check back in to see what’s cooking!