Pork & Pinot Party!

We had another dinner party this weekend! (And will have another this coming one.) Anyhoo, this time around it was pork tenderloin with three types of pinot noir! Our friends brought a lovely salad and peach cobbler.

We started with a bit of Grand Beck Champers before heading out briefly to an opening at Adamson gallery. Then we came back and had some more drinks along with this duck mousse pate (that was NOT good), and some almonds I doctored up with raisins, curry and chili.

The first course was this handmade pasta from Vace, in Cleveland Park. To introduce the pork theme, I made a carbonara to go along with this spinach linguini. I didn't have pancetta, but the bacon worked. I really love the egg in this dish--so easy!

Second course: pork tenderloin on wilted chard. I had seared the tenderloin ahead of time, so when we came back from the gallery, I covered it and popped it in a 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes. Also made a reduction with the pan searings.

Then wilted some swiss chard in vegetable stock, added some red wine vinegar (but forgot the raisins). Then sliced the pork and topped the vegetables with it.

We had three different types of 2006 pinot noir: Foris, Yamhill Valley Reserve and Benziger.

Benziger was by far the best, followed by Foris.

Third course: Salad. Francoise and Tim brought a delicious blend of greens, blueberries, pinenuts, with shavings of Reggiano and a grapefruit juice vinaigrette. Francoise (who is French) indicated that it's really an American thing to add fruit to a salad. Whatever the country of origin, the salad was very nice!

Fourth course: Cheese. We had a Petit Basque, Comte, and a creamy brie.

For the finale: Peach cobbler! Candy made this lovely cobbler from scratch, with firm yellow peaches and served it hot with Vanilla ice cream! Soooooo good! We had it with this Benzier Port.

Two great things about hosting a dinner party:

1. Cool host gifts, like these tulips (from Sean and Candy) and this great bottle of wine (from Francoise and Tim)--thank you guys!

2. Fun leftovers (more on those latuh!!)