Rick's Favorite Moussaka with a Clos LaChance Syrah

Rick enjoys many different types of ethnic foods and one of his favorites comes from Greece. Moussaka is a beautifully layered casserole of potatoes, eggplant, zucchini and white sauce with a ground beef tomato sauce separating each layer. Heavenly! It makes you want to dance.
 

The Clos LaChance Syrah is wonderful with this dish.

Serves 8 (Rick had to take this dish to a potluck so the pictures show twelve servings)

Ingredients

Olive oil spray

2 12 oz. eggplants, peeled, cut lengthwise in half and then cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 1/2 pounds of zucchini cut into 1/4-inch slices

1 pound of red skinned potatoes sliced into 1/4-inch rounds.

1-teaspoon olive oil

2 cups of chopped onions

1 tablespoon of minced garlic

2 teaspoons dried oregano

1 pound of lean ground beef (or ground turkey)

 28 oz. can of whole tomatoes in juice

3 tablespoons of tomato paste

1/2 cup of breadcrumbs

2 large egg whites beaten

1/4-teaspoon ground cinnamon

White Sauce

2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Spray two baking sheets with olive oil spray. Arrange eggplant slices, zucchini, and potatoes on the two sheets. Spray with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until tender about 40 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool. Reduce temperature to 375 degrees.

Add the teaspoon of olive oil, the onion and the garlic to a skillet. Cook about seven minutes. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of water if the mixture gets too dry. Sir in oregano and add the beef. Cook until brown. 

Add tomatoes with their juices and tomato paste. Break up the tomatoes with the back of a spoon. Cook about 15 minutes until mixture thickens. Add salt and pepper, remove from the heat and add half the breadcrumbs, egg whites and cinnamon.

Spray a 13X9X2 glass-baking dish with olive oil. Sprinkle the bottom of the dish with breadcrumbs. Cover the bottom with the potatoes. Spread half of the beef mixture over the potatoes. Cover with the eggplant. Spoon remaining beef mixture over the eggplant. Top with all of the zucchini.

Pour white sauce over the moussaka. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the sauce and bake until the top is golden about 55 minutes.

White Sauce

Ingredients

6 tablespoons of flour

3 cups of milk (1%)

1/4-teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 large egg yellows

1-teaspoon butter

Whisk flour in pan. Add one cup of milk whisking until smooth. Put it on the stove and add the remaining two cups of milk. Whisk until mixture thickens and boils, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat whisk in Parmesan, eggs and butter. Season with salt and pepper.

This recipe was adopted from Bon Appetit, February 1998.

Spaghetti with Ground Turkey accompanied by a Wargin Sangiovese & Freisa

Rick Podowski has done lots of research on the wines used in the five mysteries.  On one of his research expeditions, he was in Watsonville where Myka Cellars and Roudon Smith have a tasting room when he discovered a delightful new winery.

Wargin Wines is a family run winery that specializes in Cal-Italia varietals including: Montepulciano, Sangiovese, Freisa, Barbera, Pinot Gris as well as Chardonnay and collection of Petite Sirahs. They are best known for their signature Big And Beautiful, a California Red blend of Italian varietals. When Rick visited the tasting room, he fell in love with their Sangiovese and Freisa blend. He went home and made his favorite pasta consisting of thick spaghetti, ground turkey, and crushed red pepper flakes to give the dish a bite.

Spaghetti with Ground Turkey

Four Rick Podowski sized servings

Ingredients
1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 package of ground turkey

1 onion-chopped
1-2 garlic cloves-chopped

1-2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning

1 tablespoon of sugar

2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes

Crushed red paper to taste

1 pound of Spaghetti

 Add the olive oil to the pan and then cook the garlic, the onion and ground turkey together. 

When the turkey has browned add the tomatoes, the Italian seasoning, the sugar and the red pepper.

Cook for about thirty minutes and serve over spaghetti. 

Rick's Polish Borscht with Myka Cellar's Meritage

Death of a Foster Child explores the guilt felt when the foster placement of a teenage girl in the home of Rick Podowski and his wife failed.  To complicate matters, the foster child was brutally murdered and the authorities have accused her of selling drugs on the school campus and by implication asserted that the foster parents allowed this behavior.  Rick Podowski with the help of Leti Ramos, Erin McGinty and Teresa Spinelli, also know as The Hefty Trio, investigate what really happened.

In the process of investigating, they discover the world of drug sales on the high school campus, the underlying challenges facing students in a gang infested school, as well as the difficulties faced by special education students. The reader will experience the frustrations of foster parents when faced with a system that is designed to keep the children dependent. Suggestions to improve foster care and move the children towards independence are provided at the end of the book. 

Myka Cellars

Mica Raas learned to make wine from the ground up, starting as a cellar rat who worked in Sonoma's Russian River Valley. Since then he has worked in Napa, Sonoma, and Lodi, and has now come back to Watsonville to own and operate his own winery.

Myka Cellars takes a holistic approach to winemaking. There are no fermenters larger than one ton and many of the wines are only one or two-barrel lots. Mica's goal is to produce food friendly wines lower in alcohol and oak. The wines of more than one grape involve a co-fermentation with all grapes fermented together to create complex and unique flavors that can only be obtained through this process. Oak barrels are used to accentuate the existing flavors of the grapes, and care is taken that the oak does not become the dominant flavor. The grapes that are used for the wines come only from very small family operated vineyards in the Monterey Bay region.

Currently Raas is making: Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Charbono, Cabernet Franc, and a blend called Chloe Meritage- Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc, and Merlot.

Total production for the winery is about 1,500 cases per year.

Rick's Polish Borscht with Myka Cellar's Chloe Meritage

Borscht is one of Rick's favorite soups. Serve this with some perogi which can be found in the freezer section of the supermarket and you will have a wonderful meal.

2 leeks

2 carrots

2 stalks of celery

8 beets (medium sized)

8 cups of water

1 bay leaf

2 cups rough chopped parsley or one bunch

2 cups rough chopped dill or one bunch

2 teaspoons salt

lemon juice or vinegar to taste

Clean the leeks, carrots and celery and chop into large chunks. Wash the beets and chop off both the ends. Do not peel. Add all of the ingredients, except the lemon juice, to a very large pot, and bring to a boil.

 Simmer for 1 hour. Remove the beets and set aside. Peel the beets when they have cooled down. 

Strain out the veggies, reserving the broth. Either chop the beets into small bite size pieces or julienne them.

 Put the beets and broth back in the pot. Heat until nice and hot. Add lemon juice or vinegar to taste and season with salt and pepper.

Serves 8

Borscht, Pierogies, Sour Cream and Meritage