Red Wine Calamity

Drying the Carpet

I found something new at Costco.  It wasn’t on my list, but it seemed right in line with my focus on stretching my grocery dollar, staying healthy, and keeping the nutritional values in balance. Coleman Natural All Natural Gourmet Chicken Meatballs were calling out to me and I didn’t resist.  I figured at 110 calories per serving (four meatballs), with no carbs and only 5 grams of fat, this could be a good choice for us—around 18 servings for $12 works out to 60 cents a serving.  Not bad.

I gave it a try that night.  I sautéed them with a couple of sliced mushrooms, added a spoonful of capers and made a little wine reduction, tossed them with lemon pepper papardelle noodles, radish tops (yes, radish tops) and a couple of tablespoon of cream.  That and a salad would be our dinner.

Joe set the table and poured the wine.  Then he played with Trace for a few minutes while I finished the final preparations of our dinner.  And that’s when the wine calamity happened.  Somehow, in the enthusiasm of play, a glass of wine went tumbling to the carpet.  A whole glass of red wine. 

I must say that Joe was extremely quick in figuring out how to deal with this.  He moved the furniture off and dragged the 9’x12’ carpet out the front door and onto the porch.  He trained the hose on the wine spill and power washed it thoroughly.  Then he used a squeegee to get as much of the water off as possible.  A friend had given me a canister of something called “Wine Away” last year.  “Just in case,” she said.  Joe sprayed the carpet, waited a few minutes, and then blotted the spot with a couple of big, thirsty towels.  He dragged the carpet back into the house and laid it in his office with a fan trained on it so that it would dry faster.

Papardelle Pasta with Chicken Meatballs

¼ package of Trader Joe’s Lemon Pepper Papardelle pasta (or 2 oz. dry linguine)

½ tablespoon garlic herb olive oil (from Kitchen Essentials)

8 Coleman Natural Chicken Meatballs (or other appetizer size cooked chicken meatballs)

2 medium crimini mushrooms

1 tablespoon capers

¼ cup white wine

2 cups fresh radish tops (or fresh baby spinach leaves)

2 tablespoons heavy cream

Ground sea salt and pepper to taste

Toss sliced mushrooms and meatballs in garlic herb olive oil in medium sauté pan at medium heat until mushrooms are nicely browned.  Add capers and white wine and reduce to syrup, about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, cook Papardelle (or linguine) in boiling, salted water until al dente, about 8 minutes.

Toss pasta with meatballs, radish tops (or spinach) and about ¼ cup cooking liquid from pasta.  Take off heat and cover for 2 minutes.  Toss with cream just before serving.  Prep time: 5 minutes.  Cooking time: 15 minutes.  Serves two.

Because of the wine accident, our dinner was paused.  I had gotten as far as washing the radish leaves, slicing the mushrooms, prepping the sauté pan with garlic herb olive oil, and setting the water to boil for the pasta.  After the spill was taken care of, it was only a matter of minutes to put everything together and get dinner on the table.  All that was left to do was toss a salad—which could be done while dinner was heating through.

Now we were finally ready to eat.