A Taste Of East Tennessee for our Wine Club - Part 1

We hosted the September meeting of our wine club and selected a theme of “Food and Wine From East Tennessee” so each couple was asked to bring a bottle of wine from our area for tasting and a small plate dish from this area or the southern mountains.  The photos are courtesy of Big Daddy Dave and should give you a sense of the evening.

We began with appetizers of pickled watermelon rinds, pickled beets, and Bev's pimento cheese stuffed celery washed down with some wine and margaritas.

For the entrees we had pinto beans and cornbread muffins - a first try ever from ex-Floridians.

Chicken and dumplings using grandma's recipe from West Virginia.

Creamed corn from midwesteners.

And our sausage gravy and biscuits plus we had some Lambert's Cafe Sorghum Molasses for the biscuits.

Let the eating begin.

The plates weren't quite large enough to hold some of everything.

After the food had settled a little we had our wine tasting  For the wines we had:

Blackberry from Stonehaus Winery
Rhubarb from Mountain Valley Winery
White blends from Savannah Oaks and Stonehaus Wineries
Peach from Del Monaco and Chestnut Hill Wineries
We also had one non East Tennessee mystery wine which turned out to be Gallo's Boone’s Farm Mountain Berry and Bev and I both enjoyed it.  

I found it interesting that with 19 East Tennessee Wineries most of which make a wide variety of wines, the closest thing to a dry wine that anyone brought was one semi-sweet and I was very surprised that no one brought muscadine - which is the native wild grape.

We finished the evening with two desserts - peanut butter cup bars and southern possum pie – perfect name for the theme.  They were both delicious but I got only a shot of the pie.

The food and drink were all very good, the theme was a hit, and everyone seemed to have a fine time - the measure of a successful party. 

LEFTOVER MEATLOAF request - At some point in the recent past, one of you posted a recipe containing leftover meatloaf and it was something I wanted to try, but I can't find it, remember what it was or who posted it - I would sure appreciate an email from the author.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

9/29/14 event date