All Hallows’ Eve Supper…

A luscious, thick, fresh tasting Blood Orange infused Extra Virgin olive oil and a complex, fruity Black Muscat Wine were brought to my table recently and I knew with my first sip that they would be perfect additions to my traditional All Hallows’ Eve supper, and not just because of their eerie names. Come, have a seat, I’ll tell you why…

The main course for this meal is always my Beast Bourguignon, which is perfect for Halloween because it is hearty, flavorful and warming and you can leave it in the cauldron simmering and at the ready for the very last of your goblins who may trickle in after a successful night of gathering treats.

When I tasted these 2 products I knew their flavors {and names} would help me to make the perfect accompaniments for this full-bodied stew. I was at the International Food Bloggers Conference in Sacramento when I had my first sips. At the conclusion of the conference they held a frenzied event where local producers brought in their goods and moved from table to table serving tastes and pitching their product for a limited time period {I think it was 3 minutes} until the timer went off and they moved to the next table. For the bloggers, we are challenged to do a flash blog/Instagram/facebook/twitter post on our favorite products. It was a delicious and frenetic way to end the conference.

I was posting on Instagram about these products, do you Instagram? What’s your handle? I’d love to follow you. I’ve been getting into it lately, I’m at Splendid7 if you want to follow me, or click on the logo over there to the right ->->->

Anyway, I digress, let’s get back to the dining room.

Along with the Beast Bourguignon I always serve a Luna Moth Wing Salad. Have you ever seen a Luna moth? They are pretty unforgettable. Years ago we were staying at a house at the Phinda Game Preserve in Africa  where each night Luna Moths would land on the sun baked walls of the house and stay there, absorbing the walls’ warmth through breakfast. While we were eating breakfast on the porch each morning we got to watch them as they prepared to flutter off for the day. Here’s an image I found of one on a great blog called austerity games.

With a wingspan of 5 inches, you can imagine that they are quite mesmerizing. That beautiful shade of green with the subtle veins somehow reminded me of something…. it reminded me of butter lettuce leaves. Could you imagine anything more horrible that ripping the wings off these beautiful insects to eat for dinner? Disgusting, right? And so, therefore, the perfect name for a Halloween salad.

So that’s where the idea came from to call it Luna Moth Wing Salad. When I tasted the Capay Valley Blood Orange infused EV Olive Oil in Sacramento I was first impressed with its luxuriously thick viscosity, it offered a wonderful mouth feel. Then, when that fresh citrus taste hit my tounge I knew it would be perfect on leaves of fresh Butter Lettuce for my All Hallows’ Eve supper. The dressing could not have been easier to make, I stirred up 2 parts of the olive oil with one part white wine vinegar and a healthy sprinkling of coarse salt then drizzled it over the leaves and tossed them. It was the perfect complement to these tender, gentle leaves.

So, then what about that Black Muscat wine, you maybe wondering?

Let me tell you, it was the most ethereal sip, rich in flavors of fruit and a little bit of floral (think of the scent of a fragrant red rose) with a lightly spicy finish… sort of a blend of cardamom and nutmeg.

While I would have been content just sipping as is, one of the Sobon family members who was pouring mentioned that he likes to use this wine in place of water in a good quality brownie mix to create a rich chocolate cake of sorts…. this definitely got my wheels turning…. what an elegant way to bake something fresh and chocolatey for dinner with ease.

So, this brilliant hack was the foundation for my Chocolate Pumpkin Patch Cake. I used a Ghiradelli Double Chocolate Brownie mix and poured in that luscious black muscat wine {I will never skimp with water again!!}. I baked it in a rectangular tart pan, lining it with foil to contain the batter. I baked it for 40 minutes and out came this lovely little “pathway” of chocolate. The exterior looked rough and weathered, but the interior was rich, soft, dark and just a little gooey. The muscat wine blended beautifully with the chocolate, the flavors of the wine didn’t stand out as much as they just added a nice level of complexity to the chocolate. I let the cake cool a little before pressing these pumpkin~shaped chocolate truffles from Trader Joe’s into the “soil”. Tart sour apple green candy leaves and more truffles were the perfect surround for this creation.

As you may have guessed we served glasses of the Sobon Family, Shenandoah Vineyards Black Muscat with the dessert as well as some of their Vintage Port and their Orange Muscat wine {my personal favorite}.

Are you all ready for the big night? If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen my pumpkin transformations, here is what they look like in front of the house.

Have you noticed all of the Marigolds on the market this year? They are an important flower for the Latin American Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Meurtos which starts on Halloween and goes through November 2nd. The bright colors and distinctive scent of the marigolds are supposed help the dead souls to find their way back for their feast.

They use them to line pathways and to adorn alters, isn’t this one incredible?

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween, be sure to share your Instagram information with me so I can see all of your shots!

By the way, I wanted to emphasize that I bought these products because I truly love them and I’ve not been paid in any way for promoting the products in this post. However, the IFBC does give participants a discount on their admission fee if they agree to write about the conference and/ or the sponsors, which I would do anyway.