Our first annual "Open That Bottle Night" and 2 1/2 bottles later...

Last night we had our friends Jim and Maria over for dinner. We were celebrating the "Open that Bottle Night" which was officially on Saturday. (On Saturday Larry and I opened a bottle of Murietta's Well, Livermore Valley '04 Tempranillo. Very nice with our beef and shrimp stir fry we made.) They got a babysitter so they were in the mood to enjoy an evening with grown-ups. Well, that is really a loose term that we take lightly. Yes we are grown up, but some times we don't act like grown-ups. I decided to make an easy, homey meal of Cornish game hens. Earlier in the day I marinated them with EVOO, 1/2 lemon zest and juice, fresh rosemary, (that I ran outside to harvest in the rain), garlic powder, and both spicy paprika and fresh ground black pepper. I just rubbed this mixture all over the hens, put them in ziplocs and into the fridge for 5-6 hours. Then I made the mixture from Trader Joe's Harvest Grain blend mix. I cooked it according to the directions w/chicken stock instead of water. I then put it onto a cookie sheet to cool down. While it was cooling I put on top of it 4 garlic cloves chopped, another 1/2 lemon zested, a little bit of lavender salt, black pepper and a touch of cayenne. Then I took about 15 nice size white mushrooms, rough chopped them and cooked them in a mixture of EVOO and butter, about 1 tbl. of each. After cooling the mushrooms and couscous mixture I mixed it all together and put it into the fridge. About 1-1/2 hours before I wanted to serve I took out the hens, the stuffing mixture and 1 packet of goat cheese @3-4 oz. I crumbled the cheese into the stuffing, which I then packed into the cavity of the hens and closed it shut with a large toothpick. I put the hens, breast side up, into the 350 degree preheated oven for 50 minutes then turned up the heat to 400 degrees for another 15 minutes. I took them out and let sit for about 5 minutes. To serve I removed the toothpicks, cut the hens in half with kitchen sheers and served both halves of the hen on top of spinach that I lightly sautéed in EVOO with a splash of balsamic vinegar (I used Vanilla Fig balsamic) at the end. I served this meal starting out with a Palumbo Family, Temecula Valley, '06 Viognier. They are one of the wineries we visited while we were in Temecula in January and really liked. They are very small, family run, and have good wines. We had this wine with my homemade hummus served with vegetables for dipping. After that we moved to the dinner table and enjoyed a Rochioli, Russian River, '06 Sauvignon Blanc. This wine was amazing with the hens! It had great fruit forward, was fairly dry and very easy to drink. For dessert Maria brought individual chocolate molten cakes that we baked off after dinner. Jim brought a Meeker Vineyard, Russian River, '04 Fro Zin. This was a great dessert wine! It only has 12.2% alcohol but it is high is residual sugar, 17.4% which is what makes it go perfect with dessert. We had a great evening with good friends, good food and good wine. We even had enough energy to do the dishes before going to bed. What more can one want?