We arrived in St. Augustine around lunch time and needed to get some food. I wanted to go to Cruiser's, but it was freezing outside and Cruiser's only has outdoor seating. So I decided to take her to one my St. Augustine favorites, Scarlet O'Hara's. My recommendations if you ever go to Scarlet O'Hara's are the jalapeno cheese grits and their signature cocktail, which is appropriately named the Scarlet O'Hara. After lunch, we wandered around St. George Street and went in some of the fun little shops.
Next on our agenda was the main event, San Sebastian Winery. The winery offers free tours and wine tastings every day, and they never cut you off! I have done probably at least 20 wine tastings there and they never turn me away :) In fact, our tour guide gave me a wine bottle opener as a gift for being the person on our tour who had visited the winery the most times.
Heather and I went on the tour of the facility, which I could probably give myself and then it was tasting time. We tasted 8 of their wines: Blanc du Bois (dry white), Castillo Red (dry red), Rosa (pink), Vintners White (sweet white), Vintners Red (sweet red), Port (dessert wine), Cream Sherry (dessert wine), and Proprietors Reserve (sweet red/port blend). My favorites are the Vintners White, Vintners Red, and Rosa. Their champagne (which you don't get to try in the tasting) is awesome as well, called Blanc de Fleur. We bought some wine while we were there of course, but you can also buy their wines in grocery stores in Florida and Georgia. If you like sweet wine, their wine is perfect for you. This wine is made from the muscadine grape, which is native to the Southeast region so it tastes completely different (and better in my opinion) than California wine.
While we were in St. Augustine, Heather was talking about the white chicken chili that she was making for dinner that night, and I was intrigued. I had never had chili made with chicken before; I'm too much of a red meat lover. When I got home from our outing, I told Jared that I wanted to try and make white chicken chili for dinner as well. So I got online and started looking at different recipes. I picked out certain ingredients from each recipe that I liked and decided to come up with my own recipe (listed below). I started throwing ingredients into my stock pot until it looked like I had enough of everything. Luckily, it came out great! For some reason, I have a nack for making chili. I don't cook much else very well, but I can make some delicious chili. Once the chili was ready, Jared and I started a fire in our fire pit in the backyard. We sat by the fire and enjoyed the crisp winter night with our chili and some wine.
Due to my exceptional chili making skills, I have been volunteered to make our Christmas day dinner for the family. My family has this interesting tradition (I have no idea where it came from) of having chili as our Christmas day meal. No turkey for us! This year, I am in charge of making our traditional meal. I am really excited and kind of nervous. As of yesterday, I have decided that I am going to make both of my chilis, my traditional beef chili and this new white chicken chili. Hopefully they will both turn out good!
Listed below are the ingredients for my new chili. I never cook chili according to a "recipe" per say, just a list of ingredients that I throw together in a stew pot and let it all simmer on low for a few hours.
"White Chicken Chili"
chicken breasts (chopped)
great northern beans
white kidney beans
sweet onion (chopped)
green pepper (chopped)
red pepper (chopped)
garlic (minced)
jalapeno (seeded, chopped)
green chiles (diced)
chicken broth
flour (about 3 tablespoons to thicken the broth)
McCormick's white chicken chili seasoning
garlic salt
cumin
oregano
black pepper
chili powder
cajun shake
shredded monterey jack cheese (for topping)
We had never made this recipe before, but it turned out great! Enjoy :)
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