We had Jay and Ginger over for dinner tonight. I was pretty sure I wanted to make chicken, and after looking through a bunch of old Fine Cooking magazines, decided on these stuffed chicken breasts. Dinner was good overall, but probably not the best choices as far as make-ahead. Everything required too much attention.
The pan sauce uses verjus (vair-ZHOO) as the acid, instead of something like lemon juice or vinegar (although a combination of vinegar and cider would have worked). Verjus is the tart, fresh juice of unripe wine grapes. The advantage of using verjus is that it’s very wine-friendly. It would make a nice wine-friendly vinaigrette for a salad, I think.

– I really liked the sables, but Larry thought they were too cheesy. I have a bunch of dough left over that I’m going to freeze for another time.
– The chicken breasts were pretty good. I’m not so crazy about mushrooms but it was okay like this. I bought huge Rocky free range breasts for this, and I’m glad I did – it made stuffing them much easier than if I would have tried to create pockets in smaller breasts.
– Everyone loves this squash dish. I don’t know why I don’t make it more often. Trader Joe’s carries diced butternut squash, which makes preparation a snap.
– All I can say about the spinach salad is “candied walnuts”. I want to eat them by the handful.
– Larry picked the dessert out of Bittersweet. I’m not crazy about coffee desserts, but I made it anyway and cut back on the amount of coffee. Jay hated it, Larry and Ginger loved it. I was so-so on it. It was a breeze to make, though. I loved the shortbread crust.

• Mrs. Lenkh’s Cheese Sablés (Fine Cooking #74, November 2005, p. 10)
• Chicken Breasts with Mushroom-Pancetta Stuffing & Verjus Sauce (Fine Cooking #49, March 2002, p. 51)
• Braised Winter Squash & Potatoes with Mustard & Shallots (Fine Cooking #31, March 1999, p. 37)
• Spinach & Basil Salad with Tomatoes, Candied Walnuts & Warm Bacon Dressing (Fine Cooking #70, March 2005, p. 55)
• Warm Mocha Tart (Bittersweet, p. 278)

Wine: 2003 Sapphire Hill Bastoni Vineyard Palomino (Sonoma County, California). A nice, well-rounded white. I think there are only three wines in the state made with the Palomino grape. We know the people who grow the grapes, which makes it even nicer to drink.