Hottest day of summer so far – dinner & wine

For dinner on the hottest day so far this summer, a day that had us wishing for winter to come early, we were in the hot kitchen, where we fried halloumi cheese, boiled pumpkin pieces (which were then sprayed with oil and put into the oven to brown under the grill), and boiled some asparagus spears. We heated spinach leaves (while we wilted in the kitchen with the added heat from cooking).   All of this was then stacked on a bed of lemon and chicken flavoured couscous.  The combination of flavours was very tasty and I could have kept eating.  It always amazes me how Mum can come up with such tasty dinners on the spur of the moment.  Mum’s own comment on the dinner was “It’s better than Fish ‘n’ chips”!!!!

The best bit of the meal was the halloumi cheese.  I love halloumi cheese!  Mum introduced me to it.  I love biting into the fried cheese and hearing the ‘squeak’ noise on the teeth.  I wish I could eat lots of it but there is a definite limit to how much you can have in one sitting because the fried fatty richness proves to be too much.

Our couscous, pumpkin, spinach, asparagus and halloumi cheese stack was accompanied by a Mud House Sauvignon Blanc wine (2010).  It is very pale in colour and very fragrant.  Inhaling, Mum and I picked out definite mango and passionfruit and hay fragrances.  Then we read the label on the back of the bottle which states: “mouth watering flavours of tropical fruits, citrus and green beans”.  Green beans?  On sniffing the wine again, yes, green beans were there.  It was a very fresh new wine, being a 2010, but the freshness  was beautifully suited to the hot day and was very refreshing.  I would describe it as a “vivid zingy savvy sav”.