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Drinking wine can be beneficial

beatitudesofmylife's avatarBeatitudes of my life

I read the coolest article recently, relating alcohol intake to bone density in women over 50.  Seriously… there’s actual scientific info to back this up.  Check out the following article (http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2665-alcohol-bone-health.html) and read the specifics for yourself. 

While I’m not saying that everyone should go out and chug down two glasses of wine a day, I do like the idea that there are positive benefits to partaking in something I already enjoy.  Granted, I’m not quite in the article’s target demographic yet, but I’ll be there at some point and I might as well start learning all I can about how to increase or maintain bone density as I get older.  My family history allows for this to be fairly important, so I’ll be paying closer attention than I might have otherwise.

Hopefully you find this article to be as helpful as I did.

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Recipe: Wine Cupcakes

Thanks to the glory that is (can be) Facebook, I found a simple cupcake recipe this morning on a friend’s page.  It’s made with Cake Mix, Greek Yogurt, and Water… only I decided to try making it with wine.

I started with a generic Devil’s food cake mix and added a cup (8oz) of nonfat plain Greek yogurt.  I was trying with the idea of using a flavored yogurt but, well, I didn’t have any in the fridge.  I then added a cup of wine… I used James River Cellars Rad Red.  I mixed everything well and then poured the mixture into cupcake tins.  I used mini Bundt pans (pictured) and a tin of mini muffin tins.  After baking for 20 minutes at 375 degrees, they looked so fun!  I added a dollop of chocolate frosting on top of the mini cakes and called it dessert.  YUM!

Have you tried substituting red wine in your chocolate baked good products?  It’s amazing to see what you can create with some great wine and a little ingenuity.  Try it and make your own new creations… your family and friends will be so happy you did!

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The funny side of wine

There are always days in our lives that make you search for the obscure and the silly… those days when you need to have a place where you can escape the concerns and frustrations that are making you crazy and allow the comical to take over.  Yesterday was one of those days.

So to that end, I went looking for some fun (and funny) wine quotes to use at the winery where I work.   I found a grouping, posted together originally (as far as I can tell) by a website called iloveindia (http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/funny-wine-quotes-2953.html) that I thought fit the bill… I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

  • Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy. – Benjamin Franklin
  • What is the definition of a good wine? It should start and end with a smile. – William Sokolin
  • Wine is bottled poetry. – Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost. – Samuel Johnson
  • Wine gives courage and makes men more apt for passion. – Ovid
  • The vine bears three kinds of grapes: the first of pleasure, the second of intoxication, the third of disgust. – Diogenes
  • Wine is a turncoat; first a friend and then an enemy. – Henry Fielding
  • This is one of the disadvantages of wine; it makes a man mistake words for thoughts. – Samuel Johnson
  • Wine is a peep-hole on a man. – Alcaeus
  • Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. – Bible quotes
  • Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used. – William Shakespeare
  • Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized. – Andre Simon
  • A mind of the caliber of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows. – George Bernard Shaw on wine
  • Sweetness belongs in the Mosel wine like the bubbles belong in the Champagne. – Nik Weiss
  • Appreciating old wine is like making love to a very old lady. It is possible. It can even be enjoyable. But it requires a bit of imagination. – Andre Tchelistcheff
  • Blind tastings are to wine what strip poker is to love. – Kermit Lynch
  • The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars. – Benjamin Franklin
  • What is better than to sit at the end of the day and drink wine with friends, or substitutes for friends! – James Joyce
  • If God forbade drinking, would He have made wine so good! – Cardinal Richelieu
  • Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it. – Anonymous
  • Where there is plenty of wine, sorrow and worry take wing. – Anonymous
  • I have enjoyed great health at a great age because everyday since I can remember I have consumed a bottle of wine except when I have not felt well. Then I have consumed two bottles. – Bishop of Seville
  • Compromises are for relationships, not wine. – Sir Robert Scott Caywood
  • Beer is made by men, wine by God! – Martin Luther
  • Men are like wine – some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age. – Pope John XXIII
  • Life is too short to drink bad wine. – Anonymous
  • If food is the body of good living, wine is its soul. – Clifton Fadiman
  • I made wine out of raisins so I wouldn’t have to wait for it to age. – Steven Wright

Remember… wine doesn’t have to be part of every day in your life, but it can certainly make every day of your life a little sweeter, a little brighter, and a little lighter.   And with that, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes, which I found on Pinterest.

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Recipe: Chicken Noodle Soup… with wine

I don’t know of any other food that has such an amazing ability to evoke memories of  “home” to me than Chicken Noodle Soup.   I adore the combination of the broth, vegetables, and chicken that can conjure up visions of snowy stay-at-home days or lazy fall lay-around days.  It’s getting to be about that time of the year when my crock pot and my soup pot both get a workout… when dinners are made the night before and the house seems steeped in the fragrant mirepoix of celery, carrots, and onion.

Today was one of those days when I just needed to make Chicken Noodle Soup.  M is home sick and wants to eat soup… so, of course, I wanted to make it from scratch.  He will agree when I say that he makes a lousy patient.  He doesn’t like to be sick and hates not having enough energy to do much of anything, so my thought is to make something that tastes good and has wonderful healing properties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_soup) to make M feel better as soon as possible.

As with most of my recipes, this is definitely a “Use The Force” recipe.  I start with my big soup pot.  This thing can easily hold an entire cooked chicken (picked up cold from the local grocery store) and enough water to cover it… so that’s where I start.  I cook the chicken in the water until the chicken is almost ready to fall apart.  Remove the chicken to a strainer and allow to cool before picking all the meat off the bones.  You now have a very light stock to start your soup.

I finely dice carrots and celery and add to the soup.  Today, I used a few hands full of baby carrots and the inside pieces of a stalk of celery as my mirepoix… M’s not a big fan of onion, so I didn’t include it today.  I then diced some of the chicken breast into fairly small pieces.  I saved most of the chicken for other uses but a total of one breast, sliced and diced, was enough for this entire pot of soup.  I allowed the vegetables to cook for awhile and then adjusted the seasonings… adding salt/pepper, a little parsley and lemon thyme, and then included four packets of G. Washington Golden Bouillon (my favorite from childhood).  Since M wanted “noodle soup”, I broke up about an inch-width of linguine into four pieces to simulate the name brand’s noodles… now it just needed to cook the noodles.

Once everything was incorporated and the noodles had plumped up, I added about a half cup of Reserve Chardonnay from James River Cellars Winery.  I could have used any white wine, but I really like the way Chardonnay cooks and it adds a really lovely back note to the broth.   This made my chicken noodle soup taste amazing.

I hope you’ll try your hand at making your own version of Chicken Noodle Soup, especially if someone you love isn’t feeling up to par.  It might be just what the Doctor ordered!

 

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Recipe: Taco Meat

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Warning…. this is a recipe done entirely using The Force.

Sauté two pounds of ground turkey and a diced onion until browned. Add red wine (I used what I had of a California “Spaghetti Red” on hand but any dry red will do) and enough taco seasoning to cover. Once the liquid is absorbed, the taco meat is ready to use for whatever you want to use.

M and D like to make burritos with it (tortillas, meat, cheese, lettuce) and I like to use mine for a salad (lettuce, meat, cheese, and salsa). E probably would have made this into a massive wrapped burrito using the salsa cheese sauce we still have in the fridge along with rice and beans. It’s a great ingredient to have on hand to make a simple, easy dinner on a lazy Sunday night but it also works well as an ad hoc lunchtime ingredient.

Try it at your house sometime… You might be pleasantly surprised at the results!

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Recipe: Chocolate Wine Cobbler

ChocolateWineCobblerI originally found this recipe on the side of my Facebook account. It looked yummy and was called “Chocolate Cobbler”. It showed up in my FB feed when I was looking for a new dessert and this just looked simple and tasty. For me, the plus came when the recipe called for “boiling water”… wait… water? What? Why use boiling water when I could substitute wine… and a new recipe was born. After trying this recipe a few times, I’ve finally been able to get a picture of this treat so you can see just how yummy it can be. Oh, and you’ll notice that there are exact measurements in this one because I didn’t use The Force…

INGREDIENTS:

2 sticks butter or margarine (I used margarine, because that’s what I had on hand)

BATTER:

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 c self-rising flour (or use 1 1/2 cup regular flour + 2 tsp baking powder + 3/4 tsp salt)

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup milk

CHOCOLATE LAYER:

1 cup sugar

6 Tbs cocoa powder

WINE LAYER:

2 cups boiling red wine – I used 2 cups of sweet red wine *Note: this tastes perfectly fine with boiling water instead if you so choose.

DIRECTIONS:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a high-sided 9×13 baking dish, melt the two sticks of butter in the oven
  2. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl mix together the ingredients for the batter layer. Once the butter is melted, pour the batter over the melted butter but DO NOT STIR.
  3. In a clean bowl, mix together the ingredients for the chocolate layer. Sprinkle on top of the batter but DO NOT STIR.
  4. Pour 2 cups of boiling wine gently on top of entire dessert (again… DO NOT STIR) and bake for 30-45 minutes. I bake mine until I can see a nice golden brown crust.
  5. Serve warm – this is great with ice cream.

I served this dessert at our company Christmas party and it was a huge hit. If you want to substitute boiling water for the wine, that’s completely fine. I would use anything that you like, but I’d suggest using a red wine that cooks well. I find that red Bordeaux varietals (Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot) cook nicely and maintain their integrity throughout the process.

Enjoy! I’ll be adding a little bit of vanilla ice cream to each serving tonight, but I can’t think of anything more comforting than wine paired with chocolate…

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Recipe: Stroganoff by The Force

I love making casseroles early in the day so that dinner can be a low stress affair.  I do my best to keep the kitchen cleaned up before M comes home (since he’s the one who does the dishes after dinner) so this is the simplest way I know to have time to make that goal a reality.  Casseroles rock… one baking dish to wash after dinner?  Definitely a plus in my book.  Additionally, with the schedules that are kept by all who currently live in our house, I’d have to make four separate servings of a meal to get everyone fed.  With a casserole, I can make it once and everyone can eat when they’re able, though we do endeavor to sit down together to eat as often as possible.

Dinner tonight is one of those “I can’t be there, so dinner is in the fridge” nights.   I’ve got a consult and then a meeting during the time we usually try and have dinner, so  I’ve made a version of Stroganoff that I’m hoping my guys will like.   I used a Reserve Chardonnay and a Pinotage that I had in the fridge to the recipe so the pasta would cook thoroughly and I wouldn’t have to worry about crunchy noodles in my casserole.  It’s done entirely using The Force… and I think it tastes pretty amazing.  Here’s how I made dinner:

Brown 1 sliced (or diced) onion and 1lb of ground turkey in a tiny bit of olive oil in a large saute pan on the stovetop.  Once these are browned nicely, I added a large glug of good Olive Oil and enough flour to make things start to get sticky.  I would start with 2T flour and see if you need more. I think added a half box of jumbo elbow macaroni pasta, some garlic paste, salt/pepper, paprika, the rest of a bottle of a dry Chardonnay (about 3/4 cup?), some gluts of a Pinotage called “Grinder” that I had open in the fridge (maybe 1/4 cup?) as well as 1 cup of beef stock. All the liquid is need to soak into the pasta and get it to cook up nicely without having to pre-cook it. Here’s what dinner looked like at this point:

It’s still steamy and the noodles haven’t totally cooked, so they still look pretty yellow.  At this point, I put the lid on and let it cook on its own for a bit.  I was editing pictures, so I’m really not sure how long it cooked.  Once I decided the noodles had cooked enough and turned off the heat.

Here’s where the “stroganoff” part came in.  In my head, a stroganoff has to have some sort of creamy sauce and paprika to make it into what I think of as traditional.  I added some Philadelphia creamy garlic sauce (only because I didn’t have any greek yogurt or sour cream on hand) and that seemed to do the trick.  Taste test was a success and I was ready to put dinner in the casserole dish… but it just didn’t look “finished”.  I needed buttered bread crumbs to top it all off.

When growing up, my mom’s Buttered Bread Crumbs were the standard by which I judged all other casserole toppings, which means that I didn’t like anything that other people called “bread crumbs”.  I now make Buttered Bread Crumbs in the same saute pan I used for the casserole, so I’m including tiny bits of dinner into the delicious topping that will grace this casserole.  Today, I used three burger rolls (because that’s what I had on hand, that’s why) and cut them into small bite-sized pieces.  I heated some of the really good Olive Oil with a few tablespoons of margarine and a little garlic paste.  I then tossed in the bread pieces and sauteed this mixture until the bread started to crisp up a bit.  Buttery, garlicky, and toasty… that’s the way these Buttered Bread Crumbs should taste!
Once the topping was finished, I added them onto the casserole and dinner was ready.  M will pop it into the oven tonight and my three guys will have a fabulous home-cooked meal, even though I won’t be there.  It’s one of the joys of working odd hours and being happy to use The Force to create something I am sure they’ll enjoy.  Wine or no, cooking should be about sharing your joy and passion.  I’m just so grateful that my guys appreciate that about me.

Since you won’t be here to see the finished product come out of the oven tonight, here’s a final shot of how dinner looked when I was done playing today.  I may not be the best housekeeper, but I can whip together a great meal and include wine in the process…

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Recipe: Wine for Dessert

There are some really wonderful dessert wines out there.  Have you taken a moment to taste them or do you pass by this unique offering in favor of something you think will be less like “sugar-overload”?   While I’m not a huge fan of the uber-sweet, I do enjoy using them for cooking or sipping after a meal.  They aren’t something I would typically choose to drink, but I certainly try everything offered when I’m on the tasting side of the bar.

One of my favorite dessert wines is Noche from Cooper Vineyard in Louisa, VA.  Here’s their description, as quoted from Cooper’s website:

Noche Chocolate- Silver 2012 VA Governor’s Cup, Silver Atlantic Seaboard Wine Association. A Virginia Norton dessert wine infused with chocolate, Noche is a decadent treat. Hints of black cherry and raspberry complement rich aromas of cocoa with a chocolate ganache finish.

I used this wine for a dessert I made a few months ago and it’s just wonderful.  I started by making a Noche Reduction.  Using the entire bottle of Noche, I cooked the wine until it had reduced by half, until a spatula left a slight line when drawn across the bottom of the saucepan., stirring frequently.  I then added about a thumb (“The Force” at work) of butter and a spoonful of sugar or so.  I also added a tiny dash of vanilla, more to satisfy my thoughts that I was actually “cooking” instead of just throwing stuff in a pot.  I allowed the sauce to simmer a bit until the sugar and butter had melted and been thoroughly incorporated.  Once this was done, I removed the pan from the stove top and waited (impatiently) for the sauce to cool thoroughly.

Once cooled, my new sauce was ready for use.  I decided to make a Hot Milk Sponge cake, cooked in a Baker’s Secret pan that was made to look like a cross between a trifle and a pie… it’s apparently called a Duncan Hines’  Tiara Dessert pan.    The sides are fluted, there’s a high edge and then a lower cake level so you could put “something” on top of the cake and not have it dribble over the edge.  If I remember correctly, they marketed this pan for use with a thick pudding mixture you would pour in the center and then top with whipped cream.

 

For this specific dessert, I made the Hot Milk Sponge cake (only a half recipe was needed), cooled the cake, then filled the “inside” with frozen whole cherries before drizzling the sauce over top.  Dusting it with powdered sugar was all I needed to make the dessert look magical.  While it was beautiful, it wasn’t the easiest to cut… the next time I made this dessert, I topped the entire cake with whipped topping before drizzling the sauce, thereby allowing the berries to remain in place and giving some height to the dessert.  Either way you decide to make it, this sauce was a knockout.

If you’re looking for an easier thing to do with this sauce, just slice pound cake (you can pick it up in the freezer section of your local grocery store), top with fresh fruit, and drizzle with sauce.  Simple and delicious!

An even easier option would be to drizzle the chocolate wine (sans cooking at all) over ice cream or pound cake or angelfood cake or…  you get the idea, right?

Using The Force when you create desserts can be a lot of fun.  Try to imagine the taste of what you’re creating and then see if you can break that taste down into ingredients.  Even using a store-bought chocolate sauce and adding some of Cooper’s Noche to thin it out can take your dessert to a whole new level.

Eating wine for dessert instead of drinking it… quite a different concept, yes?  Enjoy!

 

 

 

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Recipe: Chicken Stir Fry

Stir fry is one of my favorite things to make for dinner for a number of reasons.

  1. I love being able to get dinner on the table in a relatively short amount of time.
  2. I like using whatever I have in the fridge for the vegetables.
  3. I love using broccoli slaw for the vegetable when I don’t have anything “bigger” on hand.
  4. I’ve learned to make a fairly consistent sauce with wine that my whole family enjoys.

Tonight’s dinner was no exception. I started with chicken tenders, slicing them into bite-sized chunks and saute’ing them in a pan sprayed with Pam until browned. I then removed them from the pan, added a little bit of olive oil, and popped in the vegetables. Tonight’s assortment included broccoli slaw and fresh green beans. Once these were cooked to crisp-tender, I added my sauce.

The sauce for dinner tonight was a standard for me, albeit unique from most conventional stir-fry sauces. REMEMBER: I USE THE FORCE WHEN I COOK! Using a 1-cup Pyrex measuring cup, I poured in about 1/4″ of hoisin sauce, a small amount of oyster sauce (seriously using The Force on this sauce), a large amount of an oaked Chardonnay (maybe 3/4-cup?), an inch of pre-crushed garlic from a tube, an inch of lemongrass (again, from a tube), a spoonful of flour and a smaller spoonful of homemade pesto. I had mixed this together earlier so the flour wasn’t glumpy and stirred it occasionally until it was time to add to the saute’ pan.

Once I added the sauce to the veggies in the pan, I dropped the chicken back into the pan and popped a package of Uncle Ben’s Microwave Brown Rice into the microwave. 90 seconds later, the sauce was thickened and the brown rice was done… dinner was served!

There are tons of ways to make this recipe your own, but this is one of my favorites. I’ve substituted shrimp, pork, or beef for the chicken. I’ve used Vidal Blanc, Chardonel, or even a Sauvignon Blanc if that’s what I had on hand. I absolutely love the tubes of garlic, ginger, lemongrass, basil, or Italian herbs that I can find at my local market, so usually add a variety of flavors from those handy items. There’s enough salt in the ingredients already that I typically won’t add more, but I have been known to add paprika or some lemon thyme if I want a different taste to come through. It all depends on my mood as I’m cooking.

Dinner in a flash… it can certainly be done, but it does take some thought and a little planning. I’m just grateful that my family enjoys most of my experiments. It’s not a 15 minute dinner, but it doesn’t take that much longer to go from fridge to table.

Try this with your family and see where The Force might lead… a totally unique dinner might be just around the corner!

Cheers!

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Recipe: Butternut Squash Crab Bisque

I know it’s not quite the end of the summer, but butternut squash seems to  be showing up more often in my local grocery store.  In its honor, I thought this might be a great way to highlight the need to purchase said vegetable.
Honestly, my favorite way to use butternut squash is to make baked “french fries” out of it, but my second favorite use is in this delicious soup.   While it’s a hearty soup, the flavor becomes more decadent with the addition of crab.  A lovely simple supper when paired with some warm crusty bread… this makes a great meal for a stormy night.
Try it sometime and let me know what you think!

 

Butternut Squash Crab Bisque (with Vidal Blanc wine)

½ onion, diced

1t olive oil

1 ½ c Vidal Blanc ( or your favorite semi-dry white wine)

1 ½ c chicken or vegetable stock (or water with 2 bouillon packets)

1 butternut squash (peeled and cubed, approximately 4 cups)

1t dried marjoram

1 t Old Bay seasonings

Cracked black pepper, to taste

½ recipe Crab Dip **

  1.  In large saucepan, sauté onions in oil until translucent.  Add liquid, squash and seasonings to onions. Bring to a boil and cook 20 minutes or until squash is very tender.
  2. Puree squash in pan with stick blender (can also use blender or food processor in batches) until smooth.
  3. Add crab dip and heat through but do not allow to boil.

Note:  This recipe can be a tad sweet.  Feel free to add more Old Bay or some Tabasco for a bit of heat.

**Crab Dip Recipe:

1 block cream cheese

1 stick butter

1 lb crab meat (I prefer lump crabmeat)

1T parsley

1t Old Bay seasoning (to taste)

  1. Melt in butter and cream cheese slowly in double boiler.
  2. Add remaining ingredients and serve warm with crackers.
  3. I like to heat this in the oven for 20 minutes to get it a bit bubbly.