Thursday, December 31, 2009

Cooking with Wine


I like to deglaze. Its one of the things that is the most satisfying steps when cooking. My mother makes all kinds of wine and they say that you shouldn't cook with what you wouldn't drink and I believe that to be true. Most of the time. Sometimes I purchase wine that is a little on the swanky side. I could not part with it in my risotto but gladly drink it beside the finished product. During the holidays my fridge got pretty full of stock, appetizers, dips and leftovers from entertaining. I basically ran out of room. There were several bottles of open wine that just wouldn't fit. I decided that the only decent and respectable thing to do with the wine was to finish them. Myself. Now keep in mind that there were other people there and I was cooking. I was just cleaning up and chatting... and drinking copious amount of Pinot Gris. I found pots and pans in strange places the next day. Not to mention a nasty headache. While working in one particular restaurant... actually there were two that I can recall the chef basically cooking the entire pot of risotto with wine and NO STOCK. It was pretty gross. Gobs of melted butter floated on top to. It was a mess. And the customer was paying $20 for that grossness. I also hate hate hate restaurants that cook their risotto part way and finish it. It can sit around for a while and is down right dangerous to eat. One worthy of note trick I found in my travels was taking a regular white wine, adding some sugar and reducing the heck out of it. Voila! Ice wine! Pretty sweet huh? And way cheap! In a pinch it would work! Anyway I am trying to get at is a little of the good stuff can go a long way. All of the bits at the bottom of the pan need to be there. They make your sauces complete. And its fun to have a glass now and again. Just don't try to free up fridge space by finishing off the three bottles. You won't like yourself in the morning and the dishes will more than likely need to be rewashed.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Iced Coffee Please


Take your coffee left over from the morning and pour it into ice cube trays. After they are frozen, take 5 and put in chilled glass. Two Tablespoons of chocolate syrup, 1 cup of milk and blend with a hand stick mixer. For an extra kick, I prefer two shots of espresso. But I'm a hard core coffee chick.