I'm bumping because I don't want to spam the forum with new frivolous threads, and actually there are some wonderful buried threads here - I spent a few weeks reading here before I registered and then a few more weeks waiting for JoeP to conjure me up.
Sorry everyone. I mean, if I'd known.
You should be ashamed of yourself, Thanks.
__________________ The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about. Wayne Dyer
I'm not much of a wine guy, but Huntress, who sometimes posts here, is, so I asked her once what is a good not expensive wine to have around for guests, and she said that pretty much everyone seems to like Menage a Trois. They're blended from three different wines (thus the name), and they have a bunch of different varieties, but I've only tried a couple.
They're not expensive, and everyone so far has liked them, so they're usually what I get if I'm going to have wine drinking people over.
I was getting a bottle for cooking the other day, and the liquor store owner and I got talking about wine, but most of my knowledge consists of my mental catalog of empty bottles I've seen in different dried riverbeds and stuff. He'd never even heard of Night Train! So I do know more about wine than that guy.
This time, it was pot roast. I use about 2/3 of a bottle of red wine for an average sized pot roast, and then I freeze the excess liquor to use for soup.
I also use red wine in tomato sauces and other beef or tomato based things. For some reason, I never use white wine in cooking, although I always mean to learn how.
When I have chicken in a baking pan, seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon & sprigs of rosemary - I give it a generous splash of white. It turns out better with the wine as opposed to when I don't use it.
That could also be because I'm drinking the rest of the bottle as I cook.
I have made a nice dish of chicken stewed in Riesling a couple times. My Mom really liked it last time, so I'm sure I'll make it again. Also, most risottos call for white wine. I usually use cider for that, half a cup in the risotto and the rest of the bottle to drink works better for me than opening a bottle of wine for half a cup.
__________________
"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I have never made a risotto, would love to try. Now I have a goal.
There is a very good recipe for Chicken Risotto in the book "Cooking out of this World" edited by Anne McCaffrey, it is a collection of recipes by science fiction writers. I have made the chicken dish a few times and it turns out good, but it is not a quick and easy dish. Plan on cooking most of the day to make it. It's early in the book on page 12.
__________________ The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about. Wayne Dyer
I haven't had the chance to do mulled wine in a couple years. Xmas is gone, but it's still cold & damp outside, so what the hell. I use any dark red that I like, and I've got enough of a bottle of Cabernet for me own self left over in the fridge. Which is all I need 'cause the wife can't drink reds. I'd mull some mead (mulled white wine is friggin' pointless, unless you want to do some sweet bullshit like Moscato, which eww) so she could have some, but she'd have a whole half a glass and be done. So I can do what I want. (FUCK YOU! WE DO WHAT WE WANT!)
But not tonight 'cause I now have 2 ales in me and ales are where I shall remain ere I retire. Sometime this week though, since I already have the spice bag.
__________________
"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Not a wine drinker, here. Indeed, until I got my GERD under control, I couldn't even sip a glass of wine without setting off the demons. However, with meds, I've controlled the GERD and, on occasion, take a small glass of wine with dinner, generally just to sample the flavor.
Since I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll just say that most reds I've found to be 'too heavy', or 'too tannic', or just 'meh'. But when my housemate returned from Spain, she raved about the reds...with good cause. Smooth and flavorful without the heavy 'dirtiness' of so many other reds.