Whispers Food & Cooking

5 Key Tips On Cooking With Wine
by Guest

Many of us have fond memories of the late Julia Child enthusiastically adding wine to many of her most popular dishes. Europeans, particularly the French and Italians, have been creating culinary masterpieces with wine for centuries. Americans, in recent times, have started adding wine to popular recipes. Acheiving success cooking with wine is relatively easy, provided one follows some basic guidelines.


The "rule of thumb" when selecting a cooking wine is to select a wine you wouldn't mind drinking. Definitely avoid selecting a wine you prefer to drink. The truth of the matter is that all fine wines lose their wonderful characteristics during the cooking process, anyway. It is a good policy to avoid "cooking wines" from the grocery store, as they are often laced with additional sodium. In fact, it is perfectly acceptable to use whatever wine you have on hand. The type of wine used for cooking does not have to match the wine being served with the meal.


The great fun of cooking with wine is the experimenting! Their are very few hard and fast rules. Generally, white wines are better for cooking with poultry, fish and pork. Red wines are generally better with beef. Your taste buds are always the best judge. White wines can add some needed acidity to rich, creamy sauces. Unless it is specifically noted in the recipe, use dry wines for cooking rather than sweet wines.


The amount of wine you add to your dish depends on personal taste and the volume of food being prepared. You want to be sure that the wine has the opportunity to "cook off"during the simmering process. Too much wine will make that process take too long. Once you have determined the right amount of wine to add to a particular dish, definitely make a note on the recipe of the amount. Voila! the trial and error is done.


Knowing how to cook with wine will greatly enhance the flavors of many of your favorite dishes. Ultimately, experimenting is the key to your success. Oh, and what fun that is!!

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Excellent Food Ideas for Wedding Receptions and Wedding Showers
by ichibanda

Are your struggling to plan the food for your wedding reception and lacking any good ideas? Or maybe you are organizing a wedding shower for a friend and want some creating fun food ideas at the wedding reception. Food can be a challenge beucase it is a very important and long lasting memory that many of your guests will have of the event. It is therefore important to plan carefully and have a great menu prepared but also not overdo the amount of food or spend money uselessly for either the reception or shower.

This article will help give you some ideas to still throw a great shower or reception but save you tons of money. Before jumping into some of the ideas it is important to think about the them and type of your wedding. If you are having a very traditional wedding then it is often easier to cater the event. Since it is so formal the reception should reflect this and be more of a formal dinner. In that case it is always easier to pay for someone to do the catering. However if you are having a fun family and friends wedding that is more down home and not traditional then by all means many of these ideas will help you save time and money.

Pot Luck
This one is often done at wedding where the couple simply can not afford the expense of the time involved in having the event catered. They instead forgo some of the formality for a more comfortable atmosphere filled with family, friends and good times.

One easy way to save money is to simply ask people to bring a dish with them to the wedding. This was the way it was often done in the past and still a wonderful way to save time and money yet have a very nice feel for the event.

In organizing pot luck you will want to organize what people are bringing and try to provide a balance of foods among the group. You want to avoid ten people all brining the same potato salad dish. After finding out what people are bringing or even assigning them categories of food to bring then you can try and provide some of the bigger parts and fill the gaps. For example if you were to provide the main dish and then fill in with other smaller dishes that are missing then you would have a well stocked pot luck.

BBQ
A barbeque is another fun idea for a wedding that will give it a very comfortable family style feeling to the reception or even at a wedding shower. You can choose to either run the barbecue on your own or simply hire someone to come and do that part of it for you. This will allow you to enjoy the event and sit with friends. You can often find very experienced barbeque chefs that will work for far less then a caterer will.

Catering
Another easy but possible expensive option can be to have the event completely catered.
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Nutrition - Healthy Desserts On A Budget
by Pick_Up_The_Pace

Eating a healthy dessert doesn't have to break the bank. While it's true that Twinkies and Ding-Dongs do cost less (in dollars) than quality healthy foods, the cost to our health is truly frightening!

Follow these tips for low-cost healthy desserts:

1) Try fruit. Full of natural sugars, and naturally fat free, fruit is a great dessert choice. Fresh kiwi, apples, pears, plums and oranges can all be found for about 50 cents per serving.

2) Fat-free pudding costs only 79 cents per box and is quite low in calories.

3) Mix one cup of fat-free yogurt with 1/2 cup of frozen berries for an inexpensive and healthy dessert alternative. A cup of yogurt is usually about 45 cents, while a 1 pound bag of frozen berries sells for only $2 (that's 33 cents per serving).

4) Fat-free and sugar-free Jell-O is very inexpensive (about 40 cents per box) and boasts only 5 calories per serving.

5) Mix it up! Combine the healthy Jell-O with some canned fruit, or top with non-fat dairy whipped topping (about 99 cents per 16 oz. container).

6) Fat-free and/or sugar-free frozen yogurt tastes quite good, and with only a fraction of the calories you'll find in ice cream. Remember that a "serving size" is only a 1/2 cup.

7) If you choose to skip dessert altogether, try brushing your teeth immediately after the meal. This will help eliminate the craving for sweets.

8) Try sugar-free chewing gum for dessert. This option will satisfy your sweet tooth while protecting your waistline.

9) If dining in a restaurant, try ordering just one dessert and splitting it. You'll save 1/2 the calories, 1/2 the fat, and 1/2 the money.

10) As a last ditch attempt to resist dessert, tell yourself that you WILL have that dessert - right after you complete a 1/2 hour walk. Right after dinner go out for a 1/2 hour walk. If you still feel like eating dessert when you return, then you can do so knowing that at least you've had some good exercise.
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