ShopForCooking

What's in Your Wine Toolbox?

Choosing the perfect bottle of wine is only the beginning. If you're really going to have fun with your new wine hobby, you'll want to make sure you have the right accessories to open it, to cork it, to house it - there's a veritable tool box of items you can choose from to accessorize your wine. 

I have to admit that uncorking the bottle has always thrown me a bit. In my defense, I've gotten much better at it. The right corkscrew has helped tremendously. I really love the stationary corkscrews, where you can place your bottle of wine and simply pull a handle and pop! I have a great hand corkscrew too that works really well once I got the hang of it (yes, I've opened bottles badly and broken corks - very embarrassing). 

Then there's the fun of buying the right wine glasses. There are glasses for red wine, for white wine, fancy glasses and serious glasses. I love picking out the right glass for a party or a special guest. Once you pick out your wine glasses, you need somewhere to put them, right? I like the hanging racks - they're decorative, they keep the glasses from taking up cabinet space, and they don't get broken or dusty. 

And you can get the wine glass charms to help identify glasses too - they have lots of different themes and styles. I love these Ladies' Night charms - so much fun! There's a lot more to wine than just drinking it. It's a whole new world. Cheers!

Fire It Up - It's Grilling Season.

 It’s about that time again, when the scent of grilled food permeates every neighborhood and friends and family gather to barbecue for just about any occasion. I love the grill - I would use it every night during the summer if I had my way. But I had to get over the fear of lighting the silly thing first, especially my little charcoal grill. Once I realized my choices were to light the grill or order a pizza, I ponied up and mastered the task.

I learned to form my little pile of charcoal, put lighter fluid on them, then light a long match and wait for them to turn gray, the signal that I could finally cook. This method seemed to take forever, though.

Then I learned there were better ways, thanks to Real Simple's grilling tips. They recommend using hardwood charcoal, which lights faster and burns hotter and cleaner than briquettes. There’s also the chimney starter, a notion I had never heard of. It’s a can open at both the top and bottom, with newspapers packed on the bottom. Charcoal goes on top, light the paper, and wait 15 minutes, then you can cook. I haven’t tried this yet, but I plan on buying one this year.

If you're not an outdoorsy person, you can even buy an indoor grill. They have some fancy ones now, and they taste almost as good as if you cooked your food in the great outdoors.

In my world, the vegetable and shrimp kabobs marinated in sesame ginger sauce will be waiting for that flame to rise. Cooking healthy is just as easy on a grill as it is in the oven -- vegetables, fish, potatoes. Grilling is a summer tradition, and it’s getting better every year.

Conquering the Food Processor.

I love gadgets. Especially kitchen gadgets. Whether or not I actually need the gadgets is another story, but when I get something in my head it’s hard to let it go. Most recent example: I decided I suddenly, absolutely had to have a food processor, convincing myself it would solve some current critical kitchen problems. Now you may be surprised I don't already own one because they've been around a long time but to me they just seemed complicated and messy; more clean-up than was necessary.

So I bought one (this one is $76.85 -- I was surprised they can go to almost $200) and three months later, it looked lovely on my counter but I still hadn’t used it. It intimidated me on some level. So I garnered up my courage, grabbed my user’s manual and tested the waters, starting out slowly by grating cheese and making smoothies. But this beautiful machine seemed unfulfilled with these activities. As for me, I could do the same things with a blender and have it take up less space. So I decided it was time to get serious.

I went on a no-holds-barred quest for food processor soup recipes -- and I struck gold. First bonus...it holds more than my blender so I could make a big batch.

Veggies are definitely my favorite, so I tried a fun vegetable soup recipe I found. Pretty basic, but I love the addition of olive oil -- something I had never thought to use in soup before. The recipe called for Italian seasoning, leeks, celery, veggie broth, tomato paste and a medley of vegetables (I prefer fresh), cooked as usual in a pot. Then, using small batches at a time, I pureed my creation in my snazzy food processor, added some cream, and it was the best soup I’d ever made!

We’re enjoying this new-found partnership, my food processor and I. We’ve already made plans for next weekend: Moroccan Lentil Soup.