wine – Loving Food, Fashion, & Life

A Wine Festival

Posted on October 23, 2014 by LFFL

YES!! I had the pleasure of attending a wine festival this year with one of my girlfriends and how lovely it was. I’d never been to a wine festival before and was a little excited as to what was might lie ahead.

Well, I can tell you WINE IS DEFINITELY EVERYWHERE!! So make sure you eat a double cheeseburger and fries before you attend one of these shindigs, people!

This particular wine festival was being held on the grounds of an estate and tents were set up all around it. Most of the tents had different vendors from various places selling bottles of their assorted wines and giving away free tastings of them all. So—WHOA! That’s at lot of wine going down your insides. There were also other tents that were selling and giving away free tastings of different snacks of food—and you know I had no problem trying them ALL!

The tents.

Proof I’m at least 21.

The murder tape around the bees’/hornets’ pit.

Horse-drawn carriage ride.

Singing and playing guitar.

Chair massages.

Bottles of wine everywhere.

When we first arrived, we had to get wrist-banded so the vendors would know we were at least 21 years of age! First things first, you know. Then we were given our very own personal wine glass to enjoy all the tastings.

I’ll tell you—the lines to some of the tents were RIDICULOUSLY LONG! I couldn’t believe how long we stood in one line just for a tasting! So needless to say, we opted to go to tents with shorter lines—which were few and far between. I mean, we stood in one line for 35 minutes at one tent just waiting our turn for a tasting!

Pumpkin Coffee Cake

And OH, I found a coffee cake tent!! HEAVEN!! And pumpkin coffee cake at that. It was so amazingly good I had to buy a whole one just for myself to take home. I swear I’m going to stalk this company and order more throughout the year.

In the end, all the food and drink tastings were awesome and I came home with one bottle of sweet red wine, one bottle of sweet white wine, pumpkin coffee cake, and a big jar of yummy apple butter.

So, if you have nothing else to do today, attend the next wine festival you can find in your town.

Take-Away Life Lesson: If you don’t eat a double cheeseburger and fries ahead of time, you won’t be able to make your way around to all your rounds of wine tastings like you want to—if you catch my drift.

Cooking With Wine

Posted on August 1, 2014 by LFFL

Pinot Grigio

Moscato

If you’re going to cook with wine, I’d suggest you get a cheap brand of wine—because it’ll all just probably go into the pot anyway. I got mine at a local Walmart browsing the alcohol aisle—and I didn’t have a clue what I was looking for.

I mean great googly moogly—there are so many to choose from! What’s the big difference between all the different types and brands anyway? The recipe called for “white wine”, so I grabbed a white wine once my eyes could zero in on any particular one.

I’m not very experienced with wine or wine-cooking, but I remember when I first came across a recipe I wanted to try that called for a white wine. Though I went to the store to get the necessary ingredients for making the recipe, I couldn’t help but think my food was going to have a strong taste of alcohol and reek of the stuff.

How wrong I was, indeed. I mean, I even had one recipe that called for a whole bottle of wine and had the fish floating inside an entire pot of it boiling away—but when it was all said and done I couldn’t taste any alcohol in the fish at all. Go figure.

So, if you have nothing else to do today, give cooking with wine a try and see how you like it—whether you put the wine into a recipe or whether you drink it as you cook along makes no difference—it’s still “cooking with wine.”

Take-Away Life Lesson: Makes you wonder why a recipe calls for 1/2 cup wine during the cooking process if you can’t really tell a difference from if you hadn’t cooked with it at all.

Prosciutto & Asparagus Strata

Posted on June 19, 2014 by LFFL

Made with multigrain bread, eggs, milk, white wine, dry mustard, fresh grated nutmeg, salt & pepper, extra-virgin olive oil, onions, leeks, minced garlic, asparagus, scallions, Virginia ham, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, fresh parsley, fresh mint, and lemon zest.

I’m not sure what the difference is between a strata, frittata, and quiche but they’re all the same to me—gunk baked inside some eggs. Once again, I used Virginia ham instead of prosciutto in this recipe.

And I really love those round doohickies of fresh nutmeg, too. I like those suckers so much better than the already-ground nutmeg. Talk about FRESH and POTENT stuff.

Layer onions, leeks, and garlic.

Layer with asparagus.

Layer the meat on top.

Sprinkle with cheese.

Bake till done.

Recipe for—Prosciutto & Asparagus Strata

So, if you have nothing else to do today, make a nice strata, frittata, or quiche of sorts and buy some fresh nutmeg just for the sheer fun of grating it.

Take-Away Life Lesson: Fresh nutmeg can be some powerful stuff.

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Mushroom-Asparagus Risotto

Posted on April 16, 2014 by LFFL

Made with chicken broth, salt & pepper, extra-virgin olive oil, shallots, minced garlic, mushrooms, arborio rice, white wine, asparagus, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

The mushrooms.

Mixed with rice.

Cooked with asparagus.

Recipe for—Mushroom-Asparagus Risotto

So, if you have nothing else to do today, make yourself a simple and divine risotto dish.

Take-Away Life Lesson: Season it well; otherwise, it can be a little bland.

Chicken Divan

Posted on October 2, 2013 by LFFL

Made with boneless chicken breasts, broccoli, butter, extra-virgin olive oil, crushed garlic cloves, minced onion, flour, chicken broth, milk, white wine, Swiss cheese, Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, and salt & pepper.

Recipe for—Chicken Divan

So, if you have nothing else to do today, serve up chicken divan for yourself and loved ones.

Take-Away Life Lesson: Chicken recipes are some of the most simplest to make.

Pasta With Asparagus & Ham

Posted on September 28, 2013 by LFFL

Made with fettuccine, asparagus, Virginia ham, chopped garlic, thyme, dry white wine, heavy cream, nutmeg, Parmesan cheese, and salt & pepper.

Oh, for the love of pasta! I loved this recipe.

Since the prosciutto at the health food store was astronomical in price, I decided to use ham as a substitute which worked fabulously.

Recipe for—Pasta With Asparagus & Prosciutto

So, if you have nothing else to do today, love yourself some pasta dishes.

Take-Away Life Lesson: You can easily replace prosciutto with ham and replace pancetta with bacon. Good to know. Prosciutto and pancetta are much more expensive than ham and bacon.

Shrimp Scampi With Angel Hair Pasta

Posted on September 26, 2013 by LFFL

Made with angel hair pasta, shrimp, olive oil, minced garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, lemon juice, lemon zest, white wine, butter, and fresh parsley.

I actually made this recipe for someone else—because, eewwww, seafood grosses me out. I mean, have you seen what seafood looks like when it’s ALIVE?! I can’t even imagine eating it.

Maybe it’s because when I was growing up we never ate seafood— unless you count frozen fish sticks in a box as seafood, then OK we did. But that’s about it!

So, needless to say, trying to cook with something as simple as shrimp was a disgusting chore. I used super long tongs to grab the shrimp every time I needed to do something with them. I just kept imagining these things were alive at some point with their little antennas and all.

I had also bought them already peeled and deveined. I couldn’t even imagine doing surgery on shrimp myself. YUCK!

But before I put the shrimp into the pasta I, naturally, scooped myself up a dose of the pasta without the shrimp because I knew once the shrimp touched it I wouldn’t be having dinner at all.

Recipe for—Shrimp Scampi with Angel Hair Pasta

So, if you have nothing else to do today, get up close and personal with some seafood if you dare. And, if you’re so bold, pull some lobster, octopus, crabs, clams, oysters, shrimp, or shark fresh out of water ALIVE and then cook, cut, and chop or vice versa—EEWWW!

Take-Away Life Lesson: Rubber gloves and super long tongs can help when you want to keep your distance from any seafood while cooking with it.