Cheap Cooking Wine...

A dilemma to be sure... what kind of wine do you cook with? There are those who subscribe to the theory of cheap cooking wine, and others like the people in our household who say "If you wouldn't drink it, why would you put it in something you are going to eat?" We have discovered that after going to all the trouble of creating a nice meal, we may as well splurge on the ingredients.

Keep in mind that spending under $10 a bottle for table wine is our norm... so when I am talking about using good wine to cook, it isn't an expensive bottle. Just not the stuff that's on the grocery store shelves in the cooking sherry section. The other obvious benefit to this line of thought is that we can enjoy a glass of wine and cook at the same time.

The island prep area inspired this line of thought when I was creating dinner with our 'leftovers' - having bought too many clams for us to eat in one sitting, we were left with a bunch of nicely steamed little gems. Unfortunately, they were really sandy, so the liquid they were steamed in was not really salvageable to use in preparation of the yummy white clam sauce I was preparing - BUT - there was an opened bottle of white wine in the fridge, some nice garlic, onions, celery, and a lemon. Sauteed with some olive oil and simmered in the wine and a bottle of store-bought clam juice, this made one delectable and quick meal.

One of our favorite vineyards is the Francis Ford Coppola Vineyard that puts out a really nice red and white table wine - appropriately named Rosso and Bianco. Nothing fancy - but perfect for drinking by the glass and cooking with at the same time - we usually pay around $8 for a bottle of either at our local discount wine shop. As the Italians say when they raise a glass... 'Salute!'