Today we are going to be talking about wine.
I want to start by saying that I love wine, probably as much as I love food. The problem with drinking wine is that it can become a very pricey proposition. Don’t get me wrong, I indulge from time to time and when you taste a really high end wine you understand exactly why the bottle costs what it costs. Frankly, it’s no different than going to to a high end steak house and getting a perfectly aged steak and really enjoying it.
But most people cannot go to a high end steak house every day or even every week. The same goes with high end wines. Most of us aren’t consistently drinking $50-$100 dollar bottles of wine. Heck, most of us aren’t even spending $20-$30 dollars on wines we would consider “Daily Drinkers”.
So my friends and I came up with the wines under nine challenge. The premise is simple, find a good drinkable wine for under nine dollars. At this price point, many of the wines are just not going to be good at all. These are the diamonds in the rough, the wines that give the most bang for the buck.
Don’t expect these wines to be on par with with good high end wines (Notice I didn’t say expensive wines because expensive is not always good). What you can expect are very tasty wines that won’t break bank. They are great as daily drinkers or as bottles that you can get for a party or event.
Peachy Canyon Incredible Red Zinfandel
For those of you that have not had a Zinfandel but have had other red wine varietals think of this Grape as happy medium. It’s not light and delicate like a Pinot Noir but it’s also not as bold or tannic as Cabernet Sauvignon or Petite Sirah. This makes it a very versatile wine because it’s bold enough to be eaten with almost any meal yet it’s mellow enough to have without food.
The Peachy Canyon Incredible Red is a fine example of a good Zin. Here are some of the taste characteristics you can expect when you drink it:
- The nose is very jammy with a strong berry characteristic
- When you you have your first taste, the berry and jammy characteristics are very much present. Think a mix between raspberry and blackberry.
- It is full bodied with medium amount of tannins
- I recommend you let the wine breath for a while, it will be much smoother drinking about 15-20 minutes.
- Lastly, the biggest selling point for me about this particular bottle of wine is that it has remarkable consistency. My friends and I have been drinking the Incredible Red for years and it’s always been good. That is why I didn’t include the vintage year in my review.
If you are looking to purchase a bottle, we typically get it from Trader Joes for 8.99. Our local markets in Southern California typically sell it for the same price.
I strongly recommend you pick up a bottle, try it for yourself and let us know what you think!
Thanks for reading
Salt Block Cooking – Skirt Steak
I was recently given a Himalayan Salt Block as a birthday gift by one of my closest friends and his wife. They know that I love to get creative with my cooking and this seemed like a totally new and interesting way of cooking that they new I hadn’t tried.
So what is a Himalayan Salt Block? Well its a large, heavy pink block of salt that looks like this:
The concept behind the Salt Block is that you put it over a heat source and cook on the salt as if you were cooking on top of a pan or a grill. As you cook on the salt, trace minerals get absorbed by the food giving it a delicious and unique taste.
I know what some of you are thinking and the answer is no, the food does not come out over salted when you cook with this.
Instead of just a recipe, I’m going to also include the steps I took after reading up from various sources on how to properly cook with this device.
Meat Prep
All I did to the meat was season it with some black pepper. I really wanted to make sure i was able to taste the flavor that the Salt Block was giving the food.
Steps to Cook
- Heating the Salt Block – Make sure you heat the Salt Block Slowly. 15 – 20 Minutes on low, 15 – 20 Minutes on medium and 15-20 Minutes on High. If you Heat the Salt Block too quickly you run the risk of damaging it.
- The test to know if it’s its hot enough is to sprinkle some water salt block, if it quickly evaporates, you are good to go.
- I sprayed un a light amount of Olive Oil prior to putting the Steak on because the cut did not have a ton of fat on it. This step can be considered optional.
- Cook the steak for 3-5 minutes on each side. The time of course will vary depending on how you like your steak.
- Make sure you flip the steak with a metal spatula.
- When you are done cooking give the the block plenty of time to cool down before cleaning it. DO NOT use soap to clean the block. Instead, use a moist sponge and scrub of the particles and then wipe it down. It’s OK if it doesn’t look like it did out of the box, salt is a very poor breeding ground for bacteria so it is safe to use and re-use.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed cooking with the Salt Block. The meat came out delicious and it was a new and exotic way too cook delicious food. I will definitely be making follow up recipes on the Salt Block for future posts. One thing to note is that this is NOT something you use if you want to whip up a quick meal. Sure the actual cooking only took about six minutes to complete, but there was a solid hour of pre-heating the block so make sure you allot time for that.
If you want to pick up the Salt Block I used you can fine it on Amazon and it’s Prime. If you want to pick one up, here is a link to it on Amazon – http://amzn.to/2FRfL6I
If you pick one of these up, let me know what you thought of cooking with it.
Thanks for reading
Super Simple Chipotle Aioli
Today we are going to talk about making sauces. Making your own sauce is the single easiest way of making an ordinary meal much more tasty and exotic.
While some sauces can be complex and time consuming to create this is not one of cases.
In fact, there are only 4 Ingredients that you need to have and you can whip this up in less than 2 minutes.
Here are the ingredients:
- 4 Tablespoons of Mayo
- 5 Table Spoons of Chipotle Powder
- ½ of a Lime
- 4-5 Shakes of salt from a Salt Shaker
All you need to do is pour the ingredients into a small bowl and mix them together with a Spoon.
As with all of the recipes that we talk about, you don’t need to follow this to the letter. If you don’t like spicy food? Tone the chipotle back. Like your like your food more salty? Crank up the salt.
The best part of cooking is experimenting with the ingredients and making it your own.
Here is what the end result looks like:
So what does this sauce work well on? Well if you like spicy food it works on a whole lot. We have put this on fish tacos and it works really really well. We have also had great results with Burgers.
Frankly, it’s so easy to make I say just make a batch, have a taste and decide for yourself!
Thanks for Reading.