Luxuries - Fresh herbs

     I'm sure that after last week's post you were certain that I was finished with herbs.  Sorry, but not quite.  We're close to being done with them, though.  I promise.  The only reason I'm writing a separate entry about fresh herbs is because I can't count how many recipes I've seen that say "fresh thyme" or the like, and for a long time, I didn't know when it was okay to substitute dry spices or, for that matter, how you did it.
     The issue with the dried herbs that are far preferred by most people because of their longevity is that, once you remove all the water out of an herb, it's flavor becomes incredibly enhanced.  I don't really know why that is, but it's true.  If you ever get a chance to chew on a single leaf of fresh rosemary then on a single leaf of dried rosemary, you'll see that the flavor is much more intense in the dried version.  For that reason, you can't substitute 1 tsp of dried thyme for 1 tsp of fresh thyme or you'll have a dish that people say, "Wow, that's a lot of thyme!" about.  By the way, if you have people in your house that can identify thyme, I'm really impressed.
     There are also situations that you just can't substitute the dried version for the fresh version.  For example, bruschetta, a tomato-basil topping to bread, would taste awful if you sprinkled dried basil over it.  That's because you'd just get hard flakes in parts and it would be too strong.
     That being said, if you're lucky enough to have an herb garden, or at least a couple of herbs growing fresh, you can always substitute fresh for dried.  Always.  Even though they're less intense, there's no reason to not use them because your recipe asks for dried oregano.
     Here are the four rules of dried-fresh substitution:

When to leave it fresh
     Like I just mentioned, there are dishes you can't substitute dried for fresh.  These are dishes that the herbs will not be cooked and softened in the process.  With the exception of powdered sage and/or garlic, uncooked dishes require fresh herbs.  They lend a light crispness to the dish that, for some reason, tastes like summer.  That's why we serve fresh vegetables in the summer, because they're so refreshing.  For raw salads, toppings,  and decoration, fresh herbs are the only way to go.

When to substitute
     When you're making pretty much any cooked dish, you can straight up substitute dried herbs for fresh herbs.  That's because, in a cooked dish, any herb, dried or fresh, is going to have its flavor leeched out and spread through the whole dish.  When you have a recipe calling for fresh herbs and you only have dried, use half of the amount that the recipe calls for.  For example, if your recipe says "1 tsp fresh thyme" put in 1/2 tsp dried thyme.  This rule goes in reverse for people who have fresh herbs on hand.  Double the amount in the recipe, if it's asking for dried.  So your 1 tsp of dried oregano becomes 2 tsp of fresh oregano.  If your recipe doesn't specify fresh or dried, I always assume dried.  It's worked so far.

When to rehydrate
     This is the in between stage of substitution and leaving the herbs fresh.  In the rare case that you have a dish that you know you need a softer herb, but it isn't necessarily fresh, you can rehydrate the herbs.  Like I said before, use half the amount in the recipe and put your herbs in water or oil for at least 30 minutes before you use them.  Whether you use water or oil is dependent on the recipe.
     For example, I make an herbed pasta that requires me to cook herbs in oil then toss pasta in it.   I know that the pasta tastes tons better with fresh herbs, but I just can't go buy 6 types of fresh herbs every time I make it.  That's because I always waste a lot, and I haven't been able to grow herbs successfully in the dry heat of Arizona.  So, before I make it, I put all my herbs in the olive oil in which I will cook them and leave them for an hour.  The oil softens the herbs and absorbs some of their flavor before I throw everything in the pan.  I wouldn't use water for this because water and oil don't get along well.
     Another great example would be making a dip.  If you wanted to make a dill dip, you might soak your dill in some water to soften up the herb before adding it to the sour cream.  In this case, you would want to pour your water and dill through a fine mesh sieve to get rid of the water before adding it to the sour cream.

When to make tea
     I realize that seems like a weird option here, but it's not really.  See, there are a few times that I want the herb, but I don't want to see the leaves in what I'm making because they'd just create a patch that was really strong, and I want my dishes to have a even flavor throughout.  In these cases, I use a liquid ingredient in the recipe, heat it up, and put my herbs, fresh or dried, into it.  Then I leave it for 30 to 45 minutes.
     While it sits, the herb does the same thing a tea bag does, releases its flavor into the liquid.  Then I put a sieve over my dish and pour my liquid directly into the dish while removing the leaves.  The result is a beautifully soft, even flavor that resonates with the dish.
     The most common place I do this is in rosemary mashed potatoes.  No one likes lumps in their potatoes, and they like leaves of rosemary even less, especially when one goes down the wrong way.  However, almost everyone loves rosemary mashed potatoes.  When I'm getting ready to mash my potatoes, I heat the cream I'm going to use and put a couple of pinches of rosemary into it.  Then I leave it while I get the potatoes mashed up.  Once it's sat there for a while, I pour the cream, now infused with the rosemary flavor, into the potatoes.  This makes the whole dish resonate with rosemary and makes it scrumptious.
      You can do this with fudge to infuse a flavor into the dish or with water to put into a soup.  It's also worth mentioning that this is the only way to get flavor out of saffron.

Luxuries - Spices 3

    This is the entry I've been looking forward to since I started the spice articles.  It may seem strange to you, but this one entry has all my favorite herbs in it.  See, when I was a kid and just starting to experiment with the flavor of herbs in cooking, I thought the song Scarborough Faire by Simon & Garfunkel was cooking advice.  At the age of 9 or 10 that makes total sense.  For that reason, for about 3 years, whenever I made anything from macaroni and cheese to grilled cheese to well, really anything that's acceptable for a child to make, I would add copious amounts of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
     Since then, I've stopped adding parsley for reasons I'll mention in a minute, but I still add sage, rosemary, and thyme to anything in the Italian genre regardless of what the recipe says.  I've also started adding oregano and basil.  In fact, when I started my kitchen in my first apartment, those five are the first herbs I bought to make my kitchen run.
    So, now you know my five favorite spices.  They pretty much explain why I adore cooking Italian food.  I'm sure you have your own or will find your own, and I can't wait to hear about them!  Without any further ado, I give you the final installment of spices.

• Oregano is the leaf of a flowering plant in the mint family that’s native to the Mediterranean region and the Middle East.  It has a strong taste that’s less sweet than basil and is very pungent.  It’s a central herb in pizza sauce and many beef dishes.
• Paprika is a mixture of ground, dried peppers.  There are several varieties of paprika, and depending on the country from which yours comes, they vary from mild to spicy.  Interestingly enough, this is one of the few words that are remarkably similar across languages.  In most stores, you’ll find either Spanish paprika or Hungarian paprika.  Spanish paprika comes in three varieties – mild (dulce), moderate (agridulce), and spicy (picante).  Hungarian paprika is usually very mild and pungent.  That’s the kind you’ll usually find simply labeled “paprika” on your grocer’s shelves.
• Parsley is a leafy plant that’s related to cilantro.  By itself, a sprig of parsley is actually a great breath freshener, but when added to a dish, I haven’t found that it adds anything.  That’s why I stopped cooking with it, and stopped buying it dry altogether.  When I want to use some parsley, I buy a bunch at the store for under 50¢ and chop it myself.
• Peppercorn also known as pepper is the dried fruit of a flowering plant native Southeast Asia and china.  It comes in several different color varieties dependent on how the fruit is treated before you get it.  You can get black pepper, white pepper, green pepper, and pink pepper (not actually pepper) in whole peppercorn varieties.  You can also get ground black and white pepper.  You’ll use more black pepper than any other kind, and someday, I’m going to write a full article just on pepper to explain all the ins and outs of it.  Buy ground black pepper to refill your pepper shaker and we’ll discuss everything else later.
• Rosemary is hands down my favorite herb of all time.  I love, love, love, love, love rosemary.  If I could figure out how to put it in every single dish I cook, I would.  Rosemary is the leaf of an evergreen bush.  In fact, you can probably find it in the hedges outside businesses everywhere.  Heck, I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve pulled leaves off of them to chew on while walking around.  Rosemary has a resonant flavor and aroma that is very similar to pine.
• Saffron is an herb you’ll probably never use.  Not only is it usually used in either Spanish or Middle Eastern dishes, it’s freaking expensive.  Seriously, this is the most expensive thing by weight in my kitchen, and I buy it cheap.  At Trader Joes, I can buy 0.035 ounces of this stuff for $5.  That’s $142 an ounce.  Most saffron is $25 for a smaller amount.  It averages about $500 per ounce which, at the time I wrote this was a third the price of an ounce of gold.  Why is it so expensive?  Because saffron is the stigma of the Spanish crocus and can only be harvested by hand.  It takes over 8,000 flowers to make 3.5 ounces.  Lots of work.  Why do I have it?  Because it has an amazing metallic/sweet taste that you just can’t get anywhere else.  The next time Buddhist monks walk by in their yellow robes, the smell that follows them is saffron.  That’s right, saffron is also a yellow dye for clothing.  Guess what color it turns food!
• Sage is a flowering plant that literally grows everywhere.  Garden sage is native to Europe and Asia minor.  Mountain sage grows in the mountains in the U.S.  It has a woody flavor and goes great on poultry and pork.
• Savory is related to both rosemary and thyme.  It has a slightly salty, spicy flavor that is used as a salt substitute sometimes.  It’s common in bean dishes as well as Italian dishes that need a little zest.
• Star Anise is an eight-pointed spice that has the seeds of the Chinese anise plant which is a type of evergreen.  Interestingly enough, though they taste similar, star anise and anise are not related at all.  They were named as such because they both have the same licorice taste, though star anise is far less pronounced.  It’s used in some very culturally sound Chinese dishes.  It’s also really pretty to look at.
• Tarragon is a leafy plant common to Europe.  Who knew there were so many different herbs and spices that all taste like licorice?  This one does too!  Add that to the list.
• Thyme has teeny tiny leaves on a wooden stem.  It’s used extensively in Italian dishes as well as herbal oils and soaps.  It has a slight lemony, peppery flavor.  It goes great on chicken.
• Vanilla is the fruit of the vanilla orchid.  If you don’t know what vanilla smells like, go smell the bath aisle in your local store.  Next to saffron, it’s probably the most expensive herb you’ll find.  Instead of buying whole vanilla beans, which have a limited use, buy real vanilla extract.  Though it’s slightly more expensive than artificial vanilla extract, there’s an amazing difference.  Never taste raw vanilla extract, it’s awful.

Ok, I admit that  I haven't covered every single herb and spice out there, but there are some that have such limited uses that, if I ever give you a recipe using them, I'll explain them there.  I'm sure I've missed something you really love, and if I have, please let me know.  I'll write a special entry just for you!   Tweet to @cookingcheap

Luxuries Part 4 - Spices 2

     It's spice time again! After looking over all the herbs and spices that are possible to put in your cabinets, I decided to break them into three smaller posts so you wouldn't have to read them all at once.  Besides, there are plenty in each post that you can think about.  If you break your spice buying into several weeks, it'll go more smoothly.  I've found that there are some grocery stores that sell some of their spices for $1.  If you read a spice here that you think would work with your cooking style and you see a bottle for a dollar, you should probably pick it up.  You won't need to worry about having back ups until you know what you tend to run out of quickly, and even then, you don't generally run out in the middle of a recipe.  There are a couple of herbs and spices of which I've gotten the larger bottles so I can refill when I need them, but you probably won't need that for a while.

• Cumin is the ground seed of a flowering plant in the parsley family native to the Mediterranean region.  It dates back to at least the second century B.C. and is even mentioned twice in the Bible (Isaiah 28:27 and Matthew 23:23).  It has a flavor and taste that is impossible to describe.  Though it’s used in almost every culture’s foods, it’s very common in Hispanic and Middle Eastern foods.  I’d get a tiny bit and try it for yourself, but I adore the flavor of cumin.
• Curry isn’t a spice.  It’s more of a group of Indian dishes that involve a very specific mix of spices in very delicate ratios.  However, I can’t take the time to make my own curry mixes, so I cheat and use commercially available curry powder.  Curry powder is usually yellow because there’s a large amount of tumeric in them.  They provide a very authentic Indian taste while not being spicy (usually) or requiring you to mix your own spices.
• Dill Weed is a flowering plant in the Mediterranean and Russian areas.  It gives your dill pickles their flavor.  Dill doesn’t have that many culinary applications.  In fact, most people only ever use it to mix into sour cream and make dip.  I can’t think of a reason you’d need it otherwise.
• Fennel is the bulb end of a flowering plant in the Mediterranean region.  It has a strong licorice taste and is sold in bulb, leaf, and seeds varieties.  I don’t like fennel because I don’t like licorice.  If you like licorice, you’ll like it.
• Fenugreek is a plant that comes from the Middle East and Asia.  Fenugreek seeds are used in the preparation of pickles while the dried leaves are used widely in Indian and Ethiopian cuisine.  I’ve racked my brain and can’t remember that I’ve ever used this one.
• Garlic is the best thing to ever make the spice trade.  Native to Europe, it’s a member of the onion family with a deeper flavor.  You can buy it in whole cloves, pre-minced in oil, and dried in flakes, powder, salt, pepper, etc.  I personally prefer to buy pre-minced in oil and keep it in my fridge.  That stuff stays good forever, as long as it’s refrigerated.  However, garlic powder doesn’t take up that much room in your cabinet either.  Your preference – your choice.
• Ginger is the root of a plan native to South Asia but it also grows in the Caribbean.  It’s sold fresh, powdered, candied, and pickled.  Eating straight ginger will appear spicy, but it’s also a great stomach calmer.  Ginger is used, almost exclusively in Asian dishes, but if you ever make real gingerbread, you’ll need it.
• Lemongrass is a general name for about 55 different types of grasses.  As you might have guessed, they have a lemony flavor to them.  It’s generally used in south Asian dishes.
• Mace is not an incredibly spicy herb, regardless of the pepper spray by that name.  In reality, mace is the lacy covering of the nutmeg seed.  As such, it has a very, very strong version of the nutmeg taste and costs about twice as much.  I have successfully substituted twice as much nutmeg for mace in the past.
• Mint is probably the most versatile of any of the herbs listed here.  There are peppermint, spearmint, winterfresh mint, and others who all lend their name to different types of gum.  Mint tastes just like its name and is excellent in some teas as well as a rub for fishes and a dip for lamb.  I like fresh mint, but it is available dried.
• Mustard is the yellow spice that both flavors and gives color to the condiment.  You can buy the seeds ground or whole.  The whole seeds are those neat round pebbles in bread and butter pickles.  I have a cool recipe that uses ground mustard as part of a rub.  It gives a unique taste to the meat you use it on.  However, most people don’t need this to start out with.
• Nutmeg is the nut of a tree that grows in Indonesia.  As such, if people in your family have tree nut allergies – do not use nutmeg!!!  I’m serious; I accidentally served a nutmeg dish to a friend who had to use his EpiPen because of it.  It made me feel awful and I’ve never made the same mistake again.  Nutmeg has long been considered good luck and has a flavor that’s great in cookies and tarts.  In fact, there was a time that you could buy an entire American plantation for three or four whole nutmeg nuts.  If you don’t use nutmeg a lot, buy a whole nutmeg and grate it when you need it.  It’ll hold its flavor much better.  If you’ve watched Good Eats with Alton Brown, you’ve probably seen him do that.

Luxuries Part 3 - Herbs and Spices Part 1

     Dry herbs and spices are probably the most valuable thing that you can have in your kitchen.  You can cook food without herbs and spices, but it just won't taste the same.  Ideally, herbs and spices are to be used to accent the natural flavors of food, not to mask them.  The problem is a small bottle of spice usually costs $3 or $4 depending on what you're getting and what brand you're buying.  For that reason, I'm classifying them as luxuries.  WE don't always have room in our budget for them, and we don't always know what we need.  There are also literally hundreds of herbs and spices, so for the next couple of weeks, we'll go over them, in alphabetical order, to discuss their flavors, their uses, and their importance.
     First things first.  Herbs and spices are drastically different.  Herbs are the leaves and stems of plants while spices are the seeds.  Despite their name, spices are not inherently spicy.  They are, however, far more pungent than herbs, so they can be used more sparingly.
     There are definitely herbs and spices that are a must for kitchens, but what do you do if you have a recipe for something that you don't have?  You don't want to buy a whole bottle of something you've never used before and might never use again.  In these cases, go down your local natural foods store and see if they sell spices in bulk.  My local Whole Foods store has a section of jars full of herbs and spices.  I can go and buy a tablespoon of Star Anise, if I need it instead of getting a bottle.  That tablespoon costs 20¢ - 30¢.  Way cheaper than a bottle!
     However, if you buy a bottle of a dried herb or spice, you can feel pretty good about it because they stay good what seems like forever.  They do lose their flavor over a very long time, but you'll probably need to replace them before you notice the absence of flavor.

• Allspice is the dried berry of what’s called an evergreen pimento tree.  It’s incredibly important in Caribbean dishes as well as some British cuisine.  It has the taste of a mixture of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.  I rarely use it, but I have a tiny jar of it, just in case.  You can substitute a 50/50 mix of cinnamon and ground cloves or an equal mixture of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg for allspice.
• Anise is the ground leaves of a flowering plant native to the Mediterranean.  Though it has uses in dishes across several cultures, I have never personally used it.  It has a licorice flavor.
• Basil is the leaves of a plant that originally came from India.  Sweet basil (usually printed without the sweet) is very common in Italian dishes as opposed to Thai basil, lemon basil, and holy basil which are used in Asian dishes.  I always, always, always have a bottle of dried basil in my stores.
• Bay Leaves are the leaves of the bay laurel tree.  These are rarely if ever left in a food when served.  Instead one or two bay leaves can flavor an entire soup or stock and are removed before serving.  If you don’t use these often, you can see if you can buy them one or 2 at a time to save some money.
• Caraway is the leaves of a plant native to Asia, Europe, and North Africa.  It has a licorice flavor, but is often used in breads like rye.  I’ve never personally used it, but if you feel like making some rye bread, finding some is going to be important.
• Cardamom is a spice native to the Middle East and Africa and, as such, is used in those dishes.  You can buy it in the pod, out of the pod, and ground.  Though ground cardamom has a lot less flavor than the stuff you’ll find in the pod, you may prefer that to grinding it.  However, this is a rare ingredient, to say the least.
• Cassia is the aromatic bark of an evergreen tree native to China.  This is also called Chinese cinnamon because of its similar taste to the cinnamon tree.  If you look on your bottle of cinnamon the next time you shop, it may list cassia as its main ingredient.  That’s because cassia is much less expensive than true cinnamon.  Cassia is supposed to have a much stronger, spicier taste than true cinnamon, but chances are you won’t notice it.  I have cinnamon of one kind or another in my cabinets all the time.
• Cayenne pepper is a spicy red powder made from chilies from French Guiana.  In fact, it’s one of the major reasons Europe liked this continent.  Because of its spiciness, it’s used in all kinds of dishes from all over the world.  If your family doesn’t do spicy, don’t buy this.
• Celery seed has an intense form of the flavor you know from celery.  It’s used in very few things, though our family uses it in tuna salad.  You probably don’t need it.
• Chives are those little green things you find on your baked potato at Wendy’s.  They’re sold dry, but I hate them.  If you like them, more power to you, but I’d rather mince my own chives when I need them.
• Cilantro is also known as Mexican parsley, though it’s native to Eastern Europe.  It seems that many people have a volatile relationship with cilantro as one of the first websites that pops up on Google is dedicated to banning the herb.  However, I personally like it.  Fresh cilantro is really important in Hispanic sauces while the dried herb is used in dishes from around the world.  The issue is that it’s a very strong herb, so use care with it.
• Cinnamon is the name of the tree that gave us the spice that we associate so strongly with Christmas.  As I mentioned before, cinnamon in a bottle is either cassia or true cinnamon.  True cinnamon is supposed to be mild and softer on the tongue.  It’s also usually more expensive.
• Cloves are the dried flower buds of a plant indigenous to Indonesia.  They have a deep pungent taste – so much so that you rarely need more than 2 to 3 cloves to spice an entire pot of apple cider.  In my mind, they are the spice equivalent of bay leaves.  You don’t need many and you take them out before you serve.  You can buy ground cloves, but they’ll hold their flavor much better if you buy them whole.  Also, if you have a toothache, you can put a clove near the gum where it hurts as they work as a local anaesthetic.
• Coriander is another word for cilantro, though it’s usually used to talk about the seeds of the plant.  There are plenty of uses for coriander seeds, but don’t buy them, if you don’t need them.

Next week we'll cover cumin through nutmeg.  Did I miss something?   What's your favorite herb/spice?   Questions?   Comments?   Tweet to @cookingcheap

Luxuries - Olive Oil

Most of my luxuries entries will begin with a statement that will make many budget-conscious people cry.  Here it is:  There is no substitute for real Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Now here's the part that, hopefully, will rectify your tears:  There are ways to use less and save money.

     Let's start with an explanation of what makes Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO from now on to save my fingers) amazing.  Olive oil is made by pressing the olive fruit really tightly between stones or a similar analogue until the fat oozes out.  There are five grades of olive oil here in the U.S., but the ones you'll almost always hear and see are plain olive oil and EVOO.  Both Virgin and Extra Virgin Olive Oils are made without adding anything to the oil which pretty much explains the names.  EVOO has a deep, resonant, and fruity flavor similar to, well, olives.  It also has a beautiful scent, and a full texture.  Once it's been cooked, it also has kind of a nutty smell and flavor.
     Now, here's the problem that a lot of people on a budget have with EVOO, it's freaking expensive!  If you compare the price of regular vegetable oil to the price of EVOO, you'll find that you can buy about a gallon of vegetable oil for the price of a pint of EVOO - a quart if you're lucky.  But every cooking show/website/book in the world wants you to use EVOO in every dish all the time.  How can you balance your food budget and your gourmet needs?
     Here's a statement that will make some television chef yell at me.  (Which, you know, might let me succeed in my bucket list entry of "meet a famous chef.")  EVOO does not need to be used all the time or at the quantities that you see in your recipes.  Really.  No seriously, stop laughing.  Half of the recipes that call for EVOO are only using it because it has a high flash point and won't burn your onions if you see something shiny out of the corner of your eye.  However, if you pay attention, you can use canola oil (I don't do soybean oil) and still manage to sauté your onions until they're translucent and not spend a ton of money to do it.  The other half of the recipes that call for EVOO want it for the taste, but you don't necessarily need that amount to get the fragrance of the oil through the dish.  For this, try splitting the amount in half.  Use half EVOO and half canola.  Canola doesn't have its own real fragrance, so it's not going to interfere with your EVOO's.
     Again, you may be curious as to how to afford your bottle of EVOO on your slim budget.  All my luxuries are things I buy at the very end of the month when I have a couple of dollars left over unless  there's a sale.  Buy a small bottle to start with and see how much you use over time.  We replace a 16 oz bottle every 3 months.  That should be long enough to budget yourself enough money to buy another.  The caveat to this was a few months ago when our local Fresh & Easy (if you don't have one, petition the company) had a buy one get one free sale on EVOO.  I skipped to the store and got 4 bottles for the price of two.  It was enough to make it through almost a year.
     Another positive of EVOO is that it takes forever to go bad, if it's stored properly.  Your EVOO should be stored in a bottle with a tight cap (find a new bottle if the cap breaks or gets lost) in a place with very little light and a constant temperature.  That means, you can put it in your cabinets.  When olive oil goes bad, it has a slightly buttery taste that a lot of people actually prefer, so you can pretty much store it until it dissolves the bottle.  This means, that if you find you use a lot of EVOO and you have extra benefits sitting around, buy a big can and a smaller bottle to keep a portion in (I've just kept an empty 16 oz EVOO bottle around).

What's your opinion on EVOO? Comments? Questions? Tweet to @cookingcheap

Luxuries - Wine

Let me preface this entry by standing on a soap box for a moment.  If you are on government assistance, please don’t drink alcohol.  Alcohol is expensive, and you need that money in your budget to pay for your bills.  I say this as someone with experience.  First off, I don’t drink beer, but I don’t drink wine or spirits unless it’s something someone has brought over.  In the years I have been on food stamps, I have bought alcohol for my consumption about once a year.

Here’s the thing.  As much as we’ve tried to disguise them as debit cards, most people know exactly what a food stamp card in their area looks like.  They also, whether we like it or not, notice what someone who is using a food stamp card is buying.  There is nothing that upsets many people more than seeing someone using a food stamp card and having a 24-pack of beer on the belt behind them.  Now, most people know you can’t use government benefits to buy alcohol, but they equate that to you taking clothes off your children’s backs to buy beer.  It’s unfair, but it’s true.

Now that I’ve said that, I have to admit that there are plenty of recipes that just aren’t the same with a quarter-cup of wine.   The important thank to remember about wine in cooking is that there is no longer any alcohol once it’s been cooked.  What remains is the flavor that the wine gives to the food.  That being said, there are plenty of ways to get around having to get a new bottle of wine every time you want to cook something.

The issue with bottles of wine is that they tend to sour into vinegar if you don’t use them in a timely manner.  Now, the typical bottle of wine is 750 mL.  For those of you who aren’t up on your metric system, that’s a little over 3 cups, or 25 oz.  Most recipes you’ll find ask for between ¼ and ½ of a cup of wine.  That leaves about 85% of the bottle left over to either drink or go bad.  Either way, it’s a waste of money that you may not have, so here are some solutions:

Personal-sized bottles:

Many vineyards are beginning to put out four-packs of individual-sized bottles of wine.  These are about 187 mL (3/4 cup) per bottle, and sometimes you can mix and match them to meet your needs.  That means for between $5 and $7 you can have four resealable wine bottles that can you don’t need to open until you have a recipe for them.  If you find a place that allows you to choose your wines, you can get two whites and two reds and not need to spend the money on two packages.

Resealable packages:

 As many vineyards as are producing individual-sized bottles have now created resealable wine.  These are often small bottles as mentioned above or in paper cartons that resemble large juice boxes. These have threaded tops like a water bottle that can be tightened down at any time.  The thing to mention is that any wine bottle that has a threaded top is technically resealable, but the larger the bottle, the sooner your wine will most likely go bad.  See, wine goes bad because it mixes with the air which screws up the chemistry of the wine.  To get a wine you intend to reseal, get a smaller carton or bottle and it will most likely last longer than a typical wine bottle.

Box wine:

Wine enthusiasts everywhere wince when they hear those two words together.  Box wine has become the cliché for tacky over the years, but it doesn’t have to be – especially when you’re just cooking with it.  Here’s the deal with box wine.  It isn’t just a box full of wine.  It’s a bag full of wine surrounded by a box with a spigot on the front.  The thing about the bag inside is that it doesn’t have air in it, so as you dispense wine from the bag, it just deflates a little more.  The vacuum-packed bag makes it so you can keep a box of wine for months without it going bad.  Also, in my experience, a box with 2 to 3 liters of wine costs about the same as a cheap 750 mL bottle of wine.  The only problem with this is you still run the risk of waste, and you might not want to buy more than one box of wine, seeing as some recipes call for white wine and some call for red.  If you want to buy just one type in a box, opt for a white zinfandel.  It’s a blush wine, so it can go in both types of dishes.  If you run across a recipe that absolutely needs a dark red (white is usually pretty well taken care of with blushes), go find a resealable or personal with that type.

Like many things in this blog, this is intended to help you personalize your kitchen.  Only you know how much you cook with wine, so only you know how much you need in your kitchen.  If you’re a regular wine cooker, get a box.  If you only use it once or twice a month, get a set of personal sized wine bottles.  It’s your kitchen, you decide.

One more thing:  If you are on government assistance and you're going to buy wine, do everyone a little favor and buy it separately.  I'm not saying make a separate trip, but just separate the purchases.  For example, maybe you go in and buy your box of wine, then take it back out to the car before you come back in and buy your food.  This just helps us combat the food stamp stereotype.  If you don't know what that is, count yourself lucky.

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