Wine


dahlia
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Now that I have your attention...

My understanding is that we can use wine in cooking. I enjoy cooking, but even before joining the Church, was not much of a drinker, so never kept wine around the house.

I would like to start cooking with wine, which I've had in restaurant meals. Here's the problem. Wine seems to come in these big bottles. From my reading, you can't keep it around very long once it's open. It's not gonna last the two weeks it might take me to get to it again.

If anyone here cooks with wine, what do you do with the remainder? Lots of recipes only call for a  cup or 2 of wine, plus you're told to buy regular wine, not cooking wine, which is full of salt. I'm cheap and don't want to spend $5-7 for a bottle just to throw most of it down the drain.

On another note - so far retirement is weird. Around 9pm I still want to make my lunch for the next day. 

 

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You might want to try pomegranate juice as a substitute so you can just drink it afterward.  Pomegranate juice works really well as a wine substitute and if you try it you might actually prefer the flavor.

Edited by Scott
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We don't use wine but I have known those who have, as well as those who use substitutes.  Not much help to give on the preservation of wine.  I do know that there are those that use Vinegar, such as White or Red in replacement of wine.  It keeps a little longer.  It may be a tad more sour than the wine, but is very close in what it adds in taste as well as storing for a bit longer than wine in general.

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On 8/21/2019 at 11:13 PM, dahlia said:

Now that I have your attention...

My understanding is that we can use wine in cooking. I enjoy cooking, but even before joining the Church, was not much of a drinker, so never kept wine around the house.

I would like to start cooking with wine, which I've had in restaurant meals. Here's the problem. Wine seems to come in these big bottles. From my reading, you can't keep it around very long once it's open. It's not gonna last the two weeks it might take me to get to it again.

If anyone here cooks with wine, what do you do with the remainder? Lots of recipes only call for a  cup or 2 of wine, plus you're told to buy regular wine, not cooking wine, which is full of salt. I'm cheap and don't want to spend $5-7 for a bottle just to throw most of it down the drain.

On another note - so far retirement is weird. Around 9pm I still want to make my lunch for the next day. 

 

I use wine from the cooking section and not the wine from the liquor section.  They come in smaller bottles.

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On 8/21/2019 at 10:50 PM, Scott said:

You might want to try pomegranate juice as a substitute so you can just drink it afterward.  Pomegranate juice works really well as a wine substitute and if you try it you might actually prefer the flavor.

I like pomegranate juice just fine, but as a diabetic, I've had to stop drinking juices, so I'm stuck with the same problem. Good idea, tho.

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On 8/23/2019 at 12:23 PM, anatess2 said:

I use wine from the cooking section and not the wine from the liquor section.  They come in smaller bottles.

Yeah, but everything I've seen on cooking shows says the cooking wine is full of salt and isn't the quality of 'regular' wine. I dunno. If I hadn't had wine in restaurant meals and found it added an extra something missing in my home cooking, I'd say it's not worth the trouble...

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Gas stations often have wine singles. Also, try using a fortified wine like vermouth. I've had a bottle of dry vermouth open for at least 8 months now and can't tell it's changed any. As a bonus, dry vermouth has several spices added already, so it's a pretty good marinade on its own. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/21/2019 at 10:13 PM, dahlia said:

If anyone here cooks with wine, what do you do with the remainder? Lots of recipes only call for a  cup or 2 of wine, plus you're told to buy regular wine, not cooking wine, which is full of salt. I'm cheap and don't want to spend $5-7 for a bottle just to throw most of it down the drain.

Here's what a professional chef told me:

Quote

There is no such thing as "cooking wine."  If the wine is so bad that you won't drink it, then you cook away the alcohol -- which is the only redeeming quality of the drink -- then why would you want to add the remains into your food? 

If you're going to cook with wine, you really want a high quality (meaning high priced) wine for cooking.

So, a $5 bottle of wine is NOT what you want to cook with.  That means you'd need to throw away a $50 to $100 bottle of wine.

I choose to use red wine vinegar.  I've had food prepared with wine, and, no, it's not the same flavor . . . at all . . .  But it is still A GOOD flavor.  (exceptions: some vinegars that I've had really do taste like wine with more acid).

A good quality red wine vinegar will cost a bit more.  But will have some redeeming flavor to it.  I personally like my food to be more acidic.  So, the vinegar part of it is actually a bonus.  Others have more sensitive stomachs.  So, they probably don't want to do this.

And red wine vinegar has a pretty good shelf life.  And you often don't use very much.  Wine can require a couple of cups for a dish.  But you only want a couple tablespoons of vinegar for several servings of food.

Edited by Mores
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On 8/21/2019 at 8:13 PM, dahlia said:

Now that I have your attention...

My understanding is that we can use wine in cooking. I enjoy cooking, but even before joining the Church, was not much of a drinker, so never kept wine around the house.

I would like to start cooking with wine, which I've had in restaurant meals. Here's the problem. Wine seems to come in these big bottles. From my reading, you can't keep it around very long once it's open. It's not gonna last the two weeks it might take me to get to it again.

If anyone here cooks with wine, what do you do with the remainder? Lots of recipes only call for a  cup or 2 of wine, plus you're told to buy regular wine, not cooking wine, which is full of salt. I'm cheap and don't want to spend $5-7 for a bottle just to throw most of it down the drain.

On another note - so far retirement is weird. Around 9pm I still want to make my lunch for the next day. 

 

Wine has a longer shelf life than you think, I'll buy a bottle of red and have it around for months after using it for a recipe. 

For the record anyone recommending vinegar as a replacement has no palette. 

Now as far as the alcohol cooking out, this is a myth, while most does cook out you will not eliminate all of it. That said if you ever eat out you have consumed alcohol in food intentionally or unintentionally it has happened.

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On 8/21/2019 at 8:21 PM, Fether said:

I don’t cook with wine for two reason

1) I find it’s better to stay as far from the “line” as you can

Which line would this be?

On 8/21/2019 at 8:21 PM, Fether said:

2) I don’t cook (this is probably the bigger reason)

So not a food guy, I can respect that. 

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16 hours ago, Fether said:

Keeping in line with the Word of Wisdom in that we should abstain from alcohol consumption.

While I agree that we should abstain from alcohol, abstention in whole is nearly impossible. I say nearly because if you never eat out, and read the ingredient label on all of your food I suppose you can avoid  it. 

In the real world this can be difficult to avoid.  Eating is not equal to Drinking. We are told that the drinking of strong drink is not good. 

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21 minutes ago, omegaseamaster75 said:

While I agree that we should abstain from alcohol, abstention in whole is nearly impossible. I say nearly because if you never eat out, and read the ingredient label on all of your food I suppose you can avoid  it. 

In the real world this can be difficult to avoid.  Eating is not equal to Drinking. We are told that the drinking of strong drink is not good. 

This is why I added my second reasoning for staying away from Alcohol in food. I have no reason to argue for cooking with alcohol. To me, it is a pretty obvious that you shouldn’t and any argument against it seems nothing more than justification. BUT... it is an immensely easy decision for me to avoid cooking with alcohol so I have never been in a situation where I needed to think it over. I have no cards in this game and won’t die on this hill, I won’t even fire a second shot.

It is like asking me if I would pay tithing on $1,000 earned monthly from a investment property that I owe $1,200 a month on that I acquired via down payment with a $20,000 tax return. I would say “no”... but that decision is so far away from me that I have no intention to debate or think about it further.

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But now you got me thinking about so maybe I will die on this hill.

From my understanding, chocolate, protein bars, energy drinks and sugar free gum all have traces of alcohol in them. I would still eat it. But something about deliberately adding alcohol to a food you are cooking  seems to be in conflict with the WOW. I see plenty of holes in my belief as it pertains to eating food I buy at the store... but I’m just not comfortable with the idea of adding a cup or scotch to my brownies (or however you cook with alcohol)

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1 hour ago, Fether said:

But now you got me thinking about so maybe I will die on this hill.

From my understanding, chocolate, protein bars, energy drinks and sugar free gum all have traces of alcohol in them. I would still eat it. But something about deliberately adding alcohol to a food you are cooking  seems to be in conflict with the WOW. I see plenty of holes in my belief as it pertains to eating food I buy at the store... but I’m just not comfortable with the idea of adding a cup or scotch to my brownies (or however you cook with alcohol)

Many of them have a DIFFERENT type of alcohol than what is used in Alcoholic drinks.  The argument could be that everything (even fresh fruits) have alcohol in it so why don't we just ban food.  It's the WAY the alcohol interacts and is utilized in them that is different.

Just like Fruits have sugar, that sugar is different than the refined white sugar you might put on...let's say...your oatmeal.

I know several who use alcohol in cooking (as I mentioned above) but I don't use it myself in cooking.  I don't know enough about how to determine things in relation to the WOW to say how it relates to others who choose to do so, but for myself I feel that me and my family won't use it.  My wife has used vinegar at times though.  Not a big fan of that either, but she has used it in the past.

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2 hours ago, omegaseamaster75 said:

While I agree that we should abstain from alcohol, abstention in whole is nearly impossible. I say nearly because if you never eat out, and read the ingredient label on all of your food I suppose you can avoid  it. 

In the real world this can be difficult to avoid.  Eating is not equal to Drinking. We are told that the drinking of strong drink is not good. 

While I agree that 100% compliance with the Word of Wisdom may not be realistically feasible, “impossible to do 100%” ≠ “so, we shouldn’t even try.”

The Spirit will tell each of us how to direct our efforts, of course; but as a church we just recently read Romans 14, which has some pretty on-point verbiage about church members who pooh-pooh or discourage other Saints who feel they have been called to live a stricter standard.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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3 hours ago, Fether said:

But now you got me thinking about so maybe I will die on this hill.

From my understanding, chocolate, protein bars, energy drinks and sugar free gum all have traces of alcohol in them. I would still eat it. But something about deliberately adding alcohol to a food you are cooking  seems to be in conflict with the WOW. I see plenty of holes in my belief as it pertains to eating food I buy at the store... but I’m just not comfortable with the idea of adding a cup or scotch to my brownies (or however you cook with alcohol)

So I think you mentioned in a previous post that you don't cook, at all. I am going to assume that you are not particularly adventurous in what you eat. If you do venture in to other cuisines I'll take Italian and French as examples you cannot escape alcohol in the cooking process. So your options are limited. You can control what is in your own home and I think that is great and you should if you want to live by a higher standard. 

The problem with these WOW questions is you get two groups of people. The black and white crowd " no alcohol never ever in anything" and everyone else.  In reality my temple recommend is just as valid as anyone else even after I eat my bananas foster.

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2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

While I agree that 100% compliance with the Word of Wisdom may not be realistically feasible, “impossible to do 100%” ≠ “so, we shouldn’t even try.”

The Spirit will tell each of us how to direct our efforts, of course; but as a church we just recently read Romans 14, which has some pretty on-point verbiage about church members who pooh-pooh or discourage other Saints who feel they have been called to live a stricter standard.

I don't think I am discouraging anyone from living how they want to or following the WOW based on their personal interpenetration of it. However inconsistencies abound.

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41 minutes ago, omegaseamaster75 said:

So I think you mentioned in a previous post that you don't cook, at all. I am going to assume that you are not particularly adventurous in what you eat. If you do venture in to other cuisines I'll take Italian and French as examples you cannot escape alcohol in the cooking process. So your options are limited. You can control what is in your own home and I think that is great and you should if you want to live by a higher standard. 

The problem with these WOW questions is you get two groups of people. The black and white crowd " no alcohol never ever in anything" and everyone else.  In reality my temple recommend is just as valid as anyone else even after I eat my bananas foster.

I’m actually pretty adventurous in what I eat and if what you saying is true (I have no reason to doubt you), then I am 100% positive. That I have consumed some amount of alcohol at restaurants. But to me, pouring alcohol into a food I’m cooking still doesn’t sound right to me. I’m not saying anyone’s temple recommend is less valid than another (though a temple recommend is not the only way to measure righteousness), I’m just saying that I don’t personally feel cooking with alcohol is in line with the WOW, maybe not enough to lose a recommend, but enough to have some negative physical or spiritual effect.

Edited by Fether
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Just as FYI: 

Using Wine (or alcohol) in cooking has different functions for different dishes.  You can achieve these functions using other products that are non-alcohol based.  @Mores mentioned vinegar as a substitute for the acidic function one is going for in a dish.  White grape juice can be used as a substitute for the function of deglazing a pan.  MSG and stock or jams can be used as a substitute for flavor enhancer depending on the flavor you're needing to enhance etc. etc.

In any case, if you REALLY want the authentic flavors the recipe is calling for, and you don't find this incompatible with your WOW covenant, then use the wine.  If you find this incompatible with your WOW covenant, then go for the substitutes and accept the slight deviation from the authentic taste - it tastes just as "good"* even if it is slightly different.

*Good is a relative term.  People who pooh-pooh the dish because it deviates from the authentic taste are just being high brow (there, I said it!  :) ).

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