I love cooking with wine, but because I don’t often relish drinking much of it (I’m a total lightweight!), I used to run into the problem of letting wine go bad after opening a whole bottle and using only a cup or two for a particular dish. If I was really conscientious, I would try to cook another meal with wine the same week, but let’s just say that it was pretty rare for me to use it all before it went bad.
Lo and behold, one day at my HEB, I asked for help in picking out a dry white for cooking purposes, and a helpful associate turned me on to this wondrous creation:
Now, maybe I’m the last person on the planet to discover sets of four tiny wine bottles, but I was tickled pink! Each bottle holds just about a cup of wine, which is perfect for most of my recipes. Ever since, I’ve opened only as much wine as I can use in a single recipe. That means a lot less guilt for me. The extra $1 it costs me over buying a single bottle is completely worth it.
If you go looking for these four mini-bottle sets, you’ll find a bit of variety in terms of price. What I’ve pictured above is about the cheapest of the cheap. You don’t have to go that low for the sake of convenience. I usually don’t, but I was in a pinch. I have to say, though, that when we intend to drink wine with dinner, we typically buy a regular, significantly nicer bottle for drinking and cook with the lower-grade stuff. I know that I’m not supposed to cook with a wine I wouldn’t drink, but, hey, I’m not made of money, and it’s a compromise I’m happy to make at this point in my life. At least I’m not using nasty “cooking wine.”
That’s my Kitchen Tip! For more great ideas, visit the Kitchen Tip Tuesday Carnival at Tammy’s Recipes.
P.S. FYI, I’ve tried freezing leftover wine in ice cube trays, but it didn’t work very well. The alcohol content keeps it from getting very firm.
We buy tiny wines to use for communion at our tiny church, too…. there’s no way we could finish off a regular bottle each week.
kind of silly that i have NEVER thought of this before.. =)
I didn’t realize wine went bad. I thought it was supposed to last?
Organizing Mommy,
Wine keeps indefinitely as long as it’s sealed, but once you open it, it will go bad. My dad once got serious food poisoning from a bottle of wine that had been in the fridge too long. The doctor said that he regularly sees food poisoning from wine that’s been open too long. Sometimes, though, it’s merely nasty tasting and not dangerous. You can read more about that here: http://www.cellarnotes.net/how_long_keep_open_wine.htm