The Easy Way To Pick A Wine

From the soil to the glass, there is a lot of work which goes into a bottle of wine. Knowing all you can about wine means enjoying it more than ever. This article has a ton of tips and tricks to make your own wine drinking a much more enjoyable pastime.

Make a habit of trying new wines as often as you can. You will have the best chances of finding a wine that suits your tastes if you take the time to experiment with them. Everyone has different tastes, so just because a wine is said to be excellent does not mean that you will enjoy it, so get out there and try them.

You should write down a few notes after trying a new wine. Make sure you write down the name of the wine, its origin and the year as well as your impressions. It will be hard to remember what a wine tasted like, especially if you attend wine tastings and try many different wines in the same day.

Buy only one bottle of each wine. If you find that you like a particular wine a great deal it can be very tempting to want to buy a lot of it at once to save money, but this is often a bad idea. Instead, buy only one to ensure that you do not fill your cellar with one type.

Purchase the Magnum bottles in the store, which are a bit larger, giving you the best bang for your buck. These wines will generally run for about 10 or 15 dollars, and will last a little bit longer for the price. This is a great way to maximize your monetary value of wine if you drink often.

These simple ideas about wine will be sure to guide you on your way to a better glass. When you enjoy wine more, you’ll find you want to seek out more advice, too. In the end, wine will become a great friend who is always true to you when you need them.

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Recipe: Organic Fried Pork Chops Dinner

Fried and Smothered Organic Pork Chops

Pork chops are a highly-misunderstood cut of meat. Many cooks — who have never worked with a good set of pork loin chops — approach the preparation of this tender cut of meat the same way they would a thick cut of rib-eye steak. This is not a tasty way to cook pork chops! This cooking technique will leave a dried-out, tough chop that is neither tasty, nor visually appealing. The best way to think of a cut of meat like the pork loin chop, is to think of it as a sort of a cross between a thick-cut bacon and a leaner ham. Correctly cooking a pork chop will leave it crispy and sugary on the outside, and moist, fluffy meat inside of the thin cut. Here is a great recipe to introduce you to cooking a pork chop:

Recipe: Organic Fried Pork Chops Dinner

(This recipe will feed 1 person with leftovers. Double the amounts for each additional person)

Recipe is for the Pork Chops and Gravy only. If you would like the recipe for Cotija Mashed Potatoes(pictured aside the pork chops), Click Here>

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 thin Pork Loin Chops (Organic if you wish to keep this recipe to a healthy maximum)
• 1 large Yellow Onion slivered(High in sulfur. White onions do not have a strong-enough flavor)
• 1 1/2 cups of All Purpose Flour.
• 1 tablespoon of Garlic Powder
• 1 tablespoon of Chile Powder
• 1/2 tablespoon of Ground Black Pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon of Kosher Salt
• 2 tablespoons Vegetable Oil
• 2 tablespoons Unsalted Butter
• 1 can (12 oz) Organic Beef Stock
• 1 cup Water
• 2 Green Onions
• 1 medium Organic Carrot
• 2 Limes (Juiced)

ROUX:

• 2 tablespoons Unsalted Butter
• 2 tablespoons All Purpose Flour

MEAT:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In a large frying pan melt the [2 tablespoons Unsalted Butter] with the [2 tablespoons Vegetable Oil] over a low heat.
2.  In a large, gallon-sized Ziploc bag, add the [1 1/2 cups of All Purpose Flour.] and [1 tablespoon of Garlic Powder] and [1 tablespoon of Chile Powder] and [1/2 tablespoon of Ground Black Pepper] and [1/2 tablespoon of Kosher Salt]. Mix ingredients well.
3. Take your Pork Loin Chops and add to your Ziploc bag of dry ingredients. Coat the pork chop well, so that the meat is well dusted with flour and spices. (This will be the thin crispy layer crust).
4. With the oil and butter hot in the pan, lay your pork chops into the pan. (Do not over-crowd the pan) fry in single chop batches. Do not move the pork chop at all. Sear the chop for 3-5 minutes and flip.
5. Continue cooking the other side of the chop for an additional 3-5 minutes, or until both sides are golden brown.
6. After all chops have been given a golden brown crust, put them into the preheated oven to make sure that the heat stays in the meat, and won’t get dried out while you make the Brown Gravy Sauce.

BROWN GRAVY AND ONION SAUCE:

1. In the pan that was used to fry the pork chops, leave all of the oil and burned meat bits in the pan and put on medium-high heat. Immediately add [1 large Yellow Onion slivered] and saute. Next add the juice of two limes and salt and pepper to taste. Cook onions and carrots until softened.
2. Add Roux:
   • 2 tablespoons Unsalted Butter
   • 2 tablespoons All Purpose Flour
3. Wisk onion/carrot/Roux mixture with the [1 can (12 oz) Organic Beef Stock] and [1 cup Water]. Mix well and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce the mixture by half, over high heat. Sauce will thicken more once cooled a bit.
5. Plate pork chops and smother with the Brown Gravy and onion Sauce.
6. Garnish with [2 Green Onions] thinly sliced.

Need a side dish? Get our recipe for Cotija Mashed Potatoes HERE>

Dangerous Vitamins Ruining Your Diet?

First off, we must say that not all vitamin supplements are dangerous; some can be quite beneficial to those that are lacking in certain nutrients. That being said, some vitamins can be quite dangerous for you, and you don’t even know it.

Daily vitamin supplements that a lot of us take, conceal their dangers under the fact that they are “raw vitamins, in their purest form.” Technically, they are raw vitamins; what the label may — or may not — tell you, is where the raw vitamins are taken from.

GMO CROPS — and the threat of genetically modified foods — has been on the minds of many people lately. Literally thousands of people are changing their diets and looking closer at the labels on their foods lately, in response to the worldwide outcries against Monsanto and the bio-engineering companies that are toying with the world’s food supply. But the GMO threat has now leaked into our raw vitamins.

Many people believe that vitamin supplements are created in a lab from scratch; however, you cannot make something from nothing, without a little help from nature. The vitamins are actually still created by plants, but are extracted and concentrated in a lab. This means that your vitamin supplements do come from crops, and possibly GMO crops.

As of right now, there are no requirements in-place that would require the labeling of vitamins from GMO crops. If you want to stay away from GMO’s, a restrictive diet with vitamins may not be a healthy solution.

We are currently looking into vitamin supplements that are cleared of any GMO crops, so stay tuned and we will give more advice…

Cooking Meals with Truffles

It’s a cool summer’s morning in the gently undulating hills of Piedmont, Italy. Mist gently clings to the slopes and a team of two is out in the countryside searching intently. Following the gentle tapping of the cane on the ground, one of the men deftly uses his keen senses to see through and into the earth for the treasure the two after. He picks up the scent and digs feverishly, throwing the soil behind him until he’s pulled off by his master and his master takes his trowel and carefully plucks the gnarled white, nearly-priceless treasure from the ground.

Truffles are one of those foods that evoke emotion, imagery, luxury and define what a delicacy is, in us. Growing in a select few regions across the world and only found with the help of specially trained dogs or swine, they are treasured the world over for their taste and rarity. As such, they command a premium price of about $14,000 per kilogram, putting them out of reach of the palettes of most of us. Or does it?

While it’s true that a dish made with a generous amount of white, black or burgundy truffles might be a rare indulgence to be had on very few occasions, one can have the taste of truffles brought to a variety of dishes in their everyday cooking.

Due to their intense flavor, only a small amount of truffle is needed when preparing many dishes, averaging around 7-16 grams of fresh truffle per serving. While this isn’t a frugal amount, it’s not so extravagant as to make you want to flash-freeze it and treat it as currency.

More often than not, most recipes either call for truffle butter or truffle oil. Both of which you can make yourself or pick up at reasonable prices. Truffle butter is easy to prepare yourself and will keep for some time. It’s a wonderful ingredient to use when preparing a meal for a special occasion.

Truffle oil is an intensely fragrant and tasting ingredient that you have to be careful when purchasing. A lot of “truffle oil” is merely olive or grapeseed oil with 2,4-Dithiapentane, the main chemical compound within truffles that give them their characteristic aroma, added to create a synthetic truffle oil. When purchasing truffle oil, be sure to purchase only oil made with real truffles.

There are a million recipes that call for fresh truffles, truffle butter or truffle oil. After you cook with these ingredients a few times you’ll also learn to use them in your own cooking for a little something special.

A Look at the Common Types of Dining Room Furniture

Of all the rooms in your house, your dining room is easily one of the most critical. This is where your guests will likely end up if you have a dinner party. It is also the room where you gather your family each night to have a lovely meal together. Regardless of whether you throw dinner events often, your dining room will probably get a lot of use.

Choosing the correct dining room furniture is vital to making the perfect dining room. There are only a few essential items, but there are infinite varieties of each of these types of furniture. As you start planning out your dining room, you’ll have to start thinking about what kind of furniture will look best in your dining room. The purpose of this post is to give you a brief overview when it comes to the types of furniture you can have in your dining room. As you start looking at all the different styles that are available, the advice in this post can really help out.

The dining room table is the vital piece in any dining room. When you are placing items in the room, the dining table will be the centerpiece of it all. For this reason, you need to pick something that fits right into the room that you have. This means that it must be neither too small, so as to seem diminished, nor too large, so as to prevent people from sitting comfortably around it. The table should also be equally gorgeous when covered or left naked. Many fine dining room tables can also have their sizes adjusted when necessary. Everyone should be seeking the best formal dining room furniture.

Having the right kind of chairs is another critical aspect of a good dining room. Your dining room chairs should aesthetically match the dining room table you’ve chosen. You can make the entire dining room come together with the right chairs. You should also ensure that the chairs are comfortable. This will ensure that your dinner will remain a comfortable one no matter how long it lasts.

You may also want to invest in one more fine piece of dining room furniture. A great serving table is something that will never go out of style. A serving table is a smaller table, often with caster wheels at the base, that can be moved around to wherever assistance and extra table space is necessary. A serving table is a host’s best friend at large banquets, since it can be used to hold any things that are not currently being used. You may want to also consider looking at at some great dining room table sets.