South Africa’s energy supply emergency may have made us worry that we were headed for the “Dark” Ages unless we got rid of every single appliance we own, but the truth is we can make an enormous difference just by making some easy changes to how we use our energy supply.

The kitchen, with all of its heating and cooling gadgets, is an excellent place to start.

Defrosting

It all starts with a bit of pre-planning. If you can think about what you want to cook for dinner the day before, you can take it out of the freezer and let it defrost in the fridge. An added advantage here is that you can spend the whole day dreaming up fabulous additions to the meal, and wow your family with your Nigella Lawson creativity.

Microwaves

Believe it or not, the most powerful energy-saving gadget in your kitchen is your humble microwave.

Microwaves use a lot of energy while in use, but cut down on your cooking time dramatically. Overall, microwaves use only about half as much energy as conventional stoves (as if you needed an excuse to buy those Woolies instant meals).

Ovens

When you are cooking in your oven, the big trick is to keep cooking time down. Try to avoid the urge to peek: every time you open the door about 20% of the heat inside is lost.

Also, don’t bother preheating the oven unless you are baking. When the food is nearly ready, turn the oven off and let the trapped heat do the rest. Make sure that air can circulate properly by keeping the oven racks clear and by resisting the compulsion to use foil. And finally, make sure that the seal on the oven door is intact and closes tightly, so that all of the heat stays in there.

Stoves

The most efficient (and quickest) way to boil water is in a kettle, but make sure that you only boil as much as you need. When using a stove, try to use pots and pans that completely cover the stove plate so that heat isn’t lost, where it serves no purpose other than to make your brow drip.

If you put lids on your pots, you will be able to turn the temperature a bit lower, and can turn it off completely a few minutes before your food is done. Another handy tip is that if your stovetop is dirty, it will absorb heat instead of reflecting it back to the cookware, so keep ‘em shiny.

Cookware

If you love stews and casseroles, it is worth investing in a pressure cooker; they can halve your cooking time and your energy use. When buying pots and pans, invest in sturdy metal with slightly concave bottoms (when they heat up, the metal expands and the bottom flattens out).

Buy copper-bottomed pans, but use ceramic in the oven. Throw out cookware when it becomes warped – you can save about 50% by ensuring that the base of your pan is in full contact with the element.

Fridges

It sits silently in the corner of your kitchen, looking innocent. Few would guess that your fridge is one of the biggest power guzzlers in your home.

Keep it from eating you out of house and home by adjusting its thermostat according to the season. To find out what your setting should be, place a thermostat in a jar of water and leave it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, it should read between 1 and 5 degrees Celsius. The fridge setting can usually be reduced in winter.

If your freezer is only half full, plug the gaps with empty milk bottles filled with water (when these freeze, they will help to keep the temperature down so your freezer doesn’t have to work so hard). Make sure that your freezer is defrosted at least twice a year.

Remember, energy efficiency is not about giving up the electricity you need; it’s about cutting down on what you are wasting. They may seem like insignificant savings, but if we all do our bit, little savings will soon accumulate into enormous savings. Your bank balance will see the effect, as will our economy, and more importantly, the environment our children will inherit.

Arniston Bay Brand News.

Arniston Bay only sources grapes from producers registered with the IPW, Integrated Production of Wine, who set strict criteria for producers to follow environmentally friendly farming methods.

Source: women24.com

There is a common misconception that stews are difficult to prepare and extremely time consuming. Here is a quick and delicious recipe for a Lamb stew.

Serves:             4

Total Time:     30 min

Ingredients

• - 2 tablespoons olive oil
• - 750g lamb steaks (top round or shoulder), bones removed and meat cut into 5cm pieces
• - salt and black pepper
• - 4 carrots,
• - 1 onion, sliced
• - 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• - 1/2 cup dry white wine
• - 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• - 1 400g can diced tomatoes, drained
• - 100g green beans, cut into small pieces (about 1 cup)
• - 1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Directions

1. - Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Season the lamb with 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Cook, turning occasionally, until medium-rare, 6 to 8 minutes; transfer to a plate.
2. - Add the carrots, onion, and the remaining oil to the pot. Cook until beginning to soften, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the wine and scrape up any brown bits.
3. - Add the broth, tomatoes, and beans. Simmer until the vegetables are tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the lamb, parsley, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Serve immediately.

Recommended wine. The Arniston Bay Merlot 2008 will complement this dish. This wine is a food-friendly red with a good structure and clean execution.

The wine:

Source: realsimple

Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major study suggests.

The Spanish research involving more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men.

Female drinkers did not benefit to the same extent, the study in Heart found.

Experts are critical, warning heavy drinking can increase the risk of other diseases, with alcohol responsible for 1.8 million deaths globally per year.

The study was conducted in Spain, a country with relatively high rates of alcohol consumption and low rates of coronary heart disease.

The research involved men and women aged between 29 and 69, who were asked to document their lifetime drinking habits and followed for 10 years.

Crucially the research team claim to have eliminated the “sick abstainers” risk by differentiating between those who had never drunk and those whom ill-health had forced to quit. This has been used in the past to explain fewer heart-related deaths among drinkers on the basis that those who are unhealthy to start with are less likely to drink.

Good cholesterol

The researchers from centres across Spain placed the participants into six categories – from never having drunk to drinking more than 90g of alcohol each day. This would be the equivalent of consuming about eight bottles of wine a week, or 28 pints of lager.

For those drinking little – less than a shot of vodka a day for instance – the risk was reduced by 35%. And for those who drank anything from three shots to more than 11 shots each day, the risk worked out an average of 50% less.

The same benefits were not seen in women, who suffer fewer heart problems than men to start with. Researchers speculated this difference could be down to the fact that women process alcohol differently, and that female hormones protect against the disease in younger age groups.

The type of alcohol drunk did not seem to make a difference, but protection was greater for those drinking moderate to high amounts of varied drinks.

The exact mechanisms are as yet unclear, but it is known that alcohol helps to raise high-density lipoproteins, sometimes known as good cholesterol, which helps stop so-called bad cholesterol from building up in the arteries.

Read more on the BBC website.

Arniston Bay Brand News

Arniston Bay provides a range of lifestyle wines for every occasion including lighter wines with lower alcohol levels. The Arniston Bay Chenin Blanc / Colombar 2009 (10%) is a well balanced light wine.  Flavours of green apple candied citrus lemon lime and grapefruit dance across the palate as nearly all the citrus fruits are delivered in a single sip.

The Wine:

Pairing wine and food is in many cases an individual perception. But there are guidelines which suggest the most popular pairings and then there are commonly excepted pairings which are deemed to be universal mismatches.

To make sense of the best wine pairings, it helps to recognize the worst wine pairings. This gives and indication of which tastes complement and which tastes clash with one another.

Champagne / Sparkling Wine

Bubbles wake up the taste buds and Sparkling wines are eminently food-friendly.

Worst Pairing:

A frequent wine-pairing mistake: cake and bubbly. The Champagne is relatively tart, the cake is super-sweet, and it’s like World War III in your mouth.

Great pairing:

Great with Saltimbocca Veal or Oysters

Cabernet Sauvignon

Big Cabs are the giants of the wine world: Be careful, or they will stomp all over your menu.

Worst pairing:

Filet of sole or any white flaky fish, is delicate, and the big wine will overshadow the taste and can actually sour the taste.

Great pairing:

Red wine and beef is a classic match, but the addition of soy sauce, which helps soften tannins, makes the match that much better

Sauvignon Blanc

These wines tend to have fruity, citrus and grassy aromas with crispy and fresh finishes.

Worst pairing:

Brussels sprout and Blue cheese. Blue cheese does not complement this wine style and the taste of Brussels sprouts tends to become sour with some Sauvignon Blancs.

Great pairing: Sole (or a white flaky fish) with a Lemon and herb sauce. The wine and the sauce has a complimentary similarity which is divine.

Arniston Bay Brand News

We would suggest the Arniston Bay Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 with rump steak and red wine sauce. The Veal Saltimbocca with Arniston Bay Sparkling Wine will be great and the Arniston Bay Reserve Sauvignon Blanc will be great with lemon and herb  sole.

The Wine: Arniston Bay Reserve Sauvignon Blanc

Source: astrology.yahoo.com

Finding new ways to improve on old recipes / dish is always exciting. Meatballs are a standard dish and everyone has a good-to recipe for this good-old-faithful meal. Here is interesting spicy meatball dish which will not fail to delight your guests.

Recommended wine: Arniston Bay Shiraz 2008. This is a full bodied wine with intense dark colour subtle smoky and pepper spice nose with strong full middle palate and good tannin structure. Good finish with hints of coffee and chocolate in the aftertaste.

The Recipe

Serves 8

Total preparation time is about  1 hour

Ingredients

• -500g lean ground beef
• -500g  ground pork
• -1 medium onion, minced
• -2 slices soft bread, crusts removed and torn into pieces
• -5 cloves garlic, minced
• -2 eggs
• -1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• -1/4 cup olive oil
• -1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• -1 tablespoon salt
• -1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan
• -3 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• -1 1/2 cups ricotta

Directions

1. -Preheat oven to 200° C. In a large bowl, combine the first 10 ingredients, 1 cup of the Parmesan, and 2 teaspoons of the pepper. Mix just to combine. Shape the mixture into 16 to 18 large meatballs (each should consist of about 3/4 cup of meat). Place on a baking pan and set aside.
2. -In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta with the remaining Parmesan and the remaining pepper; set aside.
3. -Bake the meatballs for 20 minutes in upper third of oven. Remove from oven and turn on broiler. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the ricotta mixture onto each meatball. Broil 3 to 5 minutes or until the ricotta just starts to brown.

The Wine:

Source: realsimple.com

According to a recent Telegraph article South Africa’s wines are improving in leaps and bounds and there has been a dramatic increase in quality.

South Africa is currently the world’s ninth largest wine producer with more than 600 wineries and 6,000 wines. It is the fastest growing wine-supplying country in Britain, with a 12.1 per cent share of the market, hot on the heels of Italy and France (13 and 13.1 per cent, respectively).

It further states that this market share improvement is driven by the big brands such as Arniston Bay

Arniston Bay Brand News

The Arniston Bay wine brand has experienced a marked sales increase over the past year – latest figures reveal that off-trade sales are up 29% by value and 31% by volume (AC Nielsen: 52 weeks to 05 September 2009).

Read the full Telegraph article.

Apart from the lovely drink, serving Champaign (sparkling wine) can be a mood and ambiance setter. Serve it ice cold and to open the bottle gracefully.

The next important step in sparkling wine etiquette is how to get sparkling wine into a glass. A lot trickier than it seems. Here are three clever tips to pouring a perfect glass of bubbly every time:

• -Easy does it. Pour a smidgen of the wine into the bottom of the glass first, wait for the initial fizzy head to bubble down, and then pour the rest.
• -Don’t tilt the glass. Rather, hold it upright, or let it stand on a table and pour the wine directly into it. The swirl and turbulence of a tilted glass can cause the wine to bubble up and over.
• -Don’t over-fill the glass. It’s a sure way to send all that precious liquid cascading over the edges of the glass. Think ‘less is more’ when filling a glass with wine. And with a bottle of bubbly, it’s always better to go back for a refill from a chilled bottle than to sit with the wine getting warm in your glass.

Sparkling wine offers a great way to punctuate a celebration with a special toast and with a bit of etiquette, it can turn a special occasion into that memorable event.

Arniston Bay Brand News:

The Arniston Bay Charmat Brut is a lovely elegant and zesty wine with tropical fruit flavours and fresh crisp bubbles. This wine can turn a special occasion into a memorable event.

The Wine:

Source: iafrica.com

Wine sales at restaurants and bars are declining as diners trade down to less expensive options or skip wine altogether to save a buck.

The economic woes have in some cases influenced diners to be less extravagant and less experimental. Diners can’t afford to be wrong and thus they are not likely to try new restaurants or try new more expensive wines.

It seems that diners will rather go to their tried and trusted restaurant and will order the wines they know but will scale down to order a more value-based wine (not as expensive) on the menu.

Although the economic woes can be devastating for restaurants businesses, some opportunities have arisen.

Firstly, treat your regulars better and to get to know them well.

Secondly, go with flow and have a more value based wines on the menu.

Lastly encourage personal references from your current client base, because a new client in these times is more valuable and sustainable than a new client in the old (pre-credit crunch)  times.

Arniston Bay Brand News

The Arniston Bay Chenin Blanc Chardonnay is one of the best value for money wines available. This wine is doing extremely well in the UK market and wine critics have given these wine great revues.

After opening a bottle of wine it just takes a few days for the  wines to “go bad”. The time which it will “stay good” depends on a few factors.

Both red and white wines will oxidise once exposed to the elements and will eventually convert into vinegar. Essentially, the only wines that keep for any length of time after removing the closure are fortified ones (ports and sherries).

Typically, white wines will turn sour faster than reds and the process is accelerated by higher temperatures; by replacing the cork or screwcap and keeping the wine in the fridge, oxidation is inhibited but not avoided.

A rule-of-thumb says that letting an open bottle of wine stand on the counter accelerates the ageing process by one year for each day opened.

If this is the case, a red wine intended to age for a few years may be propelled to age in this rather crude fashion. The counter is that in opening a bottle of wine and not finishing it in one sitting, there is the opportunity to drink it up to several days later.

A white wine does not usually last longer than two days after opening and being stored in the fridge.

Arniston Bay Brand News:

The Arniston Bay wine pouch has a wide array of environmental advantages but it also keep the wine fresh for longer. Wines can keep up to one month in these pouches which means you can enjoy the your everyday drink wine for a longer time

The Wine:

Source: tonight.co.za