You also can remove wine from the box and put chicken with onion and other stuff and put it in the fire (yes, the wine box directly to the fire like in your 2nd picture but directly on the fire). The wine box will never get burnt because the difference of temperatures between outside and inside (that has vegetables and chicken fluids).
Seven Things to Do With Boxed Wine
Photo: Dusty Davidson
1.Mulled Wine – I love strolling through the Christmas markets in Europe and drinking this stuff. It smells oh so fabulous and tastes yummy. Since it’s mixed with so many other items, it’s kind of expected that you won’t use an expensive wine anyway. Either whites or reds can be used. Here’s a link with a few recipes.
1.Mulled Wine – I love strolling through the Christmas markets in Europe and drinking this stuff. It smells oh so fabulous and tastes yummy. Since it’s mixed with so many other items, it’s kind of expected that you won’t use an expensive wine anyway. Either whites or reds can be used. Here’s a link with a few recipes.
2.Fruit Salad Glaze – I got this one from a friend years ago. It’s dirt cheap and very simple. Instead of using whipped topping or mixing up gelatin, you just whisk up honey with either white or red wine until it makes a bit of a glaze and add ground cinnamon to taste. You toss fresh chopped fruit like apples, grapes or peaches with perhaps a few chopped walnuts (really you can use any fruit combination that suits you) and then coat with the glaze. I’ve also used drained canned peaches with walnut bits when trying to cut costs. This is a nice light after meal treat with a fair amount of punch.
3.Sangria – As with mulled wine, using the cheap stuff is expected. You can make sangria with either red or white wine. Here’s a link to a tight budget recipe for a white sangria that you can use for an impromptu party.
4.Marinades – I’m sure there are a ton of recipes out there for this, but a simple cheap one that I’ve gotten lots of compliments on uses just plain boxed white wine, honey and rosemary. You can whisk this up to your own desired consistency. It’s really great with chicken breasts.
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5.Salad Dressings – Cheap wine can make a very elegant salad dressing. Here’s a link for a white one and a red. The red recipe calls for a specific type that I don’t believe you can get in a box, but I really don’t see any reason why you couldn’t substitute your favorite cheap dry boxed red.
6.Spritzers – If you find some of the white, red or blush varieties of boxed wine a bit syrupy for your tastes, consider turning a glass of the stuff into a type of low calorie spritzer by thinning it out with a plain or flavored seltzer water. This stuff is great because it has no calories, no sodium and no aspartame. It’s one of my new favorite products.
7.Gourmet Cooking on the Cheap – Beef bourguignon, coq au vin, champagne and wine jellies, pot roast jazzer-upper . . . it’s really up to you. Have a favorite recipe that uses wine? I’d love to know about it.
So there you have it. Seven simple ways to get major bang for your boxed wine buck. If you know of an idea I left out, by all means, fill us in. You might also enjoy this article on wine pairings.
Additional photo credits: Alexindigo, Vortistic, Phunkstarr, Jspatchwork, Rocky Radio, Ifindkarma, Adactio
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Yay, sangria! Another great breakfast beverage.
I also read somewhere that you can add to it your bathwater, but I don't know if super-white skinned peeps like myself could attempt that with a cabernet or not. Word has it that Eva Longoria does just that, but it might be a hoax to get the rest of us to ruin our tubs? Also, you'd smell like a lush.
Oh, I had a friend who used to use red wine when she would die her hair with henna, instead of adding water to the henna. She had glorious, dark locks that would take on the prettiest auburn tint. She said that wine helped the color absorb better. Again, could be false, but she swore by it.
Lol, Andrea, I can imagine one would smell quite strange after such a bath.
The marinade is a good idea. I'm afraid that if I kept such things around regularly (in case of emergencies) I'd dip into it when feeling particularly depressed.
No need to worry about dipping in while feeling depressed . . . that's why the spritzer tip is included, girl!
Never heard of such a thing. Interesting idea though, as a way to do something really fun and a bit higher end on a camping trip. Thanks for posting.
You crack me up. It's funny you should mention breakfast cocktail recipes, because I'm a firm believer in those. Aside from mimosas, if you take the frozen slush idea from the once a month cooking for the bar article and use grapefruit juice or grapefruite juice concentrate mixed with a bit of water and LOTS of vodka, you can have the makings of a "just add seltzer water" morning drink (and who doesn't need one occasionally, be honest) on hand at all times. Pick up a cheap white five gallon bucket with snap on cover at Home Depot. You can fill it with a huge batch to keep in the freezer.
That henna idea sounds really interesting.
I love that marinade idea with the rosemary! Yum! I too have tried the wine spritzers and it is a great idea!!
Or if you're a college student, you can have a "Tour de Franzia" party and do what comes naturally: two teams pass around a bag/box of wine, and the winning team is the first one finish it off.
Now that's creative! Sounds like we might have had fun together in my younger years. Drink responsibly though, OK?
Thanks for posting.
Make Calimocho! It's a sangria-like drink that's really popular in Spain, especially among the young folk. It's basically equal parts of red wine and Coca Cola, over ice.
I know it sounds gross, but it's really good!
I had a friend in grade school whose mother was Italian. She used to give her kool-aid with wine in it for that time of the month..
I can honestly say I've never heard of that before Nick. But hey, I'll try anything once. Thanks for stopping by.
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Great ideas and great recipes. Don't forget that you can also sqeeeeeze extra wine out of that winebox. If you do it right then you can often get at least 3 extra glasses out of a 5 litre box (We have large wineboxes out here in France).
Learn how to do this and get some other related frugal tips at: http://www.meanygoat.com/how-to-use-a-winebox/
