More Modern And Compact Wine Cellars

Refrigerated wine cabinets have taken over the original function of wine cellars for many people who simply can't create a genuine underground cellar of their own for whatever reason.

Because most people don't have a cave or even a basement room they might convert to a wine cellar, these refrigerators kept in the home now serve the purpose of storing wine, and often still bear the name of those original cellars. Yet many of them go far beyond mere storage these days and often serve as furniture.

Even in a regular kitchen setting, you find that many of these wine cellars fit right into the decor as furniture. They may have panels of the same wood as the cabinetry, making them look as though they are part of the broad design scheme of the kitchen.

Or they might match the surfaces of the larger appliances. But even the windows of these wine bottle refrigerators may add decorative elements, like frosted glass or sometimes even lattice work. They also don't necessarily just sit in a kitchen looking useful.

These modern, compact wine cellars still partially correspond to their namesakes in performing their basic function, which is to store ready to drink wine for many months at a time.

But they have also far outstripped those original underground rooms in adding to their repertoire the beauty and function of serving as actual furniture. These wine cellar refrigerators are not just storage and preservation areas any longer, but are often vital pieces in the decor of the home itself.

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Better Nutrition With Rice Cooking Tips

Rice cooking tips include the most efficient and the most wasteful ways to cook rice. You can boil rice and use 12 times as much water and lose some of the nutrients, or you can steam rice with 2 and half cups of water and keep all the nutrients intact.

Many of the natural tastes and flavours remain with steamed rice and this may be the reason many people are now switching to steamed rice, with steamed vegetables to make a delicious meal.

Steaming rice is favoured by those who like to keep all the nutrients in their rice. Boiling rice loses some of the nutrients in the cooking process. If you like to eat your rice the most nutritional way, then steamed rice may be the best choice.

Especially if you like to steam your vegetables and herbs. Adding steamed vegetables and herbs to your dish, will make the meal much more tasty, when all the flavours and nutrients are intact.

The next time you want to cook a meal with rice as one of the main ingredients, you should try steaming the rice as a new cooking method. You will taste the difference and your family will be grateful for the better tasting rice in your meal.

There are many ways to cook rice, but you can create a meal with some of the easiest rice cooking tips.

To read the recipes: Better Nutrition With Rice Cooking Tips

Buying From Local Suppliers To Save Money On Organic Food

Save money on organic food by growing your own food and buying organic food from local businesses and local farmers markets. Buying from local suppliers helps save on transportation costs, reducing the cost of organic food.

When you walk into a food store, you may notice the prices on organic food are always higher than products grown without organic practices. If you want to eat food, grown with the use of insecticides, herbicides and other chemicals, then you will pay less, as it is easier to grow produce treated with these chemicals.

You can take steps to reduce costs of your organic food by growing your own fruit, vegetables and herbs and buying from local organic food suppliers.

With an organic garden, your aim is to avoid using fertilizers and insecticides full of nasty chemicals.

There are organic fertilizers to help plant growth and natural bug killers that do not use nasty chemicals to help reduce infestations in your garden. These days, you can even use ladybugs to eat insects in your garden and electronic gadgets to frighten pests away from your organic garden.

Taking action by growing your own food, is one of the better options to save money on organic food.

To read more Buying From Local Suppliers To Save Money On Organic Food

Tips And Ideas To Grow Your Own Fruit And Vegetables

Grow your own fruit and vegetables in a small garden in your backyard, or in containers around the house. These are some of the many options available to supply fresh herbs, fruit and vegetables for your family.

You can have a small herb garden on your window sill, or an indoor garden with growing plants in containers. Even if you lack space for a garden in your backyard, you can still grow one or two plants to feed your family with fresh produce.

If you need fresh produce all year round, you can set up a greenhouse with grow lights to simulate sunshine, helping your plants grow, even though it may be cold and windy outside. You can also use heaters and fans, to create your own climate inside your greenhouse.

Look, if you are one of those people with an empty space in your yard, then you can start with a few growing plants of your favourite vegetables. You can talk to staff at the local nursery, about the best growing conditions you need for growing healthy vegetable plants. You may need to buy organic compost, organic fertilizer and mulch.

Growing your own fruit and vegetables, means you can grow your produce to suit your taste. If you want an organic garden, then you can set up a garden without using nasty chemicals like chemical pesticides and herbicides.

You can use natural methods to stop insect and other pest infestations in your garden, without resorting to chemicals, including natural bug killers and electronic gadgets in your garden.

These days, even ladybugs are being used in many gardens to cut down insect infestations. You can contact your local nursery for more information, or search online.

Eating the most fresh and full of flavour producecan be accomplished, when you grow your own fruit and vegetables.

To read more Tips And Ideas To Grow Your Own Fruit And Vegetables

Setting The Romantic Mood With Valentines Day Food

When you think of Valentines Day food, that doesn't just have to refer to the dinner full of romance, in which you wine-and-dine your partner during the evening with further amorous intentions for later on.

Yes, the atmosphere of that dinner, full of flower arrangements and soft lighting is supposed to promote those amorous plans by helping the partners get fully into the romantic mood.

But there are some foods that are said to promote the actual libido and even sexual performance. These are the aphrodisiacs, and many appear to have gotten their reputation for good reason.

You might want to avoid too much wine, though, because it tends to slow down the sex drive rather than enhance it. Red wine might be a slight exception, but for Valentines Day food that will give you that extra zing in your lovemaking, you might prefer to drink a cappuccino with dinner, with just an extra sprinkling of nutmeg.

But even with the amorous effect of nutmeg, it must be taken in moderation, because too much of it can create hallucinations. Talk about spoiling the romantic mood!

The one thing you'll want to include for sure as dinner food on this special day will be oysters. Yes, history has been correct about the aphrodisiac qualities of these little morsels, which contain elements that increase the levels of testosterone in the body.

Choosing the right Valentines Day food and adding these various aphrodisiacs in to give everything pep may be just what you need to ensure that the evening brings the end result that you hope it will.

To read more Setting The Romantic Mood With Valentines Day Food

Wine Cooler Refrigerator For Sustained Storage Under Controlled Conditions

Why bother with a wine cooler refrigerator when you've already got your regular fridge? This is a valid question for those who don't know much about wine storage, as a kitchen fridge does not work as well.

Even though wine refrigerators are sometimes thought of as mere "beverage coolers," they are much more than that. They are designed for sustained storage under controlled conditions, which are meant to be much more stable than any circumstances you'll find in a regular fridge.

There's a reason why ads for a wine cooler refrigerator always mention temperature controls. This is a big issue when you are storing wine. The temperature must be kept consistent, which rarely happens with a kitchen refrigerator.

In fact, hardly anyone even knows what the temperature is in their regular fridge, not to mention how consistent it might be. In fact, it's not consistent at all, going up and down through the fridge's regular cycles, and then altering again each time the door opens or closes.

A refrigerator specifically made to store wine, with its controlled temperature, is a much better choice.

Another alternative is a wine cooler refrigerator with two internal temperature zones. These models allow the users to set one temperature for red wine, and another cooler temperature for white, so that both types of wine are kept in optimum conditions.

So not only are these compact wine refrigerators better at keeping the internal temperature generally consistent than your standard kitchen refrigerators, but they can create different temperature conditions for each type of wine in a way a kitchen fridge simply can't.

These wine cooling units really are the best choice for the serious storage of wine.

To read more Wine Cooler Refrigerator For Sustained Storage Under Controlled Conditions

Meeting The New Day With A Cup Of Flavored Green Tea

Flavored green tea is enjoyed by people who like to drink a delicious cup of green tea. Some people do not like the plain seaweed like taste of green tea and look to add flavours to help improve the taste.

You can make your tea sweeter, by the usual method of adding sugar, syrup or milk, but these sweeteners add the calories and you need to exercise to burn them off. Another option is to use artificial sweeteners. A better option, is to add natural fruit flavours like apple, lemon or fruit juice. Freshly squeezed lemon juice is a popular favourite.

After all, taking these steps, will ensure you are getting the most delicious green tea. Especially when you are sitting on the deck with your family and friends, watching the sun go down one more time. This is the time to enjoy each others’ company and reflect on moments in life, that has brought you great joy.

You can discuss the birth of your children, the coming of Christmas holidays, the first day you met your wife, the day you moved into your new home, the day you baked your first birthday cake, the times you celebrated special family events. You may even consider balancing the conversation with moments of despair and coming out together to meet the light.

These are all moments you can discuss with your family while enjoying a cup of flavored green tea.

To read more Meeting The New Day With A Cup Of Flavored Green Tea

Italian Cooking With Traditional Italian Food

Traditional Italian food is available in restaurants specializing in Italian food cooking. There are many fast food restaurants serving Americanized Italian food, lacking the original cooking styles and even some of the original ingredients have been changed.

For example, traditional Italian pizza is made with flat bread, containing herbs and topped with olive oil, Mozzarella cheese, sliced tomatoes and basil. Can you compare this pizza with a Hawaiian or a Supreme? For one, I have never tasted basil on a pizza, until I went to an Italian restaurant and noticed basil was one of the ingredients on the pizza.

There are many restaurants selling Italian food, but there are very few selling traditional Italian food, just like mamma used to make in the mother country.

If you take a cooking tour to Italy and taste the foods in many regions, you will taste the original taste of traditional Italian food. In some towns in America, where Italian food is not mass produced, you can taste authentic Italian cooking in Italian American restaurants.

There is an Italian restaurant, not far from my home, where they cook authentic Italian meals and I take many of my friends there, whenever I want to show them real Italian food. Although their prices are a little higher than fast food restaurants, the food may take a little longer to cook, but it is much more delicious and the flavours are unforgettable.

Whenever we want to hold a special family event, we always hire a few tables to entertain our family friends. Many of our friends, always ask if we will be having our family event at the same restaurant.

I have requested many of the recipes and the chef was obliging, to help expand my repertoire of cooking with traditional Italian food.

To read more Italian Cooking With Traditional Italian Food

Difference Between A Wine Bottle Refrigerator And Wine Cellars

A wine bottle refrigerator and an actual wine cellar are not the same things, and do not perform their functions with the same consistency. The more expensive wine refrigerators might come close, but in general, a fridge does not quite meet the same standards of temperature, humidity and light that wine cellars do.

Refrigerated cellars may straddle the worlds of artificial refrigeration and the natural coolness of a real cellar, but when it comes to long-term storage of the finest wines, a cellar is almost always the best place for storage.

Temperature is one of the most important factors in choosing wine storage coolers. You have two main types of cooling, the thermoelectric method or the compressor method. Thermoelectric refrigerators have no moving parts, thus eliminating vibration problems and maintaining temperatures more consistently.

Yet they don't actually cool as efficiently as compressor-based wine bottle refrigerator models. A compressor, on the other hand, cycles up and down, and the internal temperature fluctuates along with it. So neither type is a perfect choice, when it comes to temperature concerns.

Even when they give glowing wine refrigerator reviews, sites like the Galt Buying Guide (www.galttech.com) or www.modernwinecellar.com always recognize the difference between a wine bottle refrigerator and a genuine wine cellar.

Many of the refrigerators work very well at keeping regular wine safe and drinkable for up to a year. But people interested in aging a wine for the long term should recognize that even the best wine refrigerator will probably fall short in performance.

To read more Difference Between A Wine Bottle Refrigerator And Wine Cellars

Temporary Storage With A Wine Cooler

A wine cellar may be your ideal place for storing wine, but if you live in a small home or apartment, then you need to be realistic. Even temporarily, a wine cooler is probably the best method of storing your wine, even if you're planning on building a small collection.

There probably will be both budget and space considerations to ponder in creating a more permanent solution later, but don't deprive yourself now. A refrigerated wine cabinet can serve your purposes until your circumstances allow you to move on to something more elaborate.

To keep both red and white wines stored in the best conditions, you have three choices. You might buy two wine bottle refrigerators so you can store the wines at different temperatures, since whites should be cooler than reds.

You could buy one wine fridge and set the thermostat halfway between the two recommended high and low temperatures. Or you could get a wine cooler that has two internal temperature zones, so each type of wine can be stored in the same fridge, under the right conditions.

What you're looking for, ideally, is a wine cooler that has good control of the conditions in which you're keeping the wine, and the ability to respond to changes in those conditions with a degree of speed.

If the room temperature goes up, this fridge should be insulated enough and responsive enough to prevent the internal temperature from going up too. You want a wine cabinet that will take your budget into account, but still let you store your wine in the proper way.

To read more Temporary Storage With A Wine Cooler

Finding Reviews Online For The Best Wine Coolers

You can check a few of the main review sites for the best wine coolers, and you'll see certain names coming up more frequently than others. For example, the EuroCave and Vinotemp brands are regarded very highly by the Galt Online Buying Guide (www.galtech.com).

However, they also run in the $1000 range, and you may be looking for slightly less expensive wine bottle refrigerators. In the lower price ranges, though, even when some names come up more often than others, there is no clear "winner," because many brands perform differently in different size categories.

The Modern Wine Cellar does its wine refrigerator reviews using a very detailed five-point system as it analyzes each model from each brand. This site's analysis finds different things depending on whether the category is single or dual temperature refrigerators.

The best wine coolers in the dual temperature category generally tend to be Avanti models, apart from one very good Franklin Chef fridge. Meanwhile, Avanti appears to split the honors with Haier products, among the single temperature models.

What the reviews boil down to is that the best wine coolers can be made by almost any company, though certain brands seem to do better in particular size and temperature categories.

Among both official reviews and customer comments, Avanti wine refrigerators appear to fare the best overall, particularly when it comes to dual temperature zone units. Yet because there is no consistent victor in all the comparisons, someone choosing a wine refrigerator should not just settle on a single brand to the exclusion of all others.

What they should do instead is read as many customer reviews as possible for all brands, and learn which product works best for the most people.

To read more Finding Reviews Online For The Best Wine Coolers

Consistent Temperature And Humidity With Wine Cooler Refrigerators

You may already be aware that concerns about consistent temperature and humidity levels make wine cooler refrigerators much better for storing your wine than a regular kitchen fridge.

But these aren't the only considerations when you're shopping around for one of these appliances. Sometimes the actual design of such mini refrigerated cellars play a part as well, in keeping your wine in good condition and even safe from actual damage.

You also want to prevent vibrations and disruption of the sediment in the bottles, because shaking up the sediment could ruin the internal balance in the wine.

Thermoelectric wine refrigerators don't cool as efficiently as compressor-based models, yet they eliminate vibrations, so you'll need to weigh these two factors against each other.

If you're more concerned about temperature and therefore prefer wine cooler refrigerators that have compressors, then you should at least ensure that the storage compartment for the wine is isolated from the compressor compartment, and that the whole fridge is isolated from vibrations that may come from other appliances or cabinets in the kitchen.

Compact wine refrigerators also need to establish the best internal lighting conditions possible. Whether this involves tinted glass to keep UV light from getting at the wine, solid doors with no glass at all, or even LED lighting inside the cabinet itself, wine cooler refrigerators must be able to protect your wine from this subtle but potentially damaging problem.

You should look for a design that incorporates all of these different protective features, as every time you open a perfectly preserved bottle of wine at dinner, you'll be very glad did.

To read more Consistent Temperature And Humidity With Wine Cooler Refrigerators

Storing Wine In Wine Cellar Rooms

Despite what some companies call their products, a wine refrigerator is not the same as a wine cellar. The cellars exist as underground rooms, or sometimes even caves, which are used to store wine.

The location usually provides cool enough temperatures and other ideal conditions to allow the wine to age and last for a long time. Wine storage refrigerators, on the other hand, no matter how they try to control conditions on a small scale, do not really keep wine in good shape for much longer than a year.

So it might seem that never the twain shall meet, if not for a more recent type of storage setup with a foot in both the cellar and the refrigerator worlds.

What a wine room does is bring the long term storage abilities of a wine cellar above ground, using modern refrigeration methods to create the same conditions that have always made these cellars good places for long term storage.

A person can either choose from a prefabricated model or have one of these refrigerated wine cellars custom designed to fit into a corner of their basement or a large room of their home. It can be as decorative or utilitarian as they prefer.

If people have, or are planning to have a large collection of wine, yet can't add an extension to their home, then they don't necessarily need to settle for one of the compact wine refrigerators.

Instead, they can install an above-ground wine cellar, or wine room, which can be designed to fit the decor and existing construction of their home. The climate controls are there to ensure much better conditions for storing and aging wine than any wine fridge can promise.

Such a wine room takes the positive elements of a wine fridge and adds the superior qualities of a wine cellar, and creates an ideal compromise.

To read more Storing Wine In Wine Cellar Rooms

Starting Small With Wine Coolers

Unless you inherit a big wine collection, you're probably going to start small, with regard to a collection, and work your way up step by step. So when you're thinking of storage, you'll also likely start small as well, with refrigerated wine coolers, and go on from there to larger, more elaborate storage solutions.

The last thing you want to do right at the beginning is invest in some sort of large, elaborate refrigerated wine cabinets and then discover that you're not so much into wine collecting after all.

But you don't have to be stuck filling up your kitchen counter space, especially if you don't have much of it. Wine bottle refrigerators can be installed under the counter as dishwashers are, or be shelved just beneath the upper cabinets as microwaves sometimes are.

You can set up shelves for small wine coolers in surprising places. And even an open section of floor space along a wall might provide just enough room for a taller unit to stand.

The thing is that you don't have to start big right at the beginning. There are enough smaller wine coolers to get you started until you know exactly how far you're going to go with your collection.

You can expand gradually, learning about the features of the various refrigerated wine cabinets, until you really get serious. Your knowledge will grow along with your collection, and at that point you can choose the proper wine fridge like a real expert.

To read more Starting Small With Wine Coolers