Mad Housewife Wine News

Enter Our New Photo Contest

Send in the funniest, most creative, most outrageous photos of you and your friends drinking Mad Housewife wine. Photos must be submitted by Sunday, November 1st. Five finalists will be selected and Mad Housewife fans will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite! Voting will take place until Sunday, November 8th. Email your photos as an attachment to Keenan (Keenan.Sanders@RainierWine.com). All entries will be displayed on the web site as they are received. (Please allow some time for your photo to appear.) Each of our five finalists will receive a runner up prize and the person submitting the winning photo will have their choice of a Mad Housewife T-shirt or a custom Switch Plate created by A La Mode.
 
Say Cheese (or Cheers!)

In the November issue of Ladies Home Journal

Here's a Mad Housewife Shout Out to the Ladies Home Journal magazine. The new November issue has a fun little article about great wines to bring to parties, called "Message On A Bottle." Guess who got named??!!

 
Take a closer look at our close up! Click on the images for a larger view.

The Mad Housewife Photo Caption Contest Winner

Congratulations to Michelle Samartin, the winner of our Photo Caption Contest. Her winning caption was:

"Well you know what they say Mabel, " A Mad Housewife a day... Keeps the Family OK!"

Mad Men – Linguine in Vodka Sauce with Shrimp and Asparagus

I have a secret indulgence.  On Monday nights I prepare a dish that requires an hour of baking, place it in the oven, pour myself some Mad Housewife Merlot in an elegant cut-glass tumbler, go to my bedroom, and close the door.  Everyone—even the dogs—know I am not to be disturbed.

    I turn on the television and watch Sunday’s episode of Mad Men.

    I love this show.  The AMC series purports to be about advertising executives on Madison Avenue, but I think it’s really about their women—housewives and career women, all bordering on mad.  The show should really be called Mad Women.

    First there is Betty, wife of Don Draper, the disillusioned ad man who is the show’s central character.  Betty is the archetypal Mad Housewife of the sixties, right out of the 1967 classic Diary of a Mad Housewife.  She is bored, over educated, drifting into a fantasy life, tempted by infidelity, underutilized, underappreciated, quietly going mad.

    Then there is Peggy Olson, the first female copywriter at the firm, who is by turns cautiously feeling her way and violently throwing herself into her liberated womanhood.  She tentatively asks for a raise and a special assignment, then nearly cries when rejected.  She jumps into bed with an ad executive whom she knows only wants to use her to get back her boss.  She tries to be a good Catholic girl, but comes alive when she smokes pot.  If her overbearing mother doesn’t make her mad, the boys at the office will.

    There’s Salvatore’s wife, young and in love, who watches her husband act out Ann Margaret in Bye, bye, Birdie, and realizes why he is less than amorous.  

    And then there is Joan Holloway, the sexy office manager, doomed to frustration.  She has the body and demure restraint of a woman in the fifties, but the drive and spirit of a woman in the sixties.  Ahead of her time but trapped in the past.  Charming and capable, she can play “C’est Magnifique” on the accordion, or apply a tourniquet while everyone around her panics.  She excels as a career girl until she marries a doctor, then realizes that she has given up her freedom and power for a putz.  She is smart, funny, sexy, and competent, but something keeps her from using her brilliance to take on the world.

    My mother was one of these women—perhaps your mother was, too—doing the job she thought everyone expected of her, often getting no compensation or recognition, feeling—like the women in Mad Men—not exactly bitter about it, but slighted, confused, and frustrated.

    My heart breaks for Joan Holloway.  Why does she feel so modern?  Have we become our mothers?  When I think about the women of Sex in the City¸ which aired between 1998-2004, and then the women of Mad Men, I wonder if the subject and popularity of the shows reflects a difference in how women feel about themselves.  Whereas during the economic boom, women confidently sauntered down the street, arm-in-arm, ready to take on the world, women now feel torn between roles, between career woman and mother, trying to be all things to all people, much like the women of Mad Men—quietly going mad.

    Thank goodness there’s always a glass of Mad Housewife wine waiting, and a new recipe to try out.

   

Linguine in Vodka Sauce with Shrimp and Asparagus

 

What would Joan Holloway cook for dinner?  Something healthful, impressive, and simple—because she is ultimately a practical woman.  She looks like a pasta gal to me.  Try this luscious dish with Mad Housewife Cabernet Sauvignon and good crusty bread to mop up the sauce.  The flavors are subtle and fabulous.

 

(serves four)

½ pound linguine

1 teaspoon butter

2 cloves garlic

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

1-1/2 pounds Roma tomatoes, chopped or 28 ounce can

¼ cup vodka

¼ cup heavy cream (or half and half)

½ cup ricotta cheese

12 spears of asparagus, chopped into thirds

1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 bunch basil and/or thyme, chopped

black pepper

shaved Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

 

1.     While pasta water comes to a boil, sauté garlic and red pepper flakes in butter.  Add tomatoes and simmer for ten minutes.  Start cooking linguine.

2.     Stir in ricotta cheese and cream into tomatoes.  Heat thoroughly.

3.     Add shrimp and vodka.  Cook 2 minutes, then add asparagus and basil.  Cook 2 more minutes.

4.     Serve on cooked and drained linguine.  Garnish with more fresh basil, cheese and black pepper to taste.

Photo From The Wine Olympics in Omaha

 
Mad Housewife
Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your gift donation of Mad Housewife matchboxes, spatulas, nail files, and tattoos. Our first annual Wine Olympics was a huge success, in part due to your help. The items were put in gift bags and given to all of the participants.

Thank you for your generosity and your quality products!

Sincerely,

Stephanie Scheppers

 

Do you have a wine event or fundraiser happening? Let us know. We can help you out with rebate information, little goodies for giftbags, information about buying T-shirts and other fun giveaways, and more.

Mad Housewife Recipe Contest Winners And Their Winning Recipes

We held a contest on our Facebook page a few weeks ago asking people to share their favorite "Quick and On the Go" recipes. We picked three winning entries. Here they are in all their glory. Thanks ladies!

 

Winning Entry Number 1, By Amy Ryan Tucker
CHICKEN ALFREDO WITH SPINACH AND MUSHROOMS
Servings | 4-6

Ingredients
4 oz cream cheese
8 oz uncooked pasta ( I used penne)
4 oz fresh sliced mushrooms
1/2 small onion, finely diced - divided
1 cup chicken broth
2 cups fresh spinach
8 oz uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced small
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/4 cup Mad Housewife Chardonnay
2 Tbsp butter - divided
1/2 cup half and half

Instructions
In a large skillet, melt 1 Tbsp butter and saute 1/2 of the diced onion with chicken (diced), salt and pepper. When chicken is cooked through, add chicken broth and cream cheese and simmer over low heat until cream cheese melts. In another small skillet saute the other portion of onion with the last Tbsp of butter, garlic salt, and mushrooms. Once onions begin to soften, add Mad Housewife Chardonnay and spinach. Cover and cook on low until spinach is wilted. Boil pasta in 2 quarts salted water. Cook pasta until tender and then drain. While pasta is boiling, add half and half to sauce and simmer until thick and bubbly. Combine the spinach/mushroom mixture to the chicken and wine sauce. Stir to combine. Serve over hot cooked pasta.

 

Winning Entry Number 2, By Jennifer White Thompson
Mad Housewife Slow Cooker Sloppy Joes

2 lbs lean ground beef or turkey
2-16 oz jars salsa
8 oz sliced fresh mushrooms
1 1/2 cups shredded carrots (3 med)
1 1/2 cups finely chopped red and/or green sweet peppers
1/3 cup tomato paste
2 tsp dried basil, crushed
1 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
4 garlic cloves minced
One bottle Mad Housewife Merlot

Cook meat over med high heat until brown and broken up, drain off fat.
In a 5 or 6 quart slow cooker, combine all ingredients and cover.
Cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-5 hours. When dinner time has arrived, pour yourself a glass of MH Merlot and serve sloppy joes on toasted kaiser rolls.

This recipe is for two meals...next night add 1 can black beans, 1 can sliced olives, 1 tsp taco seasoning to the meat mixture-heat on stove till boiling and simmer covered 10 min. Serve with lettece, corn chips, cheese, tomatoes, and sour cream to make a Taco Salad!
Enjoy!

 

Winning Recipes Number 3, By Shannon Nelson
Oven-baked Chicken Dijon w/Garlic&Parmesan Potatoes

Preheat oven to 350, and treat oven-safe pan with non-stick spray
4 - 6 Chicken pieces (my family prefers white meat), deboned and skinned
1/3 C Margarine or butter
1/3 C Dijon Mustard - I use stone ground style, w/seeds
1 C Breadcrumbs (I use Italian Seasoned style)

Melt magarine
Mix in mustard until creamy

Dip chicken in mustard sauce, then coat in breadcrumbs, place in pan. Drizzle remaining mustard sauce over top of chicken pieces. Cook for approx. 25 -
30 minutes until done.

Potatoes:
Need pototoes (really?!), sea salt, finely chopped garlic, and grated parmesan cheese
Wash red potatoes, enough for your family (I usually use about 6)
Spray oven casserole with non-stick spray. Need a lidded casserole dish.

Slice potatoes in wedges into casserole. After about 3 potatoes, sprinkle with sea salt and garlic, then add another layer of potatoes.

If baking, takes about 35 minutes. I frequently use the microwave which takes about 8min. Remove when potatoes are tender. Sprinkle with parmesan and cover to melt, then serve.

Serve chicken and potatoes with a salad or broccoli, or both!

 

Thanks to everyone who entered and shared their favorite quick meal.

Vote for the Photo Caption Contest Winner

The finalists have been selected! Which is your favorite caption for our Mad Housewife picture? Your vote in our poll must be submitted before Sunday, October 18, 2009.
Click here to see the finalists and vote!

The Mighty Mullet - Caribbean Shrimp with Mango Salsa

One of the reasons I stay here in the Florida Panhandle, a remote land of pine trees, cabbage palms, and warm tranquil water, is the astonishing amount of animal life.  When I ride my bike in the mornings, I see white-tailed deer dash across the road, brindle boar rooting in the grass, bob cats streaking through the woods.  I see great heron, white egrets, eagles, osprey, and wild turkey.  I see alligators and turtles, armadillo and raccoons, marsh rats and rabbits.  And in the late September, when the summer sun still warms the beach, I walk through clouds of orange butterflies.

    I love the sense that people are guests here.  As I sit in my room over-looking the bay watching a great heron fish off the dock, a white squirrel vaulting through the pine branches, a mullet leaping four feet out of the channel water, I feel as if I am in a zoo, only I am the one in a cage with the animals passing by, looking in, curiously.

    The tiny fishing towns on the gulf have survived because of the abundance of seafood in the bays and estuaries—shrimp, redfish, trout, grouper, oysters.  Every autumn the locals hold a mullet festival, a pagan celebration in honor of the most abundant local fish. 

    A word about the mighty mullet. 
(It has nothing to do with a mullet haircut, which comes from mulet, the French word for mule, so named because the mule has the long tail of a horse and the short bristly foretop of a donkey.)  The mullet is a sleek silver fish, handsome and athletic, a vegetarian that crowds the warm shallow waters of the gulf.  It jumps out of the water, four, six feet—nobody knows why—powerful, awesome leaps.  Mullet are abundant and easy to catch.  The only problem is the taste—oily, fishy, with the texture of hard erasers.  The locals deep fry mullet in huge vats of oil, and it is awful. 

    A smart fish, I guess—their defense against overfishing is to taste ghastly.  Perhaps that’s why they jump so gaily.  Like the Girl from Ipanema sauntering down the beach, their athletic grace taunts us.  You will never taste my beauty.

    This year I headed to the Mullet Festival to sample the local fare, to view the mullet queen, and to participate in the famous “mullet toss,” a contest to see who can throw a dead mullet the farthest.  But most of all I wanted to see if the famous chefs who were making a guest appearance could come up with some way to make the fish palpable.

    Disappointment.  There was no mullet toss this year (the mullet fishermen, sensitive souls that they are, decided it was disrespectful to the mullet), and the famous chefs demonstrated shrimp recipes.  When pressed, the official Florida State Chef offered up a mullet recipe.  I tried it at home, but despite the ginger, orange, and garlic, and a cup of Mad Housewife Chardonnay, it still tasted like rubber dropped in an oil slick.  I hated to waste even a glass of Mad Housewife wine.  Humph!

    So I offer instead a recipe for shrimp, our second most abundant seafood.  Unlike its clever, foul-tasting cohort, the shrimp is scrumptious!

Caribbean Shrimp with Mango Salsa

12 Jumbo Shrimp

Spicy Jamaican jerk seasoning

4 limes, juiced

1 teaspoon sugar

2 mangos, diced and/or papaya

1 stick celery, chopped

½ red bell pepper, diced

4 scallions, chopped

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

1 large jalapeño pepper, diced very fine

¼ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons rum

1. Peel shrimp leaving tail.  Season with juice of 1 lime and jerk seasoning.

2. Mix rest of the ingredients for the salsa.  Let sit at room temperature.

3. Grill shrimp, 2 or 3 minutes per side.  (Or sauté in butter and garlic for 3 minutes.)

4. Serve with mango salsa and hot sauce.

Mad Housewife White Zinfandel pairs beautifully with the spicy shrimp and sweet mango.  Here’s to pink!

Mad Housewife is a proud sponsor of the Bosom Ball

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In honor of that, Mad Housewife is sponsoring the following amazing event.

Help Support the Fight Against Breast Cancer through Music
Thursday October 8
7pm - 10:00 pm
SLIDE, San Francisco
430 Mason Street
(FREE with a suggested donation at the Door)

Alice@97.3, in San Francisco, invites you to attend the first annual 'Bosom Ball', a free music event featuring Ingrid Michaelson to benefit two amazing organizations very close to our heart. Any money that we raise through your generous donations will benefit Keep A Breast Foundation and Art For Recovery.

Art For Recovery creates hand-sewn quilts with individual images created by women coping with breast cancer, images of a loved one, and images which honor a friend coping with breast cancer. The quilts are exhibited in the Bay Area and throughout the United States. Currently there are over 60 quilts in the collection.

The Keep a Breast Foundation reaches out to young people and educates them on the methods of prevention, early detection and support. They do this through unique art events that include 'breast casting'. In fact, Sarah and Uzette from Alice's morning show just had their own ‘breast casting' and will auction their unique and special works of art this month on radioalice.com

Alice's Bosom Ball attendees will enjoy complimentary hors d'oeuvres, door prizes and a special live acoustic performance by Ingrid Michaelson. Alice's Bosom Ball will be hosted by Marcus D. and other special guests. We expect a crowd, so please plan on arriving at 7pm to insure you get into the venue. You must be 21 or older to attend.

Dedicate this month to helping Alice fight the good fight against this threatening disease. Give a donation. Give support to someone going through chemo. Give flowers to a survivor. Give Hope. Give Yourself.

Dessert for Dinner – Key Lime Cheesecake

When the Mad Housewife is blessed with the night to herself, what does she make for dinner?  She might simply pour herself a glass of Mad Housewife Merlot, cut up some lovely cheeses, a piece of fruit, and watch reruns of Mad Men.  If she has energy, she might spend the evening experimenting with a new recipe, cooking up something that takes hours and hours.  Or she might make herself dessert for dinner.

    Honestly the only reason I see to bother with lunch (particularly one of those healthful salad or steamed vegetable lunches) is so you can skip dinner guilt-free and have dessert instead.  Of course you can only do this if you are alone.  (Hubbies don’t understand dessert for dinner, and children should not know that such a thing is even possible.)

    As Bill Cosby famously professed in a bit about serving chocolate cake to his kids for breakfast, dessert is good for you—protein from eggs, milk and cheese; vitamins and fiber from fruit; carbohydrates from flour and sugar.  Isn’t all food metabolized into glucose, amino acids, or fats?  So why the guilt?   

    A large part of our economy is based on businesses that encourage women to indulge themselves—chocolate, yogurt, diet desserts, cosmetics, spas, vacations, fashion.  Advertisers recognize a truth—that most women don’t pamper themselves enough, and they are stressed, overworked, and over disciplined.  Their souls yearn for a brief indulgence.

    In a recent essay in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd quotes the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and concludes that “women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.”  Dowd offers up reasons for this decline in women’s happiness—stress from juggling career and motherhood, stress from our society’s obsession with youth, stress from not having any time to herself.   “The more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved,” she writes. 

    Is it true?  Are women less happy now that they have so many choices and opportunities?  Has feminism made us unhappy?  Are you less happy than your mother? 

    I was skeptical of the survey results—the question of happiness was self-reported, and men are probably less likely to admit to emotional dissatisfaction.  Then I read one of the comments, written by someone who knew the study well, that said what the General Social Survey actually reported was that in the early seventies 5.1% more women than men reported themselves "Very Happy" whereas now only 1.4% more of the women reported themselves “Very Happy” than men. 

    We’re talking a decline in happiness of about 3.6%!  In a study based on self reporting!

    And we’re still happier than men!  

    So all this hullabaloo, all these books and essays and blogging about women’s unhappiness is totally meaningless. 

    Or is it? 

    If it is just hype, then why did the 400 plus people who commented on Dowd’s blog accept the statistic so readily?  The general consensus was that, yes, women were trying to do too much, and of course that would make them unhappy.  Were the social scientists hunting for statistical evidence to back up what they intuitively felt?

    In any case, women undoubtedly need to take time for themselves, and the best way to do that is…pour yourself a glass of Mad Housewife wine, take the evening off, and indulge yourself.  Have dessert for dinner!

    And next time a sociology student knocks at your door with a survey in hand, invite her in for pie.

Key Lime Cheese Cake

 

I was pacing the kitchen, stymied with indecision—should I make a cheese cake or a key lime pie for my dinner guests?  I presented my dilemma to a male human who ambled past on his way to the refrigerator.  Without appearing to take any interest, the male said, “Why don’t you make a key lime cheese cake.”  Voilá.  Brilliance begat from sarcasm.  A perfect combination of the creaminess and tang of a key lime pie with the flavor and body of cream cheese.  Absolutely delicious.

 

For crust:

 

1½ cup Graham Crackers crumbs (a little less than 8 ounces) 

4 tablespoons melted butter

1/8 cup brown sugar 

¼ teaspoon ginger powder

 

Mix with fork until all ingredients are moistened.  Spread evenly in a buttered 9-inch glass pie pan and pack firmly.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.  Take out crust, then lower oven temperature to 325.

 

For filling:

 

1 15-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

4 egg yolks

½ cup fresh lime juice

3 teaspoons grated lime zest

1 8-ounce package cream cheese (low fat works well)

1 cup sliced strawberries, or other fruit (kiwi, blueberries, raspberries)

1 chocolate bar

 

While the crust is baking, put first five ingredients in a blender, softening the cream cheese first in the microwave for 20 seconds.

 

Pour filling into crust and bake for 15-17 minutes or until pie is set but still jiggly.  Let cool completely on rack, then refrigerator until cold.

 

Before serving, decorate with strawberries and chocolate shavings.  Cut yourself a slice, and sit down with a glass of Mad Housewife Merlot.  Indulge