Wine stopper of the week

This colorful exotic wood called Purpleheart is a Central American wood from a managed rain forest. As with all my wine stopper wood, it is musical instrument grade wood, the highest grade available. The color, grain and hardness of this wood make for a very durable stopper for wine, Scotch, Bourbon, Vodka, Port wines, Brandy oil, vinegar and on and on. Don't miss out on this great deal with it's 100% solid Venetian glass embellishment on top of this beautiful stopper.
The complete stopper measures 1-1/4 inches wide and 3-3/4 inches long. The solid wood portion of the stopper is about 1-1/4 inches wide by 1-3/4 inches tall, including the 3/4 inch diameter glass embellishment. The stopper body is 100% solid stainless steel, not plated. This will not tarnish from the acidic tannin's found in wine. Comes with a one year warranty form the date of purchase.
Starting today March 11 to March 18th this stopper is on sale on my Etsy store for $22.50. That's a savings of $27.00 from the original price of $49.50.

Pork tenderloin with honey-mustard sauce in the Heartland

Pork Tenderloin with Honey Mustard

The Queens Headdress with a Rose Sworovski crystal and Padauk wood

Hello again,
Regarding my latest dinner: it was fantastic!
I went to Giada DeLaurentiis' website www.giadadelaurentiis.com and perused through her dinner recipes and found a very delicious pork tenderloin recipe.

It was an easy dinner to prepare and an even better one to sit down and have a glass of wine over.
For the cooking wine I used a Placido Pinot Grigio which served the intended purpose.When browning the meat I prefer to lightly sear it thereby keeping the outside of this cut of meat tender. The 160 degree internal meat temperature was spot on and was moist and tender inside and out. Keep as close to this temperature as you can otherwise this cut of meat will dry out.

So, my wife chose the wine this time and she pared the dinner with a bottle of Chateau Croix-Muoton Jean-Phillippe Janoueix  2010, Bordeaux Superieur. The wine was very deep in color, dry and had good legs. Ann wasn't to crazy about it and I thought it was OK. Let my know what your pairings were if you would please. I always hear from you. I also made Red Lobster garlic cheddar biscuits. Give me a basket of those and a bowl of their lobster bisque and I'm a happy camper.

It has gotten busy these last couple of weeks but I will do better at keeping up with my recipe blogs.
And don't forget to visit my website and see our products. Hey you might even want to pick up a stopper or cutting board. Lastly, I am working on a new coaster design and will be turning a prototype tomorrow. I already have several people interested in them, so if the wine cork coaster is not your cup of tea check these out on my website in about 10 days.
Thank you for all of the page views and I always want to hear about your dinners and what you think about mine. So please keep up the conversations, there great

All the best to you,

Mark

Searing the meat

Now that's biscuits and gravy

pork tenderloin with honey-mustard sauce

ingredients

8 servings

Pork Vegetable oil cooking spray 2 (1-pound) pork tenderloins 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 tablespoons safflower or grapeseed oil
Sauce 2 tablespoons safflower or grapeseed oil 3 garlic cloves, minced 2 large shallots, chopped ½ teaspoons kosher salt ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper ½ cup dry white wine, such as Pinot Grigio ½ cup honey ½ cup Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature

instructions

Pork Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400ºF. Spray a heavy baking sheet with vegetable oil cooking spray.  Season the pork with the salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the pork and brown on all sides, about 8 minutes. Transfer the pork to the prepared baking sheet and bake until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat registers 160ºF, about 30 minutes. Allow the meat to rest for 10 minutes on a cutting board before slicing 1/4- to 1/2-inch-thick slices.

Sauce In the same skillet used for browning the pork, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, salt, and pepper. Cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Pour in the wine and use a wooden spoon to scrape up the brown bits that cling to the bottom of the pan. Simmer for 1 minute. Whisk in the honey, mustard, vinegar, and thyme. Simmer until thickened, 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until melted and smooth.  Top the pork slices with the honey mustard sauce and serve.

Retail Sales of Products

I spoke with Kate at the Frontenac Missouri, Williams- Sonoma store Monday to follow up with her from our initial meeting. She was very receptive and passed along my information to the regional manager as  I stated before but the real shocker was she asked for a stack of business cards. Luckily, I had  about 10
in my wallet, of which I had to replenish them ASAP. How cool is that!

Also, My ducks are getting in their rows so to speak, meaning I talked to a couple of production wood turning shops about production runs of wine stoppers and coasters. Very promising indeed.

WINE STOPPER SALE

Padauk wood with genuine Malachite
polished stone 

Purpleheart wood

Ziricote wood

Bocote wood

Birdseye Maple wood

Concalo Alves wood

Quilted Maple wood

A variety of stopper designs, wood species and stones

I lowered the cost of the Queens Headdress wine stopper today in my Etsy store today. The stoppers is $54.50 on my website. It is now $27.50 from my Etsy store link via my website home page in the upper right hand corner. Choose from any wood species and stone combination you want and we will fill your order in 1 to 3 days. Hurry while supplies last! clik the etsy store link in the upper right hand corner of my website homepage.

Since the retail market is the place to be to make this venture of mine profitable, my latest step was to contact Macy's Department store. I sent off a few photo's in digital format to a woman in the housewares division of the purchasing department for her review.
I should hear from her soon.
All the best,
Mark

Soon I hope to have some or HOPEFULLY all of my products in the Williams-Sonoma stores. Macy's, Nordstroms etc will be on my list as well. I will still be hosting a website and selling on line.

Here are some samples of my wine stoppers. Please be aware while the photo's look good the stopper held in your hand looks unbelievable.

This is The Queens Headdress made from Padauk, from Africa. There is an
Ice Sworovski crystal  on top.

This stopper I call The Mushroom for obvious reasons. I made this one from Leopardwood
from Australia. It has some very cool looking speckling on it. Especially on the top. The crystal is the same as the top photo but in Emerald green.

Chianti beef stew for a fine winter meal

   

Chianti Marinated Beef Stew
Hello again my faithful followers! I hope everyone is having a good new year. What, with the economic and political climate the way it is, how can we not be, right? We certainly are doing OUR best here in this house to eek by! With the budding personality our little one shows, our life is very enjoyable. And after a second surgery for a torn Meniscus I am back in action! The surgery and recovery are going      very well. Thanks to everyone for kind your support.

Yesterday! Yes, yesterday afternoon I started by browning the beef brisket for this unbelievable Chianti beef stew. All I can say is wow! The flavor came mostly from the Chianti and the canned beef broth.  I used only 1/4 tsp. of salt and 1/8 tsp. of pepper for 1-3/4 lbs. of brisket. The small amount of garlic gave some flavoring but the 2 sprigs of Rosemary gave the stew the balance and depth to the stew. I was Mr. Mom while my wife Ann took a few things to Kangaroo Kids, a children's  resale shop. So I put the Sophster in the highchair for a snack while I browned the meat and chopped the Pancetta, and chopped up some Cantaloupe for a snack for the wee tyke to keep her happy.  So I got the carrots and celery out and browned the Pancetta while Winne the Pooh was playing in the background. Then I couldn't put off Sophie any more, all my diversions had been used up in that 20 plus minutes. But I got the carrots, celery, garlic and liquids in the pot and even transferred the growing stew to a large stock pot. Next we got a chair and pulled it up to the sink and she watched me cut green beans with Winne and crew still in the background. She did really good too!! I only had to remind her not to dance while on a chair four or five times, not too bad in my book. I did work at a feverish pace because I know how it is. Hey, I wanted to dance too. With the stew on and not a drop of drinkable wine in the house yet, we read a couple of books and then MOMMA came home. Yeah, momma is home. So while those two cuddled and put away the groceries I got the Kalamata olives out of one of the bags, ah yes, and a bottle of Merlot, cracked that baby open, poured us each a glass, added the olives and sat down for a few minutes. After an hour on the stove I sampled the stew broth, because frankly I thought I would need to add some seasoning to the stew. It was incredible! I didn't change at thing! So after simmering for another hour we all sat down to eat. Ann is not a big eater but we both went back for a second helping. By the end of the meal we both agreed, it was delicious. The only thing I did differently was to marinate the brisket for 26 hours.

So here are the ins and outs: I used a bottle of Bolla Chianti in the stew, on sale from our grocer. I paid $8.99 for a $15 bottle of wine and for the meal I picked up a bottle of Colli Senesi Chianti from Garland Wines in St. Louis, MO.  I only paid $17.99 for the 750 ml bottle and I must say it was a big wine, smooth on the palette with a lingering after taste. I would definitely recommend this Sienese Chianti for a pairing such as this or just to enjoy at the end of the day. So, in closing I wish to thank Giada DeLaurentiis for this awesome Italian stew. Her recipe is easy to follow and the ingredients for the meal only set me back about $26.00 and at about an hour to prepare, it was well worth it.







ingredients 
4 to 6 servings

2 ½ to 3 pound beef brisket 1 (750 ml) bottle Chianti wine 4 tablespoons olive oil Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 (4-ounce) piece pancetta, cut into ¼-inch pieces 3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces 1 stalk celery, chopped into ½-inch pieces 2 cloves garlic, peeled ¼ cup (1 ½ ounces) kalamata olives, halved 6 ounces green beans, halved 4 medium red potatoes, quartered 2 sprigs rosemary 2 sage leaves 1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes 4 cups beef broth Chianti Marinated Beef Stew Place the beef in a 13 by 9-inch glass baking dish. Pour the wine over the meat and marinate in the refrigerator for 1 1/2 hours. Turn the meat over and marinate for another 1 1/2 hours.  Remove the meat from the wine and pat dry with paper towels. Reserve the wine.  In a large Dutch oven, heat 3 tablespoons of the oil over medium-high heat. Season the meat on all sides with salt and pepper.  Using tongs, place the meat in the pan and brown on all sides, about 2 minutes each side. Remove the meat and add the remaining oil.  Add the pancetta and cook, stirring frequently for 2 minutes. Add the carrots, celery, garlic, olives, green beans, potatoes, rosemary, and sage. Cook for 3 minutes. Pour the reserved wine, tomatoes, and beef broth into the pan, scraping up the brown bits that cling to the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Return the meat to the pan and bring the liquid to a boil. Cover the pan and simmer for 3 to 3 1/2 hours or until the meat is very tender.  Remove the meat and the rosemary sprigs from the stew. Place the meat on a cutting board and cut into quarters. Using 2 forks, shred the meat into bite-size pieces. Add the shredded meat to the stew and cook until warmed through, about 5 minutes.