Archive for October, 2007

Tired of going for that second half of a sandwich the next day in the fridge and finding it soggy and unappealing? How about opening up that bacon and wondering is that just moisture and condensation or has it turned bad? With one easy tip, you’ll find all of that a thing of the past. You’ll be able to keep bread and pasty items, sloppy sandwiches and breakfast meats fresher and longer in ice box. And all with everyday items in your kitchen, just put together in a slightly different way.

People food shop differently. That said, they can be placed in groups. Some folks shop daily and what they pick up from the market on the way home from work is what they’ll be eating in a couple of hours. No need to worry about freezing fish or putting it in the refrigerator with special care for them. Others buy in weekly jaunts. Some, like me, make the “big food run” every six to eight weeks, and supplement the smaller items — milk, eggs, fresh veggies — with a trip to the convenience store or local produce place. For the latter two groups (probably the majority) keeping things as fresh as possible is required.

Read the rest of this entry »

No sense delving into the difference between a trifle and a parfait as I have already done that previously when I made the Pear Parfait. Another thing, these really are pretty easy to make and can come in such a variety of combinations.

Since the last time when I did the Pear Parfait, I did go out and get an actual trifle bowl with several small desert dishes. I knew I had a big party coming up and in an effort to make it a bit easier with all the dishes I was making, I figured, correctly, a trifle would make for a low-effort but big-wow-factor ending to the meal.

Read the rest of this entry »

You know how you can tell I’m a home cook and not a chef? Cause if I get a very good result from something pre-prepared, I’ll often enough be lazy and I’ll take it. For instance, I’ve never made from-scratch pancakes. Yeah, I know, lazy-lazy. It wouldn’t be that much of a bother, it’s just that a box of Bisquick, eggs and milk does it so fine and in less time. Btw, just because I don’t make from-scratch pancakes does not mean I don’t “juice them up.” Blueberry pancakes, banana pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes ….

When it comes to waffles, it’s FSO: From-scratch only, baby! But why, you ask? Waffles are much more difficult than pancakes. True. But the answer is the pre-packaged stuff does not cut it. Doesn’t come close. If it did, then yeah, I’d probably be lazy again. But it is soooo far away from what a “real” waffle is. No way.

Read the rest of this entry »

I love this town. I love it for so many reasons, too many, I won’t even get into cause I might not be able to stop. But one of the reasons is food, baby. Philly is hometown to so many foods, it’s just crazy. Probably first that comes up on everyone’s list is the Philly Cheesesteak. If not that, it’s the Hoagie. Whats a hoagie? Ever have something called a “sub” or submarine? Ever have something called a “hero” or hero sandwhich? Well, if so, they are just pale, lack-luster imitations of a hoagie.

What else? There’s the Philly pretzel. Much superior to those things they burn in NYC and call pretzels. There’s scrapple, a mysterious and wonderful substance — sorta like haggis, not in taste, in mystery — that is a wonderful alternative to bacon, ham and sausage as a breakfast meat to go along with your eggs. And then, to my surprise, there’s the stromboli.

Read the rest of this entry »

Now that we’re at the half way point of the mini — repeat, very mini — series known as the six episodes of The Next Iron Chef (NIC) … cheers and jeers. As you can expect, the cheers go to the chefs, the jeers to the judges.

First my picks. It’s so much my own fault I didn’t say this prior to episode one when their were eight contenders, or even last week; saying it now, big deal, two out of four you’ll say. Anyhow, I do say now (and this hasn’t changed since the start, really) I think it’s going to be Besh or Symon. Again, thought so before it started, but only I know I’m telling you the truth here.

Read the rest of this entry »

For some time now I’ve been wanting to try my hand at baking. Ok, let me go back a bit. I don’t mean baking from scratch. I’m also not talking the other extreme of baking from a 100% premade box of Pillsbury or Duncan Hines or whatever. Somewhere in between.

You see, I already know from making cakes from a mix, that I’m bad at it. They taste good, but they look homemade. Ok, they look worse than homemade. Maybe it’s the frosting part that I don’t have down. I just know my cakes of the past tend to look something like that Salvador Dali painting where the watches are melted on tree limbs. When it comes to cookies from scratch things get weirder still. The easiest recipe I will botch totally. The more difficult cookie recipes come out fantastic. But I digress.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve made brisket of beef before several times and each time it was made the same basic way, maybe a bit more “American” standard roast a few times, maybe a bit more “Italian” flavoring once or twice, but I was definitely in the mood for something more robust and different. Only one way to go then, BBQ-style, and when it comes to beef and BBQ, that means Texan. Actually, not, it seems.

I thought Texan, but I missed by a few states. Seems Texas does love it’s brisket big-time, but a little research turns out they’re not much into the sauce masking the meat taste. Seems when it comes to sauce as well as ingredients like cinnamon, brown sugar and a tomato base, and beef instead of pork, we’re talking more towards Missouri.

Read the rest of this entry »

… or “The Continued Unreality of Reality Television”

Reality television and behind the scenes manipulation by a program’s production staff has become a more common thing as time goes on. British television audiences in particular have been hit hard by this, in degrees from simple “staging” such as Nigella Lawson’s kitchen not being in her own house, all the way up to the “Blue Peter” double-whammy scandals.

Here in the US, the worse that we know of in recent times would be the “Man vs Wild” major fakes from adding smoke machines to a not-so-active volcano summit to the host actually sleeping in motels overnight — instead of in the wild. And that brings us to the latest manipulation. Although not a fake and not a fix in any sense — and therefore seeming at first glance to be a “lesser sin” — these particular production manipulations instead actually influenced and most likely altered the results of an on-air competition, as well as discredited a highly-held institution, and worse of all sent one contestant to the hospital.

Read the rest of this entry »

This was one of the items I had listed last month in my article “Food Terms You Keep Hearing About“. There I said, “In which bread is toasted, raw garlic is rubbed into it, then olive oil is drizzled on top. Now for some folks that is the complete definition, and it stops there. For myself and others it is not complete until the above is topped with a chopped tomato, garlic, basil and olive oil salsa. Mmm. (Toss some slices of very fresh mozzarella on top for the ultimate.) Until it’s got the topping, to me it’s not a true bruschetta. This is one of the best appetizer’s in the world as far as I’m concerned.”

When I went to the local supermarket the day before a recent party to pick up a freshly baked loaf of Italian bread, I found it was all old and none had been made that day. On top of which, instead of being long and having some width to it, whoever had made all the long loafs made it in my opinion way too thin, more like baguettes — which would be wonderful were I recipe-wise going to Paris, but I was aiming closer to Rome, (And this was supposedly Italian bread, remember.)

Read the rest of this entry »

I needed a side for my oven BBQ brisket. Yeah I had little baked potatoes and some fresh coleslaw, but I still wanted something warm and flavorful and that was (for lack of better words) very “veggie”. I also wanted something more “regional” … in this case, southern or western or southwestern. It just seemed like that would go right with my indoor BBQ meal.

Now last week there were quite a few things I had bought for my BBQ party that I never made it out to the table. Why is that, you may ask? A combination of my being too ambitious, wanting to make too much food than was necessary, as well as for various reasons six people, three couples basically, had to bale out because of sickness or previous commitments. So there just wasn’t the impetuous to cook twice the amount of food for half the amount of people.

Read the rest of this entry »

Huh? Why is such a simple thing so difficult? It isn’t. However when it comes to making simple syrup, some people make it two parts sugar to one part water, others make it equal parts of sugar and water.

Why? No idea. Is there rhyme or reason? Yes and no. There’s one pattern I’ve noticed. Almost everything to do with a cocktail is almost always one-to-one. When it comes to using simple syrup in cooking, it’s often one-to-one, but it’s frequently two-to-one as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s to say about this meal? Other than it’s light and delicious? Dunno. It’s not that I’m in any way “tired” of writing openings — I have way too much to say, generally, for that ever to be the case. It’s just that sometimes, there is no back story, nothing that went wrong the first time to warn you about. Very little to inform you about.

Other than use fresh seasonal ingredients whenever you can and come up with something special. One can argue if this dish is a pasta primavera or not. I say it is as it’s mostly about the veggies (even though hey, who can ignore shrimp?). Other’s might debate that saying instead of blanched or raw I did a saute or pan roasting of my veggies. Still other’s say, this isn’t spring, certainly the use of a summer squash negates that. I say argue until the moon turns blue and take a chill pill. It’s all about the food, folks.

Read the rest of this entry »