Posted in Eats, tagged baking, food, kitchen, Mrs Dragon, Mrs Dragon's Den, pecan pie, Pi Day, pie, pie crust, postaday2011 on February 17, 2011| 2 Comments »
Is there such as thing as a pie gauntlet? If so, then Mrs Dragon has thrown it down.
In celebration of Pi Day — 3/14 — she has issued a pie challenge, complete with nifty prizes. I certainly won’t be making any more sweet potato pies, but I do have some pecans awaiting their destiny in the freezer.
I also have an awesome recipe from the folks at America’s Test Kitchen. All I lack now is the ability to properly roll out a pie crust.
Posted in Eats, tagged black bean salad, black beans, cooking, food, olive oil, postaday2011, potluck, recipes, vegetarian on February 12, 2011| 1 Comment »
I’m not a vegetarian, but I always seem to bring vegetarian dishes to parties. I guess I’m a sympathizer.
This is a recipe that several people have requested. Last week, a friend remembered the dish from a year ago and asked me to bring it to a gathering tonight.
It’s ridiculously easy to make. The original recipe, which someone emailed to me a few years ago, called for a couple tablespoons of olive oil, but I left it out after the oil got clumpy in the refrigerator once. You won’t miss it. Also, the original recipe says it makes four to six servings, but it makes tons of servings for a potluck-style dinner.
Black Bean Salad
Two 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 tomatoes, seeded, chopped
1 small bell pepper, chopped
4 green onions, chopped
2 tablespoons minced cilantro
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and black pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients, mixing well. Chill, covered, for at least one hour.
Posted in Eats, tagged clamshell, Earth Fare, food, greens, plastic, postaday2011, produce, quinoa, recycling, salad, steel-cut oats, washable produce bags on February 10, 2011| 1 Comment »
In the end, it was nobody’s fault but my own that I brought home a monstrously large plastic box filled with salad greens. I already had my requisite $5 worth of Earth Fare hipster food (quinoa and steel-cut oats) in the cart, and the free salad coupon was burning a hole in my pocket. I sighed when I saw the packaging, but I put it in the cart anyway.
I didn’t truly realize how large the box was until I got it home and had to rearrange my entire refrigerator to make it fit.
I try not to buy produce in big plastic boxes like this, but other people obviously do. On the New York Times Freakonomics blog, James McWilliams maintains that this kind of packaging extends the life of produce, meaning that people are more likely to get a chance to eat it before it goes bad. Granted, this box of lettuce stayed reasonably fresh for the better part of two weeks. Had I been able to choose the amount of salad greens I was going to purchase, however, I never would have bought that much at one time. (And note that Earth Fare does offer a fresh mix of greens that you can purchase by the pound. Or ounce, in my case.)
Clamshell packaging just seems like so much overkill.
McWilliams points out that consumers could alleviate the need for food-extending packaging by learning how to shop strategically (don’t buy too much food at once), a skill that, admittedly, may be easier for a two-person household with a reasonably predictable routine.
Luckily, the box was No. 1 plastic, meaning I could put it in my recycling bin. I note, however, that a lot of houses in my neighborhood don’t put out a big blue recycling bin every week, so I fear that a lot of this packaging is not being recycled. Even if it is recycled — and even if the company uses 100 percent recycled plastic in the packaging — more plastic clamshells must be manufactured.
I guess what I’m saying is no more huge clamshell produce containers in the Haggerty household, free coupon or not. And I’m thinking that some sort of washable produce bags, like these, are in my future.
Posted in Eats, tagged applewood bacon, applewood dry rub bacon, bacon, bacon of the month club, bacon vodka, chocolate bacon bar, cleaning Foreman Grill, cooking bacon, Earth Fare, Earth Fare meat counter, food, Foreman Grill, Fresh Market, George Foreman grill, how to cook bacon with the Foreman Grill, husband, Michael Scott, postaday2011, The Office on January 22, 2011| 2 Comments »
The good news: Earth Fare will sell you two pieces of sliced applewood dry rub bacon.
The bad news: You’ll feel like a tool asking for two pieces of sliced applewood dry rub bacon.
C’est la vie.
Bacon has been an “it” food for a while now. You can join a bacon of the month club, buy bacon vodka (or make your own) or enjoy a chocolate bacon bar (I, alas, did not enjoy this flavor mix).
What you can’t do with bacon, however, is cook it without making a mess. Before you all shout at once “Put it in the oven,” I’ve tried that. Baking bacon still spattered the oven interior a little, but mostly it just seems utterly ridiculous to heat the oven for the small amount of bacon that the husband and I eat at one sitting.
Thanks to Michael Scott on The Office, I knew about the George Foreman Grill’s potential as a bacon cooker. It wasn’t until Earth Fare — and its tempting meat counter — swung into town last year that I really considered getting back into the bacon-cooking business, however. (And I do realize that Fresh Market has a tempting meat counter, with butchers standing by who would sell me two slices of bacon, but thus far I’ve lived in two cities with a Fresh Market, and both stores have been located at the most dangerous intersection in town. It’s just not worth the drive.)
I’ve already outlined using the Foreman Grill as a panini press. It does a great job with bacon, too, but only if you’re cooking a very small amount.
You have to cut the bacon slices in half if you’re using the smaller grill, and then lay two halves on the grill. Close it, let the bacon cook for about 3 minutes, then open the lid and flip the two pieces over. Do this two or three more times and you’ve got bacon ready to go on the table. Or, actually, ready to sit on the plate and wait for the other two pieces of bacon to finish cooking.
If you’re crafty, you can put the two other half slices of bacon on the grill after the first two shrink down, giving you a head start on Round 2. Because cooking bacon takes forever.
If you’re lucky, all the grease from the bacon runs into the grease tray underneath the front of the Foreman. If you’re unlucky, then part of the grease runs up under the grill and drips on the countertop, onto which you sagely placed a couple layers of paper towels before you began this project. Toss those, wipe off the grill with dry paper towels, spray some cleaner underneath the grill, wipe and you’re done.
The applewood bacon? Totally worth it. Two slices cost me $1.30. The husband came downstairs for breakfast without being called (a rarity) and said, “You know how in cartoons the characters can see waves of smells, and the waves just sort of lift them up and carry them along? That’s what the smell of this bacon cooking is like.”
Cartoon imagery? There is no greater compliment.
Posted in CSA, Eats, Home, tagged cappuccino, corn, corn kernels, CSA, food, hulling strawberries, kitchen, minimalism, organization, OXO, Oxo corn stripper, Oxo Good Grips, Oxo strawberry huller, postaday2011, removing corn kernels, s'more makers, s'mores, strawberries, Unclutterer, unitasker on January 21, 2011| 3 Comments »
Today, a friend sent me a link to Unclutterer, a blog about getting organized. The posts preach minimalism: the less stuff you own, the less stuff you have to organize. Every Wednesday the site mocks “unitaskers,” items that only serve one function while taking up valuable space. These products are often the worst of the “as seen on TV” club, and invariably enable you to do things that you can easily do without them, such as washing your feet or cracking eggs.
I admitted earlier this week to owning my own unitasker, an awesome cappuccino maker that, after a scroll through Unclutterer to see the ridiculous things that other people own, I’m liking more and more. While preparing dinner tonight, however, I realized that I’m actually the proud owner of two more unitaskers, both of which I needed for the substantial amount of produce in my CSA:
So, in my kitchen a unitasker must perform its task much better than other multitasking accessories can and it must be easy to clean. (In fairness, apparently it also must be an Oxo product or an Italian import.)
I have this paranoid idea that most unitasker products are given as gifts by people who are hating on the clean, efficiently run kitchens of their recipients. What other explanation is there for the s’more makers that rampaged across American Christmas shopping lists a few years ago?
Posted in Eats, tagged artifically flavored, breakfast, brown sugar, buying in bulk, cats, citrus oatmeal, cooking, cranberries, cranberry juice, Earth Fare, food, instant oatmeal, Irish oats, mushy, nutty, oatmeal, oatmeal cookies, orange juice, postaday2011, raisins, rolled oats, soaking oats, steel-cut oats, stove on January 15, 2011| 4 Comments »
Today, we talk about oatmeal.
I know. Oatmeal. It’s either bland and mushy, or oversweetened, artificially flavored and mushy.
This, however, is not the oatmeal I intend to talk about. Reserve your rolled oats for oatmeal and raisin cookies, and make steel-cut oats for breakfast.
Steel-cut oats (also known as Irish oats) undergo much less processing than rolled oats, and thus offer diners a completely different flavor and texture. Properly prepared steel-cut oats are nutty and chewy (no mush here), and I find them much more satisfying than rolled oats.
The bad news: Steel-cut oats can take 30 minutes or longer to cook if you haven’t soaked them.
The good news: Duh. Soak them and they’ll be ready in as little as 10 minutes.
The prepackaged brands of steel-cut oats always seem to carry a hefty price tag. You’ll be much better off purchasing them in bulk. I buy my supply at Earth Fare for $1.19 a pound.
They’re a cinch to make, but you have to plan ahead. Use a ratio of one part oats to two parts water; for two people I usually use 3/4 cup oats and 1.5 cups water. Soak the oats in the water overnight in the pot that you’re going to cook them in.
You can get the same results with only three hours of soaking, but not everyone has my luxurious Saturday schedule, which has me getting up at 5 a.m. to feed a geriatric cat and then heading back to bed until 8 a.m. or so.
If you’re feeling spiffy, substitute orange juice or cranberry juice for about a quarter cup of the water. The orange juice will add a real citrus bite to the finished oatmeal, and the cranberry juice will complement the dried cranberries that I’m going to talk about in a minute.
Put the pot of soaked oats on the stove after you roll out of bed. Turn the burner up to medium-high and let the oats come to a boil, then turn the burner down low enough to keep a slow boil without the oats boiling over. And they WILL boil over if the heat’s too high. Keep the lid on the pot, but lift it every couple of minutes to check your boil and give the oatmeal a quick stir.
After about 10 minutes, the oatmeal should be almost thick enough to serve. Lagniappe time. Stir in a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, and add raisins and/or dried cranberries. Let everything meld together for a couple more minutes and then ladle the oatmeal into your serving bowls. Drop a few crumbled walnuts or pecans on top if you like.
Enjoy. And say goodbye to instant mediocrity.
Posted in Christmas, Eats, Photographs, tagged Bakerella, cake balls, cake pops, chocolate, chocolate coating, Christmas, cooking, cracked cake balls, dipping cake balls, double boiler, food, food blogs, holidays, lollipop sticks, microwave, photograph, postaday2011, preventing cracked cake balls, sprinkles on January 11, 2011| 4 Comments »
I got cake balls right this year. I followed Bakerella’s instructions, for the most part, but I also scouted around on a few other food blogs to try to improve on my last effort.
I discovered four secrets:
I covered the business end of most of the cake pops with a small, clear treat bag and secured it with a small piece of Christmas ribbon, quickly tied into a simple knot (you can also just use twist ties). This made the cake pops fancy AND portable and helped keep them fresh for the better part of a week.
I won’t lie. These take forever and a day to make, and you’ll be cleaning chocolate smears off your stove and countertop and sweeping colored sugar off your kitchen floor for days. But well-made cake pops are beyond delicious and will impress the heck out of most people. Especially the 5-year-old princess fanatics in your life.
Posted in Eats, tagged alabama, bakery, cakes, cinnamon roll, food, French bread, holidays, Huntsville, king cake, king cake babies, Louisiana, Mardi Gras, New Orleans, plastic babies, postaday2011, Publix, Randazzo's, stats, sugar on January 8, 2011| 5 Comments »
Update (2-9-11): You may want to hesitate to buy a Publix king cake this year. The king cakes I saw there today were absurdly flat, like somebody forgot to add yeast.
My blog stats indicate that people are eager to know whether the king cakes sold at Publix are worth buying.
Answer: They are, indeed. Publix king cakes aren’t going to compare to a masterpiece from Randazzo’s, but I assume if you’re close enough to New Orleans to get the real thing, you’re not looking for advice on grocery-store king cakes.
The first year we bought a Publix king cake in Huntsville, Alabama, the bakery folks told us they imported the unbaked cakes from someplace in Louisiana, then baked and decorated them at the store. Over the past couple of years, it seems like they may have discovered that a king cake is pretty much a giant French-bread cinnamon roll coated in colored icing and sugar, and they’re making their own version.
Publix may include mysteriously gigantic plastic babies in their king cakes, but they’re got the basics of the delicacy down: Publix king cakes aren’t overly sweet, they’re pretty and they’re big enough to serve a crowd at a fair price.
Buy one. You won’t be sorry.
Posted in Eats, Family, Photographs, tagged alabama, artificial ingredients, banana, banana pudding, Banana Pudding Rolls, barn, brother, bubblegum, caramel, Chattanooga, childhood, children, chocolate, coffee, coffee break, cookies, Devil Squares, family, farm, farmland, food, Forrest Gump, freedom, friends, gas station food, grandfather, grandmother, grandparents, hay bales, husband, Kool-Aid, Little Debbie, Little Debbie Banana Pudding Rolls, Little Debbies, manual transmission, Mardi Gras, marshmallow pies, mississippi, Mobile, MoonPies, mother, Nutty Bars, Oatmeal Pies, peanut butter, ponies, pony, postaday2011, Publix, puppies, Shetland ponies, Shetland pony, snack cakes, snacks, sophisticated palate, South, South Mississippi, Southern, Star Crunch, sugar, Tennessee, tomboy, Twinkies on January 7, 2011| 5 Comments »
It’s good to have friends who help you maintain a positive attitude and healthy habits. It’s also good to have friends who urge you to make questionable choices every once in a while.
When I emailed a photo of a surprising food find — Little Debbie Banana Pudding Rolls — to a former colleague earlier this week, he responded immediately: “My professional advice to you is to buy two boxes of them right now. Why two? Because you’ll eat one box on the way home from the store.”
How could a girl resist?
I grew up eating Little Debbie products at my grandparent’s house in South Mississippi — my brother and I could always find a box of the treats on top of the refrigerator. I am the Forrest Gump of Little Debbie products, with a readily accessible running list of the different varieties taking up valuable space inside my brain. Ask me about nearly any of the company’s products, and I can run down a quick review for you. Here are just a few that popped into my head this very minute:
Devil Squares: Their substantial filling and sort of weirdly textured chocolate coating combine for a unique and delicious culinary experience that made me, as a child, feel slightly more sophisticated than my tomboyish habits generally merited. (more…)
Entirely Adequate 