Archive for the ‘Fabulous Food Finds’ Category

• Jicama & chayote salad with roasted cumin pumpkin seeds ~ 3 kitchen jobs are all stacked up into one. Never lose your small equipment again

  Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

  Magnets. That ingenious invention that keeps everything organized. Take a look at your kitchen frig right now. I’ll bet there’s a cute magnet holding up everything from your next dentist appointment to the baby shower you must attend to every picture possible documenting your child’s growth.   [...]

• Roast chicken ~ Too hot to handle? Hold foods with your hands. Well…almost

  Monday, June 7th, 2010

  What’s the best cooking equipment? No it’s not tongs. Wrong if you said a fancy wire whisk. Nope, it’s not a spatula. It’s your own two hands. And wouldn’t it be great if someone invented a way for them to be impervious to heat?
  Wait…someone has! And his name is Steve Raichlen. Raichlen, one of America’s [...]

• No more ice headaches. Ingenious way to sip and cool your summer drinks without the clank

  Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

  So there you are all relaxed, enjoying your tall cool summer libation, and bam, an innocent cube of ice goes crashing into your two front teeth. Oooh–the ice headache ensues.  Drinks are not supposed to be painful, and summer is time for fun–so sip and enjoy in complete safety with a clever little item I [...]

• Keep the kitchen cool and eco friendly this summer: small bakeware for the toaster oven rocks!

  Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

  No matter how much the air conditioning is ratcheted up, overhead fans are spinning around and that clunky floor fan buzzes about, its hard to keep a kitchen cool during hot summer months.  Most of that heat is generated by that big boxy thing in center called an oven, so why not lay off it when the [...]

• Strung out? A messy culinary technique just got clean ~ Recipe: Arista de Maiale

  Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

  I’ve stuck my hands up chickens and down garbage disposals. As a culinary instructor, you take a credo to touch and feel your way through everything in the kitchen no matter how gross it may seem. But I’m well aware that my own students may like to keep things a bit more pristine.
  Take trussing for [...]

• Do you bamboo? A green solution to an age old kitchen question ~ Recipe: Grilled panzanella

  Monday, May 24th, 2010

  So here’s a question as old as the earth: What’s the best cutting board surface? For years, we didn’t have much choice; it was either plastic or wood.  (For those added glass to that choice needed a re-education anyway!).
  Being brought up in the hotel business, my playground was a huge Kosher kitchen, and I [...]

• Bacteria be gone

  Friday, May 21st, 2010

  Seems like we have just about enough sprays, potions, wipes, squeegees, bleaches and powders to destroy all the bacteria in every household kitchen across America. We are bacteria killers, that’s for sure. Nothing wrong with that, but what if our cooking equipment were smarter than our aerosol, and allow us to use them less? After all, how [...]

• Moroccan spice ~ Recipe: Israeli couscous salad with Moroccan mustard dressing

  Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

  When visiting Israel last year, the Moroccan influence was palpable when it came to food. I was so inundated with preserved lemons, rose water, cinnamon sticks and golden raisins, I think I might not need to plan an actual trip to Morocco after all (kidding, it’s on the calendar for 2012).
  I was delighted to see [...]

• A jam worth not making ~ Recipe: Farmhouse French almond fruit tart

  Monday, May 17th, 2010

  I just completed an article for a magazine on the joys of preparing homemade jam. Jars and jars later of blueberry, cherry, peach and strawberry sweetness convinced me that while jam is fun to make, if I could find jarred jam that met my picky requirements, I might give up the sterilized jars forever.
  Enter Les [...]

• Winning the wine wars

  Friday, May 14th, 2010

  There is so much volume on the world of wine. Tomes give birth to bigger tomes on the subject of vino. You could spend a lifetime reading about the pleasures of the vine or you can have fun in one evening playing Wine Wars, a card game brought to you by the makers of Foodie [...]