No fixed plans. Not intent upon arriving.
Breakfast was left over apple crisp, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.
At the office I had another cup of coffee.
I walked the three mile round trip to Picallili’s and had a salad for lunch.
I had a meeting in Rider building on the other side of campus this afternoon, so I got another four mile walk in.
Dinner was lo mein, two ears of sweet corn, and two bottles of Saranac Pale Ale.
Earlier, I posted a picture of our corn with the freakish purple silk. Well, we picked some of it the other day.
Well, this is what it looks like.
It tastes like cardboard… tough cardboard.
Breakfast was two slices of toasted potato white bread with honey, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.
At the office I had another cup of coffee.
I made a mid morning snack of an Act II Mini Bag microwave popcorn.
I took a 4 mile walk around campus over lunch. The students are back, which means that Picallili’s is open. I stopped in and had a salad for lunch.
Dinner was Moussaka, two ears of sweet corn, and two bottles of Saranac Pale Ale, with apple crisp for dessert.
I had this huge quantity of links sitting around that I wanted to collect for posting. They kind of got away from me. I did not want to overwhelm my readers with a sea of text, so I came up with this presentation format. If you do not have Javascript enabled, this should look and act just like any of my other “Currently Browsing” posts. Otherwise, you should see a list of links with a little triangular “widget” next to them. Clicking on that widget will let you show the summary I created for that link so you can see a little more about where the link will take you should you choose to visit it. Clicking it again will let you hide the summary again, in case you want the list to take up less space on your screen.
If you would prefer to see all of the links with their descriptions in all of their glory without having to deal with all of this “widget” clicking, click here instead.
The Nutrient Data Laboratory (NDL) is one of seven units in the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center (BHNRC) of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). NDL and its predecessor organizations in USDA have been compiling and developing food composition databases for over a century. NDL has an interdisciplinary staff composed of nutritionists, dietitians, food technologists, and computer specialists.
This interface allows simple searches. Enter up to 5 keywords which best describe your food item. Select a Food Group. Then click on the Submit button. If you don’t get a match, check your spelling or try a related keyword. If you get too many food items, try a more specific keyword. If you enter two or more keywords, the program will search for food items which contain all of the keywords. Keywords do not have to be adjacent or in the same order as they appear in the food item. You can exclude food items by placing the word “not” in front of a keyword.
Dried bean recipes.
Winter depression, also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is believed to develop from a lack of bright light during the winter months.
Bright light changes the chemicals in the brain but how this occurs and its effects are still being studied.
Serotonin, dubbed the happy hormone, and other nutrients such as folate are generally deficient in people who suffer depression.
The Australian Centre of Neuropsycotherapy has found that steam cooked potatoes could provide greater use of serotonin for treating the disorder than taking anti-depressants.
Founded in 1936, National Wildlife Federation is the nation’s largest and oldest protector of wildlife. With more than four million members and supporters, NWF is committed to educating and empowering people from all walks of life to protect wildlife and habitat for future generations.
Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) have been prepared by the Food and Nutrition Board since 1941. The first edition was published in 1943 to provide “standards to serve as a goal for good nutrition.” Because RDAs are intended to reflect the best scientific judgment on nutrient allowances for the maintenance of good health and to serve as the basis for evaluating the adequacy of diets of groups of people, the initial publication has been revised periodically to incorporate new scientific knowledge and interpretations. This is the tenth edition.
The national 5 A Day for Better Health Program gives Americans a simple, positive message — eat 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day for better health. The program is jointly sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH), a nonprofit consumer education foundation representing the fruit and vegetable industry. The National Cancer Institute funds behavior change and communications research to determine strategies that are effective to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.
Here is a template for a miniature Chinese food take-out box. (If you have large enough paper, you can make a larger version.) This will hold a fortune cookie (containing a special fortune, maybe?), or a nice little gift.
Facts about Asparagus.
Remember that nutrition claims on packaging are about selling products, not about educating the consumer as to what they are buying. Ignore the nutrition hype on the packaging and check the FDA nutrition label. This is the one area of the packaging where a manufacturer will be held accountable.
Every week I tell you where to eat. But I never say how.
I mean, I assume that most of my readers have mastered the cut-chew-swallow basics, and I’m certainly not going near the tines-up/tines-down controversy. But there are simple steps you can take that can make any dining experience a little better — that is, a little more attuned to your personal tastes.
And so, after consulting with some of my other dining colleagues, I assembled the following tips, consisting of insider information, professional tips and assertiveness training. It’s theoretically possible to employ all 10 tips in a single restaurant visit, but that isn’t necessary. If there’s one common theme to these suggestions, it’s that flexibility is a good thing.
The Meatless Monday goal is to reduce consumption of saturated fat by at least 15% by 2010. This is consistent with the dietary recommendations of the US Dept. of Health and Human Services, the US Dept. of Agriculture, and the American Heart Association.
Contradictory messages about health and nutrition have confused Americans about what we should eat. One message is clear: we eat too much meat and not enough of the fruits, vegetables and whole grains that help prevent heart disease, stroke and cancer.
Why let your job interfere with your search for the perfect meal? Be a food writer!
Food Reference Website is constantly growing. New content is added daily to various areas, and it now contains more than 6,400 pages. It is both a reference and casual browsing site. There are long articles on food history and usage; short food facts and trivia; an extensive collection of quotes; who’s who in food; cooking tips; culinary humor, poems & crossword puzzles, and a Culinary Calendar. Recipes, modern, classic and historical are also presented.
Preheat nonstick griddle or skillet over medium heat. Beat eggs very well, add sugar and beat again. Add cornstarch in water and beat that in, then add milk and nutmeg. Coat bread thoroughly in egg-milk mixture. Lightly butter hot pan with butter nested in paper towels. Add bread to the pan and cook slowly, 3 or minutes on each side, 2 to 3 slices at a time. Serve hot with your favorite toppings or Three Berry Compote.
Three Berry Compote:
Combine sugar, lemon and water in a small sauce pot. Over moderate heat, dissolve sugar into water. Stir in fruit, coating it in sugar water and bring the fruit and water to a bubble. Reduce heat and simmer 7 or 8 minutes. Remove fruit with a slotted spoon to a serving dish and add maple syrup or honey to the pan. Thicken syrup 5 minutes and pour over fruit. Serve with French toast, pancakes or waffles.
Recipe courtesy of Lauren Groveman
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Yield: 10 buns
User Rating: No Rating
Special Equipment:
Topping variation:
1 egg white beaten with a teaspoon of water Sesame or Poppy seeds or 1 cup minced yellow onion Sauteed in a little vegetable oil with 2 teaspoons poppy seeds and a little freshly ground black pepper or toasted dehydrated onions that have been soaked in hot water for fifteen minutes to swell and soften.
To set up: Brush a 5 quart bowl with melted butter and set aside to rise dough.
To assemble dough: Heat the milk with the butter and pour it into a large mixing bowl. Add ½ cup warm water and the shortening. Add the sugar, salt, egg and yolk. Mix well. Dissolve the yeast in ¼ cup warm water with a pinch of sugar. When the yeast is dissolved, add it to the mixing bowl, along with enough of the sifted flour to create a dough that is not easily stirred. Turn dough out on to a floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, adding only as much flour as needed to keep dough from sticking to your hands and work surface. When correct texture has been reached, place dough into the greased bowl. Cover the bowl with greased plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm, draftfree spot for 2 hours.
Note: You will not need all of the flour. Save the remaining flour as your dusting flour when shaping your buns.
To rise dough twice: After 2 hours has elapsed, uncover dough and punch it down several times. Turn over in the bowl. Recover bowl and let rise 1 hour more.
To set up to bake: Line 2 shallow baking sheets with parchment paper and sprinkle paper with cornmeal.
To shape buns: After the second rise has been completed, uncover dough and punch down once more. Turn dough out on to a lightly floured surface. Knead briefly and gently. Divide dough into 10 equal pieces and cover all while you work with one. Shape each piece of dough into a smooth ball by first making it round with your hands. Then pull the dough up, pinching at the top of the dough ball. Keep pulling and pinching up at the top until you have a tight ball. Turn ball on its side on the lightly floured surface. With a pastry cutter, cut ball of dough directly in half through the waist of the ball (not through the pinched end). Take one half and place it on top of the other, meeting the cut sides in the middle. Pinch around the circumference of the circle of dough to seal. Flatten the circle gently, but firmly. Shove the pinched seam gently under the bun as you flatten. Lay the buns on the two prepared baking sheets and cover with kitchen towels. Let rise for 30 minutes. Begin timing the rising period after the last bun has been formed.
If topping buns: If you will be topping the buns before baking, immediately after shaping, brush tops of unrisen buns with 1 egg white mixed with 1 teaspoon water. Sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds or top with either of the onion toppings listed with the ingredients.
To bake: Preheat the oven to 375°F for the last fifteen minutes of the rise. Meanwhile melt some butter in a small saucepan. After the rise, uncover buns and brush the tops with melted butter (brush over topping, if using).
Bake buns in the center of a preheated 375°F oven until golden, about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush once more with melted butter. Remove the buns to wire racks to cool thoroughly before slicing and enjoying.
Note: If you have only one oven and your baking sheet can not hold all ten buns, bake together using the upper and lower third of the oven and switch positions half way through the baking process.
To store: Store cooled buns in a large heavy duty plastic bag. If you want to freeze them, double the bag before placing in the freezer. To thaw, let sit on the counter in its original bags until soft.
Note: Squeeze out as much air as possible from the plastic bags before storing.
Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved
Rachael Ray makes French Onion Tartlets.
There are all different kinds of sushi. One of the easiest to make is a maki or roll. Whether you use pristine raw fish or a mixture of vegetables, the technique is the same.
Martha Stewart makes Pistou Soup.
The most common cause of head pain is ice cream, occurring in one third of a randomly selected population. It occurs regardless of whether someone suffers from other types of headache. Children know all about ice cream headache, although I have found that they know it best by the descriptive term “brain freeze.”
You don’t absolutely need a wok to create satisfying Chinese meals. Nonetheless, the bowl-shaped utensil has several advantages — it spreads heat evenly, uses less oil for deep-frying than a traditional deep-fat fryer, and ensures that food tossed during stir-frying lands back in the pan and not on the stove. A good wok will make it easier to cook Chinese food.
Britons are turning their backs on the full English breakfast in favour of healthier alternatives, says a survey.
Just 1% of the population now start their day with a fry-up — compared with half of all Britons in 1958.
The arteries of overweight children can be in as poor condition as those of middle-aged smokers, finds research.
The oldest known evidence of people keeping cats as pets may have been found by archaeologists.
The discovery of a cat buried with what could be its owner in a Neolithic grave on Cyprus suggests domestication of cats had begun 9,500 years ago.
If it can truly be said that people train cats, rather than the other way around, human-feline bonding apparently had its start at least 9,500 years ago — about 5,000 years earlier than previously thought.
French archaeologists, excavating a grave in Cyprus, have found the remains of a person, some buried offerings and the curled-up skeleton of a cat. Everything about the grave, dated at about 7500 B.C., suggested to the discoverers that the cat probably had as favored a place in the life of the departed person as that of your dear Daddles or Willie or whatever the name of the little master of the house. If the interpretation is valid, and other experts think it is, then cat domestication probably began with some of the first farmers in the Middle East — and opportunistic prototypes of Tom and Jerry. When the farmers first settled into villages and stored their harvests of domesticated grain, mice came to nibble the grain and wild cats descended on the mice, settling into a life that benefited them and their human hosts.
Vitamins could actually increase levels of “bad cholesterol,” researchers have suggested.
It had been thought that vitamins could protect the heart.
But New York University researchers found vitamins including E, C and beta carotene stop the liver breaking down an early form of bad cholesterol.
Scientists have claimed that eating soy could help prevent men from developing prostate cancer and from going bald.
US researchers found a molecule produced in the intestine when soy is digested stops a hormone which can fuel prostate growth or cause baldness.
The World Health Organisation has adopted an unprecedented policy on diet and health to tackle a global increase in obesity.
The voluntary plan was hammered out at talks in Geneva in the face of stiff opposition from lobbies such as the sugar-producing nations.
It includes guidelines for urban planners on encouraging exercise as well as advice on healthy eating.
Nearly one in six people worldwide is now considered overweight.
You can’t control the portion sizes at your local restaurant, or the fact that it’s difficult to understand the food label or that manufacturers put excessive amounts of sugar, fat or both in the foods you love.
Believe it or not, you can take charge — no, not by lobbying your lawmaker to end supersizing — but by looking at the things you can control, namely, your “personal food environment.”
Michael R. Lowe, professor of psychology at Drexel University, found that creating and monitoring your “personal food environment” is the most effective strategy for keeping the weight off. “You need to limit your exposure to high-calorie foods in your immediate environment by, for instance, choosing healthier restaurants and stocking your home with quality ingredients and foods,” Lowe suggests.
Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990. The OFPA required the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop national standards for organically produced agricultural products to assure consumers that agricultural products marketed as organic meet consistent, uniform standards. The OFPA and the National Organic Program (NOP) regulations require that agricultural products labeled as organic originate from farms or handling operations certified by a State or private entity that has been accredited by USDA.
The national database of CSA farms is managed by the Robyn Van En Center for CSA Resources, in collaboration with the Alternative Farming Systems Information Center (AFSIC), the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), and several cooperating organizations. The database is hosted by the Western Sustainable Agriculture and Education Region. To find a CSA farm that serves your area, select a State or enter a Zip Code using the indicator below.
The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion was created in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, December 1, 1994, and is the focal point within USDA where scientific research is linked with the nutritional needs of the American public.
The creation of the Center came at a time when the American public was becoming increasingly aware of the importance of diet, yet was receiving conflicting nutrition messages. The Center, therefore, serves as a touchstone where the public is assured that the nutrition guidance they receive is based on sound research and analysis.
The Center reports to the Office of the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services. The staff of the Center is composed primarily of nutritionists, nutrition scientists, and economists all of whom were chosen for their expertise.
Heavy social drinkers show the same pattern of brain damage as hospitalized alcoholics — enough to impair day-to-day functioning…
Brain scans show clear damage, and tests of reading, balance and other function show people who drink more than 100 drinks a month have some problems…
“Our message is: Drink in moderation. Heavy drinking damages your brain ever so slightly, reducing your cognitive functioning in ways that may not be readily noticeable. To be safe, don’t overdo it.”
[Balsamic Vinegar] is produced from the must of very mature Trebbiano grapes and aged in a series of barrels of different sizes and woods. [The] producer transfers a fraction of the vinegar from the younger barrels into the older barrels every year, which is why the age of a bottle of vinegar is only an average, being a mix of older and younger vinegars. The types of wood the barrels are made in, the quality of the grapes, the initial concentration, and the producer’s savoir-faire all come into play to make (or break) the quality of a balsamic vinegar.
Naturally, industrial companies started making balsamic vinegar too, aging it in steel tanks, cutting it with water and coloring it with brown sugar or caramel. In response, the original small producers have created a consortium and a D.O.C. (Denominazione di Origine Controllata, if you must know) to protect the century-old tradition: only vinegar produced in a small region around the town of Modena can claim to be the traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena, their products are made following strict rules and are bottled and boxed in a specific way.
The real thing is very pricy… but the taste is so intense and concentrated that just a few drops are sufficient.
In general, more than 1.5 grams of caffeine a day can cause the typical symptoms of caffeinism: anxiety, insomnia, irritability and palpitations.
Caffeine is far and away the most widely used stimulant in the world. It is actually a member of a class of compounds called xanthines that includes theobromine, which is abundant in chocolate and theophylline, the major xanthine in tea.
Caffeine works by blocking the calming and analgesic effects of the neurotransmitter adenosine in the brain. In moderate doses, caffeine enhances arousal and performance. At higher doses, caffeine blocks a majority of adenosine receptors and can produce anxiety and hypersensitivity to pain.
The By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. Of the 2,000 WPA posters known to exist, the Library of Congress’s collection of more than 900 is the largest. These striking silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts and were added to the Library’s holdings in the 1940s.
The mission of the Land Stewardship Project is to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop sustainable communities.
For more than 70 years, “The Joy of Cooking” has served as a dog-eared, sauce-stained bible for generations of home cooks. The first edition was published in 1931 by Irma Rombauer, who updated the book regularly over the course of two decades. Her daughter, Marion, worked with her and, in 1953, took over the daunting task of keeping “Joy” current; her 1975 revision became the cookbook’s best-selling edition to date. Upon Marion’s death in 1976, the mantle was passed to her son Ethan — himself a Cordon Bleu-trained chef — but a new edition was not published for more than 20 years. The latest incarnation is as much a re-imagining of “The Joy of Cooking” as it is a revision, but it still remains an invaluable resource for cooks at all culinary levels.
A series of recent discoveries suggests that all fat-storage cells churn out a stew of hormones and other chemical messengers that fine-tune the body’s energy balance. But when spewed in vast amounts by cells swollen to capacity with fat, they assault many organs in ways that are bad for health.
The exact details are still being worked out, but scientists say there is no doubt this flux of biological crosstalk hastens death from heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer, diseases that are especially common among the obese…
The first real inkling that fat is more than just inert blubber was the discovery 10 years ago of the substance leptin. Scientists were amazed to find that this static-looking flesh helps maintain itself by producing a chemical that regulates appetite.
Roughly 25 different signaling compounds — with names like resistin and adiponectin — are now known to be made by fat cells, [Dr. Rudolph Leibel of Columbia University] estimates, and many more undoubtedly will be found…
Fat tissue is now recognized to be the body’s biggest endocrine organ, and its sheer volume is impressive even in normal-size people.
A trim woman is typically 30 percent fat, a man 15 percent. That is enough fuel to keep someone alive without eating for three months.
Food and Nutrition Publications from the Iowa State University Continuing Education and Communication Services.
Chugging down a row of trees, the pair of canopy shakers in Paul Meador’s orange grove here seem like a cross between a bulldozer and a hairbrush, their hungry steel bristles working through the tree crowns as if untangling colossal heads of hair.
In under 15 minutes, the machines shake loose 36,000 pounds of oranges from 100 trees, catch the fruit and drop it into a large storage car. “This would have taken four pickers all day long,” Mr. Meador said.
Canopy shakers are still an unusual sight in Florida’s orange groves. Most of the crop is harvested by hand, mainly by illegal Mexican immigrants. Nylon sacks slung across their backs, perched atop 16-foot ladders, they pluck oranges at a rate of 70 to 90 cents per 90-pound box, or less than $75 a day.
But as globalization creeps into the groves, it is threatening to displace the workers. Facing increased competition from Brazil and a glut of oranges on world markets, alarmed growers here have been turning to labor-saving technology as their best hope for survival.
Damnit, Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They’re things we carry with us — the things that make us who we are. If we lost them, we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away. I need my pain.
It’s easy to order at Wine and Spirits. If this is your first time buying something, you’ll want to place items in your shopping cart and proceed to checkout using our order form. You will be asked for your e-mail address and a password to register yourself as a shopper (don’t worry — it’s free). This way, the next time you come and shop with us, we will have your information already stored, and there’ll be no need to input it again.
Organic farming was among the fastest growing segments of U.S. agriculture during the 1990s. The value of retail sales of organic food was estimated to be $7.8 billion in 2000. According to the Food Marketing Institute, more than half of Americans now buy organic food at least once a month. Why is organic food becoming so popular?
In this edition of HowStuffWorks, we will explore the history and purpose behind organic food, what it means if a food is organic, how to tell if a food is organic, and the pros and cons of choosing organic food.
It is safe to say that one thing you’ll do today is eat some food — food is pretty important to all animals. If you don’t eat, it can cause all sorts of problems: hunger, weakness, starvation… Food is essential to life.
But what is food? What’s in food that makes it so important? What happens to the food once you eat it? What is food made of? How does it fuel our bodies? What do words like “carbohydrates” and “fats” really mean (especially on those “Nutrition Facts” labels you find on almost everything these days)? What would happen if you ate nothing but marshmallows for a week? What is a calorie? Why can’t we eat grass like a cow does, or wood like a termite?
If you have ever wondered about food and how your body uses it, then read on. In this edition of HowStuffWorks, we’ll give you all of the information you need to understand what a hamburger or a banana does to keep your body running every day!
Facts about America’s favorite root.
Severe brain and spinal birth defects have dropped 27 percent in the United States since the government in 1998 began requiring makers of cereal, pasta, bread and flour to fortify their foods with folic acid, health authorities reported Thursday.
Folic acid is known to reduce the risk of spina bifida and anencephaly, which are also called neural tube defects.
Before fortification, about 4,130 babies had such neural tube defects each year in the United States, and nearly 1,200 died. After fortification, the yearly average dropped to about 3,000, with 840 deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Spina bifida cases dropped 31 percent, and anencephaly cases fell 16 percent, the CDC said.
Since folic acid was added to breads, flours and other grain products in 1998, rates of neural tube defects — which affect the brain or spinal cord — have dropped.
But some studies suggest that folic acid increases the risk of miscarriage (though others do not). And scientists wonder whether some babies born of women now ingesting more folic acid may carry a genetic deficiency requiring them to take more folic acid, too. Other experts speculate that higher folic acid intake may increase rates of autism. And while sometimes folic acid may prevent cancer from emerging, it may also fuel an existing cancer’s growth.
A 1996 project undertaken by scientists at the National Centre for Health Statistics and Cornell University analysed the data from dozens of previous studies, involving a total of more than 600,000 subjects with up to a 30-year follow-up. Among non-smoking white men, the lowest mortality rate was found among those with a BMI between 23 and 29, which means that a large majority of the men who lived longest were “overweight” according to government guidelines. The mortality rate for white men in the supposedly ideal range of 19 to 21 was the same as that for those in the 29 to 31 range (most of whom would be defined now as “obese”). In regard to non-smoking white women, the study’s conclusions were even more striking: the BMI range correlating with the lowest mortality rate was extremely broad, from around 18 to 32, meaning a woman of average height could weigh anywhere within an 80-pound range without seeing any statistically significant change in her risk of premature death.
In almost all large-scale epidemiological studies, little or no correlation between weight and health can be found for a large majority of the population — and indeed what correlation does exist suggests that it is more dangerous to be just a few pounds “underweight” than dozens of pounds “overweight”. So, let us look at the most cited studies for the proposition that “overweight” is a deadly epidemic in America today. Anyone who bothers to examine the evidence in the case against fat with a critical eye will be struck by the radical disconnect between the data in these studies and the conclusions their authors reach.
Groceteria.com is a site about supermarket history and architecture, roughly covering the period from the 1920s to the 1970s. It is NOT a site about current supermarket issues and locations, except in historical perspective, and it is not connected with nor owned by any supermarket chain, past or present. Enjoy…
Shiitake (pronounced “shee-tah-kee” and spelled the same whether singular or plural) are said to be the favorite mushroom in Japan. As many as 200,000 Japanese cultivate these forest fungi as a seasonal cash crop from logs of the shii tree, closely related to the oak. Other Asian countries are following suit; the brownish shiitake are also called black Chinese or black forest mushrooms and are grown in increasing amount in Taiwan, China, and Korea.
The number of U.S. shiitake farmers is rising, though most of them operate on a small scale. Still, some U.S. growers already use more than 10,000 3- or 4-foot-long hardwood logs (2 to 8 inches in diameter) to produce shiitake. Some even plan to expand to more than 100,000 logs (the size of some growers in Japan).
Professor Jane Wardle, director of the charity’s health behaviour unit, said losing weight can reduce the risks of developing cancer.
“Excess body fat is not harmless ‘extra padding’ but active tissue producing hormones that can increase the risk of cancer.
“In order to lose weight and then maintain a healthy body weight you need to eat less and be more active.
“Even small weight losses have been shown to have a beneficial effect on health.”
Although it has long been suspected that gout was linked to alcohol, the theory had never been proved.
Now a study of nearly 50,000 men has found those who over-indulge in beer, in particular, are at heightened risk.
The research, published in The Lancet, was carried out by a team at Massachusetts General Hospital.
They found that the condition was less likely to be linked to drinking spirits. People who drank a moderate amount of wine had no increased risk at all.
Alcohol consumption triggers increased production of a substance called uric acid.
When this is deposited in joints it leads to gout by stimulating an intense inflammatory reaction resulting in red, swollen and painful joints.
Drinking two or more 12-ounce cans or bottles of any kind of beer a day was found to increase the risk of gout 2.5 times compared with drinking no beer. Consuming two drinks each containing a shot of liquor increased the risk 1.6 times compared with consuming no liquor. Drinking two or more four-ounce glasses of wine a day was not found to be associated with an increased risk.
Whether beer contains a factor that promotes gout or wine a protective factor, or both, is not known.
The chickens we buy in supermarkets (this obviously doesn’t apply to vegetarians) betray no real sign of their journey, from the coop to the refrigerator. Some argue that meat eaters would be inclined to respect the beasts they eat, if they were not so clinically removed from the whole process of tending, killing and preparing animals for food.
Combine ingredients and blend until smooth.
Although dazzling your family with a snazzy arrangement of Spam and Tater Tots is probably way down on your to-do list, it can’t hurt to have a few chef’s tricks in your arsenal. A quick tweak here and there can make food look more appealing, which is as important as making it taste good.
The authors documented 1333 new cases of type 2 diabetes in men and 4085 new cases in women. The authors found an inverse association between coffee intake and type 2 diabetes after adjustment for age, body mass index, and other risk factors.
Omega-3 fatty acids benefit the heart of healthy people, and those at high risk of — or who have — cardiovascular disease.
[The American Heart Association recommends] eating fish (particularly fatty fish) at least two times a week. Fish is a good source of protein and doesn’t have the high saturated fat that fatty meat products do. Fatty fish like mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon are high in two kinds of omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has formally allowed producers of a food to advertise health claims that are based on promising, but not conclusive, scientific testing.
The recipient of the agency’s first approval of a “qualified” health claim is the walnut, which can now be promoted as helpful in warding off heart disease. Similar health claims for other nuts are being reviewed, and FDA officials said they will be acted on soon…
The new label approved for whole and chopped walnuts will read: “Supportive but not conclusive research shows that eating 1.5 oz. of walnuts per day, as part of a low saturated fat and low cholesterol diet, and not resulting in increased caloric intake, may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.”
Fontifier lets you use your own handwriting for the text you write on your computer. It turns a scanned sample of your handwriting into a handwriting font that you can use in your word processor or graphics program, just like regular fonts such as Helvetica.
Farm Economics Publications from the Pennsylvania State University Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology department in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Over the past half century, health-conscious, well-insured, educated people in the United States and in other wealthy countries have come to take being medicated for granted.
More people shift to the pill-taking life every year, to the delight of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Indeed, drug sales suggest how willing people are to pursue better living through chemistry.
Gourmet Magazine’s Web site.
Preparation time: 30 minutes.
Hash is a great way to use up leftover cooked meat. We tend to use roast beef, but leftover pot roast or other meats could easily be used. What is essential to making hash is an old fashioned meat grinder.
Take beef, potatoes, and onions in approximately equal proportions and put them through a meat grinder using the medium grinder attachment so that they are well mixed and ground.
Heat a large fry pan — preferably a cast iron pan — on medium high to high heat. Add the hash to the frying pan so that a half an inch of hash covers the bottom of the pan. If you have more hash to cook, do so in separate batches. Add several tablespoons of oil. Brown the hash, stirring only infrequently at first to make sure that the hash has an opportunity to brown well. As you cook the hash, add pinches of salt and fresh ground pepper. Do this a couple of times with each batch of hash. Cook for at least 10 minutes and until the hash is well browned.
Serve immediately with ketchup.
The eGullet readers ask questions of, and get answers from Alton Brown.
The eGullet Culinary Institute (eGCI) offers many, many online cooking courses.
Bees have been collecting nectar and producing honey for 150 million years. There are early cave drawings in Africa and Spain from around 7000 B.C., which show people gathering honey from rock crevices and trees while bees circle the air above them. And although European settlers introduced the honeybees, Apis Mellifera, to New England in 1638, Mexico and Central America had already developed beekeeping. It is one of the oldest known agricultural pursuits; the settlers used it initially as a solution to a lack of sugar in the preparation of food and beverages but found it was also useful to make cement, to preserve fruits, to act as a substitute for furniture varnish, and for medicinal purposes.
Blend the ingredients in a food processor and tossed with the salad immediately before serving.
Only the most productive disease resistant varieties make it onto the approved list here at Edible Landscaping. Our plants are guaranteed to arrive healthy and grow well. If something happens to your plant, please let us know. We want you to succeed with these plants and share our enthusiasm for growing them.
You may have heard the tall tale that “asparagus urine” is linked to higher intelligence. In fact, it’s the result of a simple chemical reaction. Asparagus contains a sulfur compound called mercaptan. (It’s also found in rotten eggs, onions, garlic, and in the secretions of skunks.) When your digestive tract breaks down this substance, by-products are released that cause the funny scent. The process is so quick that your urine can develop the distinctive smell within 15 to 30 minutes of eating asparagus.
The Department of Crop and Soil Sciences is located in the Agricultural Sciences and Industries Building at the University Park campus of The Pennsylvania State University. Our staff consists of 29 faculty members, and 49 administrative and support personnel. We offer two undergraduate majors (Environmental Soil Science and Turfgrass Science), two undergraduate minors (Agronomy and Environmental Soil Science), one Certificate program (Golf Course Turfgrass Management), two Masters programs (Agronomy and Soil Science), and two Doctoral programs (Agronomy and Soil Science).
The department also participates in two College of Agricultural Sciences’ inter-departmental programs at the undergraduate level; Agroecology and Environmental Resource Management. At the graduate level, the department participates in five, inter-college programs (Ecology, Environmental Pollution Control, Genetics, Materials, and Plant Physiology).
The time to build the cellar is before the tornado hits. If your resources are limited, anything you can do to extend your “margins of safety” in terms of the basic necessities of life helps you prepare for a disaster or emergency (such as loss of a job, sickness, eviction, earthquake, tornado, economic collapse, war, etc.) Think carefully about the challenges you may face. Make lists and check them twice. If a disaster doesn’t happen, you still benefit because you made these preparations: you have increased the safety, health, security, and wellness of your family and community — and you’ve fulfilled an important aspect of your civic duties as a citizen. Don’t procrastinate or wait to the last minute!
Honing isn’t sharpening, but it’s just as important to edge retention, knife authorities say. “The most overlooked thing, the thing you need to buy before anything else, is the honing steel,” says Busby, whose nickname is the Blade Master. Swiping the knife several times along this coarse, rod-like device doesn’t remove any metal but does realign the edge, which quickly rolls over with use. Most experts suggest holding the blade at about a 20° angle to the steel while honing, and giving each side an equal number of swipes.
Driving by an asparagus field, you’d never guess it was such a demanding crop. In fact, you might not even know it was planted at all. If you didn’t know better, all you’d see would be acres of deeply plowed earth. Because the spears need soft earth and no competition from other plants, even during the peak of the season, asparagus fields tend to look like they’ve never even been planted…
They grow amazingly fast. When the temperature gets into the 70s and 80s, asparagus can shoot up as much as seven inches in 24 hours. Early in the season, say late February to early March, farmers can get by with cutting a field every other day. The rest of the time, it must be done daily, or the spear tips will feather into ferns.
America’s only newsletter devoted to the fine frontier tradition of biscuits and gravy serves up reviews of the best and gadawful worst biscuits and gravy found in America.
You’ll find interviews with the oldest living cowboys in the U.S., rare gems of western verse, and feature articles of critical importance to the world at large, such as “World Wide Search For Biscuits & Gravy.”
Evidence shows a meat-based diet is bad for the environment, aggravates global hunger, brutalizes animals and compromises health. So why aren’t more environmentalists vegetarians?
Saute a few vegetables and sprouts. Prepare ramen according to package directions. You needn’t measure the water. You just know somehow how much will make the soup perfect. Pour the noodles and soup into a bowl. It should have fading Chinese dragons painted on it. Sprinkle with onions and adorn with veggies liberally. Place leftovers on top just so. Add a dash of soy sauce to taste. Drink loudly and talk to your mother. If she’s not around, pop Tampopo into the VCR. Sure, it’s about restaurant ramen, but you and I know that the kind in plastic packages is just as good.
Lots of salad dressing recipes.
The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) has introduced a highly successful approach to eating that combines the latest science, flavorful recipes, and old-fashioned, American common sense. With the New American Plate, it’s easier than ever to create meals that lower your risk for cancer and other chronic diseases while helping to manage your weight.
AgMap serves as an online directory for Pennsylvania’s agricultural industry. Looking for locally-grown produce, equipment and parts, or businesses serving the ag community? The AgMap database currently lists over 1,320 such businesses in Pennsylvania.
Active Living by Design is a national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is a part of the UNC School of Public Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This program establishes and evaluates innovative approaches to increase physical activity through community design, public policies and communications strategies.
The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public on vegetarianism and the interrelated issues of health, nutrition, ecology, ethics, and world hunger. In addition to publishing the Vegetarian Journal, VRG produces and sells cookbooks, other books, pamphlets, and article reprints.
Our health professionals, activists, and educators work with businesses and individuals to bring about healthy changes in your school, workplace, and community. Registered dietitians and physicians aid in the development of nutrition related publications and answer member or media questions about the vegetarian diet. The Vegetarian Resource Group is a non-profit organization. Financial support comes primarily from memberships, contributions, and book sales.
[Alton Brown is] thinking of getting rid of his Web site, www.altonbrown.com, because he doesn’t have time to update it regularly. “People must think I sit around and run an empire. It’s not true; I’m not rich. I don’t have an assistant.”
While you’ve been out living your life, and most likely skipping your morning meal along the way, scientists have spent the past 40 years conducting breakfast-related studies that show that everybody — kids to teens to adults — benefits mightily from beginning each day with breakfast.
People who eat breakfast are significantly less likely to be obese and diabetic than those who don’t, say researchers who presented a study in March at the American Heart Association’s 43rd Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.
“The biggest cause of overeating is undereating,” says Katherine Tallmadge, a registered dietitian in Washington, D.C., and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association (ADA).
“If you eat breakfast, you’re better able to meet your fiber and nutritional needs, and you’re less likely to snack inappropriately,” says registered dietitian Effie Akerlund of Toms River, N.J. “…When you eat breakfast, you tend to eat more regular portion sizes at lunch and dinner.”
Breakfast skippers can actually put on weight, in part because they’re ravenous by lunchtime. “They tend to eat larger portions,” Akerlund says.
The following breakfasts will give you what your body needs to get started for the day:
Breakfast 1
Breakfast 2
Breakfast 3
Breakfast 4
(Alsatian Pizza)
Makes 4 small pizzas
— Adapted from “The Lutéce Cookbook”
Taste drives appetite and protects us from poisons. So, we like the taste of sugar because we have an absolute requirement for carbohydrates (sugars etc.). We get cravings for salt because we must have sodium chloride (common salt) in our diet. Bitter and sour cause aversive, avoidance reactions because most poisons are bitter (most bitter substances are bad for you — certainly in excess) and off food goes sour (acidic). Why do medicines all taste bitter? Because they are, in fact, poisons and if you take too much they will harm you. We have an absolute need for protein, and amino acids are the building blocks for proteins, so the “new” taste quality umami (pronounced: oo-marmi) which is the meaty, savoury taste drives our appetite for amino acids. This taste has been known to the Japanese for a long time — but has only recently been recognised by the West. Bacon really hits our umami receptors because it is a rich source of amino acids.
Since 1792, The Old Farmer’s Almanac has published useful information for people in all walks of life: tide tables for those who live near the ocean; sunrise tables and planting charts for those who live on the farm; recipes for those who live in the kitchen; and forecasts for those who don’t like the question of weather left up in the air.
“These are the recipes that I lost three stone of weight eating,” says Henry Harris, head chef and co-owner of Racine. They are not the usual bland recipes that characterise the average diet book. In A Passion for Protein all the dishes are low on carbohydrates but huge on flavour. Each recipe is honed by Harris who, through his restaurant, has brought a little bit of classical France to south west London.
Except in late spring and summer, the raspberries found in American markets are mostly grown in Mexico and Central and South America. By the time the delicate berries arrive here, they are often poor in quality and expensive.
If raspberries are picked before they are completely ripe to reduce damage in shipment, the ripening process ends abruptly and the fruit that reaches the consumer is typically low in flavor and sweetness. Not so if the berries are grown in local greenhouses. As the Cornell “Greenhouse Raspberry Production Guide” puts it, “The grower is able to achieve a high level of quality because the fruit never becomes wet from rain or irrigation, thus greatly reducing the instance of fruit-rotting infections, and the fruit can be harvested at the peak of ripeness for optimum flavor.”
Yes, it’s spring in the Northeast, when a gardener’s fancy turns to bloody retribution. Legality and gun control aside, there is an ecological issue here.
The deer plague is Nature’s way of getting our attention. And what Nature wants to say is: “See? This is why some people want to kill elephants.”
Gardeners in the grip of flower grief seem as devastated as African farmers are after elephants have trampled their crops. Certainly losing the year’s food is worse than losing some flowers. But having what you love snatched away by unrepentant ungulates causes pain that is not to be discounted simply because other people are starving.
The analogy has its flaws, but both situations contain the essence of the conflict between humans and nature. Species have different opinions on the best use of resources, whether tulips or maize. Sometimes what people want is not what deer or elephants want. So something has got to give.
Shoppers at farmers markets in cities around the country might feel virtuous because they’re filling their baskets with eggs and chard and apples offered by farmers within driving distance. Same goes for the city subscribers in community supported agriculture programs, who buy shares in the production of a nearby farm. And they’re justified: they are helping change American agriculture by supporting local farmers instead of agribusiness. Small family farms are essential to guaranteeing the diversity and safety of our food supply.
But markets and community supported agriculture programs, wonderful as they are, can’t by themselves save American agriculture. To do that, we have to look beyond the “eat local” slogans at the farmers markets in New York, San Francisco and Chicago and think of how to give American consumers across the country access to regional products that might disappear unless they are raised in much larger numbers. In some cases the answer is to think locally — but to ship nationally.
This idea is anathema to local-food purists, but the situation is dire. Many heirloom varieties of American cattle, goats, pigs, sheep and poultry are on the brink of extinction because there are no longer buyers for them in an agribusiness-dominated market that’s interested only in the pig breed that grows the fastest or the chicken variety with the most white meat. What’s more, the last few representatives of many of these breeds are on farms that are far from urban areas and markets, in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa.
It is a vital fluid — sold by the gallon — and it fuels a good portion of the city’s economy in countless ways. But after a couple of years of lying low, its price has crept up, at first stealthily and then alarmingly, and is now more than $4 a gallon.
The fluid is not gasoline, whose rising price — in some places premium can cost nearly $3 a gallon — has stunned the nation. It is milk, and its power can be found in a cheese-laden slice of pizza or on a bagel and schmear, in a humble cup of 75-cent light-with-two-sugars coffee from the corner cart to the $5 whipped concoctions at Starbucks. And its growing cost has business people like Ashish Roy, who opened Bergen Bagels on the quietly booming Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn two years ago, worrying about how to survive.
A 53-year-old man sued the estate of Dr. Robert C. Atkins and the company that promotes his diet yesterday. The suit says following the Atkins diet for two years raised the man’s cholesterol so much that his arteries became clogged and required a medical procedure to open them.
The suit is apparently the first to involve the diet, the most prominent and controversial low-carbohydrate regimen and the one most associated with assertions that followers could eat all the red meat and saturated fat they wanted and still lose weight.
Mr. Miller, 49, who excels at his job but finds the art of small talk impossible to master, has since been given a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, an autistic disorder notable for the often vast discrepancy between the intellectual and social abilities of those who have it.
Because Asperger’s was not widely identified until recently, thousands of adults like Mr. Miller — people who have never fit in socially — are only now stumbling across a neurological explanation for their lifelong struggles with ordinary human contact.
As Mr. Miller learned from the article, autism is now believed to encompass a wide spectrum of impairment and intelligence, from the classically unreachable child to people with Asperger’s and a similar condition called high-functioning autism, who have normal intelligence and often superior skills in a given area. But they all share a defining trait: They are what autism researchers call “mind blind.” Lacking the ability to read cues like body language to intuit what other people are thinking, they have profound difficulty navigating basic social interactions. The diagnosis is reordering their lives. Some have become newly determined to learn how to compensate.
The Italian olive oil industry has long been built on this illusion. Consumers the world over want Italian olive oil because it is supposed to be the finest, redolent of la dolce vita, and so the industry finds a way to give it to them, sort of.
In truth, Italy does not grow enough olives to meet even its own demand, let alone foreigners’. Spain, not Italy, actually has the world’s largest olive harvest. As a result, Italy is one of the world’s leading importers of olive oil, part consumed, the rest re-exported with newly assumed Italian cachet.
The industry has a ready justification: what is important is not where the olives are picked and pressed, but where the oil is refined and blended. The olive oil is Italian, the argument goes, because it has been processed by skilled Italian experts who choose oils from around the Mediterranean to create an oil for the foreign market.
[Dr. Stuart Richer, of the Veterans Affairs eye clinic in North Chicago,] said that lutein supplements or diets rich in vegetables like spinach, kale or collard greens appeared to help patients with age-related macular degeneration and those worried about developing it, although he noted that the study’s results needed to be duplicated in a larger group.
A woman walks into a doctor’s office. The doctor says, “What brings you here today?” The woman starts to answer. Eighteen seconds later, the doctor interrupts.
This may sound like the setup to a lame joke but it is a scene played out regularly in doctors’ offices across the country. Two decades ago, in 1984, researchers showed that on average, patients were interrupted 18 seconds into explaining their problems. Fewer than 2 percent got to finish their explanations.
Dr. Friedman points to careful statistical analyses of the changes in Americans’ body weights from 1991 to today by Dr. Katherine Flegal of the National Center for Health Statistics. At the lower end of the weight distribution, nothing has changed, not even by a few pounds. As you move up the scale, a few additional pounds start to show up, but even at midrange, people today are just 6 or 7 pounds heavier than they were in 1991. Only with the massively obese, the very top of the distribution, is there a substantial increase in weight, about 25 to 30 pounds, Dr. Flegal reported.
As a result, the curve of body weight has been pulled slightly to the right, with more people shifting up a few pounds to cross the line that experts use to divide normal from obese. In 1991, 23 percent of Americans fell into the obese category; now 31 percent do, a more than 30 percent increase. But the average weight of the population has increased by just 7 to 10 pounds since 1991.
Dr. Friedman gave an analogy: “Imagine the average I.Q. was 100 and that 5 percent of the population had an I.Q. of 140 or greater and were considered to be geniuses. Now let’s say that education improves and the average I.Q. increases to 107 and 10 percent of the population has an I.Q. of above 140.
“You could present the data in two ways,” he said. “You could say that the average I.Q. is up seven points or you could say that because of improved education the number of geniuses has doubled.”
[Ed: Or you could say Dr. Friedman doesn’t know any more about I.Q. than he does about obesity. By definition the average I.Q. is 100. It is not possible for the average I.Q. to increase to 107. Likewise, his own statement that the center of the curve showing the distribution of the weight has shifted to the right means that Americans have in fact gotten fatter. Somebody get this idiot off the stage.]
Ninety-two women and seven men, the primary food preparers in their homes, agreed to be videotaped as they prepared one of three assigned meals at home: a meatloaf entree, a chicken breast entree or a marinated fish entree, each with a fresh vegetable salad.
The researchers, who strive to prevent foodborne illness, were dismayed by what they observed among the cooks, who had been selected at random:
“Hand washing was inadequate,” they reported. “The average hand-wash length was significantly fewer than the 20-second recommendation. Only one-third of subjects’ hand-wash attempts were with soap. Surface cleaning was inadequate, with only one-third of surfaces thoroughly cleaned. Moreover, one-third of subjects did not attempt to clean surfaces during food preparation.
“Nearly all subjects cross-contaminated raw meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, and/or unwashed vegetables with ready-to-eat foods multiple times during food preparation. Unwashed hands were the most common cross-contamination agent. Many subjects undercooked the meat and poultry entrees. Very few subjects used a food thermometer.”
Stretching before exercise is routine for many recreational and professional athletes. But researchers have grown increasingly skeptical about its merits.
Now a major study is stirring renewed discussion about when stretching is and is not beneficial.
The study, a review of six decades of research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that stretching does little to prevent injury during exercise when done outside of a warm-up. In some cases, the increased flexibility that stretching promotes may actually impede performance.
The researchers analyzed 361 scientific articles on stretching published since 1946. The findings, in the March issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, suggest that athletes who devote pre-exercise time to stretching may be better served with a warm-up that prepares the body for activity and regular exercises that build strength and balance.
Ruthlessness is paramount: a year is the maximum life for most items, and a freezer isn’t a long-term storage unit.
“For years, I only saw the back of my freezer when I moved,” said Analisa Allen, a systems analyst who lives in Battery Park City, and who was one of several people who revealed the dark secrets of their freezers, beet-flavored ice cubes and all. “The ice cream in the front would get eaten, but everything else just stayed.”
Our freezers may dream of labeled and dated cubes of homemade stock, but what they seem to get is blackened bananas, stale wedding cake and plastic bags crusted over with ice, their contents unrecognizable. “It’s amazing how things look alike once they’re frozen,” said Laura Chenoweth, a nutritionist in Minneapolis.
In theory, freezing preserves food indefinitely. In fact, for home cooks with residential-grade refrigerators, freezing is a stopgap that slows the aging of food but does not halt it.
“To me,” said Mr. Oliver, the brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, “beer and wine are both beverages meant to be served with food. And good beer, real beer, often offers things that most wine does not, like carbonation and caramelized and roasted flavors — aspects that sometimes make beer the preferable choice.”
Underyeasted dough requires longer fermentation, which sets off more complex enzymatic processes than when the proportion of yeast is high. High amounts of yeast bring a dough to maximum carbon dioxide capacity in short order (ready for the oven), but the haste occurs at the expense of flavor.
When a dough has minimal yeast, the yeast depletes available sugars in the flour after a couple of hours. But it soldiers on, seeking fresh sustenance by converting damaged starches (produced when the flour is milled) to sugars. The new enzymatic processes that come into play when the yeast takes its time result in improved fermentation flavors.
Part of the problem with standard yeast applications — and the correspondingly high ambient temperatures used to move them along — is that things can get out of control fast: the dough swoons dizzily in its warm oven bunker and ultimately collapses. At this point the dough is not capable of containing the critical mass of carbon dioxide; the gas escapes and the bread’s volume and crumb is compromised.
By keeping yeast proportions small and ambient temperatures chilly, the fermentation proceeds at a leisurely pace — several hours or overnight — with full flavor development.
Mr. Corson, the author of “The Secret Life of Lobsters,” said that eating a whole lobster is a way of communing with nature. “You may have even killed it first,” he said. “It’s an intimate experience.”
It’s particularly intimate for Mr. Corson, who spent two years working on a lobster boat in Maine, handling dozens of lobsters every day. “After working on the boat, I thought I knew about lobsters,” he said. “But then I started talking to the scientists who were studying them and learned some surprising stuff.”
For example, the females mate only when they are most at risk, after molting, and their flesh is jelly-like. The female seeks the most dominant male, who will greet her by standing on tiptoe and madly waving his swimmerets, the two little appendages on the lobster’s underside where the tail meets the torso. The female lobster does a little dance and places her claws gently on his head, an act that scientists call knighting the male, before moving into her chosen’s hideout.
“It must be some party,” Mr. Corson said of the ritual. “It lasts up to two weeks.” Then the female, whose new shell has now formed, leaves, and another moves in.
“Americans are used to the idea of premium coffee and chocolate,” said John Musser, chief executive of Jonathan’s Organics, a fruit importer in East Freetown, Mass. “But let’s be honest, a banana is a banana is a banana.”
Fair Trade deals directly with farmer cooperatives it helps organize, avoiding brokers and middlemen. It guarantees higher prices for the farmers’ goods and helps them set up schools and health clinics.
The thing about Neapolitan pizza, one axiom goes, is that the higher the grade of the olive oil, the better the thread-count of the proprietor’s clothes.
So while a new national law mandates what can authentically be called Neapolitan pizza, the legislation also exposes a deeper, ages-old rift about whether pizza is best served to the masses or the classes.
Italian pizza makers, politicians and the modern-day proletariat had set aside a century’s worth of squabbling over tomatoes, basil, cheese and oil to focus on a larger topic that threatened them all: Neapolitan pizza was under attack, facing impostors worldwide.
As one local pizza maker, Alfonso Cucciniello, put it: “Everyone in the world is trying to do this type of pizza. In Japan, in China, in the United States, in Miami.”
“Pizza with pineapples?” he asked. “That’s a cake.”
Also known as crème renversée (inverted cream) in France, crema caramella in Italy and flan in Spain, crème caramel is a simple, chilled custard. The caramel begins below the custard, but when the dish is inverted onto a plate, it becomes a topping. This recipe uses 4-ounce ramekins.
Yield: 6 servings.
Crème brulee may be the kind of dessert you’ve ordered numerous times in restaurants, but are afraid to try at home. You needn’t be. Crème brulee needs to be burnt at the end of its preparation, and if you’ve got a kitchen torch, use it; if not, you can easily get a similar effect by positioning your broiler to its level closest to the flame and keeping an eye on the crème’s surface. This recipe… uses a large, flat or oval ramekin, 1 inch in height and about 4 to 5 inches in diameter.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings.
What transformed the health establishment’s thinking about the link between status and health was the Whitehall Studies, long-term research projects that have tracked the health of thousands of British civil servants since 1967. Whitehall provides something pretty close to an ideal real-world laboratory. After all, it is not the gap between the haves and have-nots where one might find the most compelling evidence for the status syndrome, but between the have-a-lots and the have-the-mosts. Civil servants all have office jobs, health care and high job security, but they are sharply classified according to rank.
What researchers found is that those in the lowest grade were three times more likely to die at any given age as those in the highest. One explanation might be that people on the lowest rung have unhealthier habits — smoking, not exercising, bulking up on fast food. But researchers who looked more closely at coronary heart disease concluded that risk factors accounted for only one-third of the differences between those at the top of the social hierarchy and those at the bottom. “A smoker who is low employment grade has a higher risk of heart disease than a smoker who is higher grade,” writes Sir Michael, the former director of the Whitehall study. “A nonsmoker who is lower grade has a higher risk of heart disease than a nonsmoker who is higher grade.”
The Anthropology Department at the California Academy of Sciences houses the Rietz Food Technology Collection. Containing approximately 1,300 items, this collection was assembled by Carl Austin Rietz, an inventor and businessman in the food industry. His interest in the industry led him on travels around the world to collect objects used in the production, processing, storage, presentation, preparation, and serving of food.
A large portion of this collection consists of eating utensils, including tableware and portable eating sets. The variety of forms displayed by many items in the Rietz Collection document the history and evolution of such common utensils as forks, knives, spoons, and chopsticks.
Believers in skinny spears claim that theirs is superior because it doesn’t need to be peeled. It is delicate and crisp. Its very slenderness is evidence that it truly is the first spear of spring.
Followers of the fatties respond equally dogmatically. Their spears aren’t tough at all. Further, they are obviously the one true choice because what could better befit the promise of spring than a rich, juicy texture?
I refuse to be drawn into the debate. Preferring to spread olive oil on these troubled waters, I embrace both sides. Skinny and fat, all asparagus spears are good, in their own ways.
Let the healing begin. But before we can move forward, we must dispel some myths.
First, a slender spear is not a sign of the first harvest. In fact, it must be said, the opposite is true. Whether asparagus is thick or thin depends on many things, but primary among them is what farmers call vigor — how healthy the plant is. On this issue, the scientific evidence is clear: Plants just beginning to produce make fatter spears.
It’s not as cut and dried as that, though, because the same plant will produce a range of sizes. Asparagus grows from a mass of roots and each mass sends up scores of spears. Those that come up closest to the center, where the plant stores its nutrients, are fatter. Those farther out on the fringe are thinner.
Furthermore, while fatter asparagus does have a thicker, more fibrous peel that does need to be removed before cooking, it also has much more tender inner flesh. The peel is thinner on slender asparagus, but so is the center.
Once upon a time there were microbreweries. And then there were microwineries, little postage stamp-sized patches of land producing a barrel or two of wine a year. And now? Microdairies. Don’t know what to do with Bessie’s milk? Make cheese!
The Crop and Soil Management Section of the 2004 edition of The Agronomy Guide is now available in HTML format. The Pest Management Section of the 2004 edition of The Agronomy Guide is nearing completion. The 2003 edition of the Pest Management section will be available on this site in PDF format until the 2004 edition is completed.
Foodbloggers is a webring dedicated to all those dedicated bloggers who take the time to tell us what they’ve been cooking, eating, smelling, tasting and touching.
Cooking the heart-healthy way.
Established in 1972 in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Farmers’ Market, Sur La Table set out to satisfy the growing demands from culinary professionals and home chefs for a reliable source of top quality cookware and hard-to-find kitchen tools. Known for its cutting edge in the culinary industry, Sur La Table was the first retailer on the West Coast to introduce the Cuisinart® food processor. The store quickly became a leader in the marketplace, and in response to escalating demand and growing regard for its expertise and wide-ranging inventory, a black and white mail-order catalog was published in 1988. In 1999 Sur La Table launched an online gift registry and its e-commerce website.
The national dairy industry announced Friday results from a small, 24-week study that found three to four daily servings of dairy aids in weight loss.
The study, published Friday in the journal Obesity Research, found that adults on a reduced-calorie diet who consumed three to four servings of dairy each day lost an average of 24 pounds. Researchers said the weight loss was significant compared to adults who ate little or no dairy products.
Researchers also suggested that eating dairy products — such as milk, cheese or yogurt — aids in burning fat in the abdominal region. They said the mix of essential nutrients in dairy foods, including calcium and protein, appears to speed up metabolism and improve the body’s ability to burn fat.
Fans call Stadium Mustard “the best mustard in the world.” Served and enjoyed at Cleveland Stadium for more than 50 years, this mustard now also has the honor of being requested on three space shuttle missions.
When you open a jar of Stadium Mustard, you may not hear the crack of the bat or the roar of the shuttle, but you will have shared with me and now millions of fans this unique, high quality, all natural mustard that is now truly out of this world!
Can you be obese and undernourished?
According to Jenny Ledikwe you can.
“There is a common misconception that people who are obese eat a lot and therefore must be etting plenty of vitamins and minerals,” says Ledikwe, a Penn State Ph.D. candidate in nutrition. But the issue isn’t quantity; it’s quality, she says. Many heavier individuals tend to eat foods high in calories but low in nutritional value.
For many people, a cup of coffee signals the start of the day. For those who continue to drink the beverage all day long, new findings support their habit. According to a report published in the current issue of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, heavy java drinkers have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a disease that currently afflicts about 15 million Americans.
Semolina and durum flour are similar but not quite the same thing. Both are made from the golden center or endosperm of the durum wheat kernel and can not be made from any other kind of wheat. The difference is in how they are ground. Semolina is a coarse grind, similar to cornmeal in appearance and durum flour is a fine grind similar to other flours. Durum wheat is the hardest variety of wheat that is cultivated in America and gets its name from the Latin word meaning “hard.” It is used mostly for pasta and occasionally for breads or cakes. You can find more information on durum wheat at www.ndwheat.com/wi/durum/.
Dr. Gene-Jack Wang and his colleagues at the Upton, N.Y., laboratory brought 12 hungry, average-sized adults into the lab and showed them 10 favorite foods one at a time over a two-day testing period.
The volunteers could see, smell and talk about the food in front of them, but no eating was allowed. (They hadn’t eaten for at least 17 hours.) A cotton swab introduced the taste of the food onto their tongues.
Minutes later, they were hooked to a brain scan. The areas of the brain activated are those that regulate drive and motivation, suggesting that stimulating these brain regions drives a person to seek (and consume) food.
All said they were hungrier after seeing their favorite foods, which was confirmed by the brain activity in the scans…
According to Wang, the area that controls taste, which sits close to the ear in the brain’s somatosensory cortex, became active, as well as the anterior insula, an area behind the eye thought to control appetite. The scientists were most excited by activation in the orbitofrontal cortex, in the front of the brain. This area is rich in dopamine and regulates pleasurable behavior, such as eating.
Wang suspects people who overeat may have an altered, perhaps exaggerated, response in these regions. The scientists previously discovered that obese people have about 14 percent fewer receptors for the chemical dopamine in the striatum, which regulates pleasure and reward. They believe this reduction in chemical receptors may trigger overeating to stimulate “reward and motivation” circuits.
The United States Department of Agriculture requires that anyone who produces, processes or handles organic agricultural products must be certified by a USDA-accredited certifier in order to sell, label or represent their products as “organic.” To become certified, an organic producer, processor or handler must develop, implement and maintain an organic system plan. That’s where PCO comes in. We provide the information needed to develop an organic system plan.
Once an organic system plan is approved, we send a qualified organic inspector to perform an onsite evaluation of the organic operation. Then, based on review of the organic system plan, inspection report and related documents, PCO will determine whether the operation meets the requirements of organic certification. A certified operation must update its organic system plan and be inspected annually.
Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) is a nonprofit organization working to improve the economic and social prosperity of Pennsylvania food and agriculture. We work with the farmers that grow our food, the consumers that eat the food, and those concerned with the ecological well-being of our environment and natural resources.
Making too much or too little spaghetti will cease to be a problem with this handy kitchen utensil. Just fill the one, two, three or four-serving holes with pasta to get the right amount, every time.
In 1985, a group of organic farmers in the Lancaster County area of Pennsylvania formed a Pennsylvania chapter of the Organic Crop Improvement Association, now based in Nebraska. The PA chapter performed certification services for its members for about 15 years. In 1997, some chapter members believed that a Pennsylvania-based organization would better serve the needs of our state’s organic community and incorporated as non-profit organization named Pennsylvania Certified Organic. PCO started out with 27 members and by the end of that first year had certified 54 crop and livestock farms. In 1998 the organization expanded to include dairy producers and certified about 100 farms. Over the years, PCO has added certification services for processing, handling, distribution. Brokering, mushrooms, maple products and poultry. In 2000, the USDA published its final National Organic Rule, which became effective in April 2001 and is to be fully implemented by October 22, 2002. PCO has revised its standards to reflect these federal regulations and has been accredited to perform certification services under the USDA. In 2001, PCO certified about 250 operations throughout the state. Also in 2001, PCO added certification services for operations outside of Pennsylvania, but only if the operation has a base within Pennsylvania. PCO conducts seminars, meetings and training sessions each year to help Pennsylvania’s organic producers remain informed and in compliance with the national standards.
When the bartender pulls the tap, beer is forced through the hops, dissolving some of the aromatic resins from the flowers before the beer enters the glass. The result is a beer with a refreshingly herbaceous flavor, with notes of oregano and pine, as well as a slightly funky, swampy nose (the hop vine is in the Cannabaceae family, which includes hemp and marijuana).
Mr. Calagione, 34, who is the president of Dogfish Head, a brewing company in Milton, Del., sells the Organoleptic Hops Transducer to bar owners at cost ($88) as a way of encouraging barkeeps to educate their customers about the importance of hops.
The Web site of Organic Gardening magazine.
Organic farming became one of the fastest growing segments of U.S. agriculture during the 1990s. Many U.S. producers in attempting to boost farm income and capture high-value markets turned to organic farming systems. As a result, today, more and more producers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers specialize in growing, processing, and marketing organic food and fiber products.
Fresh, great tasting food and a healthier lifestyle. Omlet makes keeping chickens that lay delicious eggs easy and fun. The eglu is the world’s most stylish and innovative chicken house and is the perfect way to keep chickens as pets. If you live in the middle of a city, in the suburbs or in the countryside Omlet can supply you with everything you need to start living the good life.
In January, I don’t want to buy much of anything. This is the daylight-starved month of ominous credit card bills. It’s the month when I try to avoid confronting how much I spent in December and instead skulk under a blanket on the couch, lulled into a nap by football on the television. It’s the month of evasion.
For this, I need potato chips. Preferably solace would come from some apocryphal chips from my youth, able to evoke lost childhood in a single, salty bite. Preferably such chips would emerge from an idiosyncratic family-owned factory with a recipe jealously guarded for four generations. Lard would be involved.
But sadly, I was handicapped by not growing up in the cradle of chip civilization, otherwise known as Pennsylvania. So for many years, I knew nothing of the world beyond nationally distributed brands. Then, by pure luck, I married a man from Reading and discovered, upon crossing the state line, the Pennsylvania Dutch Chip Belt.
When, out of sheer idleness and a desire not to get his playing cards greasy, the Earl of Sandwich called for his supper to be brought to him between two slices of bread, he was rewarded with a place in posterity. When Anna, Duchess of Bedford, singlehandedly invented a new meal opportunity, cunningly designed to bridge the chasm between lunch and dinner, she wasn’t so honoured. Today, we may have a sandwich as part of our afternoon tea, but no one enjoys a tasty bedford.
It was 1840 when Her Grace decided that eight hours was more than one woman should reasonably be expected to wait for her dinner, and instructed her butler to bring tea, bread and butter to her boudoir at 5pm. Finding this repast just the ticket, she began to invite her friends to join her for tea.
Her guests would gossip and chat about the latest fashions and scandals while sipping tea and nibbling daintily on a slice of bread and butter – and a new social institution was born. The Duchess’ guests started holding parties of their own, and before you could say “I’ll be mother,” tea was all the rage among the upper crust. Hostesses were judged not only on the spread they proffered, but also on their paraphernalia, and a successful party needed this season’s china, as well as strainers, sugar tongs and napkins. Enterprising tailors even developed a new style of garment, the smock-like tea gown, which was de rigueur for Victorian ladies-who-tea-partied.
This publication is a compilation of resources on vegetarian nutrition for the consumer. The resources are in a variety of information formats: articles, pamphlets, books and full-text materials on the World Wide Web. Resources chosen provide information on many aspects of vegetarian nutrition.
The resources listed contain accurate nutrition information and are available nationwide. Opinions expressed in the publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Your local library or bookstore can help you locate these resources. Contact information is provided for Web sites and organizations. Materials cannot be purchased from the Library. Please contact the publisher/producer if you wish to purchase any materials on this list.
Vegan World Order is concerned with nothing other than the economic reality that vegans want food tailored to their lifestyle. Here you will find recipes and restaurant listings that address these needs. Debating veganism is secondary for vegans who do not compromise their choices.
The Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3), North American organization dedicated to building strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food for all people at all times. We seek to develop self-reliance among all communities in obtaining their food and to create a system of growing, manufacturing, processing, making available, and selling food that is regionally based and grounded in the principles of justice, democracy, and sustainability.
Our mission is to create an environment for farmers and residents of Centre County to mutually benefit from a market of locally produced items. For this reason every market vendor is required to personally produce all of the items that they sell so that everyone purchasing foods, flowers, or crafts can trust that they are receiving only the finest products.
Experts have realized for decades that large people die young, and the explanation long seemed obvious. Carrying around all those extra pounds must put a deadly strain on the heart and other organs.
Obvious but wrong, it turns out. While the physical burden contributes to arthritis and sleep apnea, among other things, it is a minor hazard compared with the complex and insidious damage wrought by the oily, yellowish globs of fat that cover human bodies like never before.
A series of recent discoveries suggests that all fat-storage cells churn out a stew of hormones and other chemical messengers that fine-tune the body’s energy balance. But when spewed in vast amounts by cells swollen to capacity with fat, they assault many organs in ways that are bad for health.
The exact details are still being worked out, but scientists say there is no doubt this flux of biological cross talk hastens death from heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer, diseases that are especially common among the obese.
Think of Good Eats as a cross between Julia Child’s Kitchen Wisdom and MacGyver. It’s the only TV cooking program that goes inside appliances (the crew rigs “ovencams” and “fridgecams”); regularly riffs on pop culture (the “Man Food Show” episode rejected a romantic breakfast in bed in favor of corn dogs and basket burgers); shuns single-purpose kitchen gadgets (fire extinguishers excepted); and deploys props assembled in the garage (like a giant squid tentacle with suction cups from a bath mat). For Brown, it’s all about making food — and science — fun. “Even people who don’t actually cook can enjoy the show.”
Just as cookbooks were once considered recreational reading for food lovers, Web sites called food blogs are now used by increasing numbers of us for culinary dreaming, recipes and not-so-occasional soul searching. I know this because I’ve succumbed to the lure and now spend hours each week writing my own blog and reading others.
Like online diaries, blogs (short for Web logs) are Web sites with regular updates and links to other stories and resources on the Web. There are blogs on every topic imaginable, and food blogs are among the trendy. In them are recipes, food gossip, the history of specific cuisines or ingredients, restaurant reviews, photos of real meals made by real people for their real families, and food-related musings of regular folks who love to eat. These musings are sometimes brilliant and sometimes boring. Yet they are the essential ingredients of a blog. It’s up to the author, or blogger, to concoct an appealing combination of ingredients to make his or her site so delicious that readers keep coming back for seconds…
Food blogs provide current information in a way that cookbooks and even newspapers cannot. When an entry is posted on a blog, it appears immediately. Books have a delay of months, if not years. Magazines usually prepare their issues at least four to six months in advance. Newspapers can take as much as a month or two to publish an article. But a blog you read this afternoon can be as fresh as a home-cooked meal. And it may provide information about what’s for sale in your local farmers’ market that day, along with relevant recipes. Or it may profile a restaurant opening tonight in your city.
Pennsylvania wine consumers can now use the Internet to order hard-to-find wines from out of state shippers. Consumers may order up to nine liters from the shipper, who will then send it to the Wine & Spirits Store of the customer’s choice.
The goal of the Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter, a publication of Tufts Media at Tufts University, is to provide the consumer with honest, reliable, scientifically authoritative health and nutrition advice that not only can be trusted but can have a direct and often immediate effort on their health.
Longevity is still increasing. But after long ranking No. 1 in life expectancy in Japan, or near the top, the ranking for Okinawan men has plummeted in recent years to No. 26, which has put them in the bottom half of Japan’s 47 administrative regions. Okinawa’s women are still No. 1, but they too are almost certain to slip over the next decade.
The fall has coincided, not surprisingly, with Okinawans’ emergence as Japan’s fattest people. Perhaps equally unsurprising is that waists have widened as Okinawans, ruled directly by the United States from the end of World War II to 1972, have, of all Japanese, most closely adopted the American lifestyle of cars, suburban malls and fast food.
Phillips Crab Meat is from the blue swimming crab (portunus-spp). The crabs are harvested from the tropical waters of Southeast Asia, cooked, hand-picked and pasteurized at Phillips’ own crab processing plants under the strictest quality control. The result: virtually shell-free, sweet crab meat that has a shelf life of one year under proper refrigeration. Phillips Crab Meat is available year round in five grades: colossal, jumbo lump, backfin, special and claw. Available in 1 lb. cans and 8 oz. plastic retail packs.
The California Farm Bureau is California’s largest farm organization with more than 89,000 member families in 53 county Farm Bureaus. It is a voluntary, nongovernmental, nonpartisan organization of farm and ranch families seeking solutions to the problems that affect their lives, both socially and economically.
Already this year, as word that white tuna would be added to the advisory began circulating, sales of canned white tuna have dropped 6 percent. And now that the advisory has been formally issued, anecdotal evidence suggests that consumption of canned tuna — and perhaps seafood in general — will take a serious hit.
Never mind that the federal advisory is just for young children and women who plan to have children. Never mind that the advisory covers only white albacore tuna, and not light tuna, which has a lower mercury content — and is cheaper. Never mind that the advisory actually recommends limiting consumption of albacore tuna to six ounces per week — that is one or two meals — as opposed to eliminating it entirely. And never mind that the federal government says tuna is actually very good for people — an affordable, low-fat, high-protein source of the omega-3 fatty acids that reduce heart disease.
Health professionals are worried that the advisory’s message is being heard all wrong in a country plagued by obesity and heart problems.
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is a non-profit public interest and environmental advocacy membership organization established in 1997 by its sister organization, International Center for Technology Assessment, for the purpose of challenging harmful food production technologies and promoting sustainable alternatives. CFS combines multiple tools and strategies in pursuing its goals, including litigation and legal petitions for rulemaking, legal support for various sustainable agriculture and food safety constituencies, as well as public education, grassroots organizing and media outreach.
New studies show that the caution [about the cholesterol in eggs] may have been an exaggeration. Yes, increased blood cholesterol levels can raise the risk of heart disease. Eggs are high in dietary cholesterol. But does eating eggs raise blood cholesterol and cause heart disease? This is where the story gets somewhat complicated, so stay with me, folks, and I’ll try to make sense of all of this.
First, the research: Most epidemiological research — the kind of research that studies large populations over time and analyzes their diets and their health — has found no connection between eating eggs and increases in heart disease. On the other hand, controlled clinical studies — where researchers feed subjects specific amounts of cholesterol and measure the effect on blood — do show a slight increase in blood cholesterol with increases in dietary cholesterol, though how much depends on genetic factors.
Cholesterol is an important component of all human and animal cells and influences hormone biology, among other functions. Since your body naturally has all it needs, there is no dietary requirement for cholesterol. But the American diet contains plenty, since we eat a lot of animal products. All animal products contain some cholesterol, but they also contain saturated fat, an even more significant culprit in heart disease risk.
“The major determinant of plasma LDL level is saturated fat,” says Alice H. Lichtenstein, professor of nutrition science and policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University .
And while eggs are high in cholesterol (200 milligrams in the yolk), they’re relatively low in saturated fat (1.6 grams in the yolk).
Mix together yogurt, applesauce and honey. Chill for 20 minutes. Top with granola.
Preheat oven to 325°F.
In a large bowl stir together oats, almonds, coconut, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pecans, cinnamon and salt. In a small saucepan melt butter with honey over low heat, stirring. Add vanilla and pour butter mixture over oat mixture and stir until combined well.
On a large baking sheet, spread the granola evenly in a thin layer. Bake, stirring every 5 minutes to keep from sticking or burning, until golden brown and crisp, about 20 minutes. (Do not overcook; the granola will crisp more when cooled.) Cool the granola on the pan on top of the stove and stir in dried fruits. Granola may be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Serve at room temperature in a bowl with milk, or as a snack.
Preheat oven to 325°F.
In a large bowl stir together oats, almonds, coconut, pumpkin or sunflower seeds, and salt. In a small saucepan melt butter with honey over low heat, stirring. Pour the butter mixture over oat mixture and stir until combined well.
In a large jelly roll pan spread granola evenly and bake in middle of oven, stirring halfway through baking, until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Cool granola in pan on a rack and stir in dried fruits. Granola may be kept in an airtight container at cool room temperature 2 weeks.
Preheat oven to 275°F.
Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and reserve.
Combine brown sugar and water in a 4-cup microwave proof glass measuring cup or bowl. Place in microwave on high for 5 minutes and cook until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from microwave, add vanilla extract and salt.
In a large mixing bowl, combine oats, nuts, and brown sugar syrup mixture. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Spread the granola onto cookie sheets and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour or until golden and crunchy.
When the mixture comes out of the oven, it is still very pliable. You may choose to add in dried fruit as a finishing touch at this time. When granola has cooled completely, store in an airtight container.
Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly oil a baking sheet. In a large bowl, combine oats, almonds and coconut. In a small skillet, bring apple juice to a simmer and reduce liquid by half. Stir in salt and honey. Pour liquid over oat mixture and toss to coat. Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown stirring occasionally. As granola cools stir in dried fruit. Serve with milk, yogurt or over fruit.
In a large mixing bowl, combine oats, raisins, almonds, and dried cranberries, walnuts, salt and honey. Stir until well incorporated.
In a small sacue pot add sugar and water and simmer until slight caramel color comes to the liquid. Add butter in small pieces and sitr well with a wire wisk. When butter is well incorporated pour caramel sauce over oats. Stir well and spread over a sheet pan and allow to cool.
Preheat oven to 225°F.
In a small saucepan, combine the oil and syrup and heat, stirring, over low heat. Remove from the heat and add the vanilla extract.
In a large bowl, toss together the wheat germ, sesame seeds, coconut, oats, pumpkin seeds, cashews, and almonds. Add the syrup mixture and stir to coat evenly. Spread the granola mixture out on a baking sheet. Bake until golden brown, about an 1 hour and 30 minutes. Stir the mixture occasionally while baking so it toasts evenly.
Transfer the warm toasted granola to a large bowl and stir in the dried fruits and let cool. Store in a tightly sealed container a room temperature for 2 weeks or freeze for up to 2 months.
In a bowl combine ¼ cup of any 8 of the following items:
Store in an airtight container.
Preheat oven to 325°F.
In a large bowl stir together oats, almonds, coconut, pumpkin or sunflower seeds, and salt. In a small saucepan melt butter with honey over low heat, stirring. Pour butter mixture over oat mixture and stir until combined well.
In a large jelly-roll pan spread granola evenly and bake in middle of oven, stirring halfway through baking, until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Cool granola in pan on a rack and stir in dried fruits. Granola may be kept in an airtight container at cool room temperature 2 weeks.
Preheat oven to 250°F.
In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, coconut, and brown sugar.
In a separate bowl, combine maple syrup, oil, and salt. Combine both mixtures and pour onto 2 sheet pans. Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes to achieve an even color.
Remove from oven and transfer into a large bowl. Add raisins and mix until evenly distributed.
Combine brown sugar, honey, vanilla and butter in a medium-size saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower heat; simmer 2 minutes or until sugar is dissolved. Cool.
Meanwhile, combine granola, coconut, raisins, ½ cup chocolate chips and almonds in a large bowl.
Stir brown sugar mixture into granola mixture. Spread in a 13 by 9 by 2-inch baking pan. Press remaining chocolate chips into top. Refrigerate 2 hours or until completely cooled. Cut into bars.
Shiitake Mushrooms, Lentinus edodes, contain a powerful anti-tumor polysaccharide (a type of large complex carbohydrate molecule) called lentinan.
An important component of traditional Chinese herbal medicine, and one of the most common anti-cancer drugs in Japan, lentinan is used in combination with other types of chemotherapy in the treatment of lung cancer, melanoma, stomach cancer, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer. It is effective in helping to suppress cancer recurrence, and in prolonging the lifespan of cancer patients.
Westminster Abbey Garden, also known as the College Garden, occupies a site that has been a continuous garden for over 900 years. Westminster Abbey, as other abbeys of the time, was originally a hospital, and the senior monk was in charge of treating the elderly and infirm, as well as dispensing medicines to the community at large. There was an orchard and vegetable patch to provide food for the monks and families, and an herbal garden for medicinal use.
Although today synthetic products are available to meet just about every need, before modern times herbs were an important aspect of everyday living. They were used for many functions including dyes, medicines, room deodorizers, and of course cooking. It is these culinary uses that most people think of when they think of herbs, and the most popular reason they are grown in home gardens.
Why spend time sorting through your spice rack for flavorings when you can easily grow herbs to use as a fresh, natural substitute?
All of the most popular cooking herbs are suitable for Pennsylvania’s climate, says Peter Ferretti, professor of vegetable crops in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. “Many herbs are perennials and biennials, so you can take them inside during the winter and put them on a windowsill,” he says. “Herbs are perfect for the first-time gardener because they don’t require a lot of care and, except for herbs in the mint family, they don’t require a lot of water.”
Most gardeners are familiar with the annual sages, or Salvias, usually found in the red versions. There are several perennial sages, however, that come in various colors, some of which are hardy in our cold climate.
Although any aromatic herb is ideal for holiday decorations, wreaths, and table centerpieces, four have biblical links with Christmas. Many crafts shops and florists carry these dried herb plants along with the baskets, bowls, and other trimmings needed for decorating.
Brown the beef in a large pot and drain. Return the beef to the pot with all the remaining ingredients except the buns and cook, stirring, until hot. Divide the beef mixture among the buns and serve immediately.
An herb is any plant that is used in whole or part as an ingredient for flavor or fragrance. To get the most out of herbs, harvest them at their peak of freshness and store or preserve them properly.
Harvest herbs when the soils responsible for flavor and aroma are at their peak. The timing depends on what plant part is being harvested and its intended use.
Most herbs are cultivated for their foliage and should be harvested just before the flower buds open. Although herbs such as chives are quite attractive in bloom, flowering can cause the foliage to develop an off-flavor. Many herbs, especially parsley, chives, mint, and oregano, can be harvested continually for fresh use beginning as soon as the plant has enough foliage to sustain growth. Harvest herbs grown for seeds — dill, caraway, coriander, and cumin, for example — as the fruits change color from green to brown or gray but before they scatter to the ground.
August is harvest time, not just for vegetables, but for herbs you grew in the garden. When to harvest depends on what plant part you are picking, and its intended use.
Herbs should be harvested when flavor and aroma oils are at their peak. The leaves of parsley, mint, oregano, and basil, for example, can be harvested throughout the growing season. Flowers from borage and chamomile should be picked before full flowering.
For freshness and flavor, the best time to harvest herbs is always in the morning just after the dew dries. If you aren’t planning to use them fresh, dry herbs on a clean window screen in a shady location for 10 to 14 days.
Basil is a well-known culinary herb that’s popular in many Italian dishes. But did you know that there are many other uses of this herb, including its use as a tonic to aid in digestion?
The most common use of basil is for cooking, such as in tomato sauce, pesto, or vinegars. But it also can be sprinkled over salads and sliced tomatoes, either whole or chopped. Actually, don’t chop the leaves, but tear them instead for the most flavor.
Heat olive oil in a heavy-based pan. Add onions and cook gently until soft. Add sugar and balsamic vinegar and simmer for 10 minutes. Cover and refrigerate. Will keep for 3 days covered in refrigerator. Return to room temperature or reheat before use.
Serving Size = ¼ cup
Allrecipes® is the leading community-based recipe and meal planning web site on the Internet. The site offers home cooks unique food ideas and resources including recipes, menu ideas, meal preparation tips, special diet content, culinary ware and news. Allrecipes has been mentioned in thousands of print publications nationwide and on countless broadcast features. In addition, Allrecipes has won numerous accolades and awards.
Wine, lemons, and mushrooms flavor this chicken recipe the lower salt and lower fat way.
Yield: 4 servings
Serving Size: 1 chicken breast with ⅓ cup sauce
Each serving provides:
Calories: 277
Total fat: 8 g
Saturated fat: 2 g
Cholesterol: 77 mg
Sodium: 304 mg
Of all the traditions of barbecue, Pulled Pork has held on to its roots far more than any other. Large cuts of tough and difficult pork smoked for hours slowly, then pulled apart by hand and served on a bun or in a pile. While pulled pork has held on to its tradition there is still a lot of variation out there. I’ve tried to bring together the best traditions and my own experiences to put together a method for the best odds pulled pork. While you probably won’t win any competitions with this method you’re sure to please a crowd.
For the pork
Serves 4.
For the sauce and slaw
The Unrivaled Practical Guide for Asian Cooking… demystifies the flavors of the east.
Heat olive oil in a large nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat. When oil is very hot, add onion and garlic; saute until onion begins to brown, Add cubed chicken and brown on all sides; add chopped jalapeno, coriander, cumin, crushed tomatoes and beans. Reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes; add juice of one lime and stir in the corn kernels. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Cook chicken chili, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes longer; serve with sour cream, chopped red onion and chopped cilantro.
Combine egg whites, mayonnaise, parsley, Creole seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and dry mustard. Gently stir in the bread crumbs and crabmeat. Shape mixture into 8 patties, about 2½ inches in diameter. Place patties on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper or non-stick foil; cover and chill for 30 to 60 minutes.
Spray a large nonstick skillet with vegetable cooking spray or use a little olive oil to coat the bottom. Place over medium-high heat. When the skillet is hot, add crab cakes; cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, or until browned.
Makes 4 servings.
New Englanders know brown bread as something dense and sweet, baked in a coffee can and tasting overwhelmingly of molasses. Locals who came here from Ireland, however, know a completely different brown bread: moist, rich, and wheaty, with a large crumb, heady aroma, and buttery flavor. Irish brown bread and its sister, white soda bread, are treasures of the table.
Soda breadmaking came to Ireland with the introduction of baking soda in the 19th century. The soda was married with buttermilk to give the characteristic tang to both brown and white soda breads. Bread was a staple in rural Ireland, and every family had a recipe. Even with today’s thriving economy, the Irish still eat a lot of bread.
Yogurt (also known as yoghurt, yaourt, yoghurd, and yogourt) has been a food staple in the Middle East for millenia, but it didn’t become a mainstay in the United States until the latter part of the 19th century. The Dannon company achieved some minor success in 1947 when it first mixed strawberry preserves into yogurt and offered it as a sweetened dessert.
However, it was health guru Gayelord Hauser who pushed yogurt into the limelight when he proclaimed it a wonder food in his book “Look Younger, Live Longer,” published in 1950. Sales of yogurt skyrocketed, increasing production 500% by 1968. Although no miracle health benefits have been proven to date other than standard nutritional benefits of milk products, yogurt does have some beneficial cooking applications. (In 1962, the FDA ruled that yogurt manufacturers could not make any specific health claims.) It is certainly tasty enough on its own and works well in conjunction with other ingredients.
Cut the cucumber into small pieces, sprinkle with salt and let it stand for 15 minutes.
Drain the water.
Combine yogurt, cucumber, garlic (cut into small pieces), oil, lemon juice, dill and add salt and pepper to taste.
Refrigerate.
A crispy roast chicken, a classic chicken pot pie, a juicy chicken sauté — who doesn’t count a killer chicken recipe or two in his repertoire? At Fine Cooking, we’ve tried a lot of techniques for cooking chicken over the years, and found there’s just no limit to the delicious ways to cook the bird. So picking our favorite ten chicken recipes from the first ten years wasn’t easy. Fortunately we had some help; readers and staff members gave us their picks, plus our every-issue reader surveys gave us the stats on the most popular chicken articles we’ve ever done. Yes, it’s true, there haven’t been a lot of unpopular chicken articles — after all, this isn’t beets or Brussels sprouts we’re talking about! But a few have that special something, like a great technique or a knock-out sauce. Here (in no special order) are the picks. Give them all a try and let us know what your absolute favorite is.
Boil 4 cups of water and dashi. Add tofu and mushrooms, simmer gently about 3 minutes. Add miso and dissolve completely. Immediately turn off the heat and add chopped green onions, then serve.
Note: You have to cook the hard vegetables longer. If you have a combination of soft and hard vegetables, add the soft vegetables later. The miso flavor will weaken if you overcook the miso.
Soba are thin brown buckwheat noodles, usually cooked and served with various toppings and condiments. The standard form is kake soba, “soba in broth.” Kake soba consists of cooked soba noodles in a bowl of hot broth made of dashi, mirin, and shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) and topped with sliced green onions.
In Japan, soba noodles are served in a variety of situations. They are a popular inexpensive fast food at train stations throughout Japan, they are served by exclusive and expensive specialty restaurants, and they are also made at home. Markets sell instant condensed broth and dried noodles to make home preparation easy. The most famous Japanese soba noodles come from Nagano. Soba from Nagano is called Sinano Soba. Other popular noodles in Japan are udon, ramen, and somen.
When thin slices of onions are cooked very slowly in butter and olive oil they reduce to a dark, thick consistency much like a marmalade.
Combine the olive oil and butter in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. When the butter foams, add half of the sliced onions and 2 of the bay leaves. Sprinkle with half of the sugar and half of the salt.
Add remaining onions, bay leaves, sugar and salt. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook for 20 minutes.
Uncover, stir, and increase heat to medium. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Increase heat to high and cook, stirring constantly, until the onions are a deep golden brown, about 10 minutes.
Add the wine and stir, scraping bottom of pan to dislodge any browned bits. Cook for 4 or 5 minutes longer. Serve hot or at room temperature.
Delicious with roast meats or poultry, as well with leftover turkey sandwiches (try topping with a little cranberry sauce).
Makes about 3 cups.
Per ½ cup: 335 calories, 4 g protein;n, 27 g carbohydrate, 24 g fat (8 g saturated), 26 mg cholesterol, 443 mg sodium, 5 g fiber.
Time: 3 hours plus 24 hours’ marinating
Yield: 6 servings.
Time: 50 minutes
Yield: About 20 cookies.
Time: About 1½ hours, plus 1 hour for soaking apricots
Yield: 10 to 12 servings.
Time: 10 to 15 minutes
Yield: 1 serving.
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes, plus 30 minutes’ cooling
Yield: 6 servings.
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
For the cake:
For the frosting:
Yield: 10 to 12 servings.
Caramelized, sweet with a tart hint of balsamic, red wine or other vinegar a delicious confit, onions meltingly soft, is sometimes just the special condiment needed with lamb, roasts and certainly used in the classic way — with duck. Or, just on a good piece of bread! An easy condiment to make, but needing time, make in large batches and preserve (read Food Preserving — Reviving a Tradition in the Food Bytes section for an uncomplicated method for preserving your small batches of food goodies without special equipment — onion confit will keep 9 months or a little more). I prefer using the red onion for my confit because of its natural sweetness and mild taste. However normal cooking onions will also be good and produces a lighter coloured confit. This can be made in advance and warmed or be cooking whilst the rest of the dinner is going!
Serves 4 (recipe can be multiplied easily for larger batches)
Makes about 1 cup
Remove the outer skins and cut away the root. Use a kitchen device or cut by hand thin slices lengthways (from top to root end). Melt the butter over medium high heat in a large pan and drizzle over a little olive oil (this helps to prevent the butter from burning). When it bubbles, add the bay leaves and lay over half of the onion, sprinkle over the sugar and likewise sprinkle the top evenly with salt. Add the rest of the onion. Turn a few times and allow to cook about 15 minutes uncovered. As the juice from the onion releases then reabsorbs, turn frequently to avoid burning as any burnt onion will transfer its bitterness to the whole batch.
Cover and allow to cook another 15 minutes or so until the onions are soft. Add most of the orange juice, stir well and continue to cook another 10 minutes. The juice will absorb somewhat.
Add a good splash of balsamic vinegar and the red wine, stir well and allow to cook off the alcohol. Taste and add more salt or sugar if necessary. After any addition allow the mass to continue to cook a little, adding more orange juice as necessary to keep a thick, product resembling a loose marmalade.
The perfect onion confit has the right balance of salt, sugar and tartness from the vinegar. None of the characteristics should dominate yet one should notice the sweet tartness that is balanced by the salt. Though one refers to a confit as a kind of marmalade, onion confit is not very sweet. The onions may not retain any firmness or crispness, but be meltingly soft!
Serve hot or warm. I especially like to use onion confit when elsewhere in the dinner menu a fruity element is present such as lamb filets grilled with a garnish of red currents or other summer berries, or served with slices of grilled orange. A fruity dessert closes such a meal deliciously.
Note: red wine vinegar or tarragon vinegar can also be used — but adjust the sweetness.
Variations: For a lighter coloured confit use cooking onions or shallots and apple or tarragon vinegar. Use honey or white sugar. Add diced apple at the last 10 minutes of cooking if you like. Use either orange juice or apple juice as the liquid and white wine optionally in place of red wine. This is especially nice with light meats and vegetarian dishes.
Berry Onion Confit — add raspberries toward the end and use raspberry vinegar. Adjust the sweet/salty/tartness ratio. Black or red currents and current vinegar is also wonderful, add just a touch of cassis liquor toward the end of cooking. Use white wine or ros (red wine may be too dominant).
Dark Onion Confit with an exotic touch — cook with a few chopped garlic cloves, add a splash of Soya or Tamara sauce. A splash of Tobasco sauce, Sambal Olek or cooking the onions with one or more dried red chillies adds a hot nip. Do not add too much and keep the balance of sweet/salty/tart equal with the hot element in the background.
Once you understand the technique to making your own onion confit, experiment with other fruit combinations such as adding minced prune, a little garlic, perhaps a pinch or more of cinnamon and no wine for a delicious variation perfect with Lamb Tagine or other North African meat dishe.
The Open Directory Project provides 108 links to Ministrone.
For Bread Machine
Makes one 1-pound loaf
Add all the ingredients to the machine in the order listed. Choose either regular or light crust (depending on your preference) and push “Start.” After the first kneading, or after the indicator beep, add currants or raisins.
Zest one lemon into a medium metal bowl. Whisk the first 3 ingredients into that medium metal bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (do not allow bottom of bowl to touch water). Whisk constantly until thickened and instant-read thermometer inserted into mixture registers 160°F, about 10 minutes. Remove bowl from over water. Add butter; whisk until melted. Transfer 1 cup curd to small bowl for spreading on cake layers. Reserve remaining curd for filling. Press plastic wrap directly onto surface of both curds. Chill overnight. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Keep chilled.)
So, here’s what I did, take a large sauté pan with a fitted lid (the lid is important) and coat the bottom of it with a layer of olive oil, heat this over medium heat until a little drop of water sizzles when you flick it into the pan. Once the oil is hot, add several cloves of thinly sliced garlic (remember this is “to taste” so add more or less accordingly), a large amount of broccoli floret’s that have been trimmed and peeled scrubbed and washed and patted lovingly on their bottoms…”off you go little broccolis,” a large pinch of hot red pepper flakes, a few drops of sesame oil, salt and pepper, and two pats of butter. Mix everything just enough to coat the broccoli then cover with the lid. I forgot to check how much time I left the lid on, so check under the lid frequently. What you’re trying to do is get the broccoli to that “just tender” point when a fork inserted just begins to give a little. Remove the lid, and continue sautéing until the broccoli is as tender as you like but not mushy. Continue cooking with the lid off, resisting the urge to stir, this will make the broccoli break and make a mess in the pan. When the garlic has turned a dark, rich, almost mahogany color, take the pan off the heat, serve and eat. WOW! The broccoli is slightly charred and crispy in certain parts, adding a nice, but not offensive slight bitterness; the garlic is crisp yet also chewy and fragrant and gives off a nutty creamy taste that really goes well with the nuttiness of the sesame oil. The red pepper flakes add a nice heat to the dish without overpowering anything and the salt and pepper enhance the flavor of everything. Yum!
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2003
See this recipe on air Thursday Sep. 09 at 7:00 PM ET/PT.
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 4 servings as a side dish
User Rating: ★★★★★
In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Cook, whisking constantly for 2 to 3 minutes, being careful not to brown the flour. Whisk in mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper until smooth. Add beer and whisk to combine. Pour in cream and whisk until well combined and smooth. Gradually add cheese, stirring constantly, until cheese melts and sauce is smooth; this will take 4 to 5 minutes. Add hot sauce. Pour over toast and serve immediately.
Episode#: EA1G17
Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Place the potatoes directly on the rack in the center of the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Pierce each potato in a couple spots with a fork and continue to bake until tender, about 30 minutes more. Remove potatoes from the oven, and turn the heat down to 375°F.
Hold the potato with an oven-mit or towel, trim off the top of the potatoes to make a canoe-like shape. Reserve the tops. Carefully scoop out most of the potato into a bowl. Take care to leave enough potato in the skin so the shells stay together. Mash the potato lightly with fork along with 2 to 3 tablespoons of the butter and sour cream. Stir in the scallion, nutmeg, and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Season the skins with salt and pepper. Refill the shells with the potato mixture mounding it slightly. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the potato filling. Brush the reserved top with the remaining butter and season with salt and pepper.
Set the potatoes and lids on a baking sheet, and bake until heated through, about 20 minutes. Serve immediately.
There are many ways to make Tortilla Soup. Ours is a chicken-based version, but you could easily make it seafood or vegetarian. The main characteristics of this soup are a medium-bodied broth filled with chunky vegetables, lime and chile, and an overriding richness of corn masa.
Begin with a large pot. Saute the vegetables and chile briefly in about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium-high heat for 3 to 4 minutes. When the vegetables are limp, add the broth and add the garlic and cumin and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, add chicken, and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
Meanwhile (or beforehand), fry the corn tortilla strips in 350°F oil for 2 minutes until crispy. Drain well on paper towels. At the Blue Corn Cafe, we always have tons of chips around so we used crushed ones for garnish on the bottom of the soup bowl… the strips are added at the top. We, of course, use white and blue corn tortillas. If for some reason the blue variety are not available where you live, I suggest you immediately draft a letter to your Congressman! Yes, you can use all white or yellow tortillas.
To finish the soup, you’ve got to make some slurry. Yep… this will add just a little body to the soup. With the cornstarch in a cup-sized container, mix as little cold water as possible to form a thin paste. This stuff feels and looks like… well, slurry. Bring the soup back up to a boil; stir with 1 hand and pour the slurry in slowly with the other. Continue to cook on high heat for a minute, then reduce to low. The soup will look cloudy at first but will clear up and thicken slightly. Remove from heat.
Add cilantro and lime juice. Fill 8 to 12 cups or bowls about ¼ full of crushed tortilla chips. Ladle soup on top. Place a handful of strips on top of each and serve. This soup (without the tortillas) keeps well for 3 to 4 days refrigerated. Tortillas will also keep well for a few days if sealed well and stored at room temperature. In moist climates they may require re-crisping in a 350°F oven for a few minutes.
Enchilada Chicken:
This “machaca” style cooked meat is very versatile: use in tacos, enchiladas, soup, nachos, burritos, etc. Basically a process of braising, the meat and all ingredients are put together in a large pot and brought slowly to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1 to 1½ hours. If you desire, you can bake all of this in a covered dish in a 350°F. oven for about 3 hours for the same results. The meat should be tender to the point where it begins to shred… some of it may require quick chopping. You may want to reserve the liquid for use in soups, etc. Use the cooked meat in your dish right away or refrigerate for up to 3 days.
Yield: 4 to 8 servings
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2003
See this recipe on air Thursday Sep. 09 at 7:00 PM ET/PT.
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 24 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
User Rating: ★★★★★
In medium size mixing bowl, whisk together the half-and-half, eggs, honey, and salt. You may do this the night before. When ready to cook, pour custard mixture into a pie pan and set aside.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Dip bread into mixture, allow to soak for 30 seconds on each side, and then remove to a cooling rack that is sitting in a sheet pan, and allow to sit for 1 to 2 minutes.
Over medium-low heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a 10-inch nonstick saute pan. Place 2 slices of bread at a time into the pan and cook until golden brown, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove from pan and place on rack in oven for 5 minutes. Repeat with all 8 slices. Serve immediately with maple syrup, whipped cream or fruit.
Episode#: EA1G17
Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Yield: 8 to 10 muffins
User Rating: ★★★★★
In a bowl combine the powdered milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar, ½ teaspoon of salt, shortening, and hot water, stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Let cool. In a separate bowl combine the yeast and 1/8 teaspoon of sugar in ⅓ cup of warm water and rest until yeast has dissolved. Add this to the dry milk mixture. Add the sifted flour and beat thoroughly with wooden spoon. Cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.
Preheat the griddle to 300°F.
Add the remaining ½ teaspoon of salt to mixture and beat thoroughly. Place metal rings onto the griddle and coat lightly with vegetable spray. Using #20 ice cream scoop, place 2 scoops into each ring and cover with a pot lid or cookie sheet and cook for 5 to 6 minutes. Remove the lid and flip rings using tongs. Cover with the lid and cook for another 5 to 6 minutes or until golden brown. Place on a cooling rack, remove rings and cool. Split with fork and serve.
*Cook’s Note: Small tuna cans with tops and bottoms removed work well for metal rings.
Episode#: EA1G06
Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved
Herb Egg Noodles:
Heat a large deep skillet with a heavy bottom and a lid over medium high heat. Add bacon to the pan and brown. Remove crisp bacon bits with slotted spoon. Add 1½ tablespoons butter to the pan and melt into bacon drippings. Add mushrooms to the pan and turn to coat evenly with butter and bacon drippings. Season the mushroom slices with salt and pepper. Saute mushrooms 2 to 3 minutes and add onions to the pan. Continue cooking onions and mushrooms 2 to 3 minutes longer, then transfer to a plate and return pan to the heat. Add remaining butter to the pan and melt it, then add meat to the very hot pan and brown evenly on all sides, keeping the meat moving. Add flour to browned meat in the pan and cook the flour 2 minutes. Add wine to the pan slowly while stirring. When the wine comes up to a bubble and you have scraped up the pan drippings, add the stock and bouquet of fresh sage and thyme sprigs to the pot. Cover the pan. When the liquid boils, reduce heat to medium. Cook covered 5 minutes, remove lid and add mushrooms, onions and bacon back to the pot. Simmer with the cover off until sauce thickens a bit. Adjust seasoning and remove herb bouquet.
Toss hot egg noodles with butter and herbs. Place a bed of noodles in a shallow bowl and pour beef burgundy over the noodles and serve.
Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
User Rating: ★★★★★
Bread:
Place the sausages in a large nonstick skillet. Pierce the casings with a fork. Add 1-inch water to the pan. Bring liquid to a boil. Cover sausages, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.
Heat a second skillet over medium high heat. Add oil, 2 turns of the pan. Add garlic, onion, cubanelle and red peppers. Season vegetables with salt and pepper.
Drain sausages and return pan to stove, raising heat back to medium high. Add a drizzle of oil to the skillet, brown and crisp the casings. Remove sausages, slice into 2 inch pieces on an angle and set pieces back into the pan to sear.
Split and toast the bread under broiler. Melt oil, butter together in small pan over medium heat. Add garlic and let it sizzle 1 or 2 minutes. Brush rolls with garlic butter and sprinkle with a little dried Italian seasoning blend.
Combine the cooked peppers and onions to the sausages. Add hot peppers and hot pepper juice to the skillet. Toss and turn the sausage, peppers and onions, picking up all the drippings from the pan. Pile the meat and peppers into the garlic sub rolls and serve.
Episode#: TM1C70
Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved
Dough:
Filling:
Additional ingredients for frying:
In a large mixing bowl, add flour, salt, cream cheese, egg, butter, and milk. With your hands mix together until dough forms a ball. Turn out on a floured board and knead until smooth. You may add a little more flour to make the dough pliable. Divide dough into fourths. Put the pieces under a damp cloth, so it won’t dry out. Roll the first piece to ¼ inch of thickness and cut with a 3-inch cookie cutter or a glass. Put pierogi rounds under damp cloth while cutting the rest.
Filling: This may be made ahead of time! Mash hot potatoes. Saute onion in the butter and add this to the hot mashed potatoes along with the cheddar cheese, salt and pepper. You may add a little milk if too dense. The consistency should be a little thicker than mashed potatoes.
Assembly of pierogis: For each pierogi, place 1 tablespoon of potato mixture in the center of the dough circle. Fold over to form a half circle. Seal edges by pinching together with your fingers. I then take a fork and press all along the edges. Repeat with remaining dough filling.
Cooking pierogis: Fill a large pot half full with water and bring to a boil. Drop 5 or 6 pierogis in at a time. When they float to the top, cook for 1 minute. Place in a colander to drain. They will stick to paper towels. Repeat with remaining pierogis.
Frying pierogis: In a large frying pan saute onion in butter and remove onion to a separate bowl. Place pierogis in pan and cook for 2 mintues on each side. You may have to add more butter for frying. Remove and place in a covered casserole dish. When all pierogis are prepared, pour sauteed onion over the top. Serve with sour cream or applesauce.
Peas, carrots and corn are a good choice because they’re all about the same size so they’ll cook at the same temperature and time. Also, they’re a good size ratio to the rice. Other vegetables can be used but do not put too many veggies in ratio to rice or the rice will get soggy. Also, do not crowd the pan or the veggies will steam instead of cooking crisp and make the final dish soggy. The egg is cooked right before the rice because it has a tendency to stick to the pan and remnants in the pan burn as the other ingredients are cooked. When cooked right before the rice, any remnants become incorporated into the rice. Although jasmine rice is preferable, any kind of long grain rice can be used. Avoid using medium and short-grained rice as they tend to be sticky. Also, the rice should not be warm fresh rice, otherwise it will also tend to be sticky.
Heat a large heavy-bottomed nonstick skillet over high heat. When hot add 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add the ham and cook stirring occasionally until lightly browned. Add the onions to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes until onion is fragrant Add the garlic, ginger, and scallion whites and stir-fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the frozen vegetables. Cook until just defrosted but still crisp. Transfer contents of the skillet to a large bowl.
Return the pan to the heat and add 2 more tablespoons of oil. Add the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Stir the eggs constantly and cook until almost set but still moist, then transfer egg to the bowl. Break the eggs up with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Return the pan to the heat and add the remaining oil. Add the rice to the pan and use a spoon to break up any clumps. Season with salt and pepper and stir-fry the rice to coat evenly with oil. Stop stirring, and then let the rice cook undisturbed until its gets slightly crispy, about 2 minutes. Stir the rice again, breaking up any new clumps. Add the scallion greens. Transfer to the bowl. Stir all the ingredients together with the rice, taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, if necessary. Serve.
This dessert is both rustic and refined. It can be served either warm, right out of the oven, or at room temperature. Additionally, you can make individual muffin-like servings.
Seek out organic, local ingredients: winter carrots, farm-fresh eggs and stone-ground flour. Carrot cake for Easter – what could be cuter!
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Place the eggs in a bowl of an electric mixer. Whisk on high until ribbons form, about 10 minutes. Stop whisking. Add the oil, sugar and salt. Mix to combine.
Sift together all of the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Fold in carrots, raisins, currants and pineapple.
Pour batter into six large, buttered muffin tins or one buttered nine-inch cake pan. Bake at 375°F for 20 to 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Let the cake rest 10 minutes before removing from pan.
At the restaurant we serve these individual cakes with candied carrots, brown butter pears and carrot-orange sorbet.
Advance Preparation: The cake may be made ahead, allowed to cool completely, wrapped and refrigerated until needed. Allow the cake to come to room temperature or reheat the uncut cake in a 250°F for 10 minutes or until warm in the center.
Wine recommendation from Peerless: 2001 Casta Diva, Alicante Muscat. Lovely perfume, subtle floral and fruity notes, as well as a ginger or nutmeg. The wine is sweet but not syrupy. The finish is very honeyed and exceptionally long.
Makes six individual cakes or one 9-inch round cake
We are pleased to offer you a taste of over twenty of Dry Creek Vineyard’s exclusive recipes created by Dry Creek Vineyard staff, family members, and world class chefs.
From Food Network Kitchens
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
User Rating: ★★★★
Serving suggestion: Lemon wedges, thyme sprigs for garnish
*(Use a bread with low or no sugar content-otherwise, like sourdough or the coating will brown too quickly)
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
To make bread crumbs: Trim the crust off the bread and discard, tear bread into pieces. Spread bread out on a microwave-safe plate, and microwave on HIGH for 1 minute to dry out the bread. (Alternately, spread the bread out on a baking sheet and dry in a preheated 300°F oven for 22 to 25 minutes.) Pulse the dried bread or crumbs in a food processor with the thyme, lemon zest, ¾ teaspoon salt, and pepper.
With the flat side of a cook’s knife or the smooth side of a meat-pounder, pound each breast to equal thickness. Put the flour, eggs, and the bread crumbs each separately in 3 shallow dishes. Pat the chicken dry and season both sides with salt and pepper. Dip each breast into the flour, then shake off the excess. Next, run the breast through the egg to coat it lightly and hold the chicken over the liquid to let any excess fall back into the bowl. Finally, lay the chicken in the bread crumbs, turn it over and press it into the breading to coat. Lay on a piece of waxed paper.
Heat a large skillet (12 inches in diameter) over medium heat. Add the oil. Lay 2 chicken breasts smooth-side down in the pan. Cook the chicken without turning until beginning to brown, about 2 minutes. Turn the chicken and cook until equally brown on the other side, about 2 minutes more. Repeat with the remaining 2 breasts. Transfer chicken to a paper towel lined plate to drain. Place all 4 breasts on a rack over a baking pan and bake until firm to the touch, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve immediately with lemon wedges.
Episode#: BW2C02
Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 12 muffins
User Rating: ★★★★
Preheat oven to 380°F.
In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
In another large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, egg and yogurt. Add the dry ingredients reserving 1 tablespoon of the dry ingredients and toss with the blueberries. Stir mixture for a count of 10. Add 1 cup blueberries to mixture and stir 3 more times. Reserve the ½ cup of blueberries.
Using a #20 ice cream scoop, add the mixture to greased muffin pans. Sprinkle the remaining ½ cup of berries on top of muffins and press down lightly. Place into the oven and increase the temperature to 400°F. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pan halfway through. Remove from oven and turn out, upside down on tea towel to cool completely. Serve immediately or store in airtight container for 2 to 3 days.
Episode#: EA1G06
Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved
Constant basting with this lively sauce ensures moist chops and plenty of flavor. Warm potato salad with tarragon and white wine is the natural accompaniment.
For the classic barbecue sauce:
Make the barbecue sauce: heat the oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion and garlic until soft and lightly browned, 4-5 minutes. Grate the zest from the lemon and squeeze the juice. Add the lemon zest, half the lemon juice, the sugar, vinegar, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce and chili powder to the onion and simmer gently, 5 minutes. Taste, adjust the seasoning and let cool.
Light the grill. Season the pork chops with salt and pepper and brush with the cooled barbecue sauce. Grill them, basting often, 5-7 minutes. Turn over and continue grilling and basting until the chops are done, 5-7 minutes longer.
Serves 4.
Purée all of the sauce ingredients (everything except the pork and the buns) in a blender until smooth. Put sauce and pork into a large pot and add 1 quart of water. Bring mixture to a boil and simmer, covered, turning frequently, for 2 hours or until the meat pulls apart easily with a fork. Remove from heat and cool pork in the sauce. When cool, shred the pork into small pieces. Remove the pork from the sauce and set aside. Reduce the sauce by two thirds. Add the pork back to the sauce. Serve hot over open-face hamburger buns.
Serves 6 to 8.
If you have extra time, marinate the pork in the sauce overnight or for several hours before cooking.
Recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse, 2003
Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Cook Time: 3 minutes
Yield: 8 servings
User Rating: ★★★★★
Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Thinly slice ½ of the lemon and ½ of the orange. Combine in large pitcher. Juice the other halves of the lemon and orange and add juice and rinds to the pitcher. Add the apple, wine, Grand Marnier and chilled syrup to the pitcher and stir until well mixed. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, about 2 hours. Serve straight up or on the rocks.
Episode#: EE2D09
Copyright © 2003 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved
A draft advisory from the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency cautions women of childbearing age as well as young children to limit their intake of tuna and other fish and shellfish to 12 ounces a week, the equivalent of two to three modest meals. Among seafood, tuna ranks second only to shrimp in popularity in the United States.
The government is also advising consumers to mix the types of fish they eat and not to eat any one kind of fish or shellfish more than once a week. The FDA had previously warned pregnant women against eating shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish because they contain unusually high levels of mercury, but until now the agency has not directly addressed concerns about tuna or issued warnings for so large a segment of the population.
The advisory notes that mercury levels in tuna vary, and that tuna steaks and canned albacore tuna generally contain higher levels of mercury than canned light tuna. The document advises pregnant and nursing women: “You can safely include tuna as part of your weekly fish consumption.”
Breakfast was a waffle with maple syrup, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.
At lunch time I had a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.
Gretchen and I made two more batches of HOT salsa and a batch of marinera sauce this afternoon, during which I had two more bottles of Saranac Pale Ale.
Dinner was half a rack of spare ribs, baked beans, and another bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.
Breakfast was a bowl of cold cereal, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.
Lunch was a bowl of Potato Leek Soup, a slice of Italian bread, and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.
While doing chores during the afternoon, I had the opportunity to have two more bottles of Saranac Pale Ale.
Dinner was two ears of sweet corn, and a salad of tomato and cucumber with Balsamic Vinaigrette.
Breakfast was three slices of toasted Italian bread with honey, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.
I had another cup of coffee at the office.
I walked over to the HUB at lunch with some of the guys from the office — about three miles, round trip — and had Panda Express orange chicken with mixed vegetables on chow mein noodles and a fortune cookie.
There’s a secret romance blooming!
Go for it, in spite of your hesitation.
Lucky Numbers 10, 14, 41, 44, 45, 46
Dinner was two bowls of Potato Leek Soup, three slices of Foolproof Focaccia, and two bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
Gretchen and I got up early again today and went for a morning walk. We went down to the edge of town and back. That is around 2½ miles. Breakfast was a bowl of cold cereal, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee. I weighed 157 pounds.
At the office I had another cup of coffee.
I made a mid morning snack of an Act II Mini Bag microwave popcorn.
I took a 4 mile walk around campus over lunch and stopped along the way at the Penn State Creamery for a Heath Bar ice cream cone.
Dinner was pasta salad, two slices of Foolproof Focaccia, applesauce, and two bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
I went for a lower body workout at the MBNA Fitness Center tonight:
I am really surprised at this, but I think I want to increase everything next time. Great workout. I felt like dancing afterwards.
As food-science dweeb Alton Brown of the Food Network’s “Good Eats” explains it, tomatoes contain numerous and complex chemical compounds that contribute to their flavor. Below 50°F, Brown says, some of those compounds “turn off” — permanently. Chill your tomato, and that extra tomato-y something special that would have danced on your tongue is gone for good.
On the flip side, Brown says, some of those compounds are also alcohol-soluble, and otherwise inert, so cooking your tomatoes with wine, or with vodka, as in one classic pasta sauce, makes them even more flavorful.
So respect the compounds. Keep the chill off, give your tomatoes a swig of something fermented, and they’ll stay happy. If your tomatoes are happy, you’ll be happy, too.