Archive for September, 2009
Fall Promo – Enjoy the Harvest and Save Time and Money
(From the Beef Entree Collection at emealsforyou.com)
aBeef Bourguignon
It’s time to enjoy the hearty dishes of Fall. Come enjoy the harvest with us. Use HARVES -16 to save $7 off a full year’s membership to emealsforyou.com; that’s only $29 to help you plan your meals. We have hundreds of recipes, meal plans and suggestions to assist you in saving time and money. Choose the recipes and meal plans you like, scale them to the number of people you are cooking for and print a shopping list. It’s that easy!
Add comment September 29, 2009
Recipe of the Week- Heritage Tomato Salad
(From the Salad Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Heritage Tomato Salad
I am a little late in getting this post written, I have been in New Jersey doing some of my mother-in-law’s (to do list) and cooking up a storm for family and friends. Caesar salads, Salmon Roulades and many of the “usual” suspects have been flying out of the kitchen. My Chicken Paprikash was especially good last night.
We had an interesting dessert the other night. I started out making Vanilla Gelato and when I got to the part where I am supposed to add the vanilla I found out my mother- in-law was out of vanilla. I had the custard in the pan so I reached for the honey and good ole Jack Daniels. A gurb of the honey and a spritz of the Jack and we were in business. We later found a large bottle of vanilla in the cupboard but my wife says forget the Vanilla Gelato and go with the Jack Daniels gelato every time.
Sadly it is the end of summer and soon we will be getting into the Fall cooking season, not that I don’t like all the soups, stews et al that goes with cooler weather; just that I really like the summer veggies, especially the tomatoes. Get out and find those last of the season heirloom tomatoes and put together a quick and really good salad to celebrate the good tastes of the summer.
Heritage Tomato Salad
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Salad |
| Meal: | Other (General) |
| 1 | lb | heritage tomato |
| 2 | Tb | cilantro |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 0.5 | medium | lemon, juice of |
| 0.25 | cup | cheese, feta, crumbled |
| 1 | cloves | garlic, minced |
| 0.5 | tsp | pepper, fresh cracked |
| 1 | tsp | salt, kosher |
Cut tomatoes into bite size wedges. Place in bowl, add remaining ingredients, toss, let rest for 10 minutes and serve.
1 comment September 23, 2009
Recipe of the Week – Easy Berry Tart
(From the Dessert Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Easy Berry Tart
I was baking some tart shells to take on our next trip to New Jersey when my neighbor said she was having some family over for dinner yesterday. She doesn’t bake and I had the shells made already… so I decided to put a quick dessert together to send down to her.
This is a really easy dessert to put together. If you have the tart shell made, you can make them and freeze them for a later use, this tart takes about 10 minutes to to construct. Using a box of pudding and pie filling and two cups of milk; you create a dessert that looks great and taste even better. A nice way to salute the passing of the summer season.
Easy Berry Pie
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 8 |
| Category: | Dessert |
| Meal: | N/A |
| 1 | recipe | tart shell |
| 2 | Tb | raspberry jam |
| 1 | box | pie filling, vanilla |
| 0.75 | cup | strawberries, whole |
| 0.75 | cup | raspberries, fresh |
| 0.75 | cup | blueberries |
| 1 | Tb | sugar, white, optional |
Make and bake tart shell according to the recipe found under recipe/dessert/tart dough. Allow to cool. Spread raspberry jam evenly on the bottom of the tart shell. Make the vanilla pie filling according to instructions on the box. Pour filling into tart shell and spread evenly. Quarter strawberries and place with blueberries and raspberries in a bowl; add a little sugar if the berries aren’t quite ripe. Toss berries together and spread on top of tart. Refrigerate until served.
Add comment September 14, 2009
Dinner Parties as a Lost Art Form – A Rant
Summer Dinner Party
For those of us who enjoy cooking, dinner parties are the best way to showcase new recipes or highlight old ones. They are a chance to get together with old friends and to meet new ones. A chance to share ideas and thoughts with like-minded people and on some occasions a chance to hone our debating skills with those that don’t exactly agree with us. This is true whether inviting another couple for a summer dinner or large sit-down parties for the roving hordes. The conversation is the reason… the food the enticement.
So it is with sadness that I find holding a dinner party has become almost impossible in today’s rapid-paced, everyone-going-in-different-directions world. It used to be deciding on the menu was the hardest part of the planning; now just finding enough people to invite has become the most difficult part.
Obstacles include those with kids’ sport programs that conflict with the party, and those who are consistently on a diet; there is nothing like preparing a great meal only to find someone picking at their food like a kid forced to eat eggplant. Then there are the people who add nothing to the conversation, remember this is why you have the party in the first place. Filling a table of eight has become harder than making Julia Child’s Hollandaise while in a body cast.
Bottom line is I hope that I have not lost my touch, hope the dinner party isn’t a lost art; maybe it is only a sign of the times. For those few of us left let’s raise our glasses in hope of a swing back to what we would call better times.
2 comments September 10, 2009
Recipe of the Week – Breads
(From the Breads Collection at emealsforyou.com)
I found a new bread recipe the other day and decided I needed to get back into the bread baking mode. Maybe I overdid it a little but once you have flour all over the kitchen why not make more. My wife mentioned she would like to have some date nut bread; I call it date and nut bread but then again she “knows” better. ( updated correction: she looked it up on the Internet and looks like she is right and I am wrong; for the first time I might add) Anyway, so there I was making rye bread and the date nut bread and why not add some ciabatti to the mix.
I especially like the ciabatti and rye breads as they develop their taste and “crumb” texture by resting overnight on the counter. Once you learn how to deal with the really moist, sticky dough it is a simple task to shape the loaves and bake them. The date / nut bread takes about 5 minutes to mix; although you have to let the dates and nuts sit in hot water for 15 minutes. I usually bake them in small loaves, then freeze them. A minute in the microwave when I feel like eating some is quick and always a special treat.
The recipes are on the website: emealsforyou.com along with many more. Now that Fall is coming I will begin to try different artisan breads and pass along the ones that work to you.
Date & Nut Bread
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 10 |
| Category: | Breads |
| Meal: | other (General) |
| 1 | cup | Dates, dried, chopped |
| 1 | cup | walnuts, chopped |
| 0.33 | cup | karo syrup, dark |
| 1.5 | tsp | baking soda |
| 0.5 | tsp | salt, kosher |
| 3 | Tb | butter, unsalted |
| 0.75 | cup | water |
| 2 | large | egg |
| 0.75 | cup | sugar, white |
| 0.5 | cup | flour, wheat |
| 1 | cup | flour, all-purpose |
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a 81/2 X 41/2 X 3 inch loaf pan.
Put dates, walnuts, baking soda, salt, karo syrup and butter in a bowl. Heat water to the boil and pour on top of date mixture. Let stand for 15 minutes.
Beat eggs and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the flours and stir. Add in the date mixture and stir until well blended. Pour batter into the loaf pan and bake 40 -50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Slide a knife around pan and invert over a serving plate. May be frozen.
Add comment September 7, 2009
New Feature – What’s Cooking!
Look for our new feature “What’s Cooking!” in the sidebar. We will keep you informed as to what we are cooking that day from the recipes and meal plans on emealsforyou.com.
2 comments September 3, 2009
Your Refrigerator Door Can Kill You – A Rant
I went to get something off the shelf of my refrigerator door the other day and noticed a partial can of pumpkin sitting there. Now thinking back to the last time I used any canned pumpkin I realized that it had been on the shelf for about 8 weeks. This got me thinking about all the other condiments, jars and containers that were in my fridge and had been for quite a while.
We buy stuff all the time and simple store the opened containers in the fridge. I remember years ago my wife was home recovering from some surgery and decided to make herself a salad; she reached for the Ranch dressing bottle and poured it over the salad. A very few hours later she was in tremendous pain and realized that the dressing was way beyond its limit. Luckily, hers was a mild case of food poisoning and she was only sick for 24 hours.
Here is what we should be doing… take a good look at the jars and bottles that are in our fridges. Check out the buy by date on everything, if it is beyond that date; throw it out. If you are probably not going to use it again; throw it out. Those few ounces aren’t going to make or break you but they could give you a good dose of food poisoning. And oh yeah, next time your visit your mom, take a look at her refrigerator door. Chances are she has something that resembles a “chia pet” growing on her shelves.
Add comment September 3, 2009
