| Soup up your soup | | Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 3:11:36 PM by Blog57 Team | | Soup may be the ultimate convenience comfort food for cold weather. From childhood, we've been hard-wired for it: a bowl of Campbell's tomato with a grilled-cheese sandwich on a blustery January night; a mug of steamy chicken noodle to ward off the sniffles. Chances are, though, our tastes have become more refined since we lost our baby teeth. And most cooks experience at least a twinge of guilt when fixing supper consists of dumping a can into a pan -- or zapping a cup in the microwave. Sometimes, though, all it takes is one extra touch to lift a canned soup out of the doldrums. I'm thinking of a recent chilly night, when I found myself staring bleakly into my fridge, clutching a can of tomato soup. My eye fell on a rather extravagant round of imported truffled pecorino cheese.... | |
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| | | Soup sticks to ribs on cold evenings | | Posted Tuesday, January 09, 2007 1:24:52 PM by Blog57 Team | | Some foods belong to the season. This is certainly true of the summer produce that comes from the garden, and it also applies to the deep-flavored and stick-to-the-ribs dishes that are so appealing on a cold winter evening. Certain soups fall into this category. In winter, I like a soup with substance that can serve as a meal in itself. Stews are in this category, but there's one meatless soup that earns this distinction as well. That's French onion soup. This is one of the first “dinner soups" I learned to make. When I was a college student, French onion soup was appealing because its ingredients were relatively cheap, it was simple, and it offered a way to use up a stale loaf of crusty bread. I've made it with a number of cheeses, my favorite being a mix of mozzarella and Parmesan.... | |
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| | | Turkey and side dishes | | Posted Tuesday, November 14, 2006 7:34:31 AM by Blog57 Team | | While it's available all year 'round, Turkey takes center stage at this time of the year. But having the right "supporting cast" can make your Thanksgiving Dinner a hit. Chef Robert Sikkila of the Renaissance Chicago Hotel shares his favorite recipes for Herb Roasted Turkey and several side dishes to go along with the big bird. .... | |
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| | | Soup recipes flowing steadily | | Posted Sunday, November 12, 2006 1:45:51 PM by Blog57 Team | | Soup's on! Reader Lyn Fleming of Escondido had requested some ideas for speedy soups, and we ran a few in last week's column. Here are some more:"I am sending two of my favorites," writes Terri Devlin of Escondido. "The corn chowder is from my cousin, who surprises friends and leaves it on their counter in a crock pot cooking while they are at work during the day." What a great neighbor your cousin is, Terri! CORN CHOWDER .... | |
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| | | Cundiff wins County Cuisine Best of Show | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 7:29:11 PM by Blog57 Team | | With the 2006 Tobacco & Heritage Festival behind us, I am left with many good memories of seeing family, friends, classmates, an old boyfriend or two, flipping pancakes at the Rotary Pancake Breakfast and adding several great recipes to my recipe box.On Saturday, Oct. 7, we welcomed a new event to the Tobacco and Heritage Festival, the 2006 Cuisine Cook-off. It was a total success, we are proud to say, that featured 26 dishes that filled10 categories. Let me rephrase that, it seems that Logan County does not have any cooks that enjoy preparing casseroles or light and healthy dishes so we had 26 dishes that filled the remaining eight categories.Those remaining categories and their winners were as follows: Appetizers with Zelma Cundiff taking the prize with her Baked Country Ham; Dip; Soups & Salads with Sue Penrod winning with her family favorite Chili Recipe; in the Bread category Elaine Turner won with her hearty Pumpkin Bread; the Main Dish section was taken once again by Zelma Cundiff and her mouth-watering French Steak and Onion Gravy dish;in the Desserts we had two winners with Judy Suiter submitting her delicious Hospitality Pie and Joy Atkinson with her Root Beer Cake (she said that if you add vanilla ice cream to this it is just like eating a root beer float); and last, but definitely not least, was Patsy Taylor and her Butter Pecan Ice Cream (this was made even more delicious by the use of roasted pecans that tasted like they had been sprinkled with sugar).The 'best of show' was taken by an appetizer- the judges were shocked when they came down to the appetizer as the winner- but for them it was different, tasty and “Best of Show." The appetizer, being Zelma Cundiff's Baked Country Ham Dip, brought her the title of Queen of Cuisine for Logan County.The three judges- Clarence Gamble, Linda Hatler and Stanley Knight- felt that this was a tough job but that “someone had to do it" and they were glad to oblige for the betterment of the county.The Logan County Chamber of Commerce andI would like to thank everyone for his or her support for this new event and we hope that over the next 12 months that you will be working hard in your kitchens to come up with a new and delicious recipe to enter in the 2007 Cuisine Cook-off.Hope to see you there on Saturday, Oct.... | |
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| | | Soup and salad chain eschews the fat | | Posted Thursday, November 09, 2006 7:36:33 AM by Blog57 Team | | Souper Salad is joining the anti-trans fat band wagon. The San Antonio soup and salad restaurant chain, which has several Houston-area locations, has set a goal of becoming trans fat-free by Dec. 12. "This was not an easy process for us since we serve hundreds of recipes with a huge number of ingredients," said Hazem Ouf, Souper Salad president and CEO. "It was a massive undertaking that took more than a year to complete, but one we felt good about." .... | |
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| | | Weekend Beat/ Chef's Passport: Cooking with 'a happy, good heart' | | Posted Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:39:22 AM by Blog57 Team | | Samiha Bayoumy would have loved to share some of her recipes for this story, but there was one problem--she doesn't use them. "I work without recipes," says the chef of the Egyptian Embassy. "I don't know spoons or cups, I just make the dishes. I often have to taste." Born in 1950 and raised in Giza, 15 minutes from the great pyramids, Bayoumy learned to cook at a young age. "I grew up in a traditional home where my mother and grandmother always cooked. I was required to learn from them as a young girl." Her eyes sparkle as she describes the intricacies of making dolma, stuffed grape-vine leaves, and other dishes from her childhood. Though cooking was a requirement, she never considered it a chore. "I loved it from the beginning. It's always been one of my favorite pastimes, and I think it's because I learned it with a happy, good heart," she says in her native Arabic.... | |
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| | | Pumpkin soup a great make-ahead meal for any fall night | | Posted Thursday, November 02, 2006 7:07:05 AM by Blog57 Team | | Pumpkins bring color and festivity to many doorsteps and front yards this time of year. They can also brighten up the dinner table. Many people may be looking forward to pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but don't wait until then to enjoy colorful pumpkins. Pumpkin soup is a great make-ahead meal for Halloween or any other fall night. Pumpkin is technically a vegetable that belongs to the same species as winter squash. And most winter squash and pumpkins can be prepared the same way. Soup recipes for pumpkin go one of two ways. They either begin with raw cubes or pureed or mashed, cooked pumpkin. Canned pumpkin, which is cooked and pureed, is an acceptable substitute for fresh, and it saves some prep work. But some soups, particularly chowders, benefit from a chunky texture, and fresh pumpkin is needed.... | |
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| | | Sweet potato pie a delicious addition to fall table | | Posted Monday, October 30, 2006 11:37:21 AM by Blog57 Team | | It has arrived. Two years behind schedule, nearly 600 pages long and brimming with wonderful recipes, stories and photographs, it's "The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook" (Norton, 2006). The Lee brothers are Matt and Ted, Ivy League graduates who did most of their serious growing up in Charleston, S.C., and never got over the boiled peanuts, scuppernong grapes, Duke's mayonnaise, deep-fried pork rinds and fried green tomatoes they found there. Living in New York City after college, they began their now-famous mail-order business, The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue (www.boiledpeanuts.com), and took to the road to discover sources of every kind of Southern specialty, from stone-ground grits to pure sorghum. Along the way, they started writing about what they found, and getting articles published in many of the glossiest of magazines as well as newspapers.... | |
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| | | Friday Top 10: spam recipes we learnt from Gmail | | Posted Sunday, October 29, 2006 1:27:53 PM by Blog57 Team | | You've probably noticed the Google ads that sit on the page when you're using Gmail. It's one of the ways Google makes money out of your free email service. But have you noticed they also appear at the top of the page when you click on your Spam folder. And because they're related to the content that you're reading, they're always recipes involving spam (the food) from the same website, RecipeSource? Anyway, here's Tech Digest's pick of the, er, tastiest recipes that we've noticed while clearing out our Gmail spam folder. 1. Spam Vegetable Strudel. Good for vegetarians (apart from the spam part) 2. Vineyard Spam Salad. i.e. it has grapes in it. 3. Spam Primavera. Popular in Italy. Possibly. 4. Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches. Makes me whistle the Star Wars theme.... | |
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