Slashfood

Chefs, Cheese and Champagne - The Seattle Times in 60 Seconds

Emily Farris — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: West Coast, Newspapers, In Sixty Seconds

Vegan mashed potatoes and gravy. Photo: chotda, Flickr.

Contrary to popular belief, Champagne prices are apparently dropping; here's how to buy.
If beer is more your style, here are some suggestions for what to pair with your Thanksgiving dinner.
And turkey basics from the USDA allow for more drink and less think next Thursday.
A columnist offers three steps to "fool-proof" gravy.
Local chefs share their favorite Thanksgiving recipes.
The Pacific Northwest Cheese Project, a blog about local cheeses, is now a book.
The Thomas Street Bistro runs more like a dinner party than a restaurant.

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Pumpkin Pie - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Thanksgiving, Feast Your Eyes, Fall

Pumpkin pie. Photo: Flickr/maggiejane.

Whether you make it from scratch, from a can or you buy it from a store, no Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a pumpkin pie.

This one, from Flickr user maggiejane, is a little bit store bought, a little bit from a can and a little bit homemade. On her blog, Pithy and Cleaver, she writes that while she uses a premade frozen pie crust, the filling is canned pumpkin mixed with eggs, sugar, molasses and spices like cinnamon, ginger and clove.

Sounds to us like a little bit of work for a whole lot of Thanksgiving flavor.

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Classic Mac 'n' Cheese - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Cheese, America, Feast Your Eyes

Macaroni and Cheese. Photo: Ezra Pound Cake, Flickr.

There are few dishes more American than macaroni and cheese. Forget that we credit the Italians for pasta and the French for "the good cheese" -- it's here in the United States where we bring the two together together in glorious, comforting harmony.

Rumor has it that Thomas Jefferson introduced the dish to the United States. And though a boxed version was made wildly popular by Kraft over many decades, home and professional chefs have taken back the comfort food, and now make gourmet versions like this one from blogger Ezra Pound Cake.

This take on classic macaroni and cheese, adapted from a recipe in "The Gift of Southern Cooking," is made with grated onion, sour cream, half-and-half, heavy cream, Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard, eggs and cayenne pepper, as well as noodles and cheddar cheese. Fattening and flavorful -- just the way American comfort food should be.

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Thanksgiving Prep - Nine Days to Go

Emily Farris — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Holidays, Thanksgiving, Fall

Pecan pie. Photo: ImipolexG, Flickr.

Each Tuesday until Turkey Day, we're bringing you preparation tips to ensure your Thanksgiving is as smooth as your gravy (should be). And guess what? There are only two Tuesdays to go! If you've been following our advice, there's no need to freak out, but even if you haven't, there's still no need to freak out -- just, uh, expedite.

By this point, you should have gotten a head count, ordered your turkey, and planned your menu. You also should have asked your guests to bring something, purchased some non-perishables (or not not-too-perishables) and figured out how you're going to seat everyone at your tiny table. If you've already done all of those things, great! If not, there's still time, you might just need to rush. But first and foremost, order that bird!

So, with the majority of your shopping done and your house filled with mismatched chairs and borrowed stock pots, what is left to do?

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Stationary Dining Cars, Vineyards and Low-Fat Cheese Dip - The Kansas City Star in 60 Seconds

Emily Farris — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Midwest Cities, In Sixty Seconds

Blue Cheese. Photo: dewet, Flickr.

Science claims that men really can drink women under the table.
An elderly couple commemorates Veteran's Day with homemade Danish Peppernuts.
At Parkville's Iron Horse your seating options are "car" or "caboose."
A roundup of festive, locally made foods, including some non-perishables.
A blue cheese dip made with turkey bacon, skim cheese and non-fat milk is not so bad for you.
A Missouri winemaker attempts Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Mourvedre, all on his 10-acre vineyard.
Students of the Broodmoor Bistro host a James Beard Night.

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A Bottle of White - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Wine, Holidays, Thanksgiving, Feast Your Eyes

Sauvignon Blanc. Photo: stevesteve8383, Flickr.

Thanksgiving is about turkey, stuffing and sweet potatoes (or yams, depending on who you ask). But it's also about finding an affordable wine to go along with such a feast -- especially if the host is calculating a pound of turkey and a bottle of wine per person (as any good Turkey Day host or hostess should).

This beautiful bottle of 2005 Sauvignon Blanc, captured by Flickr user stevesteve8383, would certainly do the trick ... though we might have to do a little taste test just to make sure.

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Tasty Tours, Thanksgiving Recipes and Famous Food Editors - The Los Angeles Times in 60 Seconds

Emily Farris — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: West Coast, In Sixty Seconds

Stuffing. Photo: tiny banquet committee, Flickr.

In a city where it seems most everyone drives everywhere, two sisters lead a taste tour, on foot.
But a trip on the light rail can be just as delicious.
Now that Gourmet is gone -- and with it, Ruth Reichl -- Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Barbara Fairchild steps into the spotlight at Condé Nast.
A round-up of gravy and stuffing recipes from the Los Angeles Times' test kitchen.
Drinking juice at breakfast? You might as well be chugging soda.
Raising your child on a vegetarian diet? If so, meat may become the forbidden fruit.
Even though the picks may not be perfect, it's lime season in California.
Dining guide "EAT: Los Angeles 2010" hits bookstore shelves Dec. 1.

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Romanesco - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Vegetables, Feast Your Eyes, Fall

Romanesco broccoli. Photo: Flickr/Prix Fixe.

No, you're not looking at an enchanted forest on a planet made of Play-Doh, you're looking at broccoli. Sort of. It's Romanesco, a fractal vegetable from the broccoli family. It's sometimes called Romanesco broccoli and perhaps better known as the Broccoflower, as it's often mistaken for a broccoli-cauliflower hybrid (which, as we understand, does exist and looks a lot like Romanesco).

We have to admit though, we're not too concerned with its classification -- what we really want to know is how it tastes sautéed with butter and sea salt.

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Grocery Deals, Sweet Potatoes and PB&J - The Lawrence Journal World in 60 Seconds

Emily Farris — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Midwest Cities, In Sixty Seconds

Peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Photo: tamdotcom, Flickr.

If your plate is larger than 9 inches across, you're probably eating too much.
Many Kansans are quick to turn their noses up at turnips, but it seems everyone wants locally grown sweet potatoes.
A small-town barbecue-joint bartender made it all the way to the big time -- sort of. He went before Judge Judy in a carding case.
A mom on a budget hits three grocery stores to find the best deals.
One writer says the numbers don't lie when it comes to determining our national sandwich -- and he believes the clear winner is peanut butter & jelly.

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Thanksgiving Prep - Three Weeks Out

Emily Farris — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Holidays, Thanksgiving

Cranberry sauce. Photo: MGF/Lady Disdain, Flickr.

Technically there are only two weeks and two days until Thanksgiving, but each Tuesday until Turkey Day, we're bringing you preparation tips to ensure your Thanksgiving is as smooth as your gravy (should be).

By this point, you should have a head count and have already placed an order for an appropriately sized turkey. You may have made an outline of your menu. Now it's time for the heavy lifting.

1. Finalize your menu.
You should have a rough idea of what you're going to serve for the holiday meal. Now it's time to decide how many pounds of Brussels sprouts you'll need and how you're going to prepare them. Are you going to brine your turkey? What kind of rolls are you serving? Salted or unsalted butter? Are you making pies or asking someone else to bring them? Now is the time to make all of those decisions, and then make a shopping list based on the recipes for each dish.

Continue reading Thanksgiving Prep - Three Weeks Out

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Pomegranate Pulled Pork - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Pork, Meat, Feast Your Eyes, Sandwiches

Pulled pork sandwich. Photo: rachel is coconut&lime, Flickr.

When it comes to combining fat and starch in the most delicious way possible, a pulled pork sandwich is right up there with macaroni and cheese. What is more satisfying than pork roasted low and slow, pulled, seasoned and then generously piled upon a fluffy white bun specked with toasted sesame seeds? Nothing, we say. Not even mac 'n' cheese.

And when you consider the time and effort that goes into a sandwich like this one from Flickr user rachel is coconut&lime, the pork is the clear winner -- especially because of its secret ingredient.

With most sandwiches, what you see is what you get. Not so with this pomegranate pulled pork. That's right, not only was the pork roasted with pomegranate arils (the seeds), Rachel also used pomegranate molasses, rendering the meat smoky, spicy and sweet.

It looks so good we could eat it every day. Good thing it's not that bad for you.

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Soups, Steakhouses and Beer Samples - The Denver Post in 60 Seconds

Emily Farris — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Midwest Cities, Newspapers, America, In Sixty Seconds, Fall

Thai chicken soup. Photo: elana's pantry, Flickr.

Seven soup recipes from seven new cookbooks help Denver residents stay warm this season.
Seared scallops, salad and rib-eye are the way to go at the newly revamped Simms Steakhouse.
The Colorado Beer Festival descends on Colorado Springs this Saturday, and offers more than 70 beers to sample, as well as a designated-driver program.
The Wynkoop Brewery will hold its own Beers of the Year mini-festival on Saturday, also.
Dublin-made cream liqueur Coole Swan, which gets its name from Yeats' poem "The Wild Swans of Coole," is finally for sale in Colorado, and one food writer -- who claims it's the finest cream liqueur he's ever tasted -- couldn't be happier.
A "gastropub" opens in Cherry Creek, inspiring food critic Tucker Shaw to explore the etymology of the word.
A knife-wielding blogger discovers the bounty of the duck.

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Cheesy Enchiladas - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Feast Your Eyes

Enchiladas. Photo: purdyinblue, Flickr.

Enchiladas are arguably the most comforting of all Mexican entrees. Perhaps that's because they most closely resemble a casserole -- with protein, grains and vegetables all baked together and topped with delicious, flavorful red sauce and a layer of melted cheese.

Whether filled with beef, pork, chicken, fish, cheese, beans or any combination of those ingredients, enchiladas can often be complicated dishes, like these with homemade sauce and fresh cilantro from Flickr user purdyinblue. But the Mexican one-pot meal is also a great way to feed lots of people with very little effort, especially if you use a Dorito-encrusted recipe from the likes of Emeril Lagasse... or Charlie Gibson, depending on who you ask.

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Scary Treats and Healthy Eats - The Kansas City Star in 60 Seconds

Emily Farris — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Midwest Cities, Newspapers, In Sixty Seconds, Halloween, Food News, Fall

Photo: Juushika Redgrave, Flickr.

A reporter and his daughter attempt to make their own Halloween candy and quickly vow to never do it again.
Kansas City kids collected more than 850 pounds of sweets on Halloween night and gave it all away to benefit a charity that provides braces to low-income youths. Rest assured, the candy didn't go to waste, but to troops overseas.
A recipe for a reduced-fat au gratin potato casserole pleases the palate.
At The Drop, a small plates restaurant on Kansas City's "Martini Corner," how you want to eat is almost as important as what you want to eat.
Sumo, a Japanese steakhouse in the suburbs, is a pleasant surprise with top-notch service, spicy salmon rolls and... spinning eggs?
A raw food enthusiast uses finds from her Halloween harvest for a semi-healthy Welsh rarebit recipe.

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Thanksgiving Prep - Four Weeks to Go

Emily Farris — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Holidays, Thanksgiving, Fall

Photo: tuchodi, Flickr.

Think it's too early to start planning Thanksgiving dinner? Think again! Nov. 26 may seem like a long way off, but for the holiday host, it's right around the corner. That's why each Tuesday until Turkey Day, we'll bring you preparation tips to ensure your Thanksgiving is as smooth as your gravy (should be).

1. Get a head count.
Now's the time to start inviting people to Thanksgiving dinner. If you're thinking about it, chances are good your friends and family are, too. So if your cousin is bringing her new boyfriend, and both sets of grandparents are coming to town, as well as your parents and siblings, you're going to need to figure out how to seat everyone at your small table with three mismatched chairs.

Getting a head count this early ensures you'll have enough time to borrow tables, chairs and whatever other furniture items you need to so that everyone can eat comfortably, and then have a place to lounge when the tryptophan-wine combo sets in. And don't forget to find out who's a vegetarian, who's allergic to nuts, and any other dietary restrictions you'll be dealing with. The last thing you want to hear as you put your orange-scented green beans with toasted almonds on the table is that your cousin's new boyfriend has a severe nut allergy.

Continue reading Thanksgiving Prep - Four Weeks to Go

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Lobster Risotto - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Dinner, Shellfish, Rice, Feast Your Eyes

Lobster risotto. Photo: REC(ession)IPES.

No, that claw is not a scary Halloween trick. Look closer; it's actually a very tasty treat.

Because the price of lobster is so low right now -- almost half of what it was more than a year ago -- the bloggers over at REC(cession)IPES were able to add a little luxury to this simple, creamy risotto, made with arborio rice, olive oil, butter, onions, shallots and white wine. Plus, the lobster adds a much-needed burst of color to what can often be a very monochromatic dish.

Come to think of it, should you want to try this at home, there may actually be a little trick to achieving these picturesque results. As REC(cession)IPES points out, it's only live lobster that's so cheap right now. So unless you can bring yourself to butcher your own crustacean (think Julie Powell in "Julie & Julia"), you may have to settle for just feasting only your eyes on this lovely lobster risotto.

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Oven-Roasted Garlic - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Roasting, Feast Your Eyes

Photo: The Brown Eyed Baker, Flickr.

At first glance you might wonder if this is some sort of science project. But what it lacks in immediate familiarity, it makes up for in taste -- especially when you consider it's a simple combination of three of any cook's most important ingredients: garlic, olive oil and coarse salt.

For this head of perfectly roasted garlic, blogger The Brown Eyed Baker simply cut off enough of the bulb to expose the cloves, drizzled them with a tablespoon of olive oil and added a generous sprinkling of salt before covering it with aluminum foil and roasting the entire thing for 40 minutes at 375 degrees F.

Great for use in pasta and pizzas and slathered on bread, those who truly love garlic may have a hard time not eating this straight out of the oven. But whatever you do with those golden-brown cloves, don't forget to save the skins for broth!

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Cheesy Corn Chowder with Bacon - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Comfort Food, Soups/Salads, Feast Your Eyes

Photo: Ezra Pound Cake, Flickr.

Anyone who says the bacon craze is over clearly doesn't love bacon as much as we do or is, at the very least, unaware of all the ways bacon enhances our culinary world. And it's impossible to imagine any omnivore in his or her right mind hating on bacon when staring down at this bowl of cheddar corn chowder topped off with what blogger Ezra Pound Cake calls "God's confetti."

While the "hearty, creamy, comforting soup brimming with potatoes, corn, onions and sharp white-cheddar cheese" is enough to make anyone's mouth water, it's really the bacon on top that makes this Ina Garten recipe even more enticing.

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Sweet Stack - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Dessert, Chocolate, Baking, Feast Your Eyes

Brownies. Photo: little miss amanda, Flickr.

Whether they're packed with walnuts, shaped like ghosts and goblins or infused with bacon and bourbon, brownies rarely fail to satisfy. Maybe it's the fact that their texture is somewhere between cake and cookie (when done properly), or just that they're always packed full of chocolate. Even a simple brownie -- with no bells, whistles or bourbon -- can be absolute perfection. Just ask Flickr user little miss amanda, who made these using a recipe from the New York City bakery Baked.

On her blog, Slow Like Honey, Amanda admits that while they're actually her second favorite brownies, they'll still "render you senseless" and are -- like any brownies worth their weight in chocolate should be -- better the next day.

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Sunshine Cookies - Feast Your Eyes

Emily Farris — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Dessert, Feast Your Eyes

Photo: Brown-Eyed Baker, Flickr.

As the weather turns cold (and occasionally dreary), we'll take little bursts of sunshine wherever we can get them -- especially if they're soft and sweet like these lemon-loaded cookies from Brown-Eyed Baker.

Lemon is often the perfect companion for butter, poppy seeds and, of course, vodka.

Made with lemon cake mix, lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract (as well as a few of the usual cookie suspects, like egg and confectioner's sugar), these "lemon burst cookies" are, like the Brown-Eyed Baker herself said, literally "bursting at the seams with bright lemon flavor."

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