Food companies created the labels as an easy way to find healthy foods in the grocery store, but drew criticism when it appeared on mayonnaise and Froot Loops, the paper said.
I've heard of brides getting so overwhelmed and busy the day of the wedding that they actually forget to eat. I found this notion pretty hard to believe until I started participating in weddings myself. All of a sudden you're rushing to get into a car to go to your hair appointment, then there's makeup, then you have to put on your dress and be ready for photos at a certain time. Before you know it, you're sitting down to the first course and your first meal of the day; and even then, you're busy making sure the bride has everything she needs.
With that said, I couldn't let this happen to me or my bridesmaids. The solution: have breakfast catered in my hotel room where everyone will be getting ready. Platters of fruit, danishes and croissants, along with yogurt and homemade granola, should please everyone. Even if the girls don't have time to formally sit down at the table and eat, they can grab a yogurt and eat it while they're having their hair done. The wedding day is long and arduous. The more energy we all have, the less cranky and more pleasant it will be for everyone.
Did you eat the day of your wedding? If not, was it because of the lack of time or were you too nervous? For those of you who have been bridesmaids, what would your ideal wedding-day snacks be? Let me know in the comments.
Hardee's is having startling success with a humble Appalachian lunch meat long considered too provincial for nationwide tastes, and nobody's more surprised than the fast-food chain's top brass.
"We were concerned it would be too regional," Executive Vice-President of Marketing Brad Haley says of Hardee's new Oscar Mayer Fried Bologna Biscuit. "But sales have increased every week we've had it."
While bologna is a staple of lunch counters and school cafeterias across the South, Hardee's found inspiration for its menu item at a few roadside diners that sandwiched grilled bologna between biscuit halves for breakfast. For Hardee's, the preparation stood seductively close to the final meat frontier.
"We've done virtually every other meat you can think of on a biscuit," Haley concedes. "We've had country ham, chicken, pork chops, smoked sausage. We even had turkey."
Doesn't the heat make you daydream about being someplace else?
Someplace tropical and friendly, where the heat is part of the romance -- bellying up to a Havana lunch counter, enjoying the languid spinning of a lazy ceiling fan, the cool droplets crawling down the side of a sweating glass, the tinny tenor of cantador Beny Moré. And, naturally, a coffee.
You're thinking, "Coffee?! Who daydreams about coffee while sweat is making tracks down your spine?"
Me, that's who.
Brutal summer days are made for cafecito -- the thick, strong Cuban-style espresso brewed with sugar that's best when belted first thing in the morning. It may look like a regular ol' espresso, but the extra sweet kick might just jump-start your day a little quicker.
Whoever came up with the idea to put coffee over ice is an unsung hero to caffeine addicts everywhere, who, as a result, can snag their coffee fixes on 100-degree days without chugging 100-degree beverages.
The only drawback, of course, is when the ice melts and that much-beloved morning treat becomes an unappetizing coffee-water hybrid. Here's a twist on the coffee ice cubes we reminded you to make earlier this summer: Joanne Choi from Week of Menus busted out her cubes and plopped them into a glass of milk.
Both clever and appetizing, each chilly caffeinated cube looks good enough to savor on its own -- a coffee Popsicle, if you will -- but, when lounging in a glass of ice-cold milk, they create a sort of inverse iced coffee. Genius.
In all our years as enthusiastic food consumers (read: big eaters) we have never encountered a pancake we didn't like. While some of that can surely be credited to the whole "cake" part, much of our fascination with the breakfast stems from the fact that people are constantly finding creative ways to take what is basically just a simple bread and turn it into a work of art -- and a delicious work of art at that.
Case in point: these ricotta pancakes from Blog Chef. As if luscious whipped cream generously spread on each of the three cakes wasn't enticing enough, the creamy Italian cheese was added to the batter. Perfectly ripe strawberries provide bright contrast with the otherwise colorless stack and serve as a sweet, palate-pleasing antidote to another of the pancake's hidden ingredients: lemon zest. Luckily, "hidden" doesn't mean "secret," since the recipe is available online.
The weekend may be over, but the snapshot of this spicy, saucy elixir from New York City eatery Smith & Mills lets us hold on to that lackadaisical Sunday morning mood just a little bit longer.
It almost makes us forget we're sitting in front of a computer, transporting us instead to a lively brunch table crowded with beverages: coffee mugs, water glasses, orange juice and that ubiquitous and beloved brunch standby -- the Bloody Mary.
A meal in its own right, a proper Bloody Mary is refreshing yet savory, sometimes piquant and often full of surprises. Lurking within the tomato juice and vodka potion might be a crisp stalk of celery, a pickled green bean or a plump olive (as shown here). Best of all, it's one of the few cocktails that's regularly served in a pint glass, giving new meaning to "the more the merrier."
It's not Saturday morning .. yet. But just looking at this picture of anise-almond biscotti from The Brown Eyed Baker makes us forget that we still have an entire work day ahead of us.
That's probably because biscotti can't be enjoyed on a weekday like it can on a lazy weekend: dipped into rich coffee before it's slowly nibbled away at, only to be dunked again before taking a few more tiny bites, and on and on. And if biscotti like this is on the table, Saturday can't come soon enough!
'Brunch!: 100 Fantastic Recipes for the Weekend's Best Meal' Recipes by Gale Gand with Christie Matheson Photographs by Ben Fink Clarkson Potter -- 2009 Buy it on Amazon
Ah, brunch, that most indecisive and superfluous of meals: it's certainly not necessary, and probably wouldn't even exist if people weren't inclined to sleep in on the weekends.
But where French toast and eggs Benedict are concerned, necessity has never been the point. So it follows that of course brunch should have its own cookbook: any meal that can gouge so much time and effort out of an otherwise unremarkable weekend naturally requires a repertoire of recipes.
Gale Gand, a James Beard Award-winning pastry chef and the owner of Chicago's renowned Tru, has stepped up to the plate, and then some, with 'Brunch!' If the title's exclamation point tells you all you need to know about Gand's enthusiasm for the subejct, then her recipes -- from beverages like White Hot Chocolate and Gale's 3-Alarm Bloody Mary, to caloric delights like Corn and Parmesan Fritters and Chocolate Waffles -- should give you a generous hint of her serious dedication to the cause. Whether you prefer to drink your brunch or be put into a sugar coma by it, there's pretty much something for everyone here.
See what we tested and whether the book's worth buying after the jump.
Like paella, tortilla española is a quintessential Spanish dish. Ubiquitous on tapas bar menus, the circular potato and onion omelet is also versatile. Add peppers (as above) or chorizo for color and texture, or follow the lead of Michael Fiorello, chef de cuisine at Chicago tapas bar Mercat a la Planxa, who loves tossing in jamón Ibérico or seasonal mushrooms.
While labor intensive, basic tortilla española (an original recipe is after the jump) is well worth the effort for its inimitable flavor and flexibility. Adapt this recipe to suit your own needs -- perhaps finish it on the stove top, perhaps in the oven, as done at Mercat a la Planxa. Fiorello agrees: "You can cook tortilla using many different techniques." No matter how you slice it, tortilla española is addictive. If you can wait this long -- and you ought not -- it will keep for a couple of days.
Like ramps and asparagus, morels are synonymous with spring, and an edible reminder of the season's brevity. It feels less like morels have a season than a quick, annual engagement: catching them at the farmers market is like catching a solar eclipse, or Tom Jones at the MGM Grand in Vegas.
Morels are wild mushrooms that grow in forested areas throughout many parts of the country, and generally begin appearing sometime in April. They're usually available until the early summer, but their season can vary by a week or two depending on the region and the amount of rainfall. They're slender, knobby things with intricately ridged and wrinkled skin, and look like they sprouted from the pages of the Brothers Grimm. Their homely appearance belies their heavenly flavor, which is expressed to spectacular effect in the company of dairy, fat and and asparagus. Scrambled eggs are thus an ideal way to enjoy morels -- think of it as less an egg dish than a vehicle for delivering the best of the season to your very happy stomach.
Read the recipe for scrambled eggs with morels, asparagus and spring onions after the jump.
Not Martha set the foodie world on fire -- uh, 378 commenters and a bunch of blogs, at least -- with her BLT-themed, freestanding bacon cups. But they required three hours of effort and resulted in a house full of smoke.
Then Merriment Design came along and introduced a microwave to the process. Voila! Cups large and small whipped up in as little as five fire-free minutes. All they required were a few pieces of kitchen paraphernalia, some paper towels and a whole lot of bacon. Click through for the particulars of how it's done, and be in bacon cups all summer long.
They're cheesy, cheap and classic. What are talking about? Casseroles, of course! In this brand-new series food writer and blogger Emily Farris, author of "Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven" crafts tasty new casseroles exclusively for Slashfood readers. Green Eggs and Ham is her premier dish -- just in time for Easter.
As a kid, I never understood why Easter dinner was called "dinner" if it happened at noon. Luckily, one of the great things about being an adult is that we can make our own rules and name our own meals. And because I still can't bring myself to call a meal that happens that early "dinner," this year I'm hosting Easter brunch.
Am I making a 10-pound ham and scrambling three-dozen eggs while my guests drink free-flowing mimosas? Nope, this thing is happening potluck style. Like most people I know, I can't afford to host lavish brunches (not to mention dinners!), but wanted my meal to incorporate the different elements of Easter and, well, be a little brunch-y. So green eggs and ham it was, with eggs, ham, spinach, biscuits and my favorite thing in the world: cheese.
After a bit of experimentation, I wound up with a sort-of upside-down quiche with a biscuit crust, and who wouldn't go crazy for that? Although it'd be a wonderful meal for Easter brunch or supper, it's also a great way to use up that leftover Easter ham. Regardless, it's the sort of thing that would make Dr. Seuss -- or the Easter Bunny -- proud.
Attention doting husbands and children: Mother's Day is right around the corner. As the mom of two small children whose energy levels are inversely proportionate to their ages, I'm here to speak up for mothers of the world and give you a hint about proper Mother's Day celebratory etiquette.
It's simple, really. We want to observe Mother's Day by shirking our motherly duties and being bona fide adults.
Preferably with our feet up and a cocktail in hand.
This brings me to some easy sparkling wine recipes, in case you're planning to whip up a nice brunch for your lovely wife or mother. For mix-in drinks, don't bother spending megabucks on real Champagne; go with an inexpensive Prosecco from Italy (such as Fantinel) or Cava from Spain (Friexenet and Segura Viudas are good bets).
Three basic but beloved Mom-friendly elixirs after the jump.
Every spring, ostrich eggs appear at Whole Foods, where they nestle in beds of straw alongside the more diminutive and mundane quail and duck eggs. Glimpsing one is a little like watching that video of a pig suckling some tiger cubs: a novel and slightly surreal display of the animal kingdom's quirkier side.
Most shoppers pause to look at them quizzically, perhaps remembering the "Top Chef" contestant whose doom was sealed by an ostrich egg quiche. Others pick them up, marveling at their weight (about 3 pounds) and size. Very few people actually seem to buy them -- aside from the "What on earth do I do with this thing?" factor, there's the additional deterrent of the price tag: each egg, which is the equivalent of about 18-24 chicken eggs, costs $39.99. That's is a lot to pay for breakfast, even if it will feed 10 of your closest friends. But according to one Whole Foods manager, the eggs are oddly popular, particularly among those cooking for office parties. Apparently hummus and carrot sticks just aren't what they used to be.
Though their size may be intimidating, ostrich eggs are surprisingly easy to cook. Their shell is literally their biggest barrier, and that can be easily breached with the help of a hammer. Once you're in, you're pretty much free to do as you please. The watery consistency of the yolk and albumen lends itself to easy blending, and combined with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, some good cheese and whatever other fillings you prefer (the one here employed one bunch of kale, chopped up and sautéed in olive oil, and half a pound of Zingerman's Cheshire), the egg is perfect for scrambling. Its texture is lighter and fluffier than that of a chicken egg, and it has a milder, faintly sweeter taste that's incredibly delicious. It's little wonder that places like The Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch, which sells the eggs for $15 apiece, are trying to increase their popularity. With a little bit of PR savvy, these beauties could be the next breakfast of champions -- or at least the toast of office parties nationwide.
What Can I Get You Folks? - Server Revenge
Reality-Show Celebrities Serve Up Chef Curtis Stone's 'Hundred-Dollar Burger'
Foods Celebrity Chefs Hate
