Here is a great healthy change for your meat sauces. I par boil my Italian sausage long enough to cook out the fat. I then strain, rinse off the fat and continue with my recipe as usual.
Whether it be mild or spicy sausage it still gives your recipes plenty of flavor without all the fat!
Smoked paprika - (pour in a thin line on a board and roll the ball down the line)
1/2 cup olive oil
One teaspoon red hot pepper flakes
It's so easy. I cut my goat cheese log into one inch pieces.
Roll the cheese in your palms into a ball. Roll the balls into prepared chopped up "fresh herbs" place on a cookie sheet and chill until needed.
I slightly warmed 1/2 cup olive oil and added a heaping teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Let it sit for a couple hours. Stir every so often.
When your ready to serve pour the oil mixture onto the serving dish. Insert a tooth pick into the cheese ball and place in the oil like shown. The oil gives it a finished touch and will not disappoint!
I've got a new Twitter! Follow @karenbscooking my other Twitter account is now my personal account, I wil still tweet from the account but not as frequently and as well put together as my new one! Happy Early Thanksgiving!
This is great! Cut a black olive in half for the body and strips for the spooky leggs! Piled the eggs on your platter so it looks like a nest of creepy spiders!
I made the best pork chops last that I have ever made! After giving up and several attempts at perfecting the moist juicy chop ever I had quit.
Walking into the market passing the meat isle my eye caught a glimpse of the thick very yummy looking chops. I couldn't resist so I thought I'd try one last time.
I then grabbed a loaf of roasted garlic Italian artisan bread. After cooking the chops to perfection thanks to Alton Brown via Food Network, I tossed some olive oil and herbs on the sliced loaf and put in the oven. The smell was amazing. We sat down for dinner so excited to eat and Hubby says "do we need to turn off the oven?" And he did. We left the loaf in the oven to move on to the after life of burnt bread.
The next morning getting the kids ready for school for what ever reason I opened the oven. And there it was, a very pretty perfect loaf of garlic herb bread. Dried as hard as a rock. The bread actually wasn't hard as a rock unless it's burnt it's the perfect candidate for bread crumbs, croutons for salad, stuffing and home made bread puddings.
I nibbled on a piece and started to dunk in my coffee. It was very tasty like a herb biscotti. :)
Croutons from bread:
Cut bread slices up into 1 inch size pieces.
Place in large mixing bowl. Drizzle with olive oil to coat. Toss in your favorite herbs. Make sure you use Rosemary! That is the key! My forgotten garlic loaf already had garlic flavor and I had added Rosemary, salt and pepper.
Toss to mix ingredients well. Place on a large baking sheet and bake in 350 oven until light golden brown. Don't forget about them! You may not be so lucky!
Tip of the day, ad a dab of butter to maple syrup, put in a microwave proof pitcher or gravy boat. Heat for 30-40 seconds in the microwave before serving your French Toast or Pancakes!
You will never go back to using syrup out of the bottle! Adding the butter to the syrup makes it taste even better!
Lemon Lime Soda has been found to break down symptoms of a hangover.
Herbal teas, caffeine drinks tend to make symptoms worse. Out of the 50 drinks tested Lemon Lime Soda improved symptoms. Bloody Marys have some competition!
The next yummy treat I want to share with you from my trip to the 2014 Oscars after party at the Governors Ball, catered by Wolfgang Puck, is this AMAZING dish! Ravioli's topped with cream, chives and real black truffles!
When this dish appeared before my eyes my eyeballs almost popped out of my head! The Server gave us the description and confirmed it was real black truffles. The smell of the cream, chives and truffles was so incredibly amazing I hesitated to eat it. I just wanted to take it all in.
A very kind sole sitting next to me asked "what is a truffle?" and I responded back "an earthy tasting amazing delicacy that is highly sought after". She asked "I heard it's a mushroom?". When I responded that its like a fungus spore type food found under ground mainly in France. They typically start at $100.00 an ounce. They are found underground near certain species of trees. The best part, dogs and or pigs rut them up. She at once slid her bowl over to her Husband who promptly devoured the bowl and said "that is the best thing I have ever eaten". We toasted to Puck and his black truffle topped ravioli.
My Husband Craig, the kind soles Husband and I then ordered another bowl as they came around to offer more!
When making homemade meatballs and adding onions, never put it raw onions into your meatball mixture. This will cause your onions to cook out causing your meatballs to break apart! So saute your onions in some olive oil, cooling prior to adding to your meatball mixture. Try mixing up your flavors buy substituting onions for scallions or leeks into your meatballs for a great new burst of flavor! Enjoy ;)
Michael Psilakis taught me how to make these in a cooking class. They are guaranteed to be the best you have ever tasted. If you go to NYC this is a must have stop!
I had the opportunity to attend the 2014 Academy Awards as well as the Governors Ball following the show.
Wolfgang Puck prepares the food for this wonderful star filled event every year! I was so incredibly thrilled to have the opportunity to attend and even see him in action serving his guests like Bette Midler, Spike Lee and more.
The room was over the top. Colorful plants and flowers on the walls, candle lit tables with George Jones belting out songs on the grand piano.
The service was top notch! Cocktails and hourdouves' appeared as soon as we sat, and continued until we couldn't put another bite in our mouths.
The photo above a baked potato stuffed with caviar is one of the amazing treats we were able to enjoy. Hot buttery potato wrapped in gold foil fitting for the occasion.
Check back tomorrow for more pictures of Wolfgangs fabulous creations from the ball!
To put a new fun twist on your plain old pie crust use canned cinnamon rolls! Slice the roll, lay out on a lightly floured cutting board and roll out with your (lightly floured) rolling pin. Place in pie pan. Bake your pie per package instructions. Prebake your crust at 400 for 9-11 minutes or until light golden brown for pudding pies.
When I find something that I love I make sure to share it with you!
Totino's has introduced three new flavors of pizza snacks from their new Pizzeria line. With Summer around the corner this will be a big hit with the kids.
Totino's three new flavors are Cheesy Garlic, Chicken Parmesan and Meatball Marinara.
I was honored to be able to try this new product out with my kids and they loved them!
It's "Cooking Made Easy with just 60 seconds ;)
Thank you Totino's for the opportunity to share this great new product!
Karen B's is sending out a gift pack from Totino's to one of my readers to sample and share!
Happy Summer ;)
"Disclosure: The prize pack, information, and giveaway have been provided by General Mills and Totino's through MyBlogSpark."
On Manhattan’s Lower East Side, in a series of four nondescript brick tenement buildings, sits the Streit’s Matzo factory. In 1925, when Aron Streit opened the factory’s doors, it sat at the heart of the nations largest Jewish immigrant community. Today, in its fifth generation of family ownership, in a rapidly gentrifying Lower East Side, it remains as the last family owned matzo factory in America.
This is place rooted in history and tradition, and not only in the sense that the recipe for their product is 3,000 years old. The machinery still used here to bake and pack 40% of the nation’s matzo is as old as the factory itself. The owners still sit at their great grandfathers desks, declining to clear the drawers of the contents left by their forbearers. They have, again and again, refused exorbitant sums offered by developers for their real estate, and resisted modernizing the facility, worried at the potential effects on their fiercely loyal workforce, made up of neighborhood residents and immigrants from around the world, many of whom have been working there for 30 years or more.
And yet, while in many ways Streit’s may seem a relic from another age, they continue to thrive, consistently receiving more orders than they can fill.
In a neighborhood where the Jewish immigrants have long ago moved on, in a nation where progress and profits trump all else, where manufacturing has left the cities if not the country, where family businesses are bought out by giant corporations and workers move from job to low paying job, Streit’s remains a Lower East Side institution, and a glimmer of hope for the American Dream.
THE FILM
This film, a feature-length documentary, will tell the story of Streit’s - of the factory, of the family, of its workers, of its place in the rich history of the Lower East Side and in America. It is a story of tradition, of resilience and resistance, of the perseverance of the Jewish people, and of immigrants of all faiths, so many of whom have found home in the Lower East Side, behind the doors of Streit’s, or in the matzo they bake.
The film is being directed by Lower East Side-based documentary filmmaker Michael Levine, and produced by Michael Green (see the FAQ for more about the production team).
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
By joining in our Kickstarter campaign, you can help us get this film made!
As you can see from the teaser, we’ve begun production, and the experience has been amazing! The owners of Streit’s and everyone who works at the factory are extremely excited about the project, and helping out every way they can to help us capture their story.
But to this point, the production has been self-financed, and that can only take us so far. A feature length documentary is a major undertaking, and we need to raise money to complete the film (see the FAQ below to learn more about where the funding will go).
With your support on Kickstarter, and by spreading the word about the project, we will be able to finish the film and get the Streit’s story out into the world.
