There are a ridiculous amount of peppers in the garden right now; jalapenos, cubanelles, bananas and a pepper so devilishly hot that a brief touch to my tongue sent my face on fire. With the excess of peppers, I though it might be wise to pickle some and save up for winter. I was looking for fermenting crocks and stumbled onto
this website, which has something called the picklemeister.
I want it based on the name alone, but I think it would be perfect for pickling small amounts of stuff in case your harvest of let’s say cucumbers was less than abundant (it is).
Another reason not to be a pear-shaped loser: they are dumber in both shape and mind. http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=641116
I had a delicious weekend! First on Saturday afternoon, we did a little harvesting of green beans and one jalapeno (we were too excited to try the pepper and pulled it before it was entirely ripe). I did a light saute of the beans and chopped pepper in olive oil and threw salt on. It was simple and perfect.
Later that night Ralph and I attended my friend’s wedding, which was lovely and she looked fabulous. The (food) highlight of the evening was the mini cheesesteak bar. They had a person frying up the meat and onions to order and they had whiz, pickles, American cheese and other fixins. I thought that was just the cutest idea and it was a hit.
Sunday, after a very rough start (I may or may not have drank all the wine in Philadelphia), I grabbed some food at Parc. I had the quiche lorraine and haricots vert, both were rich and tasty. The quiche was cooked beautifully; still moist and soft and filled with cheese. I didn’t order a bloody mary, but I did have a sip of Ralph’s and it was really good with just the right amount of spice. It came with a lime, mini pickle wrapped in a paper thin carrot slice and an olive. Next time I go, I’ll definitely be ordering one.
I’m embarrassed that it’s been 2 months since last I posted. Shameful! But to be fair, I’ve been very busy at work and I started taking a chemistry class because I’m thinking it might be time to get my masters in Food Science. But, I’m still working things out and it’s a bore, so I’ll spare you the details.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned Claudio’s balls to you before, so sorry if this is old news. I think mozzarella cheese is ok at best and I wouldn’t typically nosh on a hunk of mozzarella if given other choices…that is until I tried a mozzarella ball from Claudio’s from the Italian Market section of Philly (is that it’s own section? I’ll say yes). This mozzarella changed my world! It is perfectly buttery and salty yet mild in flavor and the texture is almost that of farmers cheese; so fresh, soft and velvety that I could eat it for days just as is. The best part is that you can watch them make it right in the shop. Claudio will instruct you to eat it at room temperature and eat it that day; he’s the expert and I do what he says — he hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
First, I’d like to wish everyone a happy new year! I think this is going to be a great year, so don’t disappoint us, 2009. My poppy’s good friend makes the most amazing honey-it tastes good and it’s from local hives, so it helps with allergies (you ingest pollen from local plants and increase your tolerance to them). I adore honey in general, but Spitzer’s honey is special and I got a big ol’ jar of it for Christmas! Lucky me.
I just came across a very disturbing article about Chinese honey laundering; who knew that was even a thing?! Apparently, the Chinese use an antibiotic to keep their hives healthy but this chemical is potentially fatal to people and has been banned in food by the U.S. The way honey exporters have gotten around selling this tainted product is by shipping the honey to other countries like Russia and India and calling them Russian and Indian products. Tricky tricky. And it’s awful because many honey importers and producers here don’t test their honey for harmful chemicals. So, buyer beware! It is nearly impossible as a consumer to know where the honey has come from unless of course you have a local apiary that you can buy that sweet sweet nectar of bee butts.
It has been an obscenely long time since last I posted. Shame on me! Since then I have picked 18 pounds of apples only to convert it to apple butter, made sauerkraut, let it ferment and then canned it. That’s a long time! I’v also gotten my wisdom teeth out, had more oral surgery and haven’t been feeling like eating all that much, which might also explain why I haven’t been writing about food (except on delish.com since I am contractually obligated). But, I’ve found a couple rad websites about cake: Bakerella has these sweet cake pops that I want to be friends with and Cakespy is another cute site that won me over by naming 50 ways to kill a twinkie. Can they ever really die?
Now that I have my kraut ready, I need to find a good German butcher near me to get some killer brats from my New Year’s Day dish. I LOVE new years and robots, but that’s a different story.
I think I need this bacon cooker-majig if I’m going to use up my 15 pounds of bacon. It just makes sense. (I still haven’t cracked into my bacon pile)
I just got the most glorious phone call from our warehouse guy, the kind of phone call you hope for your whole life, he said there was a 15 pound box of bacon with my name on it. I guess one of the truckers that rolled through here had some extra pig meat? I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m going to be cookin up some bacon!! I’ll need to come up with some creative uses for that much bacon. It’s times like these that I wish my roommates were meat eaters. Actually, most times I wish they were carnivores, le sigh. 15 POUNDS OF BACON=Best day ever!!
I wanted to add onto my post from yesterday because I forgot to mention that I don’t for a minute believe that the appearance of kissables changed from the old recipe to veggie oil chocolate. They would still employ the exact same panning techniques, polishing methods and use the same ingredients to coat it. I think Matt and the gang lied to us about that. The fact that they pan those little guys is pretty amazing, just as a side note.
So, it seems that people are in a real tizzy over this video from Good Morning America. Even my aunt asked me about it. I’ll give you the long and short of the video so you don’t have to watch it. Basically, Hershey got called out on replacing cocoa butter with vegetable oil, a cheaper fat. I’m a) not shocked and b) not offended. The FDA has very strict guidelines about chocolate standards of identity, so you can’t just go throwing anything into chocolate and still call it “Chocolate.” Once vegetable oil is added to chocolate, it is no longer considered to be chocolate and the product label must be changed. Hershey did in fact change the labels for their products right on the front of the packaging and if you just read the ingredients, it said veggie oil right there, plain as day. Everyone feels tricked and betrayed by their beloved Hershey. And to that I say, it’s f*cking hershey, get over it. It’s not a high quality product to begin with (still love it, though).
It’s hard right now for chocolate makers. Milk prices are soaring and so is the cost of cocoa beans. The most expensive product right now is cocoa butter, so of course in times of financial difficulty companies are going to try to figure out ways to save money without passing the cost onto their consumers. Hershey’s just trying to be profitable and it’s not like they used vegetable oil in their standard chocolate bars, they just used it in candies (kissables, almond joys, etc), which really shouldn’t have affected overall flavor a great amount. It would have changed the way it melts and the mouthfeel more than flavor. I just think this is a dumb thing to get worked up about, especially when so much food right now is making people sick. Can we focus on making and growing food that won’t give us E. Coli and forgive a little vegetable oil?
