With apologies to Ernest L. Thayer
O' little pudding
siting in the pot
Woe to the cook
who thinks her skills are hot
I'm apprehensive of the recipe
but I still concede to do it
The first problem quickly arrives
I cannot find any suet
I use margarine in place of the kidney's tallow
I'm told it's a good replacement
Now I wish I'd taken that advice
and buried it in the basement
I combine the carrots with pomme de terre
And add a bit of flour
Add some spices, throw it all in a mold
And watch it steam for hours
Hour one I sit their waiting
watching water steam
I hear the bubbles popping
As if I'm in a dream
Hour two I'm getting anxious
Wondering if it's good
How is the pudding cooking
beneath the pudding mold's hood?
Hour three is upon me
the end is finally near
I pull the pudding from the pot
and give a silent cheer
Alas the joy is all for naught
This recipe I so rue
'cause it's less of a carrot pudding
and more of a carrot goo
Oh, somewhere in this favored land
the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere,
and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing,
and little children shout,
but there is no joy in in my house
'cause I'm going to go and pout.
February 27, 2007 08:55 PM
Some seem to think that restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow's grudge against NY Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni runs deeper than just one bad review. Chodorow has, after all, said that he feels his restaurants have always gotten the short stick from the reviewer. A recent piece on Page Six of the NY Post seems to confirm this, as Chodorow has just announce that Bruni is banned from all of his 29 restaurants.
The term "It's what's inside that counts" definitely applies to Krispy Kreme's latest offering, but I'm not referring to a fruit filling or a 'kreme' center. Instead, this particular doughnut is made with 100% whole wheat flour. Weighing in at only 180 calories each, the Whole Wheat Doughnut has a distinct caramel flavor and is similar in style to their "original glazed".
It has long been suggested that the oversized portions offered to diners at many restaurants are responsible for the expanding waistlines of Americans. Now, the health/lifestyle watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is implying that "table-service chain restaurants," such as Cheesecake Factory, TGI Fridays and Ruby Tuesday's, are cramming their dishes full of fattening, unhealthy ingredients on purpose, encouraging "extreme eating." Sometimes described as the "food police" CSPI cites the fact that these restaurants are not entirely forthcoming with the nutritional information on their foods, pointing out that Ruby Tuesday's Fresh Chicken & Broccoli Pasta entree has 2,060 calories and 128 grams of fat, while The Cheesecake Factory's Chris's Outrageous Chocolate Cake(layers of chocolate cake, brownies, coconut pecan filling and chocolate-chip coconut cheesecake) had 1,380 calories.
I mentioned a while back that I could no longer find Kellogg's Nutri-Grain bars at any of the supermarkets in my area, and several of you left comments and sent e-mail saying you couldn't find them either. I'm pretty sure they're not being made anymore (though Nutri-Grain does have various breakfast pastries). Now I think I've found a great substitute.
Diet Coke is slightly higher in caffeine than regular Coke. Both are higher in caffeine than Pepsi, which has slightly more caffeine than Diet Pepsi. Either out of a desire to get consumers to sit up and take more notice of their brand, or simply as an attempt to jump on the energy drink bandwagon, Pepsi is rolling out a new, more caffeinated, diet "sparkling beverage." The new soda is called Diet Pepsi MAX.
A french fry is much easier to eat than a lobster, and for many other foods it is simply a fact that some are easier to eat than others. Some, like the aforementioned lobster, are simply difficult to get into. Others are difficult to maneuver into your mouth gracefully (giant burritos, salads with huge lettuce leaves ) and still others are messy to the point where many diners simply avoid them (ribs) unless they have a very high comfort level with their dining partners.
Advertising companies and politicians like to play with semantics for the purpose of changing images. Big soda companies seem to be heavily invested in changing their images this year - with Pepsi completely revamping their packaging and Coke teaming up witt Jay-Z to promote Coke Zero - so it isn't entirely shocking to hear that they no longer want soda to be thought of as "carbonated soft drinks." Instead, they're "sparkling beverages."
Remember when you went to a fast food restaurant and all you could order was deep fried fare, full-fat shakes, and items smothered in sauce or cheese? Those days are definitely becoming a distant memory. In an effort to appeal to the health-conscious consumer, Fatburger has added two healthier food choices to their permanent menu - the Veggieburger, a meatless Boca soy patty, served up on a whole wheat bun, and the Fat Salad Wedge - lettuce wedge topped with diced bacon, tomatoes and choice of dressing. They also offer a Turkeyburger and fresh marinated chicken sandwich, both of which have been on their regular menu for some time now.
It might sound like a challenging thing to attempt, but making sausage at home is actually not as difficult as you might think. With a guide like Home Sausage Making : How-To Techniques for Making and Enjoying 100 Sausages at Home to walk you through the steps, you'll find yourself with a solid foundation in the art of sausage-making in no time at all. This book contains 100 recipes for various types of cased and uncased sausages (all up to USDA food safety standards) and 50 additional recipes for ways to cook those sausages once they have been properly made. The selection covers a wide range of sausage types, from pork to seafood to vegetarian, and an equally wide range of ethnic flavors, from Polish Kielbasas and Spanish chorizo to Asian Duck and Pork Sausages. Other recipes include basic Breakfast Sausage, Italian Dry Sausages and Liverwurst.
Earlier this month, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote a company memo that expressed concern over what he termed the "Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience." StarbucksGossip.com first posted the memo online and its authenticity was later confirmed by Starbucks, then picked up by more traditional media outlets.
Now that meat and milk from cloned animals has been approved for sale and consumption by the FDA, all kinds of issues have been raised about these animals, from whether or not they can be considered organic to whether people will actually want to eat them. Those who support cloning say that cloned animals will be more disease resistant and that the products derived from them will be more consistent and of higher quality. The largest dairy producer in the US, the Dean Foods Co., has announced that they will be avoiding all of these issues because they will not sell milk from animals that are clones or have been cloned. A representative said that they "see no consumer benefit from this technology" and that surveys done on their behalf show that most US customers are simply "not interested in buying milk or milk products that come from cloned animals."
We love smoothies. New consumer research shows that smoothies have been one of the fastest growing food/drink markets over the past five years, where sales have been up more than 80% to over $2 billion in annual sales. This includes both made-to-order smoothies, from businesses like Jamba Juice, as well as pre-packaged products.
For the past couple of years, there has been a growing interest in getting local foods whenever possible, largely because it is perceived as helping the local economy, being better for the environment and better for your health (assuming the local food is organic, etc., not factory-farmed). There is one food - a drink, actually, that has strongly resisted this trend, where "'distance and exoticism are marketed as advantages": bottled water. Fiji, one of the more expensive store brands, is now the number 2 selling premium bottled water in the US.
If you recall, last week we wrote about the Oscar Mayer chicken strip recall which was aimed at a specific batch of the product. Kraft Foods has since expanded the recall to include ALL code dates, sizes, and flavor varieties of their Oscar Mayer/Louis Rich Chicken Breast Strips and Cuts. Though they state that no traces of Listeria have been found anywhere other than in the original contaminated sample, they are voluntarily removing all product that was made at that facility as a precautionary measure.
Skyr isn't carried in too many American stores, but the Icelandic yogurt definitely has its fans. It is thicker than conventional yogurt, largely because it is strained, much like Greek yogurt. You are most likely to be familiar with the yogurt if it is carried at your local Whole Foods, where it is packaged into small containers and flavored like conventional yogurts, with berries, vanilla, etc. Despite the generally positive reaction from consumers, Whole Foods no longer promotes the fact that they carry Skyr, or any other Icelandic products, because of the company's offical policy of dissapproval for Iceland resuming commercial whaling last year.
I have to admit up front here that I don't personally need (or want, for that matter) a "solution" to sugar. I do, however, have plenty of friends and relatives who have concerns relating to their blood sugar levels for various reasons, from dietary concerns (low carb, weight loss, etc) to medical issues, like diabetes, that a cookbook packed with hundreds of blood sugar-conscious recipes would appeal to. The Sugar Solution Cookbook: More Than 200 Delicious Recipes to Balance Your Blood Sugar Naturally is such a book, filled with easy to make recipes that will not only help keep blood sugar levels under control, but that are simple enough to discourage the desire to "cheat" on such a diet. Weight loss seems to be the main theme of the book, and several meal plans are included, but the recipes can be useful whether you are trying to slim down or not. Cooks will be tempted by Stir-Fried Orange Chicken and Broccoli and an ultra-tender Pot Roast. The writers didn't forget about dessert, either. Peanut Butter Bundt Cake and Dark Chocolate Pudding are on the menu for after dinner. The recipes are nutritionally balanced, with a generous use of whole grains, as well as of good fats in place of bad ones, and the book has lots of tips for substituting out sugar and carbs in recipes in general that should come in hand.
The traditional English breakfast includes most (or all) of the following foods: bacon, fried eggs, baked beans, sausages, tomatoes (often fried), mushrooms (also fried), toast, juice and tea or coffee. The breakfast is known as a "full" breakfast not only because it starts with a full plate, but because it leaves you with a full stomach. Despite its size, however, it is still only a meal and won't last forever no matter how you feel for the first hour or so after one.
OK, maybe not everybody, but this guy does, and he has a new blog about it.
After my recent post on Maraschino cherries, my interest in Maraschino liqueur was piqued. I had considered purchasing some over the internet, but hesitated, unsure of if I could find a cheaper alternative. Not two days after that decision, I walked into a local liquor store, and what do I find on the specialty table but several imported bottles of Maraska Maraschino liqueur. How fortuitous!
Genetically modified foodstuffs do not have a very good public relations team working for them. Hearing that food has been genetically modified in some way will turn off most consumers because the assumption associated with it is that the food has been made more pest/disease resistant and less flavorful through unnatural means. Unnatural, in this instance, refers to a quickly forced change in a particular plant and not to a gradual evolution through selective breeding. The word does not have a positive connotation, yet in spite of that, not everything done with GM foods is a bad idea.
Way back in 2005, Cybele reviewed Orange Creme Hershey's Kisses at Candyblog. The orange-flavored white chocolate kisses didn't last too long at the time, but Hershey's has just re-released them, labeled as a "limited edition" offering for their year-long 100th anniversary celebration.
Basic truffles are not difficult to make in the grand scheme of candy making. They have a ganache center rolled in cocoa - simple. The tricky part comes in when you try to move beyond that very basic and unassuming plain truffle. One option is to carefully read the recipes of bloggers for tips and ideas. Another option, which could be used in conjunction with the blogger choice, is to read Truffles: 50 Deliciously Decadent Homemade Chocolate Treats. The relatively short book offers step-by-step tutorials and lots of great tips about every element of the truffle-making process, from choosing the chocolate to shaping the truffles to storing the finished product (assuming that they don't all get eaten up right away). Fruits, nuts, spices and liqueurs all show up at least a few times in this book, adding lots of variety to the treats so that every single one sounds impossibly tempting. Just take Champagne Bittersweet Chocolate Truffles, Matcha White Chocolate Truffles, Pumpkin Spice Truffles, Rum Raisin Truffles and Tiramisu Truffles as a sampling of the possibilities.
This week, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a great series of cocktail recipes that were created in honor of the five Best Picture nominees at this year's Academy Awards. With the exception of the drink inspired by The Queen, most have little to do with the feature that they represent, but there should be at least one out of the five that will appeal to everyone who likes to watch the awards with a nice cocktail.
Today seems to be unofficial mint day here at Slashfood. While Nicole is enjoying her Dark Chocolate Dipped Cinnamon Altoids, I am dreaming of another concoction I heard about earlier this week. I was 
We've been following the Baileys Drinkable Desserts contest for several weeks now, in which both professional and amateur mixologists could put together their most inventive concoctions and put them up for public voting, with the hopes of winning the grand prize of a trip to New York City for two for a private cooking class in the Gourmet Cooking Arts Center with Chef de Cuisine, Jennifer Day. The contest coincided with the launch of Bailey's two new flavored liqueurs, Baileys Mint Chocolate and Baileys Caramel. The liqueurs proved to be good choices for baking, as well as for making cocktails, but some of our favorite entries included the Caramel Apple Pie-Tini, The Baileys Vanilla Bean and I Want S'More.