Rachael Ray's Blog, page 80

Hurricane Sundae

Wow, what a week and it is only Tuesday when I write this! Was the hurricane really going to hit us? Was it just hype? Friday and Saturday looked fine to me, so it seemed doubtful that much would change. But boy did it change! Well, thankfully I went through the motions of getting prepared and purchased from the ‘Sandy Aisles’ of the hardware store (you gotta smile – they actually labeled it that way).

Now back at home with hurricane prep work all checked-off, I was starting to get antsy. The hurricane news was starting to appeal to my neurotic side and the board games were sucking the life out of me. It was time to seek refuge in my favorite place ‘the kitchen’. I started cleaning out the cabinets, drawers and refrigerator. Wow, how did I end up with 3 containers of 32oz vanilla yoghurt? How did I allow my farmers market walnut and cranberry bready to morph in to a brick? With a potential power outage a few hours away, I needed to use the yoghurt up and whilst I was at it, I had to find a way to use the stale bread.

Stale Bread

Half the bread was re-purposed in to croutons for panzanella since tomatoes, onions and vinegar don’t rely on the fridge over the coming days and the other half was turned in to a toasted breadcrumb that looked and tasted liked granola. The outcome was becoming obvious now: A Sundae topped with walnut-cranberry granola. I whipped the yoghurt with a little smashed cardamom and my recent favorite gooey honey (the Petite Abeille brand of honey, just so you know). Now to finish this creamy beauty, I gave it a generous sprinkle of the breadcrumbs, some pistachios and a final draping of that liquid gold honey.

Whilst I didn’t get through all 3 containers of yoghurt, a momentary frugal mindset transformed a couple of ingredients in to a gourmet desert.

Recipe for yoghurt and toasted walnut and cranberry bread sundae
Ingredients

1 cup yoghurt (any works, but if it’s unsweetened, add some more honey)
1 vanilla pod, crushed with a rolling pin or mortar and pestle
Handful of toasted breadcrumbs (if using plain bread, toss in chopped dried fruit or a teaspoon brown sugar)
1 tsp. honey for the yoghurt and 1 tsp. to drizzle
1 tsp. chopped nuts

Method

1) Whip the yoghurt with the cardamom and honey

2) Chop the nuts and sprinkle over the yoghurt. Sprinkle the toasted breadcrumbs. Drizzle the remainder of the honey.

3) Serve chilled

Saira Malhotra, is of British –Indian descent and is a chef, food writer and cooking instructor based in New York City. Raised in Hounslow, U.K, or rather ‘Little India’, where the air is aromatic with roasted spices, little did Saira know these moments would follow her from being a student in France and Italy to residing in NYC with her husband and kids and parlay themselves unexpectedly in to a culinary career. She is a graduate of the International Culinary Center in New York City. Come visit her at her food blog: www.passportpantry.com where she shares approachable and international recipes

A Meat Sauce Recipe For The Storm-Shattered

When they tell you that your city is in the path of a terrifying “superstorm”; when the Mayor declares your neighborhood a mandatory evacuation zone; when the certainty of a power and water shortage becomes undeniable - that’s when I start thinking about meat sauce.

Yes, meat sauce! It’s become a panacea and an obsession: I cook it whenever I feel bad, and whenever I feel good. It’s an opiate, a stimulant, an anti-depressant, and even an anti-psychotic (when I make it good enough.) My infant’s mind treasured the idea of being cooped up in a warm, dry pod with my wife, a pipe, a stocked refrigerator, and a burbling pot of my favorite thing to cook.

Why is meat sauce so close to my heart, not just literally but figuratively? I think it has something to do with how it long it takes to cook, how long it lasts, and how delicious it is even when made poorly - because meat sauce, at least the way I make it, is the most forgiving of dishes. The day of the storm, while winds blew outside and the rain pelted down silently on our thick soundproof storm windows, I applied a thick layer of protection between Danit and I and the coming disaster. We had been told, remember, that we were in a position of extreme peril, and at the very least were looking at days without water or power. I took to mincing carrots and onions and celery with my big Korin chefs knife, falling into its rhythm, and then cooking it in olive oil. Do I infuse the oil with thyme? Or garlic? Where did I put those Calabrian peppers? Maybe that oil is hot, and would be good to cook the onions in. One ingredient after another went in. Each one gave me something to think about. I put in a bottle of vinegar peppers, but too much of the vinegar went in. The sauce was nothing but vinegary. So it needed sweetness. I added Barillia marinara. Still vinegary. Then tomato paste. A little better. Finally I just did the unthinkable and added half a cup of Coke. Perfect! I started adjusting heat and putting in more fresh oregano, utterly absorbed in the process, oblivious to the wind, and knowing that an immense pot of nourishing greasy sauce awaited me, us, at the end.

Because, however fun it may be to have a gluttonous staycation, surrounded by cakes and potted meats. Everyone likes that; it’s the great consolation prize for being stuck indoors. But it’s a passive pleasure; it gives you too much time to think. Cooking absorbs not only your lust for food, but your hysteria, your emotions, your fears, and even, at its best, the parts of your mind that are not completely destructive and chaotic.

For the record, here is my meat sauce recipe, minus the coke.

2 sweet Italian sausages

1 hot Italian sausage

2 pounds ground chuck (80%)

Two cans good-quality tomatoes, one crushed, one diced

one bottle Barilla or other good-quality marinara sauce

Fresh oregano, basil, and whatever other fresh herbs you have, in great quantities

Garlic, onion, carrot, celery

Wine or beer

whole milk or evaporated milk

one bottle vinegar peppers

Hot peppers in oil or good flaked pepporoncini

two bay leaves

MSG

butter

You can add other things if you want. Or not. Just keep adjusting and tasting. It will pass the time.


Put olive oil at the bottom of a big pot. Throw in chopped garlic and fresh herbs to flavor it.


Cook chopped up carrots and celery for a while. Then add chopped up onions.


Keep cooking them and turning them. Recipes that say to do this for five minutes are absurd. This takes at least ten to fifteen minutes. You can speed it along by pour in a little water.


Take the vegetables out. Jack up the heat. Add the meat. Don’t move it. Let it burn. Let it and the vegetables left in the pot start to crust up but not blacken. Then start moving the meat around, just until it loses it’s raw red color. Salt and pepper well.


Now add enough wine to cover most of it. (Pull your head away when doing this as a mushroom cloud of vapor will erupt.) Turn the heat down and and move your spoon around. You are releasing all the crusty bits into the dish, so the meat won’t be bland and characterless. Put all the vegetables back in. Let the wine boil down somewhat. BTW - if you don’t have wine in the house use beer, or stout, or cider, whatever. Try them all out. Make meat sauce all the time.


At this point it’s time to open the cans of tomatoes. This will be a huge nasty mess, but whatever. Have someplace to thrown the heavy, stiff cans, which will opress you until you get rid of them. Add both cans, as well as the marinara, a ton of fresh herbs, and some raw chopped up garlic. Mix it all up. After a while (say 20 minutes) add in a small bottle of vinegar peppers, minus most of the vinegar, plus the hot chili peppers and about a tablespoon of their oil. That oil is key. Add in plenty of salt, some MSG, the bay leaves, and whatever else you feel like. If it comes out bad, so what? You can just not use it next time. Adjust for sweetness and acid and heat. I like to use white balsamic as a sweetening agent. Tomato paste is also good, as it also adds thickness to the sauce. Sometimes I will throw in some paremesan rinds if I have themThat’s it. Just stir and cook on a low fire until you feel like it’s ready. It should be less than an hour. Make pasta, drain it, and add all the sauce you can right away while the noodles are still “thirsty.” Mix it all up well, throwing in a tablespoon of butter along the way, to mount the sauce properly. Grate in some pecorino (or whatever.)

Eat, drink, wash your hands. Repeat as needed.

Helping friends in need

Our little town, just north of New York City, was humbled by Sandy.  I can’t say we were devastated, despite the fact that most people here lost power, because devastated should be a term reserved for places like Breezy Point, Queens, where 50 homes were destroyed, or Seaside Heights, NJ, where you can see the boardwalk rides floating out to sea.  Devastated is New York University hospital who lost power and then had generator failure and was forced to move people out of the hospital, patients in need of critical care.

No, in our neighborhood we did lose power and tree limbs flew all over the place, but everyone I know nearby is safe and sound.  Somehow, my house was spared once again (we were also lucky during Irene) and I have power.  The kids’ school is canceled for the third day in a row, we just found out, so our neighbors are literally going stir crazy-no heat, no lights and no showers.

What’s the least I can do to help?  Feed them.  And that’s exactly what I did all day today.  I thought what could be a warm and comforting food that can still be eaten at room temperature if not gobbled up the minute I drop it off?  Mac and cheese. I made a pretty classic mac with a mix of sharp and melty cheeses-cheddar, pecorino, etc, and added a sprinkle of nutmeg and pepper and a few handfuls of peas for my one neighbor.  As soon as I posted this picture to Facebook, I got requests by the dozen:

So then I got creative and gave people choices-Pesto mac or Mushrooms and Bacon?  I was able to try all different combos, but building off the same basic beginnings-

First you have to choose a mac and cheese friendly pasta, preferable a short one with ridges or curves.  a fusilli is good, a rigatoni, but you can also use a ziti or the classic elbows, depending on what is going in to the mac.  If it is just a silky, creamy cheese sauce, like the classic mac and cheese, you can use any small pasta.  Once you start adding mix-ins, like meats or chopped veggies, try to pick a pasta that will pair well, size wise with the additions. Cook the pasta al dente, not all the way.

Next you make a basic roux-heat some butter in a pan and sprinkle a few teaspoons of flour and whisk it together, toasting the mixture slightly.  You then add whole milk and a little broth and whisk constantly until the mixture thickens and no lumps are left.  Once smooth and thick, add various kinds of grated cheese.

If you are adding something like peas or mushrooms and onions, cook them separately and at this point, add the mix-ins and the cooked pasta to the cheese and fold together until thoroughly combined.  Season with pepper.

Neighbors were grateful for any hot food or even just the gesture of a visit.  Another good idea is a quick bread-ie banana breads, ginger pumpkin breads etc.  Here are some great recipe suggestions that travel well:

Mac and Cheese recipes

Banana Bread recipes

Pumpkin and Squash Bread recipes

Muffins

Rosemary Maggiore is our Last Minute Lady. A single mom of two kids plus a full time job (she runs this website!) keep her busy and usually pushing things to the last minute. Somehow she manages to keep her cool and her sanity while she enjoys good food, wine, friends and most importantly, family.

For more Ro, see:

Mom Talk

Follow me on Twitter at @lastminutelady

Keeping Healthy Food on Hand—and Junk Food at Arm’s Length

My husband and I went food shopping today, to stock up on provisions before Hurricane Sandy shuts down the city. (How come food is only called “provisions” before a storm?) What should have been a typical everyday errand turned into a minor dispute, because we couldn’t agree on what food to buy.

I thought it would be good to buy fresh vegetables, so we wouldn’t end up stranded without anything green and crunchy to eat for a few days. James, on the other hand, thought it was more important to buy hard sausage, canned soup, and his favorite cookies (Fig Newmans, don’t ya know. . . ). We did, however, find common ground on crunchy peanut butter and crisp Fuji apples.

In a way, James was right. Hard sausage, canned soup, and cookies are foods that are ready-to-eat even if the power goes out, and they don’t require refrigeration. But processed foods with lots of sodium, cholesterol, and sugar are not ones I want to eat on regular basis, and keeping them out of our house is an ongoing challenge-that’s why, even with a hurricane approaching, I opted for grabbing a bunch of kale and a big butternut squash.

Typically, I try to make it as easy as possible for both of us to eat well at home. One way to do that is to keep healthy, ready-to-eat snacks around the house, such as nut butters and fresh veggies, because I know that James doesn’t want to have to cook every time he gets hungry. Lately, we’ve been enjoying homemade hummus on everything from sandwiches to cucumber slices. When I’m cooking for the two of us, I also try to make healthy food that is especially tasty, whereas if I were just cooking for myself I would be quite content with something as unsexy and bland as a bowl of lentils and some cooked kale.

Despite my best efforts, though, processed snack food does occasionally finds its way into our home, a reality that underscores my own dirty little secret: a big reason that I don’t want junk food in the house is that in a moment of craving I’m entirely likely to devour it all myself! Sigh. So how do you deal with this dastardly domestic dilemma? Does your partner or your kids have drastically different food instincts than you do? Do you find it challenging to keep your loved ones eating healthy? Please share your thoughts and give this health-nut with a weakness for Fig Newmans a little advice! Thanks!

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Cooking: Sweet Potato Pie with Ginger

I live in NJ and right now we are preparing for Hurricane Sandy to arrive. I had to stop watching TV because it is really making me nervous. Of curse we should all be as prepared and informed as possible but sometimes, you just gotta turn the media off, ya know?

I’m Italian and that means you cook when you’re happy, sad, nervous or indifferent. Basically, I’m cooking all the time. Cooking has a way of calming me so I know that my nervous energy is best spent doing something constructive like filling my family’s bellies. That being said, I decided to ignore the TV for a while and bake up something delicious while we still have power. YIKES! I figured this was a great opportunity to bake up a pie and fill my home with the delicious smells of sweet potato and cinnamon. At the last minute I decided to toss in some fresh ginger to add a little zip and it was such a good move! This pie is definitely a recipe you’ll want to bookmark for the upcoming holidays. it’s got that classic smooth and creamy sweet potato pie texture with a nice perk from the spiciness of ginger. Perfect.

Now go and bake up this pie while the electricity is still on. And most importantly, if you are in the path of the hurricane, stay safe and warm and dry.

Sweet Potato Pie with Ginger

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

1 store bought pie dough
2 cups mashed sweet potatoes (about 2-2 large potatoes)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger root
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups milk
3 large eggs
½ stick butter, melted and cooled
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Scrub sweet potatoes so the skin is clean and wrap them tightly in aluminum foil. Use a fork to prick through the foil into the skin of each potato. Place potatoes onto a baking sheet and roast in the center of the oven until tender, about 1 hour. Allow potatoes to cool before removing skin and placing into a food processor. Process potatoes until they are smooth and creamy.

2. Turn the oven temperature to 450 degrees. Roll out the dough onto a floured surface until it is big enough to fit a 9-inch pie plate. Place dough into the pie plate and set in the refrigerator until you make the filling.

3. Place two cups of pureed sweet potatoes into a large bowl along with sugar, pumpkin pie spice, ginger, salt, milk, eggs, butter and vanilla extract. Whisk until well combined. Place prepared pie plate onto a rimmed baking sheet and pour into prepared pie dough. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn temperature down to 325 and cook the pie for 1 hour more. Remove pie from the oven and allow the pie to cool completely before cutting.

Christina Stanley-Salerno is a mama, recipe developer, food stylist, photographer and blogger atTakeBackYourTable.com. She loves cooking for and with her family. Life is hectic, but Christina is passionate about mealtime because she believes that family meals are the glue that holds everyone together. Creating simple, quick and healthy meals is her specialty and her trick to keeping the family meal a reality, even on busy weeknights.

Follow her on Twitter @TakeBackTables

Polenta instead of pasta

I made an amazing Mushroom Ragu this weekend, inspired by the great Lydia Bastianich.  I have been making this recipe of hers for years, but when I saw her on Rachael’s show last week, it reminded me how much I love it.

In typical Lydia, northern Italian style, she makes this dish often to be tossed with pasta or stirred into risotto, but just as often with polenta.  Instead of taking the easy way out, by making instant polenta and topping it with this mushroom ragu, which would have been amazing, I decided this time to make polenta from scratch, which was almost just as easy and took only a little bit longer.  Then, in a buttered casserole dish, I spread a layer of polenta and covered it with the ragu and some shredded pecorino cheese.  Another layer of polenta went over the ragu, then more sauce and cheese, this time mozzarella as well as the pecorino.  I baked it for 45 minutes and served it as you would a lasagna, only this time with polenta layers instead of noodles.

It’s a great alternative for someone who is avoiding wheat and although hearty, since it was a vegetarian dish and I used very little cheese, it felt much lighter than a noodle lasagna.

Polenta is a versatile ingredient and you could experiment with how to serve this endlessly.  Some just cook it and spread it on a wooden board to dry a bit and then serve. Otherwise pour into a baking dish to solidify, then slice it and serve, and the easiest of all is to just whip up a pot and dump it onto a plate with whatever topping you choose-Italians even eat it for breakfast as porridge!

Here is Rachael’s Vegetable Polenta Lasagna

Ingredients

For the red sauce:

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons fresh thyme, finely chopped
1 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 can Italian San Marzano tomatoes (28-32 ounces), crushed
A few leaves fresh basil, torn

For the bechamel sauce and ricotta:

3 tablespoons butter
3 rounded tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
1 box frozen spinach (10 ounces), defrosted
1 1/2 cups fresh ricotta cheese

For the polenta:

2 cups whole milk
6 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water
2 1/2 cups quick-cooking polenta
1/2 teaspoon fennel pollen or ground fennel (optional)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
4 tablespoons butter, plus some for greasing the casserole
2 cups shredded provolone cheese

Serves 6




Preparation

For the red sauce: Place a rack in the center of the oven. Heat some EVOO in a medium size Dutch oven or saucepot over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, carrots, celery and onion to the pot. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; add the bay leaf and thyme and cook to soften, 5-6 minutes. Next, stir in the wine and the tomato paste. Add the tomatoes and crush with a potato masher or wooden spoon. Bring the sauce to a bubble and reduce the heat to a simmer and thicken, 15 minutes.

Pre-heat the broiler.

For the bechamel and ricotta: Melt the butter in a saucepot over medium heat and whisk in the flour for 1 minute. Then whisk in the milk and bring to a bubble. Season the sauce with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Thicken the sauce and keep warm over low heat.

Drain the spinach well and separate it into small pieces. Mix together the fresh ricotta and spinach in a small bowl.

For the polenta: Bring the milk and chicken stock to a low boil. Add the polenta and season with the fennel, if using, salt and pepper. Whisk the polenta to mass, 3 minutes. Finish the polenta by stirring in 1/2 of the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and the butter.

Butter a casserole dish. Add half of the red sauce and top with half of the polenta. Pour the bechamel sauce over the polenta and dot with the ricotta cheese and spinach. Top the bechamel layer with the remainder of the polenta. Top the polenta with more red sauce and the remaining Parmigiano Reggiano and provolone. Reserve theremaining red sauce, if any, to serve on the side. Broil to set and brown, 5 minutes.

Rosemary Maggiore is our Last Minute Lady. A single mom of two kids plus a full time job (she runs this website!) keep her busy and usually pushing things to the last minute. Somehow she manages to keep her cool and her sanity while she enjoys good food, wine, friends and most importantly, family.

For more Ro, see:

Mom Talk

Follow me on Twitter at @lastminutelady

Meatless Tuesdays – Stuffed Tomato Cups

Many people observe meatless Mondays, but for me and many other people of Indian origin, that day is Tuesday. There is a religious significance to this chosen day of the week, but if I am to be truthful here, I am not entirely sure why that is and for me it’s one of those inherited customs that I happily observe. My meatless Tuesdays leave me feeling great satisfaction from putting my carnivorous habits aside for a day. I feel less weighty and, let’s just say that the system just works better.

On Tuesdays I make a real effort with my veggies, to the point of celebration. Why not, in a meat eaters home, veggies seldom get that chance. This week I am going to make stuffed tomatoes. Cooking stuffed vegetables is such a handy method because a little stuffing goes a long way and works like a charm at family gatherings. But apart from the mileage it offers, the flavor of both the vegetable and its stuffing take on new shades, new character, new textures and new flavors. In the heat of the oven, the vegetable cup breaks down and releases their moisture making it fork tender whilst accentuating the taste of the stuffing. For this dish, I used long grain rice to absorb those juices, chickpeas for some protein, some dried cranberries for a little chewy touch, Parmesan cheese which pairs very well with grated ginger (an un-obvious matrimony yielding a fruitful relationship). The tomatoes take on those comfort flavors from the stuffing and the stuffing happily take on the sweet and tart juices from the tomato. Amazing what a little give and a little take can do.

Usually meat eaters complain that a vegetarian meal is neither wholly gratifying nor filling. That is understandable but it doesn’t have to be that way. If a vegetarian meal incorporates a balance of protein, vegetables, grain and fat, the experience of a vegetarian can leave you feeling very happy and more than satiated.

Recipe For Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

4 vine ripe tomatoes
1 medium-sized onions, finely diced
1 tbsp. grated ginger
1 handful Raisins/ cranberries
1 cup rice, boiled, ¾ through
2 tbsp. tomato puree
½ cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
½ cup fresh mint, finely chopped
2 tbsp. any nuts (pine nut, cashews, walnuts), finely chopped
½ can chickpeas
Salt and pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

1) Cut the tops of the tomatoes and scoop out the insides – Reserve the caps as they will be used as lids. Rub oil around the outside and season the inside with salt

2) Sweat the onions and ginger until tender, add, the tomato puree and cook out until it deepens in color. Add the par-cooked rice and toss until evenly coated

3) Combine the rice mixture with the remaining ingredients

4) Fill the tomato cups with the rice mixture and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes until the tomatoes soften and the rice is cooked through

Saira Malhotra, is of British –Indian descent and is a chef, food writer and cooking instructor based in New York City. Raised in Hounslow, U.K, or rather ‘Little India’, where the air is aromatic with roasted spices, little did Saira know these moments would follow her from being a student in France and Italy to residing in NYC with her husband and kids and parlay themselves unexpectedly in to a culinary career. She is a graduate of the International Culinary Center in New York City. Come visit her at her food blog: www.passportpantry.com where she shares approachable and international recipes

The Taco Principle: Cooking vs. Eating

I just tried the wildly, inexplicably successful Dorito Loco Taco at Taco Bell. It was, of course, bad. Now, bear with me for a moment. I know this column is about home cooking, not fast-food reviews. But eating this awful food made me think of an important kitchen principle that affects even the most conscientious of cooks. Let’s call it the hard taco principle.

The hard taco, as we know it from places like Taco Bell, looks great to the cook. S/he takes the taco, puts in the meat, then puts lettuce on top of that, followed by shredded american cheese and whatever other toppings she wants. It looks bright and colorful, and s/he hands it to the customer, who is then left with the task of eating it. But you can’t really eat it, in any rational way. For one thing, the taco is made in the shape of a vertical U, which is anatomically impossible to eat without turning it sideways. But the toppings are meant to rest on the meat, and will fall out if turned sideways; it’s not like they are tucked in, or bound to the meat by anything other than gravity.

This fact speaks to another unforgivable design flaw in the hard taco. The only thing that might keep the lettuce and the cheese from falling off would be putting the cheese first, and then the lettuce. Some lettuce would still fall off, but who cares? Nobody likes lettuce anyway. It has no flavor; it’s just there for color and a little bit of texture.

And this brings up yet another point. Nobody likes cold shredded cheese, either. The cheese should, in fact, be mixed up with the ground meat. That meat is nasty and dry, and needs the cheese badly, much as the waxy, flavorless cheese needs melting to make it edible. The two things ought to be mixed, and spread evenly through the taco, along with the lettuce, so that you didn’t have to take one bite of shredded cheese salad and one bite of straight meat as you worked your way across the taco. The whole thing is a disaster. And it all happens because the cook, and by extension the whole thinking process behind the taco, never reckons with what it is like to eat it. By the way, everything I’m speaking out here is universally true of hard tacos, not just the Dorito Loco taco. That’s bad because its celebrated shell isn’t even an actual Dorito. So it’s a gyp as well as a structural failure.

We make this mistake at home all the time. Every time we put four things on a plate and expect the person who eats it to assemble it all one fork; every time we give someone a piece of pie that spills its guts all over the plate; every time we give somebody chicken wings without any place to put the bones; every time we put out soft bread and hard butter; we are making it hard to eat our food well. When I make pancakes for Danit, I carefully spread softened butter and maple syrup across each cake, because I know that no one can lift up each cake and insert butter and syrup evenly once they’ve been piled up. It’s really just as simple as  It’s a small thing, but it matters. And it matters a lot.

Fun Halloween Party Ideas!

Creepy Eyeball Drink Toppers

This project is so cute and easy you won’t believe your eyes!

Materials:

Small styrofoam balls

Bamboo skewers

Puffy Paint

Floral foam

Craft foam

Scissors

Hot glue gun

Miniature brads

Pipe cleaners

Wine glasses with stems

Directions:

Place a styrofoam ball on the end of a bamboo skewer. To make the eyeball look bloodshot, draw some red squiggly lines with red puffy paint.

Place the bamboo skewer in some floral foam to allow the paint to dry.

For the iris of the eyeball cut small circles of craft foam, and hot glue them onto the styrofoam.

While the hot glue is still wet, press a miniature brad into the craft foam and styrofoam ball to make the pupil, and reinforce the craft foam.

Repeat this process to make three more eyeballs. Once everything is dry, remove the eyeballs from the skewers and attach them to the ends of two pipe cleaners.

Wrap the two pipe cleaners around the stem of a wine glass, and adjust the eyeballs.

Fill the glass with your favorite beverage for a spooky libation.

To see a complete how-to video on this project, click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClwfDP...

Clementine Jack O’Lantern Drink Topper

Make any cocktail into a Halloween cocktail with this simple Jack O Lantern Drink Topper.

Materials/Ingredients:

Clementines

Small knife

Red food coloring

Bamboo Skewers

Cut a clementine in half. Peel one half without worrying about preserving the skin. To preserve the skin on the other half, gently ease the fruit out, using a knife if necessary, to keep the skin in tact.

Using a small knife, like a paring knife, cut out the jack o lantern face.

Mix some red food coloring and water, and paint the red solution onto the outside of the fruit of the half clementine.

Place the painted fruit into the jack o lantern skin, skewer it all together, and top you’re favorite drink.

To see a complete how-tow video, click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBiLVk...

Halloween Frame Display:

For a cool 3D look, transform some old frames into a graphic Halloween display.

Materials:

Old picture frames

Black spray paint

Halloween decorations like oversized spiders and fake cobwebs

Spray paint the frames black. Once they’re dry, mount them on the walls and/or ceiling, overlapping them and hanging them askew. Decorate with fake cobwebs, oversized spiders and any other Halloween decoration. Display behind a table filled with refreshments, candles and jack o lanterns.

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To see a complete video on this project, click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjRxY0...

Big Soda Ban: Right-On, or Off-Base?

New York City has taken on a big challenge. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with the New York City Board of Health, has passed a ban on the sale of sodas larger than 16 ounces. Some of the city’s residents approve the ban, but many - in fact most - are against it.

The reason for the ban is to help curb the city’s growing obesity epidemic, which contributes to high rates of diabetes and other health issues.  Not only will the city have its hands full trying to convince New Yorkers that this decision is in their best interests, but they are about to be challenged in court by the soda industry on the legality of passing the ban. Opponents of the ban say it will hurt small businesses that sell soft drinks, that it infringes on consumer choice, and that the ban was imposed without the consent of the public.

Now, all of the above factors have merit, depending on your point of view. But think about how much soda serving sizes have changed since they first came on the market. When soda was introduced in the 1920’s, the iconic glass bottles contained a 6.5 ounce serving. In the 1960’s, soda graduated to 12-ounce size cans. In the 1990’s came 20-ounce plastic bottles, which grew to 34 ounces later in the decade. Essentially, over time the standard of a “normal” soda size has changed, and a soda container that may seem perfectly reasonable to a teenager may be quite shocking to a baby boomer.

This will not be the first time that Mayor Bloomberg has passed a controversial law designed for the public’s wellbeing. His administration has outlawed smoking in bars and public parks, and passed a requirement for chain restaurants to list calorie counts next to menu items. Both of those laws are now standard operating procedure throughout much of the country. So, could the soda ban go the same way? Or, is it a big mistake that doesn’t have staying power?

Please share your opinion on the soda ban. Do you think this is a good way to fight food-related illness like diabetes and heart disease? Do you think there is a better way to go about helping people make healthy food choices? Add your comment to the discussion!