~ firefly-dreaming a virtual home to learn (or teach!) alternative methods of solving problems we find facing us each day. By sharing ideas & knowledge on living with less stress, more joy & embracing tolerance & compassion we are working towards building a sustainable future for all living beings.
Mark Bittman's piece today -- he writes a cooking column for the Sunday Times Magazine -- was about cooking with beer.
I'll link to it later. The caveat about his recipes is, he consulted with a brewer, and while I have no doubt that the results are wonderful, you don't have to have access to world-class beers to achieve superior results. Although, you should probably stay away from stuff like Bud, Miller Light, and Coors. (And even Bud will do in a pinch.)
I have a little Imperia pasta machine at work and I amuse myself with pasta experiments whenever I have the time - which happens to be in short supply these days, as extra work duties seem to have multiplied to cover up for the inevitable loss of income we all seem to be going through, worldwide.
Still, there is always a silver lining in the darkest of cloud and this economic downturn allows most of us to go back to the basics, prudently economize and utilize less, and it forces us to come up with a better and more efficient menu at home. Case in point: you can purchase the above machine for less than $50 on Ebay or Craigs (mostly unwanted gifts) and make fresh pasta at a fraction of the cost you'd pay in a supermarket.
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
This week's mystery gadget with both a top and bottom view:
Apologies: I had a brain fart & screwed up the "publish" time. Without checking my calendar, I was thinking tomorrow was Sept. 1. So this wants to post as the Thursday Open, despite my efforts to change the publish date/time. Am posting a few hours early rather than a day late. Yes, you can laugh at me now...
A New Yorker after my own heart...
Ms. Fain, a seventh-generation Texan who grew up outside Houston and has lived in New York for 15 years, writes the Homesick Texan blog, which gets 15,000 page views daily.
snip
But homesick Texans still despair at the paucity of RoTel canned tomatoes and chiles. Ms. Fain once took a train to New Jersey and walked an hour to a store she thought might stock them, but didn't.
BTW, I can attest to the quality of Ro*Tel. I bought a case at a discount grocery a few years ago & fell in love. Sometimes Sav-A-Lot has them, sometimes not: but when they do, I try to stock up, no matter what the expiration date is. Delicious!
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
Instead of a mystery gadget this week I want to address hurricane/disaster issues here:
For all the East Coast folks who are keeping an eye on Hurricane Irene here's some links/reminders on being prepared:
And if you are in an area that has been declared by the President a disaster area you may be eligible for emergency food benefits
USDA provides administrative funding to individual states, which operate their own D-SNAP programs. USDA funds 100 percent of the costs of D-SNAP benefits for eligible households. While program requirements vary somewhat from state to state, those eligible for D-SNAP typically must have experienced one of the following:
Food damaged by disaster event or spoiled due to power outage
Disaster-related expenses not expected to be reimbursed during the benefit period (e.g., home or business repairs, temporary shelter expenses, evacuation expenses, home/business protection, disaster-related personal injury including funeral expenses)
Lost or inaccessible income, including reduction or termination of income, or a delay in receipt of income for half the benefit period
You can access a listing of state D-SNAP hotlines to obtain information on application sites in your area at:
So if you lose a refrigerator/freezer full of food because the power is out for an extended period of time you may qualify for funds to help you replace your lost food!
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
This week's mystery gadget is an older version of something you might find in a modern kitchen especially if there is baking going on;
It's taking over your garden, the prices are dropping at the local store or perhaps you have even discovered a mysterious nighttime "zucchini drop" on your doorstep. Well, zucchini makes a great addition to all kinds of dishes and here's a few examples where I've used a stray zuke or two and other bits of leftovers to make tasty summertime meals.
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
And this week's mystery gadget:
What is this? (and hint for those of you that read this regularly, we actually discussed this item in a previous Tasty Bits!)
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
And here is this week's culinary curiosity!
What is this?
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
And your weekly "what is this?" for your guessing pleasure:
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
This week's "What is This?" is a clever one that I have actually used:
And hint: it is related to one of the tasty bits below;)
Pesto. Such a simple concoction of nature's herbaceous bounty with a plethora of uses and as many variations as there are herbs under the sun. But what is pesto, really? And where did it come from?
Ah, the trusty Wikipedia (provided no followers of Palin or Bachmann have come by to edit the page) tells us thusly:
Pesto is a sauce originating in Genoa in the Liguria region of northern Italy (pesto alla genovese), and traditionally consists of crushed garlic, basil and nuts blended with olive oil and cheese. The name is the contracted past participle of the Genoese word pestâ (Italian: pestare), which means to pound, to crush, in reference to the original method of preparation, with marble mortar and wooden pestle.
The ancient Romans ate a cheese spread called moretum, which may sometimes have been made with basil. The herb likely originated in North Africa; however, it was first domesticated in India. Basil took the firmest root in the regions of Liguria, Italy and Provence, France. The Ligurians around Genoa took the dish and adapted it, using a combination of basil, crushed garlic, grated hard cheese (a mix of parmigiano-reggiano and pecorino or just one of the two), and pine nuts with a little olive oil to form pesto. In French Provence, the dish evolved into the modern pistou, a combination of basil, parsley, crushed garlic, and grated cheese (optional). However, pine nuts are not included.
In 1944, The New York Times mentioned an imported canned pesto paste. In 1946, Sunset magazine published a pesto recipe by Angelo Pellegrini. Pesto did not become popular in North America until the 1980s and 1990s.
Ok, enough of the geeky food history! On to the recipes!
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. I hope you all had a good holiday weekend (if you're in the US)! Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
Our "what is this?" for this week is a fascinating multi-purpose gadget from the days of cast iron stoves:
Welcome once again for another week's round-up of eco-foodie news, tips, links & recipes. Each week I glean tasty bits from the various blogs & sites I follow outside of the Kos-verse and bring them together here for your perusal. If you have a good tasty bit to share let us know about it in the comments!
This week's mystery kitchen gadget is something I have seen and used in plastic form but here is an older metal version:
