cdkitchen > feeddaily blog
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With Halloween just around the corner, it's time to start thinking about candy, costumes, and cooking! Halloween is the perfect holiday to rev up your culinary creativity and there is a multitude of ideas for making colorful, delicious, and sometimes frightening treats centered on a Halloween theme. I have many fond memories of making Halloween themed cupcakes and sweet treats. But I also remember experiencing otherworldly frights based on pretzels shaped like fingers complete with an almond fingernail, peeled grape eyeballs, and cold spaghetti brains. But if you are...
by
Last October I attended one of the most elegant lunches I have ever had. My dear friend Paula invited me and my family to her parents' house in upstate New York. Overlooking an oasis of rolling hills and trees ablaze with red, amber and golden leaves, Paula's family home is a veritable sanctuary to the autumn season. The lunch was an ode to their Brazilian heritage and the brisk fall day on which we gathered: shrimp stew presented in an enormous pumpkin, scooped and cleaned to be the terrine from which our scrumptious lunch was served. Our hostess then ladled each of us a bowl of...
by
One week from today is the official "eat-all-the-candy-you-want" day in America. If ever there were a holiday just for kids, Halloween would be it. Costumes and candy, goblins and goodies, all seem like fun fit for children only. Adults, too, can take part in this kitschy day with festive hors d'oeuvres that will look kid-inspired but will taste like they are just for grown-ups. The whole family can enjoy these elegant and festive savory bites!
by
This week I thought a hearty discussion on pound cake was in order. After all, it makes a quick and tasty dessert that will match well with your Thanksgiving or Christmas meals and it makes a lovely gift for your friends and family. Can't get better than that, right? Pound cake was invented by (yet again!) the British in the 1700s. The original recipe for pound cake was quite simple--a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of butter, and a pound of eggs. Hence, the rather apt name. Actually, it was a great recipe for the vastly illiterate population at the time. Since...
by
We had a great growing season this year--with the exception of my much anticipated giant pumpkins. Every year, my pumpkin patch has produced enough bounty to keep the neighborhood children happily supplied with pumpkins for their Halloween carving activities. But this year I guess we'll have to hold a lottery for the one, solitary giant pumpkin that sits toward the back end of my squash garden. It's a mystery to me as to why or how this has happened. And I'm not sure how to break it to the kids. My guess is that they know by now anyway. It's hard to miss that big orange misshapen...
by
It seems like just yesterday the market was overrun with summer bounty. Then overnight, voila! The winter squash arrived. Great piles of pumpkins ready for jack-o-lanterns. Mountains of butternuts begging to be pureed into soups and pasta fillings. Acorn, kabocha, delicata, hubbard, all waiting to usher your dinner table into the taste of fall. Winter squash, despite its name, is actually a summer-growing vegetable. These often deep-colored gourds spend months on the vine until the flesh turns from soft to a thick, hardened shell. Once off the vine...
by
My family and I have been enjoying more than our share of takeout and restaurant meals lately and one of our go-to choices for a meal out is Chinese food. Our local Chinese haunt really is one of the only restaurants we can take our toddler son to and not have to worry about bringing along a bunch of toys or crayons to keep him busy. From the meal's start to finish he entertains himself between sampling the free appetizers of peanuts and spicy cucumbers, to trying to eat with chopsticks that have been strung together with a rubber band, to anticipating fortune cookies for dessert. And...
by
My usual breakfast routine consists of grabbing something quick--a banana or some granola--on the way out the door in the morning. If I am really pressed for time, I wait until I get to work and then eat a bowl of cold cereal there (I keep a box in my desk for emergencies). But sometimes, it is nice to have a more civilized first meal of the day. With the weather getting colder, a hot breakfast sounds like just the ticket to start off the morning right. But if you are anything like me, hot breakfasts are a rare occurrence, happening only on the occasional weekend morning...
by
Ahhh, vanilla. My absolute favorite. I love anything vanilla flavored, scented or otherwise. I even wear vanilla perfume. I'm addicted to the stuff, I admit. It's got a soft, yet complex, not too-sweet quality that is both intriguing and familiar. It is the Flavor of the Year in my book. Vanilla beans are actually members of the orchid family. They come from several major sources throughout the world, but the biggest ones are Mexico, Madagascar and Tahiti. Bourbon vanilla, in fact, doesn't contain bourbon at all; the term refers to any vanilla grown on the Isle of...
by
Lately I have been hearing a lot about a relatively new concept called Baby Led Weaning. Instead of starting off spoon feeding young babies pureed foods at around four to six months, little babies are allowed to self wean from breast milk or formula at their own pace by finger feeding cut up foods from the very beginning. So instead of offering food to them on a spoon, they are picking and choosing what they want and feeding it to themselves. As the mother of a seven-month-old baby who is very interested in putting absolutely everything in his mouth, this idea has piqued...
by
A typical walk down any supermarket aisle is quick to reveal how averse we are as Americans to doing work in the kitchen. Everything from onions to carrots comes pre-diced and ready for the pot. Stir-fry packs with onion, peppers, and mushrooms are plastic wrapped awaiting canned sauce and choice of meat. Salads even are packaged as "kits" complete with croutons, dried fruit, nuts, and dressing. With so many vegetable choices requiring so little work outside of package unwrapping skills you think we would be eating vegetables all the time.
by
That's precisely what hubby said when I asked him what he thought of this latest crockpot baked bean recipe. After all, it was a recipe that really was inspired by him: Just the other week when he was on vacation (the stay-at-home variety), he decided to accompany daughter and I on our regular grocery store run. That's when he spotted one of those giant cans of butter beans - a gargantuan 7-pounder - and it got us to thinkin' about beans of all shapes and sizes: you know, butter beans, Bush's Beans, Campbell's pork and beans, deli baked beans, eating too many beans, and on and on...
by
When you think of Philly and sandwiches, the cheese steaks and hoagies for which the city is well known immediately come to mind. But there is a third sandwich that has recently gained notoriety and completes the Philadelphia sandwich triumvirate: the Italian roast pork and greens sandwich.
by
Lasagna is one of those dishes that everyone in our family loves - but doesn't love to make. Why is it that lasagna just seems to take forever to finish! Boiling the noodles, browning the beef, layering the levels of noodles, ricotta and sauce ... oh, when does it end? And then it still has to bake! Gosh, no wonder I don't make it very often. But we do so love lasagna. Yet after one or two times of having given helping hands with the mixing and layering, it seems everyone around here has had much better things to do than help make lasagna...
by
Too often at the fish counter I find myself going back to the same old choices. It is too bad, because I am blessed with a particularly nice fish market with a selection of imported and local specialties that puts everything but the big waterfront operations to shame. This market has it all. Multiple varieties of tuna like albacore, ahi, and yellowfin. Salmon from Alaska and the Atlantic, cut into steaks and fillets, smoked and cured into gravlax. There's Hawaiian Opah, mid-Atlantic grouper, and Mediterranean branzino.
by
It was a rainy evening and we had just arrived home after taking a wet walk after my son's guitar lesson. These are often the nights that my daughter and I enjoy dallying through town (sometimes Dad joins us), exploring the shops that are open late in our little town - wandering down alleyways and avenues that we wouldn't otherwise see. While we had planned to enjoy a wet walk on this night, after we arrived home and slung our wet ponchos and raincoats on hooks in the garage to dry, the dry house felt good - and the kitchen seemed especially warm and welcoming.
From The Editors At CDKitchen: Feed Daily
by
With Halloween just around the corner, it's time to start thinking about candy, costumes, and cooking! Halloween is the perfect holiday to rev up your culinary creativity and there is a multitude of ideas for making colorful, delicious, and sometimes frightening treats centered on a Halloween theme. I have many fond memories of making Halloween themed cupcakes and sweet treats. But I also remember experiencing otherworldly frights based on pretzels shaped like fingers complete with an almond fingernail, peeled grape eyeballs, and cold spaghetti brains. But if you are...
by
Last October I attended one of the most elegant lunches I have ever had. My dear friend Paula invited me and my family to her parents' house in upstate New York. Overlooking an oasis of rolling hills and trees ablaze with red, amber and golden leaves, Paula's family home is a veritable sanctuary to the autumn season. The lunch was an ode to their Brazilian heritage and the brisk fall day on which we gathered: shrimp stew presented in an enormous pumpkin, scooped and cleaned to be the terrine from which our scrumptious lunch was served. Our hostess then ladled each of us a bowl of...
by
One week from today is the official "eat-all-the-candy-you-want" day in America. If ever there were a holiday just for kids, Halloween would be it. Costumes and candy, goblins and goodies, all seem like fun fit for children only. Adults, too, can take part in this kitschy day with festive hors d'oeuvres that will look kid-inspired but will taste like they are just for grown-ups. The whole family can enjoy these elegant and festive savory bites!
by
This week I thought a hearty discussion on pound cake was in order. After all, it makes a quick and tasty dessert that will match well with your Thanksgiving or Christmas meals and it makes a lovely gift for your friends and family. Can't get better than that, right? Pound cake was invented by (yet again!) the British in the 1700s. The original recipe for pound cake was quite simple--a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of butter, and a pound of eggs. Hence, the rather apt name. Actually, it was a great recipe for the vastly illiterate population at the time. Since...
by
We had a great growing season this year--with the exception of my much anticipated giant pumpkins. Every year, my pumpkin patch has produced enough bounty to keep the neighborhood children happily supplied with pumpkins for their Halloween carving activities. But this year I guess we'll have to hold a lottery for the one, solitary giant pumpkin that sits toward the back end of my squash garden. It's a mystery to me as to why or how this has happened. And I'm not sure how to break it to the kids. My guess is that they know by now anyway. It's hard to miss that big orange misshapen...
by
It seems like just yesterday the market was overrun with summer bounty. Then overnight, voila! The winter squash arrived. Great piles of pumpkins ready for jack-o-lanterns. Mountains of butternuts begging to be pureed into soups and pasta fillings. Acorn, kabocha, delicata, hubbard, all waiting to usher your dinner table into the taste of fall. Winter squash, despite its name, is actually a summer-growing vegetable. These often deep-colored gourds spend months on the vine until the flesh turns from soft to a thick, hardened shell. Once off the vine...
by
My family and I have been enjoying more than our share of takeout and restaurant meals lately and one of our go-to choices for a meal out is Chinese food. Our local Chinese haunt really is one of the only restaurants we can take our toddler son to and not have to worry about bringing along a bunch of toys or crayons to keep him busy. From the meal's start to finish he entertains himself between sampling the free appetizers of peanuts and spicy cucumbers, to trying to eat with chopsticks that have been strung together with a rubber band, to anticipating fortune cookies for dessert. And...
by
My usual breakfast routine consists of grabbing something quick--a banana or some granola--on the way out the door in the morning. If I am really pressed for time, I wait until I get to work and then eat a bowl of cold cereal there (I keep a box in my desk for emergencies). But sometimes, it is nice to have a more civilized first meal of the day. With the weather getting colder, a hot breakfast sounds like just the ticket to start off the morning right. But if you are anything like me, hot breakfasts are a rare occurrence, happening only on the occasional weekend morning...
by
Ahhh, vanilla. My absolute favorite. I love anything vanilla flavored, scented or otherwise. I even wear vanilla perfume. I'm addicted to the stuff, I admit. It's got a soft, yet complex, not too-sweet quality that is both intriguing and familiar. It is the Flavor of the Year in my book. Vanilla beans are actually members of the orchid family. They come from several major sources throughout the world, but the biggest ones are Mexico, Madagascar and Tahiti. Bourbon vanilla, in fact, doesn't contain bourbon at all; the term refers to any vanilla grown on the Isle of...
by
Lately I have been hearing a lot about a relatively new concept called Baby Led Weaning. Instead of starting off spoon feeding young babies pureed foods at around four to six months, little babies are allowed to self wean from breast milk or formula at their own pace by finger feeding cut up foods from the very beginning. So instead of offering food to them on a spoon, they are picking and choosing what they want and feeding it to themselves. As the mother of a seven-month-old baby who is very interested in putting absolutely everything in his mouth, this idea has piqued...
by
A typical walk down any supermarket aisle is quick to reveal how averse we are as Americans to doing work in the kitchen. Everything from onions to carrots comes pre-diced and ready for the pot. Stir-fry packs with onion, peppers, and mushrooms are plastic wrapped awaiting canned sauce and choice of meat. Salads even are packaged as "kits" complete with croutons, dried fruit, nuts, and dressing. With so many vegetable choices requiring so little work outside of package unwrapping skills you think we would be eating vegetables all the time.
by
That's precisely what hubby said when I asked him what he thought of this latest crockpot baked bean recipe. After all, it was a recipe that really was inspired by him: Just the other week when he was on vacation (the stay-at-home variety), he decided to accompany daughter and I on our regular grocery store run. That's when he spotted one of those giant cans of butter beans - a gargantuan 7-pounder - and it got us to thinkin' about beans of all shapes and sizes: you know, butter beans, Bush's Beans, Campbell's pork and beans, deli baked beans, eating too many beans, and on and on...
by
When you think of Philly and sandwiches, the cheese steaks and hoagies for which the city is well known immediately come to mind. But there is a third sandwich that has recently gained notoriety and completes the Philadelphia sandwich triumvirate: the Italian roast pork and greens sandwich.
by
Lasagna is one of those dishes that everyone in our family loves - but doesn't love to make. Why is it that lasagna just seems to take forever to finish! Boiling the noodles, browning the beef, layering the levels of noodles, ricotta and sauce ... oh, when does it end? And then it still has to bake! Gosh, no wonder I don't make it very often. But we do so love lasagna. Yet after one or two times of having given helping hands with the mixing and layering, it seems everyone around here has had much better things to do than help make lasagna...
by
Too often at the fish counter I find myself going back to the same old choices. It is too bad, because I am blessed with a particularly nice fish market with a selection of imported and local specialties that puts everything but the big waterfront operations to shame. This market has it all. Multiple varieties of tuna like albacore, ahi, and yellowfin. Salmon from Alaska and the Atlantic, cut into steaks and fillets, smoked and cured into gravlax. There's Hawaiian Opah, mid-Atlantic grouper, and Mediterranean branzino.
by
It was a rainy evening and we had just arrived home after taking a wet walk after my son's guitar lesson. These are often the nights that my daughter and I enjoy dallying through town (sometimes Dad joins us), exploring the shops that are open late in our little town - wandering down alleyways and avenues that we wouldn't otherwise see. While we had planned to enjoy a wet walk on this night, after we arrived home and slung our wet ponchos and raincoats on hooks in the garage to dry, the dry house felt good - and the kitchen seemed especially warm and welcoming.