cdkitchen > feeddaily blog
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Imagine driving down the main street of your town. As you drive you pass the bright lights of the many fast food restaurants that beckon you to stop for a quick dinner on the way home from work or a brief sit at a plastic chair for lunch. Now imagine that, instead of each of these fast food restaurants being part of a multi-national chain, each one has a sole owner and proprietor. In place of a generic assortment of burgers and fries, chicken sandwiches and limp salads, each of these quick stop restaurants specializes in a single dish or type of food. There would be a restaurant just for chicken noodle soup and another with a selection of salads using just ingredients from your town. The fried chicken place would do just fried chicken and maybe plain mashed potatoes, no biscuits, corn or beans, and definitely no grilled chicken, nothing that does not fit with the house specialty, chicken that is fried.
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Chances are as you are reading this article you still may be recovering from a 4th of July celebration. But before you write off the rest of the summer as devoid of meaningful holidays until the fall, consider that there is another holiday around the corner much sooner than you would think. Take the fourth of July and stick a "1" before the 4 and you have the second best holiday of the summer, le quatorze juillet, or the Fourteenth of July--Bastille Day as we like to call it on this side of the pond. Leave it to the French to celebrate their independence from the monarchy...
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July's new food of the month packs a lot of punch into a little package, for it offers not only a cool and refreshing taste, but also an interesting history: the Key lime. Share this tidbit with the sea-faring mates at your house: To combat the dreaded scurvy that affected sailors long-at-sea in the eighteenth century, the British navy guzzled over one million gallons of lime juice. Imported cheaply from the English colony of Jamaica, the sailors would often drink their required ration of lime juice with rum. Why limes instead of lemons? Britain was not on good terms...
by
Edible flowers have become so common that I can now buy them in little plastic clamshell containers at the local grocery store. Many restaurants feature them on their menus and bakeries adorn cakes with them. They are not the source of curiosity that they used to be. But are they as safe as we assume them to be? Most of us already know that not all flowers are edible. But not all edible flowers are truly fit for human consumption. To be on the safe side, you should eat flowers only when you are absolutely positive that they are edible. Here are a few tips for safely...
by
The girls wiped their dripping chins on their arms, smiling up at me with a sparkle in their eyes that came from much more than the juicy peaches I had just peeled and sliced for them. From much more than the bananas that the youngest always asked for. Just the sheer exuberance that emanated from this small group of friends served to remind me of the ever-rejuvenating force of childhood energy - energy that we adults may find so exhausting or frustrating at times. Yet it's that same energy that bites into the best of what the last days of summer have to offer, be...
by
There is nothing quite like a cool glass of iced tea to refresh you on a warm summer day. As June is National Iced Tea month, I thought I might share an easy technique to brew up a huge amount of tea in the slow cooker that you can use the whole summer long! Iced tea was a staple of my childhood; my mother always had a big jug of sun tea going on the back patio. I am not sure if she didn't get the proportion right or the sun was never strong enough in that spot (or maybe she didn't want us to have all that caffeine), but this was just about the weakest glass of ice tea...
by
Fresh basil is the ultimate "scent of summer." Pungent and slightly sweet, it's the one herb that I simply cannot do without for warm weather cooking. But its lifespan in the garden is limited. As delicate as it is beautiful, the basil plant is the first to be damaged by frost. In Indiana, our anticipated first frost date is October 6th. How can it be that I may only have less than 8 weeks left to enjoy my garden's fresh basil?
by
Mint might be misunderstood. On one hand, it is an invasive weed that stubbornly grows in the yards of even the most black-thumbed gardeners and threatens to take over the herb gardens of the green thumbed. On the other hand, it's a potent and diverse herb that brings refreshing flavor to everything from tea to salads. Much more than an electric green jelly to accompany leg of lamb, mint has many delicious culinary uses such that even the black thumbed gardener might find inspiration from this abundant herb. A quick look at the gum rack of a convenience store is...
by
If there's one entree that defines "the ultimate summer meal" for me, it's my friend Karen's Salmon and Green Bean Salad. When our green beans are ready for harvest, this is the first meal I make with them. My husband and I have this salad at least twice a week during peak green bean season. Its ease of preparation and sensational flavor make it a favorite. Just add a loaf of crusty bread and a glass of Pinot Grigio for a summer meal that's perfect patio or picnic fare.
by
With all the yummy, albeit obscure, fun food holidays that are approaching, it's so hard to celebrate just one. What's a girl to do on days like today, when it's National Milk Chocolate Day AND National Hamburger Day? Dive herself right into a milk chocolate hamburger? Hmm, that sounds tempting, actually. But it can be a little hard to keep up with. It's like a food-recognition frenzy. I have to say, all the bases are covered, ranging from lasagna day, cheesecake day, raspberry cake day, raspberry cream pie day, national catfish month, ice cream sandwich day, ice cream...
by
Ever since Huck Finn first cast a line into the waters of Mark Twain's novel, summer fishing has seemed to be the birthright of every American boy. Pants rolled up, fishing line attached to the end of a stick; sitting on a river bank waiting for a bite was a by-gone era's Game Boy, a way for idle boys to pass the time on lazy summer days. Today, those boys who fished on a pond became men who still fish--now in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Those fishing men had daughters and found that girls could roll up their Capri pants and cast a line too. And so in spite of the iPads, Xboxes, and Blackberries all competing for our attention, the simple summer fishing tradition remains intact, and with that comes a lot of fish.
by
I thought I would share some of my favorite summer drink recipes with you this week. I'm not much of a fan of the super-alcohol style drinks (read single malt scotch and the like). My self-designed mixed drinks tend to be fruity and sweet without being syrupy or cloying. In fact, for those of you watching your carb belts, I substitute diet lemon lime or ginger ale soda in place of regular in my own drinks. I don't have a huge stock of liquor on hand, but I do keep several staples around for mixing drinks impromptu-style for the summer season. My bar pantry includes...
by
Mexico, mangoes, margaritas, mariachis. What do these words have in common? They are all ingredients that went into making one of the top five favorite meals of my life. Attempting to name the best five meals in my life is one of my all-time favorite games. There is no one that I like to play this game with more than my best friend. As a fellow foodie and frequent traveling companion, it is pretty likely that when we play this game more than one of our individual choices will overlap. There are many ingredients to a top meal, and the food is only part of...
by
We've all been there: it's a Wednesday night and you don't get home until 9:30pm from the gym, a charity meeting, PTA, fill in the blank. All you know is McDonald's is not looking like the healthiest option. But you will need to put something in your hollow stomach before the head hits the pillow. So what does that leave you? The answer lies in whatever is lurking in your cupboard or refrigerator. When I think of the standard state of my fridge I can picture door shelves full of hot sauces, soy sauce and mustard. I might have a tub of miso paste, a small container...
by
I am a human pressure cooker. I mean literally, when I am under pressure or stress, what do I do? I cook. Some people do yoga, others golf, I cook. I do other forms of stress relief, for sure: run, road rage, drink a bottle of Cabernet by myself, but at the end of the day, as I am tearing my hair out, I usually ask myself, what would I rather be doing? The answer is always that I would rather be, well, cooking.
by
There exists a real and logical reason why, at a recent dinner party, I out-ed myself as something of an expert on black kale. After all, I can't remember the last time someone found such information to be cool party banter. In fact, the woman who brought up the topic had not been talking to me at all (making my butting in all the worse and my credibility on the subject a bit suspect). Feeling a tad embarrassed and not wanting to come off as too much of a know-it-all (even though I clearly already had), I shared my cooking tips and gracefully avoided the question of how it was exactly...
From The Editors At CDKitchen: Feed Daily
by
Imagine driving down the main street of your town. As you drive you pass the bright lights of the many fast food restaurants that beckon you to stop for a quick dinner on the way home from work or a brief sit at a plastic chair for lunch. Now imagine that, instead of each of these fast food restaurants being part of a multi-national chain, each one has a sole owner and proprietor. In place of a generic assortment of burgers and fries, chicken sandwiches and limp salads, each of these quick stop restaurants specializes in a single dish or type of food. There would be a restaurant just for chicken noodle soup and another with a selection of salads using just ingredients from your town. The fried chicken place would do just fried chicken and maybe plain mashed potatoes, no biscuits, corn or beans, and definitely no grilled chicken, nothing that does not fit with the house specialty, chicken that is fried.
by
Chances are as you are reading this article you still may be recovering from a 4th of July celebration. But before you write off the rest of the summer as devoid of meaningful holidays until the fall, consider that there is another holiday around the corner much sooner than you would think. Take the fourth of July and stick a "1" before the 4 and you have the second best holiday of the summer, le quatorze juillet, or the Fourteenth of July--Bastille Day as we like to call it on this side of the pond. Leave it to the French to celebrate their independence from the monarchy...
by
July's new food of the month packs a lot of punch into a little package, for it offers not only a cool and refreshing taste, but also an interesting history: the Key lime. Share this tidbit with the sea-faring mates at your house: To combat the dreaded scurvy that affected sailors long-at-sea in the eighteenth century, the British navy guzzled over one million gallons of lime juice. Imported cheaply from the English colony of Jamaica, the sailors would often drink their required ration of lime juice with rum. Why limes instead of lemons? Britain was not on good terms...
by
Edible flowers have become so common that I can now buy them in little plastic clamshell containers at the local grocery store. Many restaurants feature them on their menus and bakeries adorn cakes with them. They are not the source of curiosity that they used to be. But are they as safe as we assume them to be? Most of us already know that not all flowers are edible. But not all edible flowers are truly fit for human consumption. To be on the safe side, you should eat flowers only when you are absolutely positive that they are edible. Here are a few tips for safely...
by
The girls wiped their dripping chins on their arms, smiling up at me with a sparkle in their eyes that came from much more than the juicy peaches I had just peeled and sliced for them. From much more than the bananas that the youngest always asked for. Just the sheer exuberance that emanated from this small group of friends served to remind me of the ever-rejuvenating force of childhood energy - energy that we adults may find so exhausting or frustrating at times. Yet it's that same energy that bites into the best of what the last days of summer have to offer, be...
by
There is nothing quite like a cool glass of iced tea to refresh you on a warm summer day. As June is National Iced Tea month, I thought I might share an easy technique to brew up a huge amount of tea in the slow cooker that you can use the whole summer long! Iced tea was a staple of my childhood; my mother always had a big jug of sun tea going on the back patio. I am not sure if she didn't get the proportion right or the sun was never strong enough in that spot (or maybe she didn't want us to have all that caffeine), but this was just about the weakest glass of ice tea...
by
Fresh basil is the ultimate "scent of summer." Pungent and slightly sweet, it's the one herb that I simply cannot do without for warm weather cooking. But its lifespan in the garden is limited. As delicate as it is beautiful, the basil plant is the first to be damaged by frost. In Indiana, our anticipated first frost date is October 6th. How can it be that I may only have less than 8 weeks left to enjoy my garden's fresh basil?
by
Mint might be misunderstood. On one hand, it is an invasive weed that stubbornly grows in the yards of even the most black-thumbed gardeners and threatens to take over the herb gardens of the green thumbed. On the other hand, it's a potent and diverse herb that brings refreshing flavor to everything from tea to salads. Much more than an electric green jelly to accompany leg of lamb, mint has many delicious culinary uses such that even the black thumbed gardener might find inspiration from this abundant herb. A quick look at the gum rack of a convenience store is...
by
If there's one entree that defines "the ultimate summer meal" for me, it's my friend Karen's Salmon and Green Bean Salad. When our green beans are ready for harvest, this is the first meal I make with them. My husband and I have this salad at least twice a week during peak green bean season. Its ease of preparation and sensational flavor make it a favorite. Just add a loaf of crusty bread and a glass of Pinot Grigio for a summer meal that's perfect patio or picnic fare.
by
With all the yummy, albeit obscure, fun food holidays that are approaching, it's so hard to celebrate just one. What's a girl to do on days like today, when it's National Milk Chocolate Day AND National Hamburger Day? Dive herself right into a milk chocolate hamburger? Hmm, that sounds tempting, actually. But it can be a little hard to keep up with. It's like a food-recognition frenzy. I have to say, all the bases are covered, ranging from lasagna day, cheesecake day, raspberry cake day, raspberry cream pie day, national catfish month, ice cream sandwich day, ice cream...
by
Ever since Huck Finn first cast a line into the waters of Mark Twain's novel, summer fishing has seemed to be the birthright of every American boy. Pants rolled up, fishing line attached to the end of a stick; sitting on a river bank waiting for a bite was a by-gone era's Game Boy, a way for idle boys to pass the time on lazy summer days. Today, those boys who fished on a pond became men who still fish--now in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Those fishing men had daughters and found that girls could roll up their Capri pants and cast a line too. And so in spite of the iPads, Xboxes, and Blackberries all competing for our attention, the simple summer fishing tradition remains intact, and with that comes a lot of fish.
by
I thought I would share some of my favorite summer drink recipes with you this week. I'm not much of a fan of the super-alcohol style drinks (read single malt scotch and the like). My self-designed mixed drinks tend to be fruity and sweet without being syrupy or cloying. In fact, for those of you watching your carb belts, I substitute diet lemon lime or ginger ale soda in place of regular in my own drinks. I don't have a huge stock of liquor on hand, but I do keep several staples around for mixing drinks impromptu-style for the summer season. My bar pantry includes...
by
Mexico, mangoes, margaritas, mariachis. What do these words have in common? They are all ingredients that went into making one of the top five favorite meals of my life. Attempting to name the best five meals in my life is one of my all-time favorite games. There is no one that I like to play this game with more than my best friend. As a fellow foodie and frequent traveling companion, it is pretty likely that when we play this game more than one of our individual choices will overlap. There are many ingredients to a top meal, and the food is only part of...
by
We've all been there: it's a Wednesday night and you don't get home until 9:30pm from the gym, a charity meeting, PTA, fill in the blank. All you know is McDonald's is not looking like the healthiest option. But you will need to put something in your hollow stomach before the head hits the pillow. So what does that leave you? The answer lies in whatever is lurking in your cupboard or refrigerator. When I think of the standard state of my fridge I can picture door shelves full of hot sauces, soy sauce and mustard. I might have a tub of miso paste, a small container...
by
I am a human pressure cooker. I mean literally, when I am under pressure or stress, what do I do? I cook. Some people do yoga, others golf, I cook. I do other forms of stress relief, for sure: run, road rage, drink a bottle of Cabernet by myself, but at the end of the day, as I am tearing my hair out, I usually ask myself, what would I rather be doing? The answer is always that I would rather be, well, cooking.
by
There exists a real and logical reason why, at a recent dinner party, I out-ed myself as something of an expert on black kale. After all, I can't remember the last time someone found such information to be cool party banter. In fact, the woman who brought up the topic had not been talking to me at all (making my butting in all the worse and my credibility on the subject a bit suspect). Feeling a tad embarrassed and not wanting to come off as too much of a know-it-all (even though I clearly already had), I shared my cooking tips and gracefully avoided the question of how it was exactly...