Lenten Sacrifices It's Time

  Many Christians, and especially Catholics around the world are thinking about what to give up this Lent. Today is Ash Wednesday and many thought are going towards sacrificing food or drink. Yet here is something else you can give up  - time. Time is the most valuable commodity of all.  It can go for creating good.

One way of giving up your time is to give it to others. This might mean cooking a meal for an elderly neighbor or friend in need. Even thought it might seem like a sacrifice at first,  you'll get into the joy of cooking with others and the satisfaction of making sure a person is fed.Communal cooking , even, if it's just between two people can be a rewarding and even a learning experience. This is the time to ask the neighbor or friend about their ethnic background and the  dishes that were handed down and shaped them,.You'll hear about cooking methods you've probably only read about a long with hearing about ingredients that will surely pique your interest. You could even arrange a weekend cooking class with them as they show you how to make these dishes.If you're cooking for and with family then ask about any family recipes long forgotten by current generations. This helps strengthens the ties between your culinary past and present.

Sacrificing time means taking anyone to the store. Let's face it, those town buses are only good for short hops where there's very little shopping to do. Offer your time and your vehicle to them. That way they can stock up on not only food stuffs and beverages but also on much needed supplies like toilet paper, along with laundry and dish detergents.It's also a chance to check to see if they're eating right . Nudge them gently towards the produce section if you see they're spending too much time in the snack and baked good sales.This expedition can be extended to a lunch out beforehand or some coffee after (keep in mind that many Acmes have Starbucks while Shop Rites here in New Jersey offer Dunkin Donuts) A coffee and a chat is a great way of just giving your time and enjoying a hot or cold coffee or tea together.If you;re too busy for shopping then consider a simple  Sunday brunch somewhere.It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just bacon, eggs and a hot coffee along with toast will do the trick.Talk with then. Listen.

It's Lent , Yes, you can give up those cakes and martinis. Yet wouldn't time be a better sacrifice? Donate yours to doing good deeds for friends,neighbors and family.

Fire Horse Noodles

 Celebrating the Lunar New Year is always fun There are fireworks and bao or dumplings. There are homemade dishes to bring in the Year of the Fire Horse. There es one dish rich with fire and flavor that's perfect for this night.

I wanted to celebrate the holiday with a dish that's a riff on PF Chang's Mongolian beef and also on the Szechuan classic ants climbing a tree..It starts with Gardien's plant based beef crumbles

This , , a quarter cup of soy sauce (you can add more if you want more flavor) and a cup of sliced scallions are browned in olive oil. 

}Garlic is crucial in any Chinese dish and for the heat I used about five to six grinds of LIdl''s black pepper ground into the meat. You can use  whole Szechuan pink peppercorns for more fire and crunch.

Cook until the ground meat is brown and crispy. Add another cup of fresh scallions right before serving for more flavor.

This can be served with noodles or rice. I like it with noodles and even Pasta can work here. I used Ronzoni's spaghetti but you can also use angel hair or even bucatini.

Fill a bowl halfway with the pasta and spoon the beef over rit. You can add more soy sauce if you want.

I absolutely loved this and plan on making it again.I may add fresh or dried ginger for more zing but still it was one of my favorite creations. The flavors , from the beef to the scallions worked so well together and the noodles were a great buffer tempering the fire.

It's the Year of the Fire Horse. Make this spicy , tasty dish to celebrate and ring in the New Year. Its'a great dish of exciting flavor.

A Presidential Diet

 They run the country and in effect run the world.They are the American presidents. Some may see them as gods but they[re just ordinary men who took on an extraordinary job. They eat the same as us They drink the same as us. They even have favorite foods and drink, just like their voters.

Maybe President Trump isn;t the most gluttonous of all leaders.There were several before him. H;es just like any modern American with a love for fast food I and who doesn't;t love McDonald's burgers and Filet O'Fish along with a chocolate shake. He also goes mad for steak with ketchup for lunch with a side of blue cheese dressing drenched salad. Then there are those dozens of diet Cokes - which let's face it we're addicted to them as well. Former President Joe Biden had a thing for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches washed down with orange Gatorade. Other presidents of the last century fell for that Twentieth Century diet staple cottage cheese. Ronald Reagen carried his Hollywood diet with him and had a scoop of the stuff in half a cantaloupe . Richard Nixon doused his with ketchup white  his follower Gerald Ford zinged his cottage cheese with sliced red onions and A-! Sauce. he also had those Seventies lunch drinks for choice  two martinis.

Barack Obama had more sophisticated tastes, enjoying Vietnamese noodles in Hanoi with food great Anthony Bourdaun. he was following int he footstep of Thomas Jefferson.Jefferson brought ice cream back from France to a new nation, curious about the word's diet He also introduced Americans to souffles to the famed baked mack and cheese. He also believed in a more vegetarian diet, considering meat  to be "just a condiment"" Washington's diet was more British and Virginia influenced. He loved the English classic mutton but was fast forward in his love of mashed sweet potatoes, now a trendy dish in restaurants everywhere. he loved how cakes a type of pancake swimming in butter and honey. Abe Lincoln , the other great president honored today was a fan of typical Nineteenth Century dishes such as chicken fricassee. This is a comforting ,creamy stew ,redolent  with herbs and  made with fresh cream. He also liked apple pie and oyster stew along with corncakes and gingersnap cookies. He loved  a food from his rough and tumble childhood - Kentucky corn dodgers, a kind of hush puppy fried in bacon grease.

Presidents are like us. They have their favorite foods and drinks. It's what keeps them running the country.

A Day Full of Chocolate

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Happy Valentines Day. may it be filled with all good foods you love  including this

Lucky Foods

 Everyone has that one lucky dish they eat before a match or after a job interview to insure all things go right.It could even be a lucky first date meal with the eater chowing down on pasta or a hamburger to ensure a second date.

Here's the question - what's your lucky food? Lentils because they resemble gold coins. Or a bowl of buttery black eyed peas? Or leafy greens like kale because they represent money? Or simply that slice from your favorite pizzeria because it just meant a fun night ahead. I do like black eyed peas in melted butter. Yes, they're lucky but their taste is a sweet mellow nuttiness other beans don't have.

Let us know what you'll be eating this Friday the 13th. And good luck!

Beef Shanks Rethought

 Beef shanks are rarely in  any home chef's dinner rotation. They're too expensive and slow to cook. Not a great combination. Yet they're becoming interesting again  and why not. They do have an amazing flavor that works well with spices.

New contributor and food blogger Cathy Erway wrote about this almost forgotten cut of beef in yesterday's New York Times Wednesday Food section beef shanks are a desirable cut to those who love them.Its part of a cow's leg which is already a hard working limb. They're strewed with sinew and tendon which become incredibly soft and gelatinous after a long slow braise.Dishes made with it are often memorable.It has an intense beefy flavor, rich and savory with an unami taste. Yet despite all this they're hard to find in any grocery store.Chinese chefs, that use the shanks on a regular  basis have to go to small buthder shops to acquire the cut. Richard Ho, chef and owner of Ho Foods, a Taiwanese beef noodle shop in Manhattan heads to small , family owned meat shops to get this cut. He finally settled on the Brooklyn based Ends Meat that specializes in selling all the parts of an animal.Northern Italian restaurants also use it in their famed dish osso buco.

Other cuts of meat get  a lot more attention because they're;e perfect for turning into steaks.European cuisine rarely uses them but Asian ones like Thai routinely cook with them. They're also more of an economical cut,perfect for restaurants looking to be more cost efficient. Then there''s slow cooking.Most cuts fall apart but the shanks can hold up to any amount of cooking time. This is due to the slippery wisps of collegen connecting the muscle meat in neat slices that present well. That collegen enriches and thickens any soup ro even curry. Popularity could drive up the price of this lowly cut first served to Taiwanese soldiers courtesy of the US Army. It was also popular with the Mogul Indians too. MS.Erway also include a recipe for them. She uses fragrant Asian spices and herbs such as lemongrass, star anise and cinnamon stick. Galengal , a cousin of ginger is used for heat. (although fresh ginger root can be used too)A sweet and savory  curry goes with it , made from massanman curry. The shanks are better bought at an Asian grocery store like H-Mart.

Beef shanks are having their day, They may be the cheapest of cuts but have the richest for flavors. Try them in a soup ro curry to enjoy their flavor.

Washington's Cherry Bounce

 There are a lot of myth's about George Washing whose upcoming birthday is the 22nd of this month. There's the wooden teeth one and there's that cherry tree one. He probably did cut down a tree accidentally probably for the fruit it yielded. The First President was a cherry fiend and enjoyed the fruit several different ways

New contributor Ramin Ganeshram, an award winning food writer and The Westport Museum's Director For History and Cuture wrote this fascinating piece for today's New York Times Wednesday Food section. Cherries were a big part of his estate in Mount Vernon ,Virginia. Plant nurseries were selling cherries varieties named for him  during his Philadelphia presidency . His enslaved workers gew multiple varieties which were preserved and sugared. Cherries were a versatile fruit,then and now.In washington's day they could be dried and baked into fruit cakes and stirred into sauces.They were also incorporated into one of his favorite drinks   cherry bounce/.It's a mix of tart cherries,cinnamon and cloves steeped in brandy.cognac whiskey or rum.It came with the English who called and still call it cherry brandy. The name bounce itself came from old time usage of the word meaning to strike or slap (where people in the Caribbean still use the term) The name probably came from the kick it brought to the drinker.

There are still ounce lovers today.Two companies today Tamworth Distilling and its' sister company Quaker City Mercantile included a recipe based on Martha Washington's one. Chef Patrick O'Connell chef at the Inn at Little WAshington uses his own version with apple brandy from Lairds, a hard cider and apple brandy distributor that Washington might have gone to. (It was established in the mid 1700's not far from here the Battle of Monmouth was fought). It's an easy recipe with the mod.It's then let to sit for two days and ern version consisting of three cups tart cherry juice (use Michigan;s Cherry Republics tart cherry juice for this, They ,by far have the best) along with four cups Morello cherries , cloves sugar and a cinnamon stick two cups of a good Cognac or brandy is used for the bounce.It's basically cooking all the fruit and spices along with granulated sugar . The brandy or cognac is then stirred in and the mix is then simmered Its then left to sit for two days Strain the mixtire through a high grain cheese cloth. The bounce is good on the rocks or with a shot of seltzer  to give it an adult  fizzy cherry soda vibe.

Yes , Washington was known for cherries. Yet it was a popular drink made from his beloved Morellos that gave him joy. Try it for  a lively drink this President's day weekend.