Copy Cat Recipes

 Can you recreate an Oreo? Or a Taco Bell favorite?The answer is yes. It's amazing what you copy in your kitchen. The best part .The copies taste better than the original in most cases.

There are dozens of recipes on the Web that show the exact ingrwdients and steps  as your favorite restaurant foods and grocery store picks. They're more or less easy to replicate and can be a nice alternative to constantly eating out. One of the easiest is Taco Bell's bean burrito.I've made this at home and I found that the secret ingredient here is red wine vinegar mixed with chopped onions and beans. If the family like Taco Bell's Mexican pizza then make this easy recipe at home.It's simply frying a tortilla and layering on a variety of different toppings. Layer on refried beans beef crumbles and cheese. Top with another fried tortilla and warm in the microwave for a few minutes. Top with diced tomatoes and scallions.  Who doesn;t love Panda Express? You can easily make their famed Chili Crisp Shrimp at home. It's frying the shrimp tempura  style in a coating of flour cornstarch and club soda. Onions and bell peppers are also added in after being chopped. Chili crisp oil is added for fire. You can buy it at any Asian grocery store

Craving Oreos' or Hostess cupcakes? These ,too, can be baked in your oven.The Oreo recipe yields up a slightly chewier cookie but withthe same deep chocolate-y taste. It's actually the filling that fills home bakers with dread.It a very sweet buttercream(although the commerical ones are made without butter) made with unsalted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and a pinch of sea salt. Bake the cookies first , using a Dutch cocoa to produce that famed blackish brown cookie and then fill. You can also turn them into double stuffed for the ultimate treat. You could add mint or freeze dried coffee to copy the many Oreo fillings. Another fun copy is the iconic Hostees cupcake with the white squiggle down the middle.It's a moist scratch chocolate cupcake filled with an easy to make marshmallow creme. Again this filling is always off putting to home bakers but it's really a buttercream with marshamallow fluff added. The icing is a ganache and the white squiggle is a milk based vanilla one. It's just a but more labor intensive the average cup cake with the assemblage but so worth it.

Yes, you can make and bake your favorite restaurant and storebought goodies at home. They're a fun try. Best of all they're a fun eat.

Snacks For Dinner

 Sometimes a regular meal can be boring. It's the same old meat loaf or roast chicken. How can you liven up dinner or even a weekend lunch? Serve snacks.it's a fun way to add zing to the table.

I't;s not so much as giving the family a bowl of pretzels or chips to nosh on. It's taking those appetizers and bites you see at restaurants and recreating your version of them.Pne of the most popular are loaded nachos. There are so many different variations of this, from the hearty brickyer's version that's rife with bacon and chorizo and lighter versions, that have sliced veggies scattered over them. The best version is one that your family likes.If they are bing on beans then go heavy on them. If they like a meat lover's version add more ground beef or shredded chicken. If they're vegan, then go with soy crumbles and non diary cheeses like Miyoko's . Sauces can be added before cooking or they can be added afterwards.  You can also make your own tortilla chips by frying or baking them. The crisp chips can be made into a Mexican pizza, now being served at Taco Bell. This is a fun sandwich of crispy tortillas with a layer of refried beans, meat and tomatoes. Again you can make these to suit your familes tastes as well.

Pretzels are the ultimate snack. Now imagine them as the ultimate snack dinner.Buy the big Bavarian ones (your freezer section has them). After they've been baked , slice and serve with warmed cheese and sliced bratwurst. You can also turn it into a fun Baviarian influenced grilled cheese by adding sauerkraut and sliced Black Forest ham. Another fun and cheesy dish , epsecially for a weekend is fondue.  The classic Swiss recipe has Emmenthaler  and Gruyere cheeses grated and cooked in a fondue pot with garlic, kirsch, cornstarch and dry white wine. Boiled potatoes can be dipped into it but the real stars are the crusty chunks of French bread. It may look like a sophisticated snack but the kids will get a kick out of it too.The fondue pot can also be used for that Piedmontese treat bagna cauda. This requires the fondue pot but it's cooking anchovies in a sauce of garlic, butter and olive oil. Stir unti there's a smooth looking sauce. Savoy cabbage pieces are usually dipped into it but you cna also partially broiled London Broil and finsh up with chunks of Italian bread.

Forget the ordinary. Serve snacks tonight for dinner. Enjoy them and the fun they bring.

Pizza With A Spicy Spin

 Can pizza be improved? Yes, especially when given a Mexican twist. Philadelphia pizzarias are creating a new fusion food that's taking off like crazy.It's a new and international spin on a Neopolitan favorite.

Regan Stephens,a freelnace food and travel writer wrote about this in yesterday's New York Times Food section.It's not just a fusion of different cusines but of cultures. South Philly's traditional Italian neighborhoods have now been welcoming Mexicans since the early 1990s. This means  Mexican restaurants and groceries are also coming in with this new wave.It comes as no surprise that Italian dishes will be influenced by them. The pizza is not what Taco Bell offers on occassion., Tostadas layered with spicy beef and beans and shellacked with a top layer of cheese.Nor is it the Midwestern taco pie which is a pizza topped with deconstructed taco. This is a pizza with tomatillo (tomato's cousin) chorizo, corn, fresh poblanos - mild chili peppers and fresh avocados. The makers of this, Margarita Jeronimo and Adam Del Rosario make this kind and others at their Philly eatery Rosario, People are liking it as they're liking their ElPastore, a pizza topped with pineapple chunks, achiote  marinated pork ,onions and covered with guajillo pepper sauce.

Other Mexican restaranteurs are following suit. Three blocks south of them, San LUcas Pizzeria has been selling Mexican pies since a few months after opening in 2005. Valentin Pallilero and his wife Eva Mendez spent years managing other peoples' pizzarias (Most Mexxican immigrants work at other ethnic restaurants before opening their own according to Professor Stephen Alvarez who teaches a taco literacy ?? course at St John's UNiversity ). They named theirs after the town they  both grew up in and have made a brisk business of selling the traditional kind of pie. Yet Chef Pallilero wanted his own signature one.His daughter Jacqueline had said that he wanted to make one with the feel of a taco.A slice of the Mexican pie went out with every Italian one. Customers raved about it and it became a number one seller. Another pizzeria, Mr. Taco onwed by Carlos Gomez opened. Chef Gomez who worked at various pizzerias before opening his wanted a Mexican eatery to reflect his Hildalgo upbringing. New York has this too.Italian restaurants in Jackson Heights sell tamales. LA and Washington DC also have Mexican pizzerias with LA having Asada Pizzeria.

Will Mexican pizza bemore popular than the original? Yes.People love fusion foods and this includes two of the countries most popular cuisines.