ReCaps - The Perfect Lids For Perfect Repurposing

Recaps are a great new invention by Karen Rzpecki . These lids turn the average mason jar into a versatile container,making them great for holding everything. Tea lovers can have their tea in them. Crafters can use them to hold yarn  and glitter. Below is Foodie Pantry interview with their creator,

1)      Again let me thank you for the recaps. I can’t wait to use them. How did you come up with the idea? What was your inspiration?  My herb garden, which led me to homemade salad dressing which I always make in Mason jars.  The lid & ring were a pain and I wanted a cap I could shake, pour & store from!

2)      How are they better than normal; Mason jar lids?  Versatility.  You can shake protein drinks & smoothies, pour maple syrup, honey and snacks & store pantry & craft items.

3)      Are they effective in keep dry ingredients like flour corn meal and sugar moisture free?  Yes, while it isn’t a vacuum pack (doesn’t remove the air that is already in the jar) it does prevent moisture and air from getting in.  And they don’t rust like the lids that come with Mason jars.

4)      How can people repurpose their Mason jars and Recaps?  Wow, so many ways.  Hobbyists use them for paint, yarn, buttons, beads, bolts.  Foodies use them for pantry items, fermenting and even baking. 

5)      The holidays are coming up, any ideas for holiday gift jars? Have you thought about making gift kits that would include holiday stickers, ribbon and gift cards? Yes & Yes!  We are promoting a gift-a-day in November and some of the ideas are for coffee lovers, teachers, college students, bird lovers and more.  We will be showing what goes into the gift and the approximate cost so that people can pull the items together and give really great, thoughtful gifts.  We have ready-made gift sets available but find that most of our fans like to make their own. We now have gift tags available for this as well.

6)      What do you like to do with your mason jars?  I have a reCAP jar full of water with me at all times.

7)      Any other future inventions in the works? What about a Recap with a straw for us ice tea drinkers?  We have the FLIP cap coming out in March.  This cap allows people to snatch out bigger items such as pickles and it has a removable screen that is great for flour, sugar, grated cheese and loose tea.  Our site now has other accessory recommendations like straws and koozies.  While we don’t make these, they are nice add on’s that can be found at masonjars.com.

 

 

A Hot Meal On A November Night

The colder weather is here and that means ending the day with a hot , satisfying meal.Nothing beats a well balanced dinner after a busy school or work day. The best part , it really doesn,t  take much to  create a tasty warm dish. You can whip up something without a lot of effort.

One of the easiest and always best loved is spaghetti. It doesn't require a lot of work, just boiling your favorite pasta and serving it with either a jarred or homemade sauce. Many home chefs may turn their noses at this first. However if you've just come in from a hectic eight hour work day or a day at home where you've done nothing but clean , then jarred sauce is OK.it may not be as delicious or as healthy as a home made sauce but it'll do the trick in a pinch. You can also use that sauce you made during the summer when your garden produced bumper crops of tomatoesAnother idea is cutting up tomatoes ,blending them with oil and oregano,  and then pouring them over the pasta. The pasta's heat will semi cook them for a kind of al fresco sauce.Rice is another quick and hot dish to make and it's receptive to the addition of leftovers. Top plain white rice with leftover chili or wild rice with leftover turkey and gravy.Open up a few different cans of beans and mix in with any kind of the grain for a hearty side.

Nothing beats coming home to a hot juicy steak. One of the best  varieties are T bone and Porterhouse. These can be easily sautéed , either after being rubbed with olive oil or butter. You can add either sea salt and fresh ground pepper or jazz it up with garlic. It can even be made glam with an simple anchovy sauce/ This is Piedmontese sauce and it's a simple blend  of anchovy paste, a mix of olive oil and butter along with a garlic clove. Serve this with French or Italian  bread to sop up the sauce. Sauteed chicken breasts are also a good choice  for dinner.. You can serve it with a franchese sauce, an easy marriage of a roux ( flour and butter cooked together) with heavy cream and lemon juice added. A nice side is microwave steamed broccoli or a packaged veggies. For these saute  with herbed butter and almonds for added dash.This can be also served with rice, or if you're too tired, Rice Roni. Consider making this when you're too tired to deal with more elaborate sides. Also think a quick tomato or broccoli salad to compliment the chicken.

A hot hearty meal is the best way to end a busy day and welcome a calming night. Treat yourself and your family to something steamy yet simple. It's easy and that's what you want.

Celebrating With Prayers And Food

Today is just an important holiday as yesterday's Halloween.It is known as Dia del Muerta, a day when ancestors and their memories are honored not only with prayers but with food.These delicacies and lovingly made dishes are eaten by living family members.It is a day devoted not just to memories but to family recipes. The holiday is between Halloween and November 2nd.It is solely a Mexican holiday with its roots to indigenous practices, primarily an Aztec festival in honor of the goddess Mictecacihuatl.She ruled over the afterlife and guarded bones.It is meshed with All Saints and All Souls Days, tow holy days firmly observed in the Spanish cultures.Families leave offerings such as sugar skulls and flowers along with specific dishes.These along with the skulls are placed on an altar, constructed especially for the day.Tamales are one of the dishes ,made either savory or sweet.These can either have chicken in a green spicy sauce, like a salsa verde or a pineapple cinnamon jellies.There is also pan de muertos, bones of the dead , which is kind of similar to the Italian osse de more.These are breads baked in the shape of bones and dusted with sugar.There are also pumpkin and amaranth seeds are also ,offered as snacks for the returning spirits.The spirits need spirits themselves , and there is pulque, a liquor made from agave left for them to imbibe. For the living there are the tamales, bread and sugared skulls to share .However other recipes also shine.You can try turkey tamales with a mole Negro or black sauce.The last is made with a variety of chiles, nuts and even bread crumbs. Along with tomatoes and tomatillos.Goat is popular throughout Mexico and it is featured in one Dia de lost Muertos recipe, chile with a chile marinade,It can be made barbacoa style, barbecued in a pit, dug especially for it.The meat is soaked in adobos, a spicy chile infused marinaded and then roasted for six to seven hours..Rice ia always an important part of any Mexican meal and one infused with garlic and onions is served.Fritters drizzled with molasses and Chihuahua cheese are one of the interesting snacks served.Salsa is a must and it is created with a bro chilis and tomatillos.Some families also serve Mexican hot chocolate, zinged and zipped with a healthy sprinkling of cinnamon. Dias Del Los Muertos is a time for remembrance but also for food.Tastes and flavors are a big part of life, carried well to the afterlife.Salty and sweet, fiery and mild, they all go with us.

Trick Or Treat Halloween Facts And Fun

Today is the ultimate candy day.By now millions of kids in the US alone have garnered, their fair share of Twix, KitKats ,Smarties and anything else totally not nutritious.It's a fun day of celebrating since Irish and Scottish immigrants first came here bringing the traditions of Samahain or All Hallow's Night with them. Not surprisingly this is also a money making holiday for candy companies.Michael Moss did comparative article in Wednesday's New York Times Dining section. He found out that candy sales last Halloween hit a whopping 217 million up 2 per cent from the previous year( in all fairness, that was when Superstorm Sandy hit and people were more worried about survival than Mars Bars)However due to a summer time increase this year, coco lovers eased upon their addiction.The reason for the increase? Cocoa butter.This is the fat of the pod that gives chocolate it's rich,satisfying taste,Food chemists have tried subbing in other cheaper oils bit to no avail.Chocolate is what it is because of that cocoa butter.Still we crave it thanks to our love of it.We also love the variety of those Halloweens treat bags too.Most candy companies now sell two or three different kinds so they can push lesser like types on consumers.This is not a new marketing ploy.Kellogg's was doing its early as 1941" variety mini cereal box packs.A variety also tricks our brains into wanting us to eat more.We feel the need to sample and try everything, Eating one kind will also make us feel fuller quicker.thanks tour brain acclimating to just the one taste and texture.A variety pack of two or three different kinds turns our brain into race car veering left and right ,leavings with a still hungry feeling. Of course there is an antidote to this: an old fashioned candy recipe.Today's New York Times Weekend section,Friday File, compiled by Mary Jo Murphy printed out snippets from past Halloween reports.Mostly it was all apple bobbing whether the get together was from the 1890s or 1920s.However there was the Halloween party report from a century ago that offered a recipe .It called for fresh coconut straight from, well the coconut and then toasted in an oven.. boil a cup of molasses with brown or white sugar, along with a teaspoon of vinegar (I'd recommend the apple cider kind) and a tablespoon of butter.It is ready when it hits the hard candy stage(dribble a few drops In cold water.It should be hard and crackly), add the coconut, stir well and then pour into a buttered pan.Let the candy get hard and the break into bite sized pieces.Actually you can sub in any kind of nuts, for the coconut to create brittle.If you want to add a modern spin, dip the pieces into dark chocolate.If you feel the coconut brittle is too sweet, then add a scant tablespoon of sea salt to add some zing and dash. store in a covered tin. Halloween is nothing but fun treats.Enjoy it it wisely, don't go wild.Enjoy that candy wisely.

Keep Those Eggs To Yourself

Tonight is Mischief Night , or if you're in my neck of the woods Goosey Night, this from the medieval English Guise Night. It's a night of punking and pranking. Unfortunately it and a few other fall festivities result in wasting important food stuffs. This in a time when people here in the US are starving.

Ask any true blue American about Mischief or Cabbage night pranks and they will tell you that, yes they've thrown a few eggs in their day or smashed a few pumpkins. What a true waste of food (not to mention causing serious damage. Not to many people know that egg albumin, or the white part can take off car paint,it's something to do with it binding with toxic substances like lead). It's also dangerous lobbing them at passing cars. It's not water that will quickly bead off. The yolk and shell will gook up and then the wipers will only spread it. This is also the time for those merry  happy pranksters to take those pumpkins and smash them.Well ,this is good for the raccoons who love pumpkins however it's bad for the family who was relying on that big squash for  food. They could have used the flesh for puree for either a filling soup or for pie filling, The seeds can also be re purposed and baked  to become tasty snacks.  That pumpkin lying in the road  could have also been  used to make bread,

Another Cabbage Night prank is the famed Mentos in diet Coke. (for those of you true innocents who don't know what it is or who have never seen it done on The Big Bang Theory).Originally it was wintergreen Lifesavers threaded onto a pipe cleaner and then plunged into a bottle of diet Coke. The gas from the mints propelled the soda out in a foamy geyser. When the candy company found out about this trick  they changed the candy's diameter, making them wider and impossible to dunk. It turns out , much to the delight of kids and science teachers that Mentos do the same trick.Don't do this , The geysers can reach up to five feet (if you use the whole roll) and create accidents and damage. It ruins siding as well as hurts and scares any animal life. A less, but equally, insidious prank is chucking apples on the road and hurled against houses. Again this is a blatant waste of food and there are people who would truly appreciate a good , ripe apple. Hurling them at passing cars or dropping them from overpasses can result in serious multicar accidents. Save them for the homeless and the food pantries. Apples are versatile and can be used in everything from oatmeals to cakes and of course to make applesauce.

Mischief Night is about mischief making however it 's more of a sin when you use food to do so. Put down the egg,s the apples and those Mentos. Don't squash the pumpkins. Food should be treasured , not wasted on mindless pranks. Besides if you want to cause impish damage, go for the toilet paper. Less trouble , more mess.

A Steak By Any Other Name

Ever hear of a flat iron or tri tip steak?What about a porterhouse chop?If you haven"t then don't feel so culinary clueless.These are all pieces of beef and pork that have been rebranded or renamed.Butcher shops and grocery stores are giving ordinary cuts fancy new names in order to make them salable and tempting to consumers.Think about that as you're grilling your bavette more on that later. Kim Severson got the confusing job of untangling and deciphering these new meat names and where they originated in her article in today's Dining section of The New York Times. She herself had been on a quest for the tri tip, a triangular cut of beef that resembles a large ,fat marbled liver.It is hugely popular in California where it's turned into sandwiches or barbecued by just about everyone.However it's only native to the Golden State.She has tried to find it on the East Coast and the South but to no avail.It just isn't offered..Certain butchers ,depending where they're located stick to certain cuts that sell well..Also different joints of meat are called by different names also. A chuck might be labeled as pot roast.A pork chop is now called a porterhouse chop(and not to be confused with a porterhouse steak).The US Meat Council realizes those disparity and will issue a more uniform method to accurately naming cuts and chops.The flank or skirt steak you always order in your favorite,local steak house will now be the same kind you put on your grill.The new labels will have the common name for the cut followed by the type of animal it came from along with the meats characteristics.It is then followed with the barest of cooking instructions such as grill for best results. Ms .Severson also writes about the clever ploys meat sellers use to sell less manageable tougher cuts.That cut, the bavette is really a fancy moniker for flap steak.The inventor, CoryCorman who runs a grass fed beef farm in Oregon wante to give the difficult cut a name that would be both fancy and intriguing.It is a chewy piece, hard to cook into tenderness and hard on the gums to eat.Once it was renamed, it became a must have for chefs in Portland,this practice is common in artisinal butcher shops where simple parts are renamed to attract trendy home chefs.Another problem is that they cut the meat using Europeans or their own standard.Yes, this results in meat lovers trying cuts they normally would not but it does put strain on the pocketbook.What they don't tell buyers is that the meat is going to be tougher or chewier and may need an extra kick in marinAting or a certain way of cutting it up.Even large scale meat purveyors have succumbed to this ,despite the problems that it has caused.Look at the porterhouse chop.The beef people don't like this and how the pork industry have stolen the name from them. re naming also gets people to try different cuts other than the widely popular skirt and flank types. It opens up a home chef's range , letting them experiment with different methods, rubs and marinades. A rose by any other name will smell as sweet. Will a flank steak renamed taste just as delicious? Probably, if the home chef knows what to do with it.

Halloween Ready

Halloween brings about not only trick or treaters and candy but also parties.What makes a memorable holiday get together? Fun food with a scary theme.Just make sure you're well stocked.That alone can bring fear to any party thrower, not enough eats and hungry guests. One of the first new rules of party giving is know your audience.If you're having a kid do , make sure you 've received lists of allergies along with likes and dislikes.If you can ,go gluten free .This is a benefit to any fretful parent and it also is easier on the kids.You also don't have to emphasize what is safe and not safe to eat.There are several flour brands that make gluten free flour so you can use it for pizzas, cakes and cookies ,along with cupcakes.Also if you're worried yourself about what your own will eat think a healthy party.Tacos are great for kids, Have platters full of vegetables and salsa that they can stuff.If meat is not a problem, then think chicken for the stuffing.Also serve a refreshing cranberry and seltzer sangria(call it bat blood to spook it up)Keep away from the sugary sodas and juices.You can also end with a fun bob for apples.For more variety add pears too. The sliced fruit can be dipped in caramel . You can also have favor bags filled with apples along with grain bars and all natural cookies( try the Nature's Path brand,They have a variety of sandwich cookies and choclate cip along with mint wafers).Try to stay away from the obvious.Fellow parents may not appreciate bringing home a hyper kid, high on candy corn. Adult Halloween parties can be a little more daring food wise.It's still nice to serve healthy and there's actually a wide variety of dishes to choose from.Wings are a must have, but instead of frying, try baked. Chicken wings with a home made honey mustard or a honey Ginger sauce..Ribs are another tasty party dish.Again baking is your best option.Another fun idea is sliders.Nothing beats mini burgers with various dipping sauces.You can also make mini pulled pork sliders.Serve with cones of baked sweet potato and regular fries.You can even male both ,thanks to using both racks in your oven.Both can be zinged with basil or cayenne pepper.Serve with homemade catsup or salsa.Again you bob for apples but you could also hollow them out and fill with the potent apple Jack or hard cider.Another fun idea is filling them with buttery caramel and chopped pecans as an inside out candy apple.You could also have grape spiders for dessert nibbles.Take black or deep purple grapes and stick dark chocolate pretzels curves in them to recreate legs.To make the spider limbs, break thin twisty pretzels, and save the curved parts.Dip these in melted dark chocolate. For a smoother , shinier coating , add a few drops of vegetable oil to the candy before melting. A tasty All Hallows party is a memorable one.Treat your tricksters to tasty and somewhat healthy party foods.They thinks you've bewitched them with your pots full of yummy foods.