An Easy Monday Supper

 Monday is aways a hectic day.  This means aquick meal that 's also has to be satisfying and hot.That's where a meatball sandwich comes in.

What I olove about this is that it's a snap to make and tasty to eat.I used Lidl's Vemondo's vegan meatballs

It was just three minute s in the microwave. (fora crisper bite use your air fryer  - about 350 Farenheit for two minutes) 

Of course a good meatball sandwich needs a good sauce. Instead of the typical one I tried pizza sauce from Acme's organic line. It's a different flavor, tangier and tarter than the usual sauce.

It worked out perfectly with dipping the dry sandwich into the sauce. Two or three mini meatballs is the perfect filling on a good sized slice of Italian bread

The sandiwch  was really a great dinner .It was a snap to whip up and incredably flavorful. THis is the way to have a meatball sandwich, with out the sauce sogging up the bread and meatballs. Vegan cheese could be added for more flavor. It was kind of like a spicy. hamburger . Ir would even make a tasty hot snack if you're craving an evening nosh. 

A hot meatball sandwich is the way to go for a hectic Monday. Try it and enjoy the blend of flavors.It makes for a quick hot meal , perfect after a crazy work or school day.

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.

Friday Sub Ins

 Lenten Fridays mean one thing - no meat of any kind. years ago this was a hard fix with families winding up with either pizza or a veggie and egg dish for their supper. Nowadays it's an entirely diffrent ball game. This is where plant based products easily can step in.

Of course Lenten dishes will always have some kind of fresh vegetable at their core. For any easy beginning of the weekend supper think ratatouille.  The good thing about this is that if you make enough it can well go into a Saturday lunch or dinner. It's a simple cook of tomatoes eggplants, red and yellow peppers and white onions sauteed or baked with oliv oil and a variety of spices and herbs. You could easily make in on the stove as you saute the veggies in a mix of olive oil and butter or plant butter. Serve with sliced baguette for a filling meal. Vega lasagna can also work here if you have the time. Buy the lasagna sheets already cooked to save more time on arranging and layering the veggies in them. Keep in mind that you can add in plant based beef crumbles or meatballs for more protein and substance. Any pasta dish is worth trying on a Friday  and again the leftovers make for a tasty weekend lunch. Make the kids a big bowl of spaghetti to celebrate the start of the weekned. Have a nice sald and a loaf of fresh, hot garlic bread to found it out.

Plant based meats will definitely sub in for the real thing until Lent is over. Gardein  offers some excellent choices . Their chick'n nuuggets and tenders taste like the real thing. Serve them with dipping sauces and fries for a fun Friday  night meal. There's also chicken filets which like the other too can be easily air fried . Turn those into Popeye style sandwiches with a slice of tomato and lettuce on a bun. Gardein also has Mandarin style chicken with a tangy sweet and sour sace that can be made ina skillet. Serve with  homemade veggie fried rice. Their ultimate plant based burger is pretty tasty too and it's a easy fry up on a grill or in the air fryer. The company also has microwaveable meal bowls as well as soups and chili for a lighter fare.Morningstar Farms is another brand that offers a wide range of meat sub ins. They too have chicken tenders and nuggets as well as a variety of bean burgers. Their bacon and sausage patties are excellent , especially if you want to make breakfast for dinner.

You don;t have to resort to pizza and fish every Friday during this time. Try some other alternatives for a filling meal. You'll be amazed at the wide assortment out there.

The Chef Who Fed Washington

 Much is known about George Washington's life , from his policies and stances to his wooden teeth. However one question that 's finally coming to light is what did he eat and who fed him. The man responsible for that was Hercules Posey  who gave the First president an international diet.

New contributor , chef and novelist Ramin Ganeshram wrote this interesting article  in yesterday's New York Times Wednesday  Food section. Hercules Posey first can to the Washingtom ;s Mount Vernon plantation when he was twenty. He was the bond fo a forfeit loan and upon arrival was instantly apprenticed to a much older chef.   his expertise and reoutation too. he moved with the Washingtons' to the nation's first capital Phliadelphia. there he created and oversaw the president's weekly congressional dinners,executive office entertainments and even Washington's birthday celebrations. Chef Posey was also in charge of Martha Washington's socials given for the ladies of polirical societies. while in Philadelpia Chef Posey also had a sideline business. The president let him sell leftovers which gave him a good yearly slary, double that of the average working man at the time. He bought flamboyant clothes and mingled with freed Blacks. (the city had many  thanks to a law that allowed  enslaved people freedom to go after six months of enslavement).

Yer some questioned his ability and knowledge to create complex and fancy recipes.Mary V. Thompson, Mount Vernon's historian emerita says otherwise. She has spent the last forty years debunking these myths by piecing together evidience using family and period cook book as well as account books and financial  and farm records. These show details  about what ingredients, livestock and utensils were used. Washington also wanted his table to show hospitality without opulence. The family did have wealth and power, obvious in what they ate. The washingtons purchased French and Portuguese wines, Italian olive oil and Indian mango pickles. They were no strangers to Suriname coffee and Caribbean coconuts along with pineapples which wre vastly  fashionable at the time. Chef Posey also dealt with Philly's Black tradesman, such a sCaribbean pepperpot women, oystermen , bakers fruit sellers and confectioners. Although Washington himself was partial to simple fare like his beloved hoe cakes served with just honey and butter.

Hercules Posey's recipes and life are finally being recognized. He  not only fed the president but created the basis for state dinners and White House fare. He was a founding father  who changed the way America ate.

The Resiliant Carla Hall

Celebrity chefs come anf go. Carla Hall isnlt one of them. She;s here in a big way, promoting and highlighting Southern cooking> With it she brings fun into cooking classic Southern recipes.

Regular  contributor Kim Severson wrote about Ms Hall in  today's New Yorm Times Wednesday Food section. Ms. Hall came to prominence on the short lived The Chew which also starred Mario Batali, Michael Symon and Daphne Oz. However she was also a contestant on the 2008 season of Top Chef where she was known as "Kooky Carla".  She was originally from Nashville although Washington DC is now her home.Her earliest days pointed her into theater where she could dance and move her long limbs. She followed her sister to Howard University and wound up as the onlyAfrocan american in a white acocunting firm in Tampa. She went into modeling after doing such in the Tampa Bay area. Being in Paris with fellow Black models, they made their family recipes at Sunday suppers. This gave her an epiphany . She came back to the States and enrolled in L'Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda Maryland. She later cooked in washing hotel restiarants and began her own catering company. her husband  Matthew Lyons,a D.C. lawyer was watching Top Chef when he relaized his bubbly wife would be ao good match on the show . The rest is history.

Ms. Hall is now everywhere. Her new show Chasing Flavor" will be seen.It's done in the same vein as Anthony Bourdain's  travel influenced shows, The show which has aired this month on Max has Ms Hall travelling to such diverse countries as Ghana, Turkey and Italy. Dishes will be parsed and interpreted, as she explores their histories and their impact on American cuisine. Ms. Hall also has a  great line of kitchen ware and foodstuffs on QVC. Home chefs can buy everything from sausage to cornebread and cake mixes to name a few. There is also her recipe book ,Carla Hall's Soul Food :Celebration and Everyday that she cowrote with another Food Section contributor Genevieve Ko. She even made Dorito croquettes for the Super Bowl's Taste of the NFL event. There will be a onewoman show pllanned for Broadway too. There is also a recipe included for her Granny's five flavor pound cake.It's a rich old fashioned scratch cake with a pound of everything. The f ive flavors come from the vanilla, rum coconut;  lemon and almond extracts. It's the perfect cake for the Spring holidays.

Carla Hall is everywhere these days. watch her on Max for interesting trips. Buy her products to enhance the kitchen. Try her recipes. They are as vibrant and interesting  as she is.

Pimento Cheese A Retro Treat

 One mid century food that\s making a comeback is pomento cheese.You can find it everywhere,from sandwiches to baked mac. It's a strange combo but a tasty one.

It seems that Gen Z cooks are discovering this and attacking it with a vengeance. The concoction got its start much earlier in the 1870's.New York State farmers were creating a copy of the famed French cheese Neuchatel. This became cream cheese when a few decades later whole cream was added. At the same time peppers or pimentos arrived from Spain. These two ingreidients were much beloved by domestic scientists and were perfect mixed together.In 1908 a Good Housekeeping artlcle  published a recipe that called for combining, creamcheese, mustard, chives and minced pimentos. The following year eva Green fuller's Up To Date Sancwich Book had a recipe for just the cheese spread on buttered bread. By 1910 the two were being c9ombined and sold in grocery stores. How did it become a Southern specialty? Thank Georgia farmers who started to grow pimeintos and by 1920 they were flourishing in farms around Griffin Georgia. It became popular again but waned after the Second World War. Now its' back  - with a vengeance.

What can you do with pimento cheese? Everything. The recipe is a simple mix of one pound sharp ground cheddar, one cup mayo,one seven ounce jar of minced pimentos along with half teaspoons of both cayenne and hot sauce. (if you want a milder version then cut out these last two). Keep in mind there are other variations of this. You could also halve the mayo portion and add a cup of cream cheese. Some sub in chopped jalapenos for the pimento A few home chefs add a teaspoon of Worcester sauce. How you make it is up to you .If you like super hot then add spices and hot sauce. If you want t try a milder cheddar that 's ok too. Yes this is good on any kind of bread. Think pretzel rolls or brioche buns. Homestyle white bread that you can buy at some bakeries is great here. Thickly slice the bread and then cover one side with the pimento cheese. The cheese is excellent on burgers as a different spin on the classic cheeseburger. Add it to your baked mac.Shape it into a giant ball and serve with Ritz crackers for a fun retro dip.

Pimento cheese is a retro food that's gracing tables .Its a fun party bite but also great added to other recips. Whip up a batch  for a tasty treat.

Got Pasta ? Get Sauce

 What do you do with left voer pasta ? Create a quick and tasty sauce. This revitalizes any kind of leftover with fresh ingredients.It makes for a fast yet delcious hot dinner.

Tis is how I flt .I boiled plain fettucine the other night and had it with just Lidl's It' tastes LIke Butter on top. This was ok, a really simple meal for a busy Saturday. I had almost too much pasta left over. What to do? Bring out the fresh veggies, olive oil and plant butter and create a delicious sauce.

There's nothing like combining spinach with sliced baby bellas and sauteing it in the oil- plant butter mix. I just added a good amount of garlic powder (you can used fresh minced garlic in stead) and a good amount of salt and pepper.

I microwaved the pasta with more of It Tastes Like Butter for five minutes and comnined the two. Thanks to a combo of fresh and leftover I had a hot flavorful dinner. You can do the same with any veggie. Try a burst tomato sauce with cherry or grape tomatoes. A kale and garlic sauce is another easy make and goes well with any kind fo pasta from spaghetti to penne. Have leftover chicken? Mix it with some peas , heavy cream garlic and milk for an Alfredo sauce.

Plain leftover pasta is a good canvas for a quick , fresh sauce.create the spinach and mushroom one or with  any vegtables of your choosing. The nd result is a tasty hot diinner makes in minutes.