Are You A Kitchen Hoarder?

We're all guilty of it,some of us more than others.We mean to quit , yet can't thanks to enablers like stores, TV  and,even family. What is this crime? Kitchen hoarding and be honest - we've  all done it at one time or another in our lives.

Kitchen hoarding just doesn't apply to food. It also applies to gadgets, dishes, and even pot holders(well, these are so darn cute, that they're impossible to pass up ) The collecting gets to be too much and the room starts looking like a hoarder's paradise. The problem is that's it's hard to throw out stuff.My fridge looks like a hungry hoarder's, thanks to holding on to all sorts of food and over buying.I have about six jars of jelly, all with varying amounts of the stuff.Some even have developed a top layer of mold on them which I always skim off. I always mean to use ll of them up but wind up buying a new jar of a different flavor. The same holds true for all those mayo jars and catsup bottles taking up space. I somehow develop memory loss when I go food shopping. This is also why I have four kinds of cookies and crackers in the misnamed bread drawer.Luckily the baked goods can be given to the critters outside, from the birds to the raccoons. Cookies can also be put into the food processor to make crumbs for topping sundaes and cupcakes as wells layers in trifle.


. The leftovers sides and main meals are another story. It seems wasteful to throw away even a forkful of salad yet if it's left too long it's forgotten, mold appears. It's not that black spot kind of rot, but that big fuzzy white kind that could grow into an animal companion if left  alone Home chefs have to make a rule. If not eaten in  fours days to a week toss. The same applies to cookies and snacks but with a slightly longer time frame. Also make a point of not buying anything until you're out of it. Doing this also cuts down on kitchen clutter.Let's face it. This is hard to do especially when
stores have such a tempting array of goodies.As for gadgets, don't be seduced by those cooking articles and blogs. This is how I wound up with an emulsion blender, bought in the beginning of the summer. Two months later it's still in its box, waiting to be used.Ditto for the ice cream maker that  was only used twice and is still sitting in the fridge containing month old home made lemon ice.I have to contain myself when I see a cotton candy machine, which I know would be perfect in creating wild and exciting desserts. .Unfortunately it would sit in the box it came in for a year before I would actually use it. Even a large array of cute potholders will take up room. Cut it don to a managable four.

Kitchen hoarding is not good.. Stop yourself if you start buying too many twofer ones or a neat new gaget that will make cooking and baking fun. You'll have a room full of junk and excess.

Bake Sale Gems

Right about now schools and clubs are  planning their first bake sales of the season.These are crucial in bringing in funds for books, equipment and uniforms. To do that , fundraisers need popular along with unique recipes to bring in buyers.The products need to be tasty and tempting to make a bake sale profitable..

Cupcakes are always a big bake sale draw. Who doesn't love a tender little cake with a mound of buttercream icing? Yet they can be boring if done in vanilla with vanilla icing. A fun cupcake means a bought cupcake.  You can still have vanilla cake as the base but have a ball with the icing.If you're good at making buttercream flowers, then add them on top. Kids, especially love roses and they'd appreciate one topping a cake If you're not that artistic, then ice  cake tops like soccer balls and basketballs. This is perfect for any team involved in a bake sale. For cheer leading squads , why not carry the theme over to the treats? Pompoms can be made using paper, toothpicks and a glue gun.Dye the icing in the squad's colors and then match the pompoms to them . Another attention grabber? A riff on the classic Hostess squiggle cupcake. These can be a bit labor intensive to make so enlist another mom or one of the kids to help. The result will be worth it because you can charge a bit more for them.Clever taste combinations will also draw in customers. Think a stout-chocolate cupcake paired with an Irish Cream icing. For real zing try chili pepper cupcakes, an interesting marriage of heat and chocolate, guaranteed to peak interests and bring in cash.

Cookies are another pillar of a bake sale. The chocolate chip kind are always best sellers. Do they need to be tweaked? Just a little. They could be made with whole wheat instead of refined white flour, or instead of walnuts add chopped macadamia nuts for a different spin. Homemade Oreo cookies can be another crowd pleaser. The recipe is an easy one, especially if two people do the assembly. You can also make the filling mint and tint the icing green or pink. Sell them two or three to a bag with a mix of the two flavors. Unusual cookies such as cinnamon swirls and rocky roads will  pique a potential buyer's interest. Cinnamon swirls  again are an easy bake,It's just rolling out the dough, sprinkling a mix of sugar and the spice on it and then rolling the dough into a log. Chill and then cut into slices. You can even vary the spice by using nutmeg.Rocky road cookies are a guaranteed seller. Who wouldn't want a mix of chocolate , marshmallows, walnuts and more chocolate? The recipe is a basic chocolate snap that's topped with mini marshmallows and then popped back into the oven for two to three minutes. This toasts the marshmallows to a golden brown Chopped walnuts are then added and melted dark chocolate is drizzled over the entire cookie. You can even vary the chocolates by also using milk and white chocolate.

Make your bake sale a lucrative one with fun and interesting cupcakes and cookies. The result will be much needed funds for buying the class essentials or the team fundamentals. It starts with not just team spirit but with team creativity.

Homemade Healthy Snacks

September marks the beginning of a season of busy days, especially for kids.It's running from school to dance class or soccer practice. It' also means snacking on the run. That means unhealthy nibbles here and there. Stop this with healthy snacks that are both flavorful and good for them.

All kids, from kindergarten to college love Pop Tarts. Yet those treats are full of sugar  and artificial flavors. They also have gotten away from their original fruit filling by offering wacky flavors like root beer and s'mores. This can been amended by making home made fruit tarts. First start with using whole wheat flour  and coconut oil along with flax egg (instead of using the real thing mix a tablespoon of ground flax with three teaspoons of water) along almond milk. Apple sauce and cinnamon  are also added.The trick is to cutting the dough into perfect squares to emulate the real thing. Use all natural preserves such as Bonne Maman jams for the filling. They have excellent flavors such as wild blueberry, peach  and strawberry. You could even put two flavors in the tarts for a fun surprise.. Hostess Fruit Pies, long a favorite with kids also has a healthy homemade version. Again use whole wheat flour  along with a melange of spices such as cinnamon , nutmeg, clove and ginger. Since it hast to be a flaky crust, use Earth Balance all natural margarine instead of butter. Fresh apples or pears can be used for the filling, Cook them with brown sugar and almond extract for that gooey pie filling texture.

Granola and power bars are part of any kid's diet. They 're great alleviating those hunger pangs along giving tots, tw'ens and teens a boost of energy.Yet most are filled with sugar  and even transfat. Don;t feed the these fat bombs masquerading as healthy snacks Make your own. It's an easy mix of oatmeal,almonds, vegan butter and dried fruit such as apricots or for more zing cranberries. Should chocolate be added, like the store bought ones? If the kids request it , then yes but add the dark chocolate morsels. The granola bars can also be coated in the melted seventy to eighty per cent dark chocolate. These bars have very little sugar but are packed with antioxidants. Vary the  granola bar flavors, Make a peanut butter or a crunchy peanut butter every so often,.Take  the granola one step further and make  cookies ith the healthy mix. Carry on the healthy vibe by using gluten free oat flour along with evaporated cane or coconut sugar to make it a bit more nutritious than the average snap. Cookies taste better with chocolate chips so add the dark chocolate ones to the dough.These can be fancied up for birthday parties by dipping them in melted seventy per cent chocolate and then dusted with coconut.The granola and chocolate can also be blended together to form a bark, a nice once a week treat .

Don't feed the kids bad snacks. Make these healthy treats to continue with nutritious and wholesome eating during the day. It'll not only satisfy hunger but fill them up with the good stuff.

The Popular Plum Torte

The New York Times have been giving us all sorts of excellent recipes for the past forty years. Many have made them, bringing gourmet and colorful cooking to home audiences. One of their most famous is plum torte. This mouth watering dessert is back again, delighting a whole new generation of home bakers and gourmands.

Margaux Laskey, author of Motherlode Blog,  wrote about this classic fall dessert in yesterday's New York Times Food section. The recipe originally was published by the famed food writer Marian Burros in 1983. It wasn't her own , though, belonging to her childhood friend Lois Levine. It first appeared in a self published cookbook , "Elegant but Easy" in 1960.The name was first Fruit Torte and it had a fortuitous note "This deserves a ten star rating on our list." As with most tortes, it was easily adaptable. There was a "New Age" version published eight years later, in 1991. The lush ingredients of butter and eggs were replaced by the healthier bananas and egg substitutes. There was also an apple cranberry version in 1994. Food contributor Melissa Clark had her own take on it for Rosh Hashana , subbing in whole wheat flour for white. Ms. Burros, now retired from The Times, still makes the torte, In the summer she uses blueberries and peaches. She doesn't use the summer plums, instead waiting for the smaller , more intensely flavored Italian plums that come in early autumn. Home chefs can use their own spin, and even tweak the recipe to put their thumbprint on it.

The plum torte is a an easy recipe. It's no wonder that a recent Google search yielded nearly 80,000 search results with links to popular food bloggers who laud its' easiness and versatility. It's basically taking 3/4 to a cup of sugar, then adding flour, baking powder salt and eggs. The batter is then spooned into a spring form pan of either eight, nine or ten inches. Then it's splitting and pitting  a dozen Italian plums to place them  skin side up on top of the batter. sprinkle lightly with sugar and lemon juice.Home bakers can add more sugar if they feel the plums aren't sweet enough (it pays to have a taster plum for this). Another dusting , this time ,of cinnamon, is sprinkled on the top. It's usually about a teaspoon but a pinch more is always welcomed. Baking time is one full hour. Let cool before serving with whipped cream.The Times Food site suggests variations  such as subbing in late season peaches and nectarines or apples and pears as the weather gets cooler. Try spicing it with any kind of spice from tame nutmeg to exotic cardamom  or  zingy rosemary. For a healthier spin  try spelt or whole wheat. flour instead of  white.The torte  can also be served with creme fraiche instead of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.. You can also bake it in a regular pan along with doubling the recipe for holiday gifts..

Nothing beats a classic. This include Marian Burros famed plum torte recipe. It' still delicious and the recipe still holds up for a new generation of home bakers ready to make it

Umbria Unstoppable

Italians have a graceful grittiness to them that makes them strong in the face of adversity. They bounced back almost immediately after last month's earth quake violently shook the ancient towns of Amatrice and Accumoli.Despite all this the inhabitants of one Umbrian town, Norcia, kept going,still creating amazing dishes and producing salumeria meats.

Julia Moskin visited and wrote about one of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe in today's New York Times Food section. Umbria was shaken by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake last month but there was thankfully only structural damage.There is still the problem of closed roads that make it difficult to transport goods to other parts of the republic. Couple with  the region's fears of the newly born gastro-tourism industry suffering due to tourists' concerns about another earthquake happening. The area , also known as Italy's cuore verde or green heart is the place to go for the best olive oil, richest red wines and flavorful cold cuts or salumi. It's a mystery why Umbria hasn't been made a culinary UNESCO World Heritage site like Lyons, France and Chengdu China.Some recipes have remained unchanged since Etruscan and Roman  times.It could be that its' cuisine  has always been overshadowed  by neighboring Tuscany's more famed and favored dishes and recipes.Still, the region has many famous recipes, as Ms Moskin points out.One of the most known is porchetta,a juicy roast of pork tightly rolled around garlic and herbs.

Umbria is not just known for its' porchetta .It's also known for its' ancient and native strains of beans and pulses that are being unearthed and cultivated for a new generation of Italian chefs.There is even Roveja, a kind of pea, once thought to be extinct that is now being cultivated and sold at premium prices, much like Piedmontese truffles.Since Umbria is one of Italy's few landlocked provinces, the area relies on its' native fruits and vegetables, instead of seafood for main ingredients.Nettles, asparagus and fennel along with some flowers make up their most dishes culinary backbone.Of course Italy is about pasta too, and Umbria has many different kinds. Home chefs there pride themselves on making tender , springy pasta without the usual eggs, using a full body kneading motion called "culo mossa" that bears a resemblance to samba dancing.No meal would be complete without salumi, salt cured pork products. Their prosciutto is aged for two years before eating , unlike other prosciuttos from across the region. The result is a more flavorful and concentrated taste. It is so prized in Italy that it never makes it outside the borders. Luckily tourists can eat it and other charcuterie hen they stay in the alberghi and guest houses.

Umbria will always be known for its' vibrant cuisine taken from ancient recipes. No earthquake is going to change that.The food is as immovable as the land that has produced it for millennia

Sauces And Salsas And Ketchup , Oh My!!

It's late summer and that means bumper crops, namely tomatoes.Luckily these ruby red gems can be turnd into a a variety of dishes that can be eaten later on. Tomatoes are one  the most versatile garden fruits, Transform them into anything and the result is a tasty dish.

Of course all home chefs will tell you a tomato garden's overage can be made into a sauce, perfect for pasta.There are so many to make that you can have an entire month of them. If you're looking into a right now sauce think then salsa crudo, This is one of the easiest pasta sauces to make.It's taking ripe tomatoes and mixing them with olive oil and seasoning  along with minced garlic  Set the sauce aside for half an hour or more (a day would be ideal to let all the flavors meld together) and then pour over any kind of pasta. Capers,or  black pitted olives can be added to zing it up.The extra tomatoes can also be cooked into a regular sauce.It is labor intensive but worth it,Most recipes call for four tomatoes but  you could even double or triple the recipe..Making home made tomato sauce is also a great way of using those extra basil leaves.You can also add a good pinch of hot pepper flakes to make an arrabiata sauce. Another spin is roasting the tomatoes first for a deep smoky flavor., perfect for any meat sauce. You can also  make a pizza sauce using fresh tomatoes too.It's basically the same as pasta sauce save for the inclusion of thyme, onions and two tablespoons of sugar.

Those tomatoes can be used for everyone's favorite dip - salsa. It's a great snack that's also super healthy and packed with nutrition.It's an easy mix of fresh tomatoes, onions and bell peppers. For heat throw in minced jalapenos .Lime juice is also added along with that Mexican staple cilantro. You could even  add a dash of cumin if you wanted. The tomatoes can be roasted for a smokier, deeper taste This would be great topping beef tacos or fajitas. If you want a  sweeter sauce do the unexpected - throw in some unsweetened raspberries - they're also going through a second season right now . Blueberry tomato salsa is another great marriage of flavors and it's not only good with corn chips but also with beef or chicken.Many tomato growers and home chefs have experimented with ketchup recipes.It's not as difficult as you might think.It does require a slow cooker and an immersion blender.The tomatoes do need to be cooked down and occasionally blended with the blender.The spicing is important too because this is what gives the condiment its' kick.It needs sugar, honey or molasses along with apple cider vinegar to give it that sweet tang.Cinnamon and clover are also added along with Dijon mustard and Worcester sauce. Once you get the hang of making ketchup, it's pretty easy and can be made in batches for holiday and birthday gifts.

The last of the tomatoes means sauce, salsa and ketchup  long after summer ends. You'll have that  fresh taste all year round. It's a perfect end to a bountiful season.

Fall Food Trends

As with fashion food also goes through trends. Fall brings a variety of new flavors or spins on classics It's an exciting time  for foodies and gourmands alike.Apples are hot right now and oatmeal gets a new twist.

One of the best new trends is the brioche loaf. This is a take on the classic French  roll or bread, enriched with egg and a ton of butter.I first found this at the Super Foodtown in the Atlantic Highlands on a quick stop from the beach. I had never seen this before and had to buy it. The loaf was one of the best loaves I've ever eaten.It was phenomenal with Bonne Maman jam. Even though it has a sweet taste, it was still good supporting sliced London Broil in a sandwich the next day. Luckily my local Stop & Shop also carries a version of brioche bread, so I don't have to make the trek down the shore to get it.(although there are plenty of beach days left,so I probably will be visiting that particular Super Foodtown).Another trend is a returning one - pumpkin spiced lattes,both hot and cold.The hot is comforting , but I have qualms about a cold one. Coffee giant Dunkin Donuts is jumping on the apple bandwagon with a caramel apple cronut. This confection is stuffed with apples and then drizzled with caramel.There's also salted caramel coffee that combine's salty and sweet. This works for caramels and in ice cream but coffee is another matter (who wants  salty joe anyway?)

Another coffee giant,Starbucks isn't rolling out a new coffee flavor this fall, but a new oatmeal (!). It's a dark chocolate and caramelized banana flavor. You'd think it would be a kind of tart but no, It's not even made with fresh bananas but it's kind of like a gooey baby food. Chunks of dark chocolate and roasted almond are also added Unfortunately it has to be assembled by the diner too. It would just be better if it had been a tart layered with the other ingredients. Tamer offerings are their pumpkin cheesecake bar and a caramel apple pound cake. Apple seems to be everywhere, although it is the beginning of autumn. Stop & Shop also has jumped on the bandwagon. They're featuring their own brand of apple cinnamon waffles, that would be good with a drizzle of caramel and a puff of whipped cream or a pat of butter and a puddle of maple syrup.Apple cider vinegar will also be a big thing, not so much for the apple but it's a probiotic. It contains micro organisms that help in digestion along with stabilizing gut flora. Use it when making another fall culinary must have : Korean kim chee. This classic cabbage dish is making waves on all the autumn menus, with traditional galbo or American steaks.

Fall 2016 is coming soon. The trends, some delicious,some eye opening, are here already. Taste and embrace for an interesting .