Sharing The Pantry

Americans, like myself, have the tendency to overbuy. That's especially true with food. We wind up with too many boxes or packets,bags and containers. Will we eat all of it? No? Should we share it? Yes.

If you have overage in your pantry , then consider donating it to food drives. Of course cans are preferable. One they're easy to store and two, they do last a usual four or five years. There's also a lot that can be done with canned veggies and fruit. The first can be used as a side or mixed with rice or pasta for a more filling main course. Canned fruit is just good on its' own and the perfect snack instead of cookies and cakes, However there are other foodstuffs you can donate as well. Flour can be donated, even if you opened it back in June or July. Opened flour has a shelf life of eight months so even half a bag is good to give away. Just give it a sniff before donating. Toss if you smell any mustiness. One of the most sturdiest foods to donate is rice. It has an indefinite shelf life, meaning you can still use it two or three years from purchasing. One sign that is is bad is the appearance of the rice weevil. It's a tiny reddish-brown bug that can show up in the box or canister. Chuck the rice if those start showing up.

Many of us have those Keurig machines that use pods. That's great but there's also a dearth of leftover teabags and hot chocolate packets. Any tea bag will last between a year to two years. If you have a variety left over then put them in Mason jars, decorated with  pretty homespun bows and ribbons. Food pantries and senior centers would love to have these.Hot chocolate lasts for only six months but if you have extra that's under that time period , donate. Regular cocoa powder can last up to two years and can still be used for cooking and baking. Instant coffee has a shelf life of a whopping twenty years!!! This depends on the packaging  yet you can still donate it. Even longer lived than instant coffee is sugar. Both granulated and confectioner's can last forever as can brown sugar. White and brown sugar can turn hard and crunchy To restore them  put the crystals in a baggie and smash with a rolling pin to get rid of the hardness. Any of these will be much appreciated by bakers who want to create treats for their kids.Another baking necessity you may have over stocked is a bag of chocolate chips. Again, real chocolate is considered dry, meaning it 's not encumbered by any bacteria so it can last as long as the sugars. If your chips are hanging around donate them with your other foods.

A pantry cleaning is always necessary. Yet instead of throwing out your overage , just donate. it'll help not only declutter your kitchen but add to someone else's.

A Sunday Vegetarian Roast

One of the highlights of fall is a sit down Sunday roast dinner.It's a chance for the family to gather and even dress up. The only problem is that some of the family nowadays eschews meat. What to do ? Have a Sunday vegan dinner. Everyone can then come together and still have delicious foods.

Of course the crowning glory of any big meal is the main course. Home chefs relied on ham,  London Broil and chicken to take over however now it has to be a plant based main course. Luckily there is Beyond Meat. This can easily be molded and then roasted into a loaf. The plant based "red meat" can also be molded into skewered pieces , sort of like beef and lamb kabobs. This can be served over a vegetable rice pilaf  for a more Mediterranean spin on Sunday dinner. Mold the crumbles into meat balls for a nice addition to a Sunday pot of pasta. The brand also produces sausages which can  also be used instead of the meatballs or with them. These can also be used in a family sized paella , chock full of different veggies like tomatoes  and peppers.Keep in mind that stuffed acorn squash can be just as filling as any protein dish. Fill with tofu crumbles along with chickpeas and rice. Gardein also has some good vegetarian meat options. Their turkey cutlets come with their own gravy  - which tastes like the real thing. Serve stuffing with it and it's like having the real thing.

As for sides . some may feel cheated that they can't serve mashed potatoes to sop up the gravy. Yet you can serve them and you can have a side of gravy. There are a few gravies out there, such as vegan mushroom that can top a side of mash. You can also make one using vegetable broth and nutritional yeast. Flour and soy sauce give it color and thickness. Onion powder and Dijon mustard are also added in. To make the meal more filling serve noodles or rice. Serve with a sauce of butter and sage to give it more flavor. The Northern Italian dish of risi bisi, rice and green peas is the perfect side with a vegan meat loaf. The two ingredients are cooked in veggie broth for added taste and topped with soy Parmesan cheese. The original recipe calls for the Italian bacon pancetta however you can make an easy vegan coconut one. This is the season for Brussels sprouts and cauliflower. The first is good in a simple butter sauce while the second can be served mashed or fried.Another idea is tomatoes Provencale. It's a tasty dish, perfect for any loaf or with vegan chicken strips. It's tomato slices topped with breadcrumbs, garlic and oregano steamed in an olive oil and butter bath.

Yes, vegetarians and vegans can have a traditional Sunday roast with all the trimmings. Just sub in the main with plant based "meats". It's still the same kind of dinner with family, but with a modern , updated spin.

Your Fall Baking Must Haves

It's now perfect weather for baking. The're no  more summer humidity and scorching days to put you off baking. It's time to bake luscious pies and fun Halloween treats. It's also time to gather up your fall baking must haves.

October is pie month. It's time to reevaluate your metal and glass pie tins.Aluminum pie tins last forever however if there are dings or discoloration, then buy new ones. (the old ones can make excellent trays for outdoor flower pots). Glass pie pans should be crack free. If you see one , then replace. Buy new Pyrex ones from Target or Walmart. For a fun addition buy pie birds if you don't already have them. These are blackbird (for four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie) shaped funnels that let the steam out of the baking pie. Using these aid in venting steam from double crust pies and prevents the filling from bubbling over. If you're more into baking tarts, check your tart pans. Some can get rusty. This requires cleaning with just baking soda and water along with a thorough drying before using. If not, then just replace them with newer, cast iron ones.  As for ingredients , make sure you have plenty of Crisco for the pie crusts and butter for the tart crust. Always have a bag of flour on hand along with the fruit for filling. Make sure your corers and parers are up to par too. You'll be needing them to create the filling.Another must have?Cinnamon and sugar. Don't run out of these when your making apple pie. Also make sure you have pumpkin pie filling and the necessary spices for it too.

October not only has Halloween parties but school bakes sales as well. It's a big time for cupcakes , cookies and sweet treats. You can stock up on cake, brownie and cookie mixes if you don't have to the time to make the scratch versions.Many stores like Stop & Shop are offering a  dollar a box on certain brands like Duncan Hines right now. Take advantage of this , especially if you have a big bake sale ahead. If you're planning on baking from scratch make sure you have the appropriate flours, including gluten free ones for kids who have allergies. Also make sure you have plenty of confectioners sugar for icing. Since it's Halloween it goes without saying to have a good amount of orange , black and purple food coloring. Get the thicker textured gels if you want more intense hues. Before baking, check your cake and brownie pans. Are they up to snuff or do you have to replace them? The same is true for cupcake pans and cookie sheets. If they are too dark or rusted , get new ones. It's best to stock up now than before the Christmas baking season begins. Another must  is parchment paper, especially if you're bent on making meringues. It also comes in handy for cake baking too. As for icing, check your icing bag quantities. You made need to buy another box, especially if you had a lot of Spring and summer decorating to do. Also you may want to add an icing knife or spatula. This makes frosting all that more easier.

Fall is here. That means a return to baking. Make sure your kitchen is ready to handle it. Have all your tools and ingredients ready for a fun, sweet season.

The Perfect Sourdough

One of the most tastiest and most photographed  breads out there is the sourdough. What's not to love about this tangy loaf that's perfect just with butter or as the base of a sandwich? Now home bakers are taking it on, trying to create the perfect bread. All you need is a  good starter and a lot of time.

Claire Saffritz, a contributing editor to Bon Appetit Magazine, wrote this interesting article, and how to for yesterday's New York Times Food section. Sourdough is one of the hardest and possible the most difficult of breads. As she states "It's not just flour, water and yeast but time and temperature too." Regular bread making, using an oven, is time consuming, but making sourdough is days consuming. Carve out three days for the whole process. She recommends starting on Friday for fresh from the oven loaves on Sunday. You're also going to need a lot of equipment, from a glass mixing bowl to an Instant read thermometer.Then there's the fancier stuff such as bannetons, bread proofing baskets. a serrated knife and a large Dutch oven. Unlike other breads , sourdough requires parchment paper too. Then there are the ingredients - a mature starter (get it online or from friends and family), white bread flour along with whole grain rye or spelt flour.Then there's rice flour for dusting. Luckily, Stop & Shop and WHole Foods carry the flours  - although you can buy all of them on line.

After all this , then there is the process. It's feeding or refreshing your starter on Day One, then letting it sit out at room temperature. A second feeding is needed once the starter doubles in size. Day Two requires mixing the dough and letting it rest, otherwise known as the autolyse process.  This will take anywhere from thirty minutes to a couple of hours. The next step is the floater test. Drop a small spoonful into a bowl of room temperature water.It's ready when it floats (along with a dome of sudsy bubbles appearing on the starter's surface. If it sinks, let it sit for another thirty minutes. If it's ready then combine the dough and starter. Use your one hand to mix the dough while the other rotates the bowl. assess the dough and then add salt. It's then mixing and performing what's known as the windowpane test in which some of the dough is stretched and rolled out. It should be membrane thin with light shining through it. Then there's  more prep, folding and pre-shaping the dough.  The shaping baskets are then prepared with a dusting of white and rice flours combined. The sourdough is then proofed, first outside the fridge and then inside it overnight. Day Three is the actual baking day It's baking it in a Dutch oven at a fiery 500 degrees F. Prepping the dough requires dusting it with flour and gashing it with a knife or razor blade. Halfway through the temp is dropped to 450 F. The result is a crusty, tasty loaf with a tender crumb.

Perfection takes a lot of work. Creating a flawless work is not just a lot of work but time. If you have it, do it. Make  that Instagrammable loaf of bread.

Getting Burned By Cookbooks

Every cook and baker dreams of having their own cookbook.It's a dream come true to not only share your recipes but also make potloads of money. Yet there is a dark side to this  - one that gets many an experienced chef burned  - and burned good.

Cookbook author of Indianish, Priya Krishna wrote about this little known problem in today's New York Times Food section. It sounds like a good idea and with any publishing offer - is beyond exciting. Having a published book , especially a cookbook, is the gateway to everything from  spots on local morning news shows to YouTube channels. It often means getting picked up from a larger publishing house and huge royalties. However that can be far from the truth. One example is Dallas food blogger, Urvashi Pitri, wrote the popular Indian Instant Pot Cookbook which sold a whopping 100,000 copies.Yet she received no advance for it and was asked to  develop fifty recipes in a three month period. To add insult to injury - she had to pay for all  the ingredients - some pricey - out her own pocket. Her payment for all of this? Only $15,000 in the two years of its' publication. Bonuses were only given out if book sales reached a certain number. There was one huge plus, however, The book's popularity enabled her to sign a two book, six figure deal with publishing giant Houghton-Mifflin. Some , like Lauren McDuffle, author of the blog Harvest & Honey was approached by London based quantum publishing to write a spice cookbook. Sounds prestigious enough - save for one catch - no royalties. There was only a modest fee.

It seems that these publishing houses prey on, lesser known chefs, food bloggers and reviewers. The Philadelphia chef, Kiki Aranita had Page Street Publishing offer her a meager $8,000 to write a cookbook on Hawaiian food with royalties of ten percent on the first 25,000 copies. People of color may be more vulnerable, she states,because some ethnic cuisines may be too out of the mainstream. However something similar happened to Baltimore  cookbook author, Alison Robicelli when Reedy Press asked her to write a book about standout restaurants from Washington DC to Baltimore. There was no pay up front or budget for traveling and dining. All that would come out of her pocket. There was also no payment - only royalties. Some chefs are turning to self publishing which is easy to do. Nick Kokonis ,  an owner of the Alinea Group in Chicago  wrote The Aviary Cocktail Book about his one restaurant's drinks. It was a lavish publishing cost of  $630,000 but the return was 3.2 million. A much cheaper alternative is Amazon Self Publishing and Nook. As for formatting you can go to Google Docs and use their recipe template, which also includes for photos. Another alternative is to self publish shorter cookbooks with fewer recipes under a collaborative started by editor in chief , Kevin Pang, of online food publication The Takeout. writers will earn seven to five dollars a book.

These cookbook publishing tales are true horror stories. The best and easiest route is self publishing. It means total control and the chance to have a successful food writing career.

The Other Fall Bounties

Yes, it's the fall and with it comes the two most well known harvests - pumpkins and apples. Yet the season also comes with other bounties. Farms and even home gardens are now graced with squash,Brussels sprouts and a host of others. They're not only full of goodness but can be made into a variety of different recipes.

Pumpkins may be the stars of this month yet there are other squashes  who are not only pretty  to look at but delicious to eat. Butternut and acorn squashes  should also be the stars of the dinner table. Butternut squash is great blended into tasty vegan soups. One of its' finer aspects is that its' flavor marries well with others. Pair it with onion and the two play off each other , giving dishes a sweet, unami vibe. Try them as part of a pan dinner with chicken or as a vegan pan roast . Acorn squash is another supporting player that should have top billing. It can  be stuffed in a variety of different way for satisfying vegan main meals.Add grains such a quinoa and rice along with any kind of bean protein such as chickpea or kidney beans. Acorn squash can  also be good just on its' own with melted butter filling the center.  It's also the perfect side for any kind of poultry and can be a welcome change at the holiday table.

Greens also are big this season. Brussels sprouts are just coming into harvest. These can be a little labor intensive to prepare if you've bought the stalks. They do require a lot of rinsing and soaking to get rid of the sandy soil they're grown in. However the end result is a tasty one. You can boil or steam them for five to ten minutes and then drench them with a sauce of melted butter and Parmesan cheese, Piedmontese style. For a fun family treat, turn them into chips. This requires peeling them like mini cabbages, dousing them with olive oil , sea salt and pepper , and then a quick roast in the oven. An easier version is crisping them up in your air fryer for quicker results. Another versatile veggie is the cauliflower. This alabaster beauty is excellent as the basis of a creamy soup, which, again, can be made vegan by blending it with vegetable stock and almond milk.  Round out the flavor with butter and garlic. Of course , nothing beats batter dipped fried cauliflower , which can be easy cooked in an air fryer. It's good as an appetizer at tail gate parties or as a fun side. Cauliflower also makes an excellent crust for pizza too!

There are other October bounties besides pumpkins and apples. Take advantage of them and create delicious harvest recipes. You'll have a bounty of good recipes and food.

Your Pie Guide

Fall is definitely the time for pies. Yet pie isn't just pie anymore. It's crostatas, tarts and tarltets too, Anything fruit or custard filled goes these days and what you make of them is up to you.  Pies could be for the week, save the fancier stuff for the weekend. They're all good.

Pie is more or less the most basic. You can bake a crust and fill it with anything or have the crust cook with the filling which is the better choice.  Basic pie dough  hasn't really changed since the 1500's when royal pie lover , Elizabeth I made cherry and apple pie popular. It's a mix of flour, ice water salt and shortening. This last is always the subject of controversy. Should you use straight out lard or vegetable shortening? Some home bakers insist on butter. Go with Crisco, which is basically solidified soy bean oil. It has produced flaky crusts for generations. You can go with coconut or even vegetable oil but you will not have a tender, melt in your mouth crust. Another option is bought pie crusts which simply can be popped in the freezer when you need them. Can you use pie crust for crostata? I suppose you could but keep in mind that actual recipe does have sugar and butter in it. You may have to decrease the amount of sugar used in the pie filling. Now can the pie crust do triple duty for tarts and tartlets? No. Tarts and their little ones have a crust that requires egg yolks, sugar and vanilla along with butter.  As for handheld pies, the best option is a simple pie crust. This is the sturdiest and won't open, causing a filling spill out.

Since this is the time for apples, then make an apple pie.  What are the best for filling? A good bet is Granny Smith. These bright green, tart tasting gems make the best filling and are not overly sweet.it also has a firm flesh which holds up well in baking. It also won't get mushy either. Another sturdy pome is the Winesap.It's a tart and spicy taste with  solid white flesh.  Can you use the same apples in crostatas? Not really. These open faced pastries require smaller sized apples like Galas but you could use the bigger ones if you're in a pinch. As for tarts, use the same as for the pies. Tarts are another intense bake so a good sturdy fleshed fruit is required. As for the extras, yes use the cinnamon but also have freshly ground nutmeg too. It adds more oomph to the pie. There's also brown sugar and lemon juice , the last added as a preservative. The crostata has a slightly different recipe. Some call for the addition of flour, usually a quarter of a cup. Also orange zest is used to give it some zing. As for the tarts, you can use the same filling recipe for the pie.

It's apple pie, crostata, tart and tartlet season. Make whichever appeals to you.Any one is great on a cool fall day, whether to make or to eat.