Sides That Stand Out

 Meals can become a little more elaborate and heartier now that the cool weather is here. It starts with tasty sides that pop and make the main dish sing. There's a lot to try , form the simple to the elaborate.

Rice is one of the best sides. It's an easy cook that goes with any kind of meat, from beef to poultry to fish. You can just boil it in water but try cooking it in either beef, chicken or vegetable broth to amp it up flavor wise. Veggies can be added for more pizzazz. Think scallions or onions if you want a stronger taste. Carrots and peas make for a more delicate one. An easy side is cooking brown rice in chicken broth and adding chopped scallions. Finish with three or four tablespoons of soy sauce. This is a wonderful accompaniment to orange or lemon chicken or ginger glazed pork. Rice with almonds and mushrooms is another stand out side that's perfect with turkey or Cornish game hens. Noodles have always been a home chef's side go to. Egg noodles with just melted butter are perfect for every kind of comfort dish from meat loaf to stew. Zing them up a bit with some freshly milled parsley or ground pepper. Spaetzles, those delicious Swabian noodles , are also a perfect foil for pork dishes. Mix them with sauerkraut for a tart , eye opening spoonful or combine with green beans and butter for something milder yet just as flavorful. This last is perfect with roasted chicken while the first is perfect with any German sausage from bratwurst to curry wurst.

Veggies have long played second fiddle to main dishes. Yet they can be just as tasty and can even outshine them. Potatoes are the perfect side. They can be made into a variety of different dishes.Of course, many choose the mashed version and why not? The fluffy mounds can hold puddles of gravy or melted butter. Yet the plain version can be a tad bland at times.Give them some oomph with mashed garlic or ginger thrown in. Keep the skins on or sub in whole cream for milk when mashing. Scalloped potatoes are an elegant side , sure to impress the family. It's mandolined potatoes baked with cream and onions along with garlic, baked for forty five minutes in usually a nine by thirteen casserole dish. Brussels sprouts have always had a bad wrap yet are a lovely and sophisticated side. The best way is steamed and then drizzled with melted butter or margarine and sprinkled with Parmesan. Yet roasted ones are also good. They can be sheet pan roasted with the main meal, drizzled with only olive oil and seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Brussels sprouts  can also be sauteed too. Carrots are a bright addition to any plate. Many feel that carrots have to be glazed with honey or maple syrup to accentuate their sweetness. Go the opposite way and flavor them with garlic and olive oil. Try them with a butter basil sauce for a different spin.

Make sides stand out. They can be a simple veggie infused rice dish or an elaborate potato one.  Just make them as tasty and outstanding as the main dish.

The Perfect Cookbook For Young Home Chefs

 Home schooling kids right now is not fun. Yet imagine a fun and tasty way to do so. A new cookbook has come out and it makes not only kitchen work a learning experience but also a fun intro to home cooking  and baking. It's a great way to bring out the home chef in your kinds.

The book is Kitchen Explorers :60 + Recipes, Experiments And Games For Young Chefs (American's Test Kitchen 2020) and written by the chefs and writers at the great PBS show, America's Test Kitchen. Like the show it's filled with informative facts about all different aspects of cooking and baking. This is primarily a tween book, perfect for ten to thirteen year olds but younger kids with an interest in cooking will also enjoy it. As with their other cookbooks, America's Test Kitchen has a section on cooking terms defined. There is also a page on defining terms associated with experimentation.This is not a traditional recipe book with chapters on breakfasts and lunches . Rather , it has  the first chapter on a variety of  diverse kid friendly recipes plus make it your way challenges. The second chapter is devoted to science experiments and the third has a wide variety of puzzles and games, that not only expand a child's knowledge of food but also their vocabulary as well. It really is a fun book,Kids can learn how to make their own sea salt (!) just by combining kosher salt and plain water. There's a taste and smell test involving Jelly Belly jelly beans along with an experiment involving butter and water. The games are neat too.Kids can design their idea of a food truck or their perfect meal. There are quizzes about fruits and vegetables and foods' origins as well as a foodie version of "I Spy".

Are the recipes hard? No, and they can be made easy with adult supervision. There are such after school classics as peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips and giant chocolate chip cookies.Kids will love the amped up version of Rice Krispie Treats (along with the history of both the cereal and the treats themselves) that include chocolate chips and broken graham crackers. For a fancier snack there is the pesto flatbread pizza that introduces kids to such diverse foods as pesto and naan bread. Traditional recipes such as meatballs and sauce are also included for young chefs to make for a hearty dinner.Even more fun is the one for bean and cheese quesadillas that only require four ingredients. A plus is that the recipe includes a rhyming game involving  the ingredients. These dishes can be topped off with the fudgy mug cake for dessert. This is a take on the commercial mixes and it's rich in chocolate thanks to the addition of chocolate chips and cocoa. A side bar has kids writing down their observations about the cakes and how they went from liquid to solid in no time. Kids can also appreciate the recipe for old fashioned blueberry muffins that teaches them about traditional baking. There are also fun snack recipes for buttered popcorn, yogurt parfaits and smoothies. Young home chefs can also make their own no bake energy bites and wash it down with the recipe for flavored seltzers.

Kitchen Explorers : 60 + Recipes, Experiments, And Games For Young Chefs is the perfect book for kids learning from home these days. It teaches kids not only how to cook but about science and geography. It's the perfect tool not only young home chefs but students too.

Inclusion All Year Round

 Today we remember those who were lost nineteen years ago. We came together as a country. There was a sense of unity and fidelity to our country and neighbors. We are apart now, thanks to beliefs , prejudices and Covid 19. Yet there are ways of coming together and standing as one. That involves one of our  most basic needs - cooking and nourishing each other,

We can still cook and bake for each other despite social distancing . Isolated neighbors will appreciate a loaf of homemade bread or a casserole. It's even easy to create a meal box , full of ingredients and instructions and leave it on a neighbor's doorstep. You could add fresh produce from your garden along with spices and extras. Keep it simple. A jar of homemade sauce and a box of any kind of pasta is simple enough to make and reheat but nutritious and filling for a lunch or dinner. You could also include the ingredients for a tasty hero, with cold cuts and cheeses along with a small container of dressing. Have a dessert of some fruit , whether an apple or pear. You could also include a baggie of grapes or cherries too. For fun, add a small jigsaw puzzle , puzzle books and magazines. If the person is celebrating a birthday, find out their favorite meal and make that. Include a small cake or cupcakes along with a small gift.

Inclusion also means bringing kids together despite the social distancing. There can still be get togethers but  on Zoom . Parents can get together and create the same dinner that everyone can share on this modern meeting medium. A truly inclusive idea is having Thursdays or one day of the weekend saved for different recipes from different groups. It could be a Nigerian beef and spaghetti stew or chicken with plantains. It's a great way of expanding family palates as well as the family cookbook. Cooking other classmates' family recipes brings new spices and flavors to the kitchen pantry. Parents can also write down their recipes in a class cookbook that can be published on Nook or Kindle. How to photographs  can be included too to show how a dish is made. Stories of everyone's ancestry and homeland can also accompany the recipes. Of course there could be virtual lunches too with everyone enjoying a shared peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a tomato soup in their individual houses. 

We need to be more inclusive despite our distancing. If we can honor the ones we lost, and our country, let's try to be more unified. It can easily be done through cooking and baking for each other.

Savory Sweet Dishes For The New Year

 Rosh Hashanah will be here in another week and it's time to think about dishes. Any holiday , this year, will be weighted. It has been a bad year so far. What can we do to sweeten the new one. The answer comes in the form of recipes that expertly balance sweet with savory, in a way a hopeful wish for the months to come.

Melissa Clark and Joan Nathan have come up with two very different yet appropriate ways  to bring in the New Year. Their recipes were featured in yesterday's New York Times Food section and are perfect savers for many years to come. Ms. Clark dedicates her A Good Appetite Column to the new craze of sheet pan cooking. She combines chicken with roasted plums and onions, an interesting way of combining sweet and savory. Keep in mind to get softer plums , ones that will release a lot of juice for moisture. You can use peaches , nectarines or pluots, again so long as they can produce enough juice.Ms. Clark recommends also using a slight squeeze of lemon for some acidity but not too much.Add a drizzle of honey because plum skins can be tannic or sour. The bird does have to be marinated a few hours before cooking. Flavorings include toasted fennel seeds along with allspice , fresh thyme springs and hot pepper flakes, the last used for zing. As for the onion, used a sliced red one. Everything is placed on a sheet and popped into a 425 degree F oven for about 30 to 45 minutes. You can garnish with flaky sea salt and more herbs.

Joan Nathan gives the more traditional tsimmes, a stew made of beef, carrots and sweet potatoes. The dish is originally German then Yiddish coming from the words zum essen meaning a big fuss. The original recipe included parsnips and turnips. It has since been adapted by Yiddish cooking and Americanized with the addition of sweet potatoes, brown sugar and cinnamon. Ms. Nathan has the sweet potatoes and even carrots for sweetness along with chopped prunes.Using the last means no extra brown sugar or honey in the recipe. For the meat she recommends using bone in flanken or flanken style ribs. You could also use  three pounds of English cut short ribs. She also suggests subbing in  the white Japanese yams for the American ones. For seasoning there's bay leaf and freshly ground black pepper. The flanken needs to be cooked the day before , in a Dutch oven with the bay leaf.It's cooked in a 350 degree F oven with eight cups of water for an hour, then removed from the heat. Let it cool overnight in the fridge. The next day, remove the congealed fat with a slotted spoon , and add the veggies and prunes, Bake covered for another hour and then remove the lid. Keep in oven until the potatoes are cooked, the meat is tender and the water is reduced. Season and serve with fresh, chopped parsley.

Making sweet dishes for the new year means a year full of sweetness. Hopefully this will be true.It's a time to start fresh leaving the sadness and bitterness of the previous year behind.

The Way We Shop Now

 The pandemic has certainly changed the way we live.It's definitely affected how we shop and how we eat.We relearned how to bake and yearned for a night out with friends. Will this be the new normal after we return to normal? It could be.

Regular contributor Kim Severson wrote about this phenomena in today's New York Times Food section. A lot of the data is eye opening but predictable.There were seven ways food shopping and our eating habits have  changed. We did fewer trips but had more detailed lists. Before Covid 19 , a mere 19 percent of Americans only shopped for food more than three times a week, That number dropped to ten percent by June.Many stocked up, buying double the amount of what they would normally buy. Home chefs also became better planners, knowing what to make for a whole month and shopping for those four weeks.Online food subscriptions went up.Online food sales went from 1.2 billion to 7.2 billion from March to June. Farmers jumped on this bandwagon too, selling to customers and building a good solid client base via the internet. Curbside pickup also increased. Once people realized the ease of this and selecting groceries through apps , they knew they could never go back to visiting stores themselves. Stores were also redrawn. There are now one way aisles and some Walmart have a more open check out areas.

Our eating habits changed as well. Oranges became the snack of the moment, thanks to them keeping so long. In May the fruit has a 73 per cent jump in sales. However there aren't many fruit or other food choices now. Options are shrinking. People are buying staples not frill snacks and treats and stores are noticing. There's also more generic buying  with more home chefs opting for store brands which are usually tastier and cheaper, Buying dried beans have also been popular since, they're versatile and full of protein. Another interesting fact is that freezer food is also popular. Sales initially jumped by a whopping 94 percent in March.Frozen fruit and veggies were an attractive alternative to fresh produce and many home chefs were buying them regularly. Yet some home chefs also want fresh local produce. This also includes eggs and milk from local dairies along with fresh beef. Grocers are also teaming up with chefs to sell meal kits that feature ingredients from local farms. It's part of a growing awareness of climate change and the impact of transporting foodstuffs on the environment.

Our eating and shopping habits will be changing as this pandemic continues. will they ever go back to normal once we go back to normal? Maybe. but maybe not. There may be new trends emerging as we come out of this.

Ease Into Fall Cooking

The temps may not be as hot as they once were. The days are starting to get shorter. Autumn is coming and it's time to ease into cooler weather cooking. What does that mean? Adding different ingredients and thinking about more complex cooking.

One thing to do is take advantage of the harvests out now. Tomatoes plants are still yielding an amazing amount.It's a great time to make sauce and freeze it. You can also use herbs from the garden, such as oregano and rosemary as well. Tomatoes can also be turned into salsas and chili too and these can be frozen for later.If you want to be more adventurous try making ketchup. Many are put off by the idea of making  a condiment in their kitchens but it's pretty easy. It can be done in a slow cooker and you could easily have a bowl of ketchup for dinner that same day. Also take advantage of other harvests such as eggplants and onions. Again late summer and early fall is the perfect time for ratatouille, the mix of those veggies plus tomatoes. It has a fresh summery taste yet warming on nippy nights when the temps drop. Have it with warmed, sliced French bread and olive oil. Eggplant is also good sliced , breaded and air fried . You could slice it into sticks for a different and fun lunch or dinner.

Cooler days mean more elaborate yet still fun meals. Think tacos with different fillings. You can still have barbecued beef but shred it and use it as the main filling. The same with barbecued chicken. You can also grill salmon or tilapia for a different variation.A vegetarian option would be mashed kidney beans topped with  shredded cabbage instead of lettuce or even broken cauliflower or broccoli florets. This is nice way of using up the first of the fall harvests.Hamburgers can still be made but why not turn them into Salisbury steaks with gravy? They can be served on toast or with a side of homemade mashed potatoes.Ground beef or even vegan beef crumbles can also be turned into the Szechuan classic Ants Climbing A Tree. This is an exciting combo of cellophane noodles cooked with beef and soy sauce, zinged up with scallions. Kids will love this variation of hamburger and a fresh take on takeout food. It's also a time to start those sheet pan dinners. You can follow recipes or make up some combo of meat and veggies or just veggies for dinner. Try chicken with potatoes and sliced Brussels sprouts or  salmon with bok choy and green beans.

Ease into fall cooking with fun dishes that are warming and delicious. You can use the last of the summer harvest for ingredient as well as the first of the autumn ones. It's time for some serious cooking!

Honor Our Food Workers ALL Year Long

This is definitely a different Labor Day. There aren't the big parties of last year.  No last hours of summer, enjoyed on the boardwalk, eating fries and frozen custard. No festivals featuring favorite treats like zeppolis and pizza. What is also different is the hardship many of our food related workers have gone through since March. We need to honor them not just for one day but all year round now.

Restaurants are the worst hit of the food industry. They're still trying to make a comeback with outdoor dining. Yet it's not enough. Try to order out from them if you're not comfortable with eating among others. Remember to leave more tip than what you'd usually leave in the tip jar. Write good reviews on Facebook and Yelp. It's a small gesture but it helps in guiding future diners to the eatery. Another way to help is getting gift certificates and/or gift cards from these places too.  Make it a habit of trying one new restaurant a month too. It not only expands your palate but also brings in more dollars to whatever place you choose.

As for those essential grocery workers, sadly we can't give them  tips but we can write to the company and sing their praises. They too, work hard , stocking shelves, getting up at all hours to disinfect the entire place. Visit as often as you can under the circumstances and also thank them when you can too. It shouldn't just be on Labor Day but all year round. What they do is tough, made even tougher by this on going pandemic. This also goes for the farms that are just gearing up for the fall season. They too have been hit hard and are trying to maintain customers and produce. Visit them, for some apple cider doughnuts and pumpkins.

Labor Day should not just be celebrated on this one day. We need to celebrate and honor our food workers all year round. They deserve it with all the hard work they've done year round.