St. Patrick's Day Eats

by Diane

Whole Foods--Roosevelt (Seattle, WA)

Nothing says St. Patrick's Day like corned beef! The best way to get a delicious full-flavored corned beef is to brine it for at least 10 days. With St. Patty's Day on tomorrow it's a little late to brine your own, but lucky for you Whole Foods has come to the rescue. They have brined their beef brisket in a a house brine for 14 days just for you!

So if you get your hands on some corned beef, here are some tasty and traditional ways to use it!

Corned Beef with Cabbage

• Alton Brown's Corned Beef with Cabbage
• James Beard's Corned Beef with Cabbage

Corned Beef Hash

• Tom Douglas' Corned Beef Hash
• Gourmet's Corned Beef Hash 

Reuben Sandwich

• Zingerman's Reuben Sandwich
• Aida Mollenkamp's Rueben 

Emeril Lagasse's Russian Dressing

Ingredients

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup chili sauce
• 1 tablespoon minced yellow onion
• 1 tablespoon minced dill pickle
• 1 tablespoon minced celery
• 1 tablespoon minced parsley leaves
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• Salt

Directions

1. In a bowl, combine all ingredients except salt and whisk until well-blended. 
2. Add salt to taste, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Don't forget to wear green, eat corned beef, and of course... Erin Go Bragh!

March Madness: Pizza Bracket

by Diane
 
With less than two days left to get your 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament bracket filled out, you can definitely feel madness in the March air! It's the best when favorites converge, so when I found the bracket below that combines two of my favorite things: March Madness and Pizza... I almost lost it!

Last year, Ed Levine and Adam Kuban over at Slice took bracketology to a whole new level creating a showdown of the top pizzerias all across America breaking them down into four regions: West Coast, East Coast, South-Southwest, and Midwest.

Here's who made the tourney:

click to enlarge

Who brought the championship home? Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Arizona was named the winner!

Amazingly enough, I have been to some of these spots, and I am so glad they made March Madness: Pizzerias! So good luck with your NCAA brackets and check out all these fantastic pizza recommendations! Let the Big Dance begin!

Happy National Potato Chip Day!

by Diane

Bambara's Blue Cheese Chips

Today is all about the potato chip (or crisps depending on where you live). So, the story behind the potato chip claims that a patron at a restaurant complained of thick soggy fried potatoes and repeatedly sent them back to the chef demanding they be thinner. After several rounds of this exchange, the chef defiantly sliced the potato chips very thin, producing what we now refer to as potato chips! 

I love chips and find them as a conduit for my favorite flavors. Around the country and the world, flavors get really interesting. In the Mid-Atlantic you can find chips flavored with Crab Spice Seasoning or in the western U.S. you can find Limon flavored chips. Wanna make your own? Try this simple recipe from Williams-Sonoma. Regardless of what flavor you enjoy, it's clear that potato chips are here to stay!

So, here are my top 5 favorites:

1. Flammin' Hot Crunchy Cheetos
2. Blue Cheese Chips from Bambara in Salt Lake City (pictured above)
3. Queso Flavored Chips--Ruffles (this is more Laura, than Diane)
4. Sour Cream & Onion Popchips
5. Salt and Vinegar chips...basically any brand

What is your favorite flavor of chips?

Gettin' Saucy: Mayonnaise

by Diane
March is National Sauce Month and we've decided that should include condiments too! One of the most elusive condiments to me is mayonnaise. The most basic mayonnaise is just eggs and oil whisked by hand, mixed with a blender, or blended in a food processor.

So making homemade mayonnaise starts simple, but here are a few tips to help it stay that way:

1. Make sure you're ingredients are all at room temperature.
2. Beat your eggs or egg yolks before adding them to anything.
3. Add your oil sloooooooooowwwwlly. If the recipe says add by the drop, ADD BY THE DROP!
4. Taste it during the process of adding the oils. I didn't the first time and ended up adding to much an oil. 
5. No need to freak out if your mayonnaise breaks, you can still fix it. 

I have a few observations for the recipe I followed today. It called for olive oil, which made for a really smooth mayonnaise, but gave a little too much olive oil flavor for my everyday mayo. (Next time I'll taste it more along the way!) Every recipe is different which means there's something for everyone; here are a few I recommend:

Julia Child's Mayonnaise
Paula Deen's Mayonnaise
Alton Brown's Mayonnaise
Basic Homemade Mayonnaise

Once you've mastered the basic mayonnaise, you can get creative because this condiment can handle a lot of other flavors: basil, garlic, cranberry, chipotle...whatever. Tonight our mayo added a rich flavor to a tasty BLT!

Fat Tuesday Feast!

by Diane

Today is Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras! It's a time that people all over the world will be celebrating and overindulging with fatty buttery foods before having to give up a lot of it during lent.

How are you going to over-indulge? At our house we plan to celebrate like they do in the British Isles with Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day with friends. If you don't love pancakes, like we do, that's OK there is still a lot of other ways you can go wild!

Take a page out of the Big Easy playbook, with New Orlean-style eats:

• Jambalaya
• Po' Boys
• Gumbo 
• finish up with some Bananas Foster

...or visit one of these places for beignets!

New Orleans
Seattle
New York
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Utah
Washington, DC

So have fun, eat good food, and...Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Happy National Pound Cake Day

My mom loooovvvvesss pound cake. I've never seen her make her own, but as I'm sure she's not the only one, who loves to pick up some Sara Lee's Pound Cake. Pound cake gets its name from the traditional recipe which requires a pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar! The result is a deliciously buttery and dense cake!

Celebrate today by making your own pound cake using this recipe here or buying a pound cake to make these delicious Pound Cake Pops I saw this morning on the Today Show!

Pound Cake Pops
by Catherine DeOrio
Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounces) package frozen pound cake
• 1 (12 ounces) bag white chocolate chips or white melting chocolate
• 20 4-inch lollipop sticks
• Toppings: Bag of shredded coconut (toasted), sprinkles, Heath bits, colored sugars, mini chocolate chips, chopped nuts

Preparation
1. Slice pound cake horizontally into 1-inch thick slices.
2. Use one-and-a-half-inch wide round cookie cutters to cut pound cake.
3. Place circles in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Insert a lollipop stick into the bottom of each pound cake round. Freeze 1-2 hours.
4. When ready to dip and decorate the pops, place shredded coconut into a separate bowl.
5. Place white chocolate into a large glass bowl in a double boiler set-up. Stir continuously until chips are completely melted.
6. Dip each pound cake pop into the white chocolate, then sprinkle with toppings immediately.
7. Place back onto the cookie sheet. When you have decorated all the pops, chill until firm, about 1 hour.


WARNING: Too much pound cake may add pounds to your body!

Coming Up This Month: March Preview

It's time to preview what we're planning to blog about this month. Winter is definitely still happening, but luckily, spring is popping up all over!

March...

• ... comes in like a lion and out like a lamb! So we plan to eat like lions and make some tasty lamb! (I promise we will not be eating any lion meats.)
• ... is National Sauce Month! We'll be making different sauces from pestos to vinaigrettes and ketchup to caramel. YUM!
• ... 14th is National Potato Chip Day! Blue cheese chips anyone?
• ...is the month of St. Patrick's Day! We'll give you tips on where to get the best Irish eats from corned beef, stews, or fish and chips!

 Stay tuned to see the exciting things we come up with this Month!

Happy National Pancake Day...sort of

IHOP has proclaimed today National Pancake Day! The tricky thing about food holidays is that they often have conflicting dates, but since I love to celebrate and love pancakes even more, I am happy to get in on the festivities ANYTIME! Today from 7am until 10pm, you can get a free short stack (3) of pancakes at IHOP.

They are not only promoting their pancakes, but also raising money for charities. In return for free pancakes, they hope you will choose to leave a donation. This year, IHOP hopes to raise $2.3 million for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and other local charities.

FYI--"Pancake Day," or Shrove Tuesday, is usually celebrated on Fat Tuesday, which is actually next Tuesday, March 8, but we're happy IHOP decided to celebrate the day a week early...cause now we get to celebrate twice!