Tag: United States

Pumpkin Pie

You probably take pumpkin pie from canned pumpkin for granted. You’re there, the can is there, there’s a pumpkin on the label… open it and mix it up with spices to make a pie, right? Ah, but a pumpkin pie made from a fresh pumpkin tastes so much better than the glop that was processed last year! Here’s how to do it, complete instructions in easy steps and fully illustrated. And it is much easier than you think, using my “patented” tips and tricks! This makes a light, fluffy pumpkin pie with a fresh, traditional pumpkin pie taste. I can assure you that this will be the best pumpkin pie you’ve ever made! This is also a great thing to do with your kids! Children just love pumpkins: growing them, carving them, and making a pie from them! And who cares if Libby’s says there will be a shortage of canned pumpkin this year? As long as you can find a pumpkin or a butternut squash, you can make a BETTER pumpkin pie!

You will need
850 g pumpkin, chopped
350 ml cream
190 g brown sugar
Half tsp salt
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk
1 tsp cinnamon
quarter tsp nutmeg
quarter tsp allspice
the zest of 1 lemon
1 short-crust pastry base, ready made
1 roasting tin
1 spoon
1 fork
1 pie mold
1 jug
1 hand blender
aluminium foil
parchment paper
about 500g of beans to weigh down the crust
Step 2: Preheat the oven
Set the temperature to 180ºC or gas mark 4.

Step 3: Roast the pumpkin
Tip the chopped pumpkin into the roasting tin and cover it tightly with aluminium foil. Put the tin on a low shelf in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes (this is the first stage of creating the pumpkin puree).

Step 4: Prepare the pastry base
Gently lay the pastry crust on the pie mold and carefully press it down to form the shape of the pie. Remove any excess pastry from the edges. Now using a fork, lightly jab the bottom of the base various times. This will prevent the pastry from rising.

Put the parchment paper over the top of the pastry and pour the beans on top to weigh it down.

Step 5: Bake the pastry
Place the pie mold in the oven with the pumpkin and bake for 20 minutes.

Step 6: Remove from the oven
When the pastry crust is golden brown, take it out of the oven. Test the pumpkin to see if it’s done by piercing it with a fork. It needs to be completely soft to make the puree. Remove it from the oven and discard the foil. Take the beans off the pastry and leave it and the pumpkin to cool.

Finally, raise the temperature of the oven to 210 degrees centigrade or gas mark 6.

Step 7: Make the pumpkin puree
Spoon the cooked pumpkin into the jug and using the hand blender, blend into a puree.

Step 8: Prepare the pie filling
In a large bowl mix the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, lemon zest and salt. Now, whisk the eggs, add them to the other ingredients and stir. Pour in the pumpkin puree and cream and stir well.

Step 9: Bake
Pour the filling into the pastry crust, almost to the top. Carefully place it into the centre of the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 160ºC and bake for a further 35 minutes.

Step 10: Remove from the oven
When the pie is fully cooked remove it from the oven and allow it to cool and set.

Step 11: Serve
The pie can be eaten warm or cold and served dusted with icing sugar and with a dollop of whipped cream.

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

Published on Mar 5, 2013
SIGN THIS PETITION NOW: http://change.org/kraftyellow Hi – This is Lisa Leake from http://100daysofrealfood.com and Vani Hari from http://foodbabe.com

We recently discovered that several American food products contain harmful additives that are not used — and in some cases banned — in other countries. One of those products is an iconic staple that almost every American, us included, has had at one time or another: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in the US contains the artificial food dyes Yellow 5 and Yellow 6. These dyes are not in Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in other countries, including the UK, because they are considered harmful overseas and were removed due to consumer outcry. It’s time we demand the same here in the US!

We are petitioning Kraft to remove all artificial food dyes from their line of macaroni and cheese products.

Kraft, which is an American company by the way, has already removed this unnecessary – yet potentially harmful – additive from their products overseas but still serves it up to their fellow Americans. Here are the reasons we are asking Kraft to remove Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 from their entire line of Macaroni and Cheese:

Artificial food dyes…

– Are man-made in a lab with chemicals derived from petroleum (a crude oil product, which also happens to be used in gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt, and tar).

– Require a warning label in other countries outside the US.

– Have been banned in countries like Norway and Austria (and are being phased out in the UK).

– Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 specifically are contaminated with known carcinogens (a.k.a. an agent directly involved in causing cancer).

– Cause an increase in hyperactivity in children.

– Have a negative impact on children’s ability to learn.

– Have been linked to long-term health problems such as asthma, skin rashes, and migraines.

– Add absolutely no value to the foods we are eating and are used solely for aesthetic purposes.

– To prove this last point we personally tested both the US and UK versions of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and found little difference in color and virtually no difference in taste (see for yourself in the video below).

So please…

1. Go to our petition page and sign your name – http://change.org/kraftyellow

2. Share our petition with your family and friends

We both grew up eating this product – Lisa used to feed it to her kids years ago – and it’s available at almost every grocery store across the country. Our kids deserve the same as our friends overseas!

Kraft Foods is the largest food company headquartered in the United States. If Kraft changes their Macaroni and Cheese, we know this could inspire other food companies across the US to finally eliminate dangerous artificial food dyes once and for all.

Join us and demand this change by signing this petition now.

Thank you for all your support – together we can make a difference.

http://change.org/kraftyellow

The potential health effects of artificial colors such as cochineal, a food dye derived from crushed insects.

The effects of artificial colors on impulsivity, inattentiveness, and hyperactivity among young children.

apple pie

Does anything smell better than an apple pie baking in the oven? Lauren Chattman from Pillsbury shows how to make the perfect apple pie. It’s so good you don’t even need the ice cream (but we’ll understand if you have some anyway).

Recipe: How to make apple pie

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Roll one refrigerated pie crust into a 9 inch glass pie plate.

2. Mix 6 cups of thinly sliced apples, preferably a firm variety like Granny Smith, 3/4 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of flour, a tablespoon of lemon juice, 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg, and 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt. Pour entire mixture into the pie shell.

3. Take the second pie crust and roll it right on top of the apples. There should be a little bit of the pie crust hanging over the pie plate. Tuck the edges under for a thick crust.

4. To finish the crust with a scalloped edge, place your index finger and thumb on a section of the outside edge of the pie crust. With your index finger on the other hand press into that section from the inside of the pie crust to make a scalloped edge all the way around.

5. Cut four to six slits in the top of the pie for ventilation. This lets the moisture escape and ensures your apple pie has a crisper top crust.

6. Place a pie shield, or aluminum foil strips, over the pie crust edges to prevent burning.

7. Bake the apple pie for 40 to 45 minutes. About 15 minutes before the pie is finished, take the pie shield off to let the edge brown up.

8. After baking, the apple pie should cool for two hours so the juices are reabsorbed into the apples. Your willpower will pay off because you’ll be able to cut beautiful, neat slices.

Pillsubry’s apple pie recipe serves 6-8.

Roast beef

typically use a rump roast when making roast beef. You can also use a round roast or a sirloin tip with these instructions. This slow roasting method at low heat is good for tougher cuts of beef; the lower heat prevents any gristle from getting too tough. This method should not be used with choice or prime grades of beef, or the more tender cuts, as slow cooking more delicate cuts will make them mushy.

Roast beef made this way is easy, relatively inexpensive, and you get great leftovers for roast beef sandwiches.

Roast Beef Recipe

Cook time: 3 hours
Add to shopping list
INGREDIENTS
3 to 3 1/2 lbs (1.3 to 1.6 kg) of Boneless Rump Roast (pick an end cut with a layer of fat if you can)
Olive oil
8 slivers of garlic
Salt and pepper
You will need a meat thermometer

For the gravy:

Red wine, water, and or beef stock
corn starch
METHOD
1 Start with the roast at room temperature (remove from refrigerator 1 hour before cooking – keep it wrapped). Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

2 With a sharp knife make 8 small incisions around the roast. Place a sliver of garlic into each incision. Take a tablespoon or so of olive oil and spread all around the roast. Sprinkle around the roast with salt and pepper. Place the roast directly on an oven rack, fatty side up, with a drip pan on a rack beneath the roasting rack. This arrangement creates convection in the oven so that you do not need to turn the roast. The roast is placed fat side up so that as the fat melts it will bathe the entire roast in its juices.

3 Brown the roast at 375°F (190°C) for half an hour. Lower the heat to 225°F (107°C). The roast should take somewhere from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours additionally to cook. The shape of the roast will affect the cooking time, by the way. So if your roast is on the long and narrow side, versus a more round shape, it may take less time to cook. So keep an eye on it. When the roast just starts to drip its juices and it is brown on the outside, check the temperature with a meat thermometer. Pull the roast from the oven when the inside temperature of the roast is 135° to 140°F (57°C to 60°C). Let the roast rest for at least 15 minutes, tented in aluminum foil to keep warm, before carving to serve.

To make the gravy:

Remove the dripping pan from the oven and place on the stove top at medium heat. Note that if you are pulling the roast out early, for rare or a medium rare level of doneness, you may not have a lot of drippings. Hopefully you will have some. If not, you may want to leave the roast in a little longer at even lower heat, 175°F, to ease some more drippings out of it. Add some water, red wine, or beef stock to the drippings to deglaze (loosen the drippings from the pan). Dissolve a tablespoon of cornstarch in a little water and add to the drip pan. Stir quickly while the gravy thickens to avoid lumping. You can add a little butter if there is not a lot of fat in the drippings. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Beignet

Beignet (pronounced /bɛnˈjeɪ/ in English, /bɛˈɲɛ/ in French; French, literally “bump“[1] ), synonymous with the English “fritter”, is the French term for a pastry made from deep-fried choux paste[2]. Beignets are commonly known in the U.S. as a dessert served with powdered sugar on top, however, they may be savory dishes as well and may contain meat, vegetables, or fruits.[2] They are traditionally prepared right before consumption to be eaten fresh and hot.
Variations of fried dough can be found across cuisines internationally, however, the origin of the term beignet is specifically French. In the U.S., beignets have been popular within New Orleans Creole cuisine and are customarily served as a dessert or in some sweet variation. They were brought to the Louisiana in the 18th century by French colonists[3], from “the old mother country”[4],and became a large part of home-style Creole cooking, variations often including banana or plantain–popular fruits in the port city [5][6]. Today, Café du Monde is a popular New Orleans food destination specializing in beignets with powdered sugar (served in threes), coffee with chicory, and café au lait[7]. Beignets were declared the official state doughnut of Louisiana in 1986 [8].
The tradition of deep-frying fruits for a side dish dates to the time of Ancient Rome, while the tradition of beignets in Europe is speculated to have originated with a heavy influence of Islamic culinary tradition[9]. The term beignet can be applied to two varieties, depending on the type of pastry. The French-style beignet in the United States has the specific meaning of deep-fried choux pastry[10]. Beignets can also be made with yeast pastry[11], which might be called boules de Berlin in French, referring to Berliner doughnuts which have a spherical shape (i.e. they do not have the typical doughnut hole) filled with fruit or jam.
In Corsica, beignets made with chestnut flour (Beignets de farine de châtaigne) are known as fritelli.

people sick more often from imported foods

People in the United States are getting sick more often from imported foods in recent years, and seafoods and spices from Asia are the most common culprits, US health authorities said Wednesday.

After reviewing cases of reported outbreaks from 2005 to 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 2,348 illnesses were linked to imported foods, with half of the cases occurring in 2009 and 2010.

Fish-linked outbreaks were the most common source and nearly 45 percent of all imported foods causing sickness came from Asia, said the CDC report, presented at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fish caused 17 of the 39 outbreaks, and spices were the next most common with six outbreaks, including five linked to fresh or dried peppers.

“As our food supply becomes more global, people are eating foods from all over the world, potentially exposing them to germs from all corners of the world, too,” said lead author Hannah Gould, an epidemiologist in CDC’s division of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases.

“We saw an increased number of outbreaks due to imported foods during recent years, and more types of foods from more countries causing outbreaks.”

US food imports have grown from $41 billion annually in 1998 to $78 billion in 2007, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Up to 16 percent of all food eaten — and 85 percent of all seafood — in the United States is imported.

However, officials suspect that there are more food-linked outbreaks than reported because often people are unaware of what has made them ill.

“We need better — and more — information about what foods are causing outbreaks and where those foods are coming from,” Gould said in a statement.

“Knowing more about what is making people sick, will help focus prevention efforts on those foods that pose a higher risk of causing illness.”

Some 48 million illnesses from food strike the United States each year, with the stomach-ailment causing norovirus being the most common followed by salmonella.

According to the latest data for 2008, there were a total of 23,152 sicknesses that year and 22 deaths.
The CDC defines a foodborne disease outbreak as two or more similar illnesses resulting from the same type of food.

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttermilk biscuits are not so much a recipe, as they are a mythology. Secret knowledge passed down from generation to generation, mother to child, blogger to people like you.

This deceptively simple recipe can come out a million different ways with some very minor variations on the ingredients and amounts.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into thin slices, chilled in freezer
3/4 cup cold buttermilk

I tried to make biscuits with some leftover plain yogurt and they would have been perfect but I used too much baking soda. Therefore, nothing is critical in this recipe but there are limits and the cook’s hand will show.

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour , plus more for dusting the board (if you can get White Lily flour, your biscuits will be even better)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder (use one without aluminum)
1 teaspoon kosher salt or 1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter , very cold
1 cup buttermilk (approx)

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 450°F.
  2. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, or in the bowl of a food processor.
  3. Cut the butter into chunks and cut into the flour until it resembles course meal.
  4. If using a food processor, just pulse a few times until this consistency is achieved.
  5. Add the buttermilk and mix JUST until combined.
  6. If it appears on the dry side, add a bit more buttermilk. It should be very wet.
  7. Turn the dough out onto a floured board.
  8. Gently, gently PAT (do NOT roll with a rolling pin) the dough out until it’s about 1/2″ thick. Fold the dough about 5 times, gently press the dough down to a 1 inch thick.
  9. Use a round cutter to cut into rounds.
  10. You can gently knead the scraps together and make a few more, but they will not be anywhere near as good as the first ones.
  11. Place the biscuits on a cookie sheet- if you like soft sides, put them touching each other.
  12. If you like”crusty” sides, put them about 1 inch apart- these will not rise as high as the biscuits put close together.
  13. Bake for about 10-12 minutes- the biscuits will be a beautiful light golden brown on top and bottom.
  14. Do not overbake.
  15. Note: The key to real biscuits is not in the ingredients, but in the handling of the dough.
  16. The dough must be handled as little as possible or you will have tough biscuits.
  17. I have found that a food processor produces superior biscuits, because the ingredients stay colder and there’s less chance of overmixing.
  18. You also must pat the dough out with your hands, lightly.
  19. Rolling with a rolling pin is a guaranteed way to overstimulate the gluten, resulting in a tougher biscuit.
  20. Note 2: You can make these biscuits, cut them, put them on cookie sheets and freeze them for up to a month.
  21. When you want fresh biscuits, simply place them frozen on the cookie sheet and bake at 450°F for about 20 minutes.

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/southern-buttermilk-biscuits-26110#ixzz1gX1dWGN3

Great Northern Beans

Ingredients:

2 (32 oz.) cans of Great Northern Beans, drained or 1 lb uncooked beans
1 ham steak cut into 2 inch cubes
1 tsp. salt
1/2 lg. sweet onion, chopped
2 (14 oz.) bottles of ketchup
1/3 to 1/2 c. of prepared mustard
3 c. of packed brown sugar


Instructions:

Quick soak:

Rinse and sort beans in a large pot.
Add 6-8 cups hot water to 1 lb of beans (about 2 cups).
Bring to rapid boil; boil for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Cover and let stand 1 hour.
Drain soak water and rinse.

Overnight soak

Rinse and sort beans in a large pot.
Add 6-8 cups hot water to 1 lb of beans (about 2 cups).
Let stand overnight or at least 6-8 hours.
Drain soak water and rinse.

Cooking Directions:

Add 6 cups of hot water to drained and rinsed beans.
Simmer gently with lid tilted until desired tenderness is reached, about 11/2-2 hours.

GREAT NORTHERN BAKED BEANS

Combine ingredients. Cook in a uncovered crock pot 8 to 12 hours or overnight on low heat.

References