May, 2009 - - Page 6

by tvff

ES/Food Network Contest: How Crazy Can You Grill It?

It’s that time of year again! Spring! Which in addition to debilitating allergies, means it’s time to break out the grill. If the warmer weather wasn’t enough to clue you in to the onset of grilling season, the fact that you can’t flip on Food Network without seeing someone toiling away at an open flame would be a dead giveaway.

Oh, and speaking of giveaway, we’re partnering with the folks at Food Network for a little contest that will let you show off your grilling adventures, past or present. All you need to do is send us your story about the craziest thing you have ever grilled. Have a creative topping for that burger that goes beyond just Dijon mustard? Thrown something on the grill that you’re sure no one ever had grilled before you? Maybe you’ve traveled to the ends of the earth for the greatest grill of all. Send in your story and you can be rocking the grill like a pro this summer with our sweet grand prize:

Nobody grills it like Bobby Flay, whose Grill It! can be seen on Food Network on Sundays at 9 am. And so, it’s only fitting that our winner be able to do his or her best Bobby Flay impression with some real gear. So our first place winner will receive a Food Network / Bobby Flay Grilling Basket, which includes an All-Clad BBQ Tool Set, Bobby Flay’s Burger, Fries, and Shakes cookbook and a canvas bag. To our runners up, we’ll be sending copies of Down Home With The Neelys cookbook and a copy of the latest Food Network Magazine, which is all about the burger this month.

Now that you know what you’re getting, how do you enter? Tell us, in 100 words or less, about your most unusual, unique or just plain out-there grilling or barbecue experience, past or present. While we won’t be fact-checking, let’s keep it to true stories…we don’t want to hear about cooking brisket for Mahatma Gandhi and Napoleon. The story (and feel free to include photos!) should be sent to contests@endlesssimmer.com between now and midnight, Eastern time on Wednesday, May 20th.

We’ll be announcing the winners late next week, so get your story in now!

by tvff

Our Love/Hate Relationship with the French

I just felt the need to balance out all the Dijon mustard love with a little Franco-phobia. While we look down on the French for insisting on fancy mustard, the French have plenty of reasons to look down on us, but first and foremost is: “Because you buy croutons.”

Well, not me. Leftover bread…cubed…olive oil…ten minutes in the toaster oven. Suck it, Froggy.

*Sigh* French food, you know I can’t stay mad when you show up at my door with cassoulet.

in Rants & Raves 3 comments

by BS

Veggie Much in Need of Some Help

Editor’s Note: You’re not allowed to read this post if you’re currently dating me. Thanks for your cooperation

OK, I’m in need of some serious assistance here, ESers! So the veggie gf’s birthday is on Thursday. Not really thinking, I suggested we could go to this veggie-friendly fancy restaurant by her house, or she could tell me what she wants me to cook, or I could just cook her a surprise meal. Of course she opted for the surprise, and now I’m freaking out because I’ve committed to crafting a “special” meal, but I’m totally inhibited since usually when I’m trying to go fancy, some form of pork is always my M.V.I.

We cook together all the time, but usually make something fairly simple, like a veggie stir-fry or veggie fajitas. I just don’t know how to go fancy with the veg. God, it’s so much easier to make people feel special when you can just give them bacon.

So I need to devise a semi-fancy menu sans flesh. I’m thinking maybe some kind of spring-y soup followed by, man I don’t even know what.

Limitations: she doesn’t like eggplant, which I think is totally unfair. If you’re going to rule out an entire food group, you really should be required to eat everything in the other food groups. She also doesn’t like tomatoes unless they’re in-season and juicy, which I think is fair. She’s not a vegan (thank god), so cheese is very much on the table.

I know there are a lot of you vegetarians and vegetarian-lovers out there, so hit me with your best “fancy” veggie meal plans. Oh, and if you have a chocolate dessert recipe that a baking-challenged cook can handle, hook me up with that too. I promise to report back with pretty pictures and/or disaster stories.

(Photo: kighp)

in Personal / Veggie 34 comments

by gansie

Partially Legit Pesto

I’ve stumbled upon this dilemma before, even though BS provided a fairly clear answer. But after my latest pesto abortion (above), I decided to actually be the writer I strive to be and investigate.

Deducting from The New Food Lover’s Companion, the main tenets of a pesto come from the Italian origin of the name, “to pound” and the cooking method, well, is the uncooking method. The ingredients of a pesto should be crushed together to create a raw sauce. The pulveration of the sauce can be through either a mortar and pestle or a food processor. And the uncooked part, well, I guess the sauce is not meant to be warmed by fire.

My newest “pesto” therefore is only partially legit. I used my mini-food processor, but with the bitey combination of raw garlic and arugula (so plentiful at the farmers’ market!), I felt the need to heat it through, for really just as long as the pasta cooked and it surely helped with the sting of the sauce.

And just to stick it to TVFF and all you other multi-way haters, I went for a dual usage of the arugula – in the pesto and then added an overwhelming handful to swim with the noodles.

Unorthodox recipe post jump.

Pardon Us, Mr. President

Some of you are probably Obama-burgered out. But we had to report on this new tidbit on Dijon-gate. You know how Sean Hannity totally dissed the Prez’s codiment choice last week, implying the decision to put grey poupon on a burger was as commie/unAmerican as Nikita Khruschev?

Well watch out Hannity, Kraft foods totally has the Prez’s back! TOTALLY! They’ve issued the following press release that we just had to feature for the delight or disgust of ESers everywhere:

May 8, 2009

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006

Dear Mr. President:

We applaud you, Mr. President, for exercising your freedom of taste when recently ordering a burger with Dijon mustard. We’re always happy to see people use Dijon mustard to add flair and flavor to their favorite foods. The right to choose condiments freely is quintessentially American and embodies the spirit of our democracy.

So we urge you to respond to “Dijon-gate” by issuing a “pardon” to any American who has ever been criticized for putting a liberal spread of Dijon mustard on a burger or a conservative dollop on a ham & cheese sandwich. These “Pardon Me for Loving Dijon” proclamations will empower the millions of Dijon mustard-loving Americans to ask for their favorite condiment with pride.

Respectfully yours,

The GREY POUPON Team
www.greypoupon.com

Pic: Grey Poupon Pardon

Let’s put it to the people: Is yellow mustard more inherently American than Grey Poupon? Discuss!

in Politics 20 comments

by Lyndsey

It’s All in the Crust

Editors’ Note: We can’t very well tell ya’ll about pizza and forget about the dough, now can we? Thankfully, our newest contributor, Lyndsey, is here to chime in with some thoughts on getting that crispy, crackly exterior just right.

A few years ago, my husband (then boyfriend) and I decided it was time to start inching towards healthy eating. But one of the things we were not willing to sacrifice was pizza. So instead of going to our local pizza shop and picking up a few soggy, greasy slices, we decided to start making our own pizzas from scratch. This way, we could pick and choose whatever we wanted to put on the pizza, and limit the size of the pie we made.

I’m sure many of you have had the same experience: we figured out the basics of the sauce and toppings pretty quickly, but the dough was a different story.

We started off by buying pre-made doughs from a variety of sources, including pizzerias and the
supermarket. But these were really hit or miss: sometimes the texture would be spot-on, and sometimes they would be so tough that it was almost impossible to spread the dough out into a pie shape. Here’s one of our first pizzas:

The Taste of Bursting Sunshine

One of the palates I attempt to cater to is that of Romeo, my bf. Romeo is a rather demanding discerning eater. He doesn’t like it when I add diced garlic to a dish. Romeo prefers garlic minced with the pampered chef garlic press that lives in our kitchen (which, to be honest, is hands-down the best garlic press I have ever used, lemme tell you). I comply with this demand suggestion. Romeo prefers his meals more gently spiced than I like mine. (To be fair some like it hot, and some like it hotter still, and I represent a dot somewhere near the hot-hot-hot end of the bland-to-razzle dazzle spicy continuum. This I admit.) I’ve tried to tone down the hotness for Romeo’s wimpy sensitive taste buds, and with occasional exceptions, I usually succeed in a palatable compromise for the both of us.

There is one thing that Romeo had asked for since I first took on the position of his chef-in-chief (or “kitchen dictator” as Romeo insists on calling me) that for a while absolutely bewildered me: “flying saucer squashes.”

The conversation we had on several occasions always went something like this:

Maids: Do you want anything from the store?

Romeo (smiling and excited): Yes. Bring me the flying-saucer-squashes so we can use them in a curry. They taste like bursts of sunshine.

Maids (genuinely curious): What do you mean?

Romeo (short temper spent, yelling now): Buy those little yellow flying saucer squashes at the grocery store so we can put them in curry and they’ll taste like sunshine!

Maids: I don’t know what you mean by flying saucer squashes! Are they thin skinned or thick skinned? Summer or winter?

Romeo (frustrated and stamping both feet): They’re summer squashes that look like baby flying saucers and taste like sunshine! God!

I know he’s adorable, but that wasn’t much to go on, right? Especially since I’d never before encountered flying saucer-like squashes. I knew, however, that I needed to address Romeo’s unrequited craving for a summer squash that looked like a flying saucer and tasted like sunshine.

Recently, after over a year and a half of being unable to fulfill this request, I had a follow-up investigatory conversation with with Edouble and Miked (who have been feeding Romeo for far longer than I). Edouble filled me in: these squashes, for which both Edouble and Romeo have a special affinity, are commonly known as sunburst squashes. They are small and round with scalloped tops and they are usually available only in the summer season.

More research yielded further knowledge: the pattypan squash (A.K.A. white squash/button squash/sunburst squash) comes in yellow, white, and green colors, is most tender when immature, and is often served fried, curried, and stuffed. It sounded delicious, and I was on a mission to make a curry with the pattypan as the M.V.I. (Most Valuable Ingredient 😉 thanx ES commenter “LC”) of the dish.

My successful search for the pattypans and the recipe for the Pattypan Vegetable Thai Curry after the jump…

May 2009