September 2009


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Cupcake Ice Cream Cones

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How cute is she! Madeline is my friend Debbie’s daughter. And she happens to be allergic to peanuts.

I don’t know much about this phenomenon. When I was little I can’t think of one friend that had this peculiar intolerance. But recently, my mom has at least one child with this allergy in her nursery school class every year. And more than 3 million people have this same allergy.

Sometimes it’s really serious—the child can’t even be in the same room as a peanut. Others simply can’t ingest a peanut. But they also can’t even eat non-peanut food (for instance a Hershey’s chocolate bar) simply because it has been in the same processing plant as peanut filled food (although I think some of the big manufacturing companies now operate peanut free facilities.) Parents, teachers and other adults in their life have to be incredibly vigilant with this allergy and be trained to use a life-saving EpiPen in case of an attack.

But all this no-nut business doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of treats available. Deb’s always finding ways to entertain her kids (I particularly admire their interest in nail polish and lip gloss) but this creative and fun dessert made me wish for the days of carefree sugar indulgence.

In continuing with our back to school coverage, here’s an awesome way to get the kids in the kitchen after a hard day at school.

Cupcake Ice Cream Cones

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Deb bought a nut free cake mix from Wegmans and Madeline followed the instructions: eggs, water, vegetable oil, mix, stir and mmmmm batter!

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in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Endless Ice Cream / Featured / Recipe 13 comments
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Throw Me a Hot Dog, Ostrich Man

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Several weeks ago I announced that the Reading Phillies minor league baseball team was holding Gluttony Night II. I was ecstatic. Tons of food. Pizza, ice cream, funnel cake galore. And if you’re at all familiar with minor league baseball, you won’t be surprised to hear that the Gluttony Night festivities were only a fraction of the very bizarre antics going down at the game.

First of all, I unfortunately missed the chance to drunk heckle a reality star and his children.  Jon Gosselin plus eight minus Kate threw out the first pitch the night before Gluttony Night II. I should have sent a memo about all-you-can-eat french fries. But the Gosselins missed out, because Gluttony Night was an epic celebration of all things edible. Everything at this ballpark was about food. Everything.

  • Were there two private tent buffets in addition to Gluttony Night II? Yes.
  • Was there a “ROAST BEEF!” chant every time Kevin Mahar was up to bat because he was the Arby’s “RBI guy”? Yes
  • Was there a kid’s concession stand game, where small children representing pizza, a hot dog, and french fries raced around the field? Yes (and so wrong)
  • Was there a man riding an ostrich around the field, throwing hot dogs to the crowd, while a “hot dog for you!” song was playing? Yes, yes, yes.

The Crazy Hot Dog Vendor disturbed me the most, and after his little “performance” I promptly started pounding beers. At the bar we saw several young guys dressed up like pizza toppings. W. T. F.

All this craziness leads us to ask…We’ve already talked about the best major league baseball foods, but what about the minors? What are the tastiest, craziest, or straight up most disturbing foods you’ve seen served at minor league ballparks?

in Celebs 1 comments
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Ten Minute Tomato Soup

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Last night I was invited to a cocktail reception by ES blogger LC. We originally met through the non-food part of our lives, and after a few minutes of polite womens’ issues chatter, we quickly started discussing our favorite DC restaurants. I always find food to be a fantastic cocktail party back-up topic (much more delicious than the weather.) Who doesn’t want to share a story of an exotic meal or a kitchen success?

At the after-work function we attended the food was scarce and uninspired. Green mush posing as guacamole sat atop a sweet pastry and rice krispie treat type pellets coated tough shrimp on a stick. Two cocktails in and only a few bites of food left me hungry as I arrived home close to 9pm. And 9pm is that weird time when I do consider holding out until tomorrow. But 80P told me to eat a little something so I poked around the kitchen. I’d been away for a few days and wasn’t sure what held up in my absence. Unfortunately a tomato I bought from my travels had slit on the way home; I knew I had to find a way to use that stat.

I also instinctively took out an egg and butter. But what? I’ve done plenty of scrambles featuring chopped tomato. I’ve also laid a fried egg on top of sliced tomato.

While still figuring out the dish, I sliced the tomato and then cut each slice into quarters, threw them in a pan with butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper. The tomatoes produced plenty of juice, which turned me off from an omelet idea: I’m not a fan of a runny, tomato stained omelet.

How else could I incorporate an egg? Wait, wait a fucking second. Maybe I don’t HAVE TO USE AN EGG. It is crazy. It is insane. Who the hell am I? This is the second non-egg usage in two weeks!

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in Featured / Recipe / Veggie 4 comments
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Cómo Preparar un Sándwich de Mantequilla de Maní y Mermelada (en Español)

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Editors Note: It’s back to school time, all y’all! (I picked that up in Texas)

In the spirit of learning and sharing and eating lunch out of some sort of overpriced sustainable tote bag, here’s a lesson on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, in Spanish. An ES first!

Enjoy some 101 Español by ES friend, Juanito.

Para aquellas personas que siempre han querido probar ese plato tan
emblemático de Gringolandía, aquí les enseño paso a paso a preparar el
famoso sándwich de mantequilla de maní y mermelada.

1)  Se saca una barra de pan de molde.  El sándwich tradicional se
prepara con pan blanco, pero se puede usar pan integral para un
sándwich más saludable.

2) Se saca la mantequilla de maní (cremosa o crujiente).

3) Se saca la mermelada, de preferencia a base de uva.  También se
puede usar mermelada de fresa.

4) Se saca dos rebanadas de pan.

5) Se abre los envases de mantequilla de maní y mermelada.

6) Usando un cuchillo, se unta de mermelada una rebanada de pan.

7) Usando un cuchillo, se unta la mantequilla de maní sobre la segunda
rebanada de pan.

8 ) Se coloca la rebanada untada de mantequilla de maní encima de la
rebanada untada de mermelada.

9) El sándwich de mantequilla de maní debe tomarse con un vaso de leche fría.

¡Buen provecho!

in Recipe / Sandwich 11 comments
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ES Chats with Ted Allen About Chopped

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As you are all well aware of by now, we can’t get enough cooking reality TV here at ES. Fortunately, Food Network is feeding our addiction with a brand new season of Chopped, which premieres tonight (Tuesday, September 8), at 10pm ET. ES caught up with host Ted Allen to ask about cooking with string cheese, whether he misses Top Chef, and what he’s doing with all his tomatoes.

ES: So tell us about this new mini-season of Chopped.
Ted Allen: One of the things that sets Chopped apart from other cooking shows is that we have different chefs each week – it’s kind of like a culinary game show. But people have expressed a lot of interest in seeing particular contestants — for example, James Briscione from the first season — return. So what we’re doing is having four episodes where all the winners from season one return and compete against each other. These contestants have never been chopped before, they’ve only won, so it raises the stakes. And of course they’re the winners so they’re all great chefs.

Any other changes in store for this season?
One thing that’s different is the mystery ingredients. Last season we did a lot of processed junk food — gummy bears, string cheese — the network thought it was funny to ask real chefs to cook with fake food. But this year they decided to do less of that. We still have some junk food ingredients like root beer and donuts, but we’re moving away from the string cheese and gummy bears. There’s just not much good cooking you can do with string cheese. So we’re no longer driving them insane with string cheese, instead we’re driving them insane with sea urchin and eel.

What’s the key to making a winning dish on Chopped?
You have to figure out the ingredients. The ingredients are chosen very carefully — the producers sit around and if they can’t think of something that could feasibly be made from them, they empty out the basket and start over. The thing is they set a trap. So let’s say they give you three Asian ingredients — bok choy, soy sauce and sesame seeds — and then they throw something in like blue cheese. Some chefs are gonna plow ahead and make an Asian dish and then crumble a little bit of blue cheese on top, hoping the judges won’t notice it. But the person who wins will be the one who figures out how to make a blue cheese souffle that works — I don’t know what that would be like, but if they can do it, they will win.

Do you watch other shows on Food Network?

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in Celebs / TV 4 comments
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Throw Everything on the Grill

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When you’ve finished cooking your brats and squash and the coals are still hot, throw on a few dill pickles.

I know, weird.

But the pickle works well with the warmth and the flavors are both enhanced and subtle.

It’s easy labor on this day of rest.

in Holiday 3 comments
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