September 2011


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Four Sophisticated Ways to Green Your Kitchen

Sustainability and eco-consciousness might be more relevant in the kitchen than any other room in the house. The kitchen is where technology lives side by side with organic elements and together they coexist and do daily duty – feeding both mind and body.

Here’s a list of some products and appliances that perform well, look great, and have the additional benefits of helping your home become more efficient, use less energy and turn your kitchen green.

1. Check Under the Hood

Most homeowners tend to default to whichever hood their local showroom sells them with their range, or whatever hood is already installed in their homes.

Zephyr’s new Next Generation Europa Collection with DCBL Suppression System is not only beautiful, but energy efficient. The DCBL Suppression System uses a direct current (DC) brushless motor rather than an AC motor which is why Zephyr’s hoods consume 77% less energy. This same motor provides 30% more power to the hood, but it’s also 77% quieter. The collection also uses a dimmable LED— an industry first— which is called Bloom HD LED and offers 25,000 hours of life versus 2,000 offered by halogens. And for all those roving hands in the kitchen, it’s cool to the touch.

Bonus: If you are already a Zephyr hood owner – and are interested in showing off your uber-cool hood – Zephyr is running a contest right now called Inspire My Kitchen Design Contest , which awards homeowners prizes. The grand prize is Chef Tom Hurley preparing dinner for up to 16 of your friends in your home.

2. Lighting the Way

Lighting choices is a much more complicated decision these days. LED lights, which at first seemed prohibitively expensive, have come down in price and are better for the environment. LED bulbs are lit solely by the movement of electrons. Unlike incandescent, they have no filament that will burn out; and unlike CFLs, they contain no mercury or other toxic substances. LEDs can last some 60 times longer than incandescents and 10 times longer than CFLs. Creative Systems Lighting offers plenty of LED options, including Orb, which features a rotating aluminum body and LEDs that use at least 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs and last up to 50 times longer.

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in Sponsored / Trends 1 comments
Sweet Cherry Pie
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Getting Competitive: Sweet Cherry Pie

Hi everyone — I’m Jessica from Feastie, and a huge fan of Endless Simmer, so I’m excited to chime in on all things food over here. In spite of my newly discovered love of pie, I’m a big fan of healthy eating and cooking. But no low-fat pie — that’s just wrong.

I’m currently in a hot and heavy love affair with pie. I wasn’t exactly deprived pie as a child, but our family tended to favor the cobbler or crumble – i.e. NOT pie. Don’t know why. In any case, I have a vague recollection of trying an apple pie or lemon meringue pie as a little kid, but until I was in my mid-20s, I had no idea what I was really missing out on. Cherry pie?! Seriously?! It’s like heaven in a crust. I feel robbed of all those pies that never came to be at our Thanksgiving table – so I’m making up for lost time in a big way.

I’m going big. In the last two summers, I’ve entered two local pie contests. If you’ve never participated in such an event, I can honestly tell you it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. This summer there were 35 entries in the contest, ranging from chocolate cream pies to traditional peach and apple, even fig. I went traditional with a twist – I entered a sweet cherry pie, as well as a pear vanilla bean pie with a pecan crumble.

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in Desserts / Recipe 2 comments
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Zero Calorie Noodles: Fact or Fantasy?

I eat simply and healthfully in my day-to-day life, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary (for example, most everything I post here). When I’m not hitting the restaurant scene, I love to have a quiet night at home, fixing a dinner focused on vegetables and lean proteins. Sure, sometimes I wish I were stuffing my face with greasy take-out food, but I try to restrain myself. If only there were some way to cheat the system… or is there?!

Last night I found myself somewhat bored at home alone, really hungry but convincing myself to make a sensible meal for one. I decided to prepare one of my go-tos, an easy stir-fry. As I was browsing the aisles of my favorite Asian market, I came across a mystery product I’ve heard murmurs about throughout the food world, but had never experienced for myself: Shirataki noodles.

What’s so great about these noodles compared to any other pasta? They’re made of starch from the root of the yam… they’re kind of hard to find… oh yeah, and they apparently are zero calories, compared to your usual 200 calorie serving of spaghetti.

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in Recipe / Trends 1 comments
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Top Chef Just Desserts Exit Interviews: Episodes 3 and 4

We’ve got TONS of TCJD content to round out this Friday, as we chat with the three latest chefs to hit the chopping block.

Last week, the chefs were given the challenge to create the ultimate table of dessert wonderment for Lisa Vanderpump  from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star. We chatted with the chef-testant who didn’t make the cut — plus heard from this week’s loser — after the jump.

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in TV 0 comments
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Friday Fuck Up: The Failed Unitasker and Nuclear Peppers

Maybe they were just doomed from the start.

My mom’s colleague in Texas sent us this pepper holder for the grill. I went over for dinner last night and she decided we’d try it out with some grilled jalapeno poppers. She cored the jalapenos (with the jalapeno corer) and stuffed the peppers with manchego cheese.

What you can’t see in the picture is how many times the damn things fell out of the holder. First, my dad put it on the grill the wrong way, so the legs of the holder fell through the grates and the peppers went everywhere.

Even after that though, every time we moved it, another one tumbled down onto the grill. All three of us kept scrambling to pick them up before the cheese melted onto the grates. As soon as one went in, another would fall out. We chalked this up to the peppers being too big for the holder (TWSS?) or our Pennsylvanian inability to figure out this device.

We left it on the grill for 30 minutes and the peppers remained pretty crunchy. I tried one and my mouth was on fire, like, running into the kitchen to drink milk out of the carton, on fire. We gave up on the grill and put them on a baking sheet in a 400 degree oven for another 20 minutes.

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in Cheese / Rants & Raves / Veggie 11 comments
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Cocktail O’Clock: The Softer Side of Bourbon

Harry Denton’s Starlight Room, a classic San Francisco cocktail lounge long known for having one of the best views in town, reopened this month with a new look and — most interesting to us — new cocktails.

Ever had a date who said she (or he!) can’t handle bourbon? Here’s your new entry-level bourbon drink. Who couldn’t handle this one?

Savoy Bounce

1 oz Bulleit Bourbon
1 oz St Germain
1 oz Lemon
Prosecco
3 muddled Brandied Cherries

Muddle cherries with bourbon, St. Germain and lemon juice.  Shake all together, strain into champagne flute and top with prosecco.  Garnish with a lemon peel.

Find more creative cocktail recipes in Endless Cocktails.

in Drinks / Endless Cocktails / Recipe 0 comments
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The Stolen Guac

goya

Listen up. This is the only time I will EVER PROMOTE CHEATING.

And I’ve been having a hard time doing so. I’ve literally been trying to write this post for awhile. By awhile I mean….a year or so.

However, there is a certain guilt associated with putting a recipe on the internet when it is supposedly a secret. One of my best friends stole this recipe from her roommate a few years ago. I say she stole it because said roommate refused to give it up, so my intelligent friend closely watched her make it. And took notes.

This is probably the best guacamole I’ve ever had, and the secret lies in the little yellow seasoning packets. If you’re against sodium or MSG, etc, etc…you should probably just stop reading here.

Everyone I know raves about it, and this guac is the only thing my friend is allowed to bring to parties. If she brings something else….well, she wouldn’t do that. She knows how much we like it.

The Best Ever Guacamole Maybe Because It’s Stolen but I Don’t Care or Because It’s Cheating but Again, I Don’t Care


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in Recipe 4 comments
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