Always interested in the source of the foods we eat, I came across this news story at FoxNews.com about cruelty to downed cows. It’s enough to turn your stomach, how these animals are treated. It’s also enough to turn your stomach, wondering if the beef you just bought could be contaminated because it came from a sick or downer cow.

The slaughterhouse in question was a supplier to schools for lunches for your children. They don’t say that any contaminated or dangerous meat has been passed along, but I have to personally wonder how it could not have been.

I have no qualms about using animals for food. However, I am disgusted when the animals are treated inhumanely before they are slaughtered and I’m disgusted when the suppliers knowingly kill sick and downed animals along with healthy ones.

Technorati Tags: FoxNews.com, beef, slaughterhouse

I really do love to cook. I just don’t get the opportunity to cook three meals a day here anymore, with having a full time job on a whack-o schedule. However, when I have enough time at home to produce a good, home cooked meal, it’s mainly because I’ve got things arranged in my kitchen so it’s not a chore just to get utensils and ingredients ready.

For a kitchen, phase 1 environmental readiness means keeping like things together. I use my cabinets to organize myself.

• Beverages. This includes Kool-aid, coffees, teas, cocoa mix, and powdered creamers.
• Baking. This includes everything I’ll use for baking - baking soda, baking powder, yeast, flour, sugar, cocoa, shortening, etc.
• Beans, rice, pasta. What the name implies and includes macaroni and cheese mixes, barley, all kinds of beans, all kinds of pastas, and dehydrated fruits and veggies.
• Snack and breakfast. Hot and cold breakfast cereals, cereal bars, granola bars, cookies, popcorn, crackers.
• Canned. Includes canned meats, canned vegetables, canned fruit, and home canned foods.
• General cooking. Includes cooking oils, vinegars, seasoning packets, cornstarch, jars of herbs and spices, salt and pepper.

By keeping things this way, I or my children always know just where to find the items we need. Also, as you can see, I don’t have an abundance of cabinets but these assignments still work very well!

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As promised in my previous post, here is a picture of the pork roast and sides after I plated it. The stemware is holding the honey mustard sauce (simply equal parts clover honey and Grey Poupon Coarse Ground Mustard), which I dipped out with a honey server and drizzled over the pork roast slices. I poured the glaze made from the drippings over the rice. The honey mustard sauce was an excellent complement to the brown sugar glazed green beans.

Technorati Tags: pork roast, stemware, honey mustard sauce, Grey Poupon Coarse Ground Mustard

I’ve got a small pork roast in my tabletop roaster oven now, and have just added green beans to another pan in the roaster. I really haven’t utilized this appliance nearly enough, so today seemed like a good day to give it another trial.

I had some drippings from another pork roast, so I just added them to the pan with this one. It’s really smelling yummy now and I’m getting hungry!

I put the green beans in a pan in the roaster after the pork roast was beginning to get pretty well done. It still has enough time left on it to cook till it’s fork-tender, and that gives the green beans plenty of time to finish cooking to a turn, as well. I’ll get rice into the steamer so everything gets done at the same time. It takes about 30 minutes for the rice. By the time it’s done and I make some sauce from the drippings, we should have a lovely, hearty meal for this chilly winter’s day!

I’ll make a nice honey mustard glaze to go on our slices of pork roast when it’s all ready to plate up. I’ll add another picture of this feast on the plate later today!

Technorati Tags: pork roast, tabletop roaster oven, steamer

For a very long time now, I’ve been satisfied that venison was a very beneficial meat to consume. It may be that bison meat offers the same or similar benefits, but for one boy in New Haven, Connecticut, deer meat is really the only meat he can consume.

He suffers from a rare allergy that causes inflammation of the esophagus (eosinophilic esophagitis). The really troubling part to me, other than this boy’s condition, is that this allergy is becoming more and more common, according to the news report. This leads me to wonder if the allergy is a reaction to something more than just pure meat, or if it has to do with the chemicals such as antibiotics and hormones that are used when raising commercial beef, chicken, pork, turkey, lamb, mutton, and even eggs and milk.

I’ve long asserted that what’s being fed to the animals that are part of our food supply can’t be good for us. Some of that garbage has got to be retained in the flesh of the animals, and therefore we wind up consuming it as well. With the increase in food allergies, I’m even more convinced that it’s not the basic food that’s at fault. It’s what growers are putting into the food that’s the real culprit.

I’m no scientist, but it really doesn’t take a genius to see a connection when those who consume only natural, organically raised foods are suffering from fewer modern maladies than those who don’t. The big question is: How do we avoid such additions to our food sources in a way that’s affordable?

Of course, raising our own food is one way, but it’s not always an option for everyone who’s concerned about what’s in their diet. It’s a dilemma for sure.

Technorati Tags: venison, allergy

When you’re in the kitchen, cooking, it’s a good idea to have a sink full of hot, sudsy water available so you can clean up dishes and utensils as you go. Keeping up with cleaning in this way will keep you from having a big pile of dirty dishes to do later.

The sinks in my house are small and old. I’d like to have some new Kohler sinks for the kitchen, but I really don’t want to put any money into this old place. It’s just not worth it. However, the day will come when I can have a set of deep double sinks in the kitchen so not only is clean up easier, but I’ll be able to wash fresh greens in larger batches. It’s a real chore to have to wash greens in a lot of smaller batches before I can even put them on to cook!

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This was the Coconut Cream Pie my sister requested for her birthday, instead of a cake. Our Mom made it with her own hands, except she used a Pillsbury refrigerated crust because they are so tender and flaky.

My Sis is highly allergic to yellow dye in foods which means no pudding mixes for her desserts. They all contain yellow dye, even though it’s not necessary if you add egg yolks. The yolks will give a creamy yellow color to the pudding. Same for yellow cake mix - using eggs means you’ll get the pretty yellow color anyway, but manufacturers seem to think they have to add dye for some reason.

This is the recipe Mom uses, exactly as it came from a very old and tattered cookbook she has. I don’t even know who the publisher is, but she’s had this cookbook probably for over 50 years.

Vanilla Cream Pie

(basis for other flavors)

Baked 9″ pie shell
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. cornstarch
3 cups milk
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 tbsp. butter
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Mix in saucepan sugar, salt, cornstarch. Gradually stir in milk. Bring to boil over moderate heat, stirring constantly. Boil 1 min. Take from heat. Slowly stir at least half of hot mixture into egg yolks. Then blend into remaining hot mixture in saucepan. Boil 1 more min., stirring constantly. Take from heat. Blend in butter, vanilla.

If pie is to be finished with meringue, pour immediately into baked pie shell. Spread meringue lightly on pie filling, sealing to edge of crust to prevent shrinking. Bake 8 to 10 min. in mod. hot oven (400 degrees), until delicately browned. Let cool at room temperature away from drafts.

For coconut cream pie: follow recipe for vanilla cream pie except fold in 3/4 moist shredded coconut just before pouring filling into pie shell. Sprinkle meringue with 1/4 cup shedded coconut (toasted, if desired).

Meringue: Beat 3 egg whites with 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar until frothy. Gradually beat in 6 tbsp. sugar. Beat until stiff and glossy.

Technorati Tags: Coconut Cream Pie, birthday, Pillsbury refrigerated crust, desserts, yellow dye, recipe, cookbook

Since we had a “hankering” to have spaghetti last night for supper, I went to my pantry and freezer and got out the ingredients for the sauce. Now, I have to tell you, I keep these kinds of things handy at all times because they add so much to our meals. For instance, I always have several kinds of canned tomatoes on hand, some canned spaghetti sauce, various kinds of pasta…you get the picture. It’s so easy to whip up a good meal when you keep some things on the shelf all the time.

I had smoked sausage in the freezer as well as a container of chopped tomatoes. These were the remainder of a can I’d opened for another recipe awhile back. I also had bell pepper in the freezer. Keeping things like this prepared and at the ready are important so you don’t have to go running out to the store just to prepare a meal.

I cut the smoked sausage up in large pieces, as well as the onions. The bell pepper was already cut into nice sized slices. I added olive oil to my skillet and put the sausage, shiitake mushrooms, and veggies in it, sweating the whole thing until the onions began to turn translucent. I then added a tablespoon of chopped garlic and a tablespoon of Gray Poupon Coarse Ground Mustard. Then, I added in the tomatoes and commercial tomato sauce plus 2 teaspoons of sea salt, 2 teaspoons of sugar, and a generous round of freshly ground pepper. I didn’t add other traditional seasonings because of the strong flavors that were already in the sauce.

I let the sauce simmer about 30 minutes. By the time it was done, I was famished just from smelling it cook!

Here’s how it looked after I plated it up. Can’t you just taste the smoked sausage and tomatoes now? Before you pack your luggage sets to come visit and get a plateful for yourself, you should know that we nearly finished it all off in one sitting! We sprinkled shredded Parmesan cheese on it and had cottage cheese as a side accompaniment.

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Not literally bringing my work home, but in a sense that’s exactly what I do. Things I’ve learned about food safety and cooking techniques can easily be applied to home cooking as well. Temperatures for cooking and holding foods are just as vital at home as they are in a restaurant.

Possibly, the only thing I don’t have to deal with at home is performance management. It’s just me here, so I’m not “under the gun” to get foods prepared and served in under 3.5 minutes. But I do want our food to be safe and wholesome, so I apply these skills here to accomplish that.

Technorati Tags: food safety, cooking

My Mom is one smart cookie when it comes to cookies. She uses only the best ingredients and follows the recipe meticulously. The reward is melt-in-your-mouth goodness that is hard to resist.

She also uses a few tricks in order to have cookies on hand just about all the time without having them in easy reach to spoil her weight loss diet. Cookies she has baked are put into the freezer. That way, she can just get out two or three and allow them to warm to room temperature before she eats them. This is a little more trouble to get your hands on a treat, but it also helps keep the amount under control and gives her time to really think about if she wants a cookie or instead wants some fruit.

She uses the standard Nestle’s Tollhouse Cookie recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Instead of baking them all right away, she divides the dough into two even portions. She then chills it in the refrigerator for about two hours. When it’s well chilled, she lays it on waxed paper and forms it into a log about 15 inches long, rolling it up with the waxed paper. She wraps it in heavy duty aluminum foil, then freezes the dough. When she’s ready to bake, she can just slice it into 1/2 inch slices, however many cookies she wants to bake. Then, she has fresh, warm, chewy chocolate chip cookies without having a lot left over to tempt her.

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