Food Lush

New Favorite Pizza: Santucci's, Philadelphia, PA

by Maura

My favorite food of all time is pizza. I am not necessarily a pizza snob; I'll eat cardboard with marinara and cheese. However, I am always on the lookout for better delivery pizza. A few weeks ago, Will ordered us pizza while I was on my drive home from work. I expected one of the three pizza places we usually rotate through: traditional, round, mediocre. Instead, I came home to an entirely different pizza experience: square, cheese on the bottom, delicious.

(Image credit: Santucci's Original Square Pizza)

I absolutely love Santucci's pizza. We have eaten this pizza at least three (or four) times since the first time. The crust is thin, but not too thin, the sauce is absolutely delicious -- the best pizza sauce I've ever had. This pizza also reheats beautifully, which is important, since I can't eat a whole pizza in one night. (I've tried.)

If you are visiting Philadelphia and want to dine in at this fine pizza establishment, you will find them around the corner from the Italian Market, so you can eat your fill of pizza and top it off with a cannoli or gelati!

Santucci's has five other locations, too.

What is your favorite local pizza joint?

Birthday Cake Batter Popcorn

By Tara C.

My son just turned nine and we celebrated last weekend with a birthday slumber party that included some of his closest friends. I offered to make a cake for the occasion, but he wanted a cookie cake from the mall instead. Sigh. Apparently he has not learned what I consider to be an important life lesson. That is, if someone offers to bake you something special, you say YES.

Anyway, I still wanted to make something fun for the party. I considered making a giant banana split inspired by this one:

I think this is a great idea, but my son isn't a huge fan of ice cream. Weird. Also, the germaphobe in me isn't crazy about the shared trough aspect of it. Instead, I settled on a Birthday Cake Batter Popcorn recipe. I love the flavor of cake batter and I loved the taste of this popcorn.

The only change I made from the recipe linked above was to substitute butter for the shortening. Since this was, after all, a party with 8- and 9-year-old boys, there was a lot of video game playing. A popcorn treat turned out to be the perfect snack because it didn't require them to unglue themselves from the screen. And, this was so much easier and faster to make than a cake would have been. All in all, this was a big winner.

(Photos from: Oh Happy Day and me)

The State Fair of Texas and All the Fried Food in the World

By Julie

There are many things for which the State Fair of Texas (yes, capitalized) is known, but perhaps none so much as the cuisine. Which, in this case, is a fancy word for fried everything. Literally. And it is awesome.

I haven’t been to the fair in many years, so when I had the chance to partake this week, I jumped at it. They have a contest every year to crown winners in new food categories, and the list of champions is long, distinguished, and deeply weird. There have been fried bacon, fired butter, and fried coke. Sensing a theme here?

So I did my own little taste test of decadent delights. My criteria for selection were as follows: it had to be unusual and it had to have enough tickets to buy it. Let Fried Fest begin!

Let me just state from the beginning that all of these foods, ones tasted and ones left for another day, look remarkably similar because they are all created on the principle of “let’s see what bizarre thing we can wrap in dough/dip in batter and fry to oblivion.” Nothing wrong with that.

I started off with the fried banana pudding because I saw it and remembered I’d seen a coupon in the guidebook for it. Savings at the fair? Yes, please. My judging panel consisted of myself, my 4 year old daughter, and my dad. Our conclusion was that this was pretty good, basically a banana cream fried pie. The whipped cream frosting was the best part, in my opinion. My dad said that it would really be better with some crushed up vanilla wafers inside to give it the full banana pudding experience, and I wholeheartedly agree.

A bit later, we were joined by my husband (who’d been off on his own fried food expedition, and more on that in a moment) to try the fried pineapple upside down cake and the fried “taste of autumn” pumpkin pie. The cake was just a canned ring of pineapple battered and friend, and was incredibly difficult to eat with only a flimsy plastic fork. The pineapple just slid out of the coating and refused to be severed by said fork. The pie was ball shaped and merely filled with pumpkin pie filling, so it wasn’t all that spectacular and I have no idea why it required a special “taste of autumn” descriptor. It was merely fine. I guess I just prefer my pumpkin pie chilled.

Now, my husband had wandered off in search of this year’s best taste winner, the fried jambalaya. He said it was tasty, but that it was predominantly a disc of fried rice and couldn’t really find any sausage or seafood in it, as one might expect in jambalaya. He also said it was fairly teeny in portion.

All that said, the winner of the day was a classic: the good ol’ corn dog, a fair staple since forever. Whether you’re a purist and go for a good slather of mustard, or a renegade and cover yours in ketchup (like my daughter, whom I don’t even know anymore, because ketchup?), you cannot go wrong with a corny dog. So good.

And there you have it, my 2012 State Fair of Texas food roundup. If you’d like to join my next year, please being prepping your arteries now.

{Photo Credits: blogs.observer.com, sidedish.dmagazine.com, and eatsblog.dallasnews.com. I actually took my own photos, but my computer and camera are currently conspiring against me.}

New Favorite Candy: Darrell Lea Soft Eating Liquorice

by Caitlin

It's been fairly well-established around here that I'm a sucker for gummy candy. Haribo specifically, but any gummy, fruity confection is a friend of mine, and I am happy to announce I'm adding a new cast member to my (hypothetical) (as far as you know) gummy shrine. There are so many things to love about this new-to-me candy, I hardly know where to start. They spell it liquorice! They call it "soft eating"! It's soft, sweet-but-not-too-sweet, fruity! It comes in a wide variety of flavors, each more delicious than the next!

Photo from amazon.com, and sure, I'll take an 8 pack.

Someone (wisely, generously) gifted me a bag of the strawberry, and just like crack, the first hit is always free. It suddenly became the quest of all parties in my house to find this stuff wherever they went, in order to sample all the flavors, and also apparently to consume bag after bag. We've so far found it at liquor stores (aka Packies, if you're a New Englanduh), and our local World Market. Amazon has a nice selection, too. If you order an 8 pack from Amazon and are looking to unload some, give me a call. I'm a very charitable person and will be happy to help you out.

Photo from amazon.com.

I can't decide what my favorite flavor is: I'm torn between mango and strawberry. The green apple is also quite good. And aside from purchasing all three of those flavors to try, my other piece of advice is to make sure that they are really soft. Give that bag a squeeze. Go on. Don't be afraid. Someone (no naming names) once brought home a rock-hard bag of the ginger, and it was a very sad first world situation indeed. Wonderful flavor, but inedible due to the texture. So squeeze that bag! Be gentle, but firm. The liquorice will understand.

Sadly they are not gluten free, so they're not allergy diet friendly for me, but in the long run that's probably better. I'm betting my dentist is happy, too. Eat some for me, won't you?

Have you tried Darrell Lea LIQUORICE? What's your favorite soft, fruity candy?

(Confidential to Haribo: I love this Darrell Lea fellow, but you have my heart ALWAYS N' 4-EVA. Caitlin + Haribo 4 Life xoxo <3.)

Vintage Recipe #2: Rice Krispies Macaroons

By Tara C.

Last week, I told you about the antique cookbooks my dad gave me. I would like to share another recipe from this collection with you this week. However, this recipe is not actually in the cookbooks. It was on a little advertising flyer I found tucked between the pages of the 1923 Holland's Cook Book. Based on the wording of the ad, I'm guessing that this came out soon after Rice Krispies were introduced in 1928.

Here's the front, inside, and back.

It's hard for me to imagine a world in which crispy cereal had the potential to blow minds, but I think we're getting a glimpse into that world here.

I've never heard of Pep Bran Flakes or Kaffee Hag Coffee, so I guess they didn't stand the test of time. But the longevity of the other products is kind of impressive. Now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing the word "constipation" in any recent ads for All-Bran or any other product for that matter. Kudos for that, modern ad people.

I have to say that these macaroons were really, really good. My parents happened to stop by right after I made these, and we all kept returning to the plate for "just one more." The whipped egg whites gives them a light, meringue-like texture.

A quick internet search shows that Kellogg's is still sharing this recipe, although today's version uses walnuts instead of "nut meats." I used pecans which I prefer over walnuts anyway. Pecans are my nut meat of choice.

The recipe says to bake the mararoons until they are delicate brown. For me, this took around 7 minutes.

There's probably a good chance that you already have a box of Rice Krispies in your pantry. If so, you should try these. I think they're delicious and an interesting alternative to Rice Krispies Treats.

Vintage Recipe: Maple Popcorn (1923)

By Tara C.

My dad, who collects antique books, recently gave me three antique cookbooks. They are from 1902, 1921, and 1923. As I've mentioned before, I love old and quirky cookbooks. I am having so much fun looking through these treasures.

One of the things I enjoy about these cookbooks, is that, for the most part, they pre-date convenience foods. So, none of the recipes call for condensed soup or the other processed ingredients so popular in the 1950's, 60's and beyond. Without a doubt, these books are old school. The 1902 cookbook explains how to prepare squirrel and oposum. You may be thinking, "but Tara, the problem with with opossum is that one never knows what to serve with it." Stewed cabbage, kale or spinach, pan-baked apples or applesauce, and cornbread is what Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book of 1902 suggests.

Last weekend, I decided to give a couple of recipes a try. (Not squirrel or opossum.) I chose two from the 1923 Holland's Cook Book: pumpkin pudding and maple popcorn. I thought the maple popcorn in particular seemed pretty modern and seasonally appropriate for fall, so that's the recipe I'm sharing today.

One thing ofI noticed about all three of my antique cookbooks is that they are a lot less specific about the methods and ingredients used. For example, they'll simply say something like "cook in a moderate oven until done." No temperature given, no times specified. The same goes for the ingredients--you don't see any specifics such as "unsalted butter." It's just butter. Also, the recipes are all written as paragraphs, not as a list of steps like most recipes today. Here's how the Maple Popcorn recipe is written:

Dissolve 1 cupful of brown sugar and 1 cupful of maple syrup in 1/2 cupful of cold water and boil the syrup until it is brittle. Add 2 cupfuls of popped corn, 2 cupful of nut meats, 1 dessert spoonful of vanilla and a pinch of salt. Stir the ingredients in gently, pour the candy into buttered pans and mark it into squares.

The part of the recipe that I'm most unsure about is "boil the syrup until it is brittle." I'm guessing this means to heat to the hard-crack stage, or 300°-310°F. I would love to tell you that I did this very carefully and scientifically, but I did not. I really just guessed and probably over-heated the syrup since I took it off the heat when it got a faint scent of burnt sugar. (Not to self: Buy a candy thermometer.) But, I'm pleased to report that the finished product turned out very well despite my casual approach. The maple coating was like a hard candy--pretty brittle and crunchy. I did not mark it into squares. Instead, I waited until it cooled and broke it apart into smaller chunks.

This candy did not last long at our house at all. We ate it all in one afternoon.

My Favorite Halloween Candy

By Tara C.

(photo from: realsimple.com)

An alternative title to this post could be: Candy I Should Absolutely, Under No Circumstances Buy a Month Before Halloween. As I'm sure you've noticed, Halloween is already in full swing at all the stores. I for one will not be buying any candy for trick-or-treaters until much closer to Halloween. And when I do, it will probably be candy that holds no appeal for me. This mostly includes anything of the hard, lollipop, sour, or gummy variety. But a nice piece of chocolate is a different story.

When I was a kid, there was some hysteria about Halloween candy being tampered with, poisoned, or filled with razor blades. As a result, I remember my dad inspecting our Halloween candy before we were allowed to eat it. He would check that none of the wrappers were torn or otherwise suspicious. And he would also eat some to "make sure it wasn't poisonous." At the time I wasn't suspicious of his motives. But eating something to check for poison? Really? I think maybe he just wanted some of our candy. And you know what, Dad? I totally get it.

On Halloween I get to dress my children in adorable costumes AND they arrive home with a bucketful of candy. This has got to be one of the biggest perks of parenthood, as far as I'm concerned. You know, after the whole unconditional love thing.

So here are the top three candies I'm secretly (well I guess the secret is out) hoping my kids will bring home on Halloween. Now you all know what I'll be doing around 8:30pm on October 31. Pilfering candy from children.

1. Take 5 candy bar is without a doubt my favorite. You guys, if I could find a way to eat these every single day and still fit into my pants, I totally would. It's a combination of pretzels, caramel, peanuts and peanut butter, all wrapped up in chocolate. I don't see these candy bars in the stores very often, but I recently saw bags of the minis for sale in the Halloween aisle of the grocery store and they are calling to me. I'm tempted to write sonnets and haikus about them.

(photo from: kandkkandies.com)

2. Mounds and Almond Joy are my second favorites. Maybe they should be separate, but why bother? They're the fraternal twins of coconut-chocolate candy bars. With or without almonds, they're like a mini-vacation for your mouth.

(photo from: realsimple.com)

This Real Simple article suggests it would be healthy to eat an "old fashioned coconut macaroon" than a Mounds or Almond Joy. Sadly, my children have yet to bring home old fashioned coconut macaroons in their Halloween baskets. They did however, bring home some Fiber One bars last year. I would love to know which neighbors were giving Fiber One bars to trick-or-treaters. Not funny, neighbors! Okay, kind of hilarious.

3. Reese's peanut-butter cups come in third on my list. Like number 1, this one is a winner for it's sweet and salty qualities. By the way, I'm talking about classic Reese's classic peanut-butter cups here. Not the minis, not the white chocolate. Let's stick with the classics, okay?

(photo from: wikipedia)

Please tell me that I'm not the only one looking forward to Halloween candy. What are your favorites? Any other Take 5 fans out there? Or will you be handing out Fiber One bars?

Health(ier) Fettuccine Alfredo with Broccoli and Shrimp

by Maura

Pasta is one of my favorite foods and I could drink red sauce (aka gravy, aka Sunday sauce). Unfortunately, Will is not a big fan of red sauce. He loves creamy, cheesy sauces and anything with wine and butter. Who doesn't? In an (unending) effort to make our meals healthier, I fooled around with a few recipes for "skinny" fettuccine alfredo. Surprisingly, I came up with a pretty good recipe. To no one's surprise, it's not all that healthy. In retrospect, we could have done without the shrimp. The pasta was creamy and surprisingly decadent. I see us adding this to our pasta repertoire. 

Ingredients

6 oz of thin fettuccine
2 tbsp butter, divided
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp flour
3/4 c. low fat milk (2%)
1/4 c. half-and-half
1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese 
3 c. broccoli florets
1/2 lb. shrimp, cleaned and de-veined
zest of 1 lemon, divided
1/2 tsp salt
ground pepper, to taste 

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and half of lemon zest. Cook pasta according to directions.

2. Melt 1 tbsp of butter in a large, nonstick pan. Sautee garlic until fragrant. Stir in flour slowly and cook for a minute. Add milk and half-and-half and cook until slightly thickened, stirring constantly.

3. When there is about 4 minutes left before the pasta reaches al dente, add broccoli florets to the pasta water with the pasta.

4. In a separate pan, cook shrimp in 1 tbsp of butter until pink, about 5 minutes.

5. When sauce begins to thicken, add salt, remainder of lemon zest and pepper. 

6. Drain pasta and broccoli and reserve some of the cooking water.

7. Add pasta, broccoli and shrimp to the sauce and stir to coat. Add pasta water, as necessary, to thin out the sauce. Top with extra grated cheese and pepper. Enjoy!

Trader Joe's Cookie Butter

By Julie

We’ve just returned from a cross country road trip, which included not one, but two visits to Trader Joe’s. The second was at the behest of my seven year old. Clearly, I’m raising him right.

Our haul included an item I’ve been reading about on Twitter for some weeks: cookie butter. Come on, those are two of my favorite things! I had to try it.

Oh my. This stuff is heaven in a jar. It’s a smooth, peanut buttery spread that truly does taste like blended cookies (to me, sometimes it’s sugar cookies, sometimes it’s gingersnaps, always it’s delicious). I’ve been using it as a dip for apple slices and a topping over vanilla ice cream, as well as trying very hard not to eat it straight out of the jar with a spoon (and failing).

Certainly, cookie butter does not have many redeeming healthy qualities, but I love finding something new to have as a treat. I can’t wait to come up with some recipes I can make with it. So the next time you find yourself in Trader Joe’s, I highly recommend picking up some Speculoos Cookie Butter. Yum!

{Photo Credit: traderjoes.com}

Fudge From The Bass Pro Shop

by Jen L.

My husband is an avid fisherman, so we make a lot of trips to the Bass Pro Shop. In spite of myself, I actually enjoy these little outings. When else can you see a camoflage mini-fridge? One of my favorite parts of the Bass Pro Shop is the Fudge Shop. Amidst a general store atmosphere crammed with gumballs, circus peanuts and old-fashioned licorice whips, you'll find over a dozen flavors of delicious homemade fudge. And they give free samples.

My son and I took a detour to the Fudge Shop on our most recent trip and were very excited to hear of their "Buy 4 Get 2 Free" special. My son wanted to try a piece of vanilla fudge with rainbow sprinkles. I knew my husband would go nuts over the chocolate pecan variety. I opted for classic chocolate. Before we bought anything, I had to ask whether or not they prepared their peanut butter fudge separately, due to my son's peanut allergy. I was assured by two different employees that not only do they have separate pans, utensils and storage areas, they make peanut butter fudge on different days than the rest of the flavors.  I appreciated their knowledge and reassurrance. My son appreciated the tiny plastic knife they gave him to cut his vanilla fudge.

The flavors ranged from traditional favorites, like chocolate walnut, peanut butter/chocolate swirl, and rocky road to the more exotic, like maple nut, red velvet and the mind-blowing salted nut roll.  They'll let you sample flavors before you commit. My palate can generally only sample two flavors at any given time, lest I go into sugar shock, but all those sweet little squares were very tempting. 

Should you find yourself in a Bass Pro Shop any time soon, be sure to stop by the Fudge Shop for a sample.  I'll bet you leave with a box of fudgey goodness and a tiny plastic knife.

Photo credit:  blogs.basspro.com