Food Lush

Reader Help: Palm Springs Eats

By Dani

The Hubs and I are going to Palm Springs this weekend for a little anniversary getaway, and I've been pretty excited about it... until we caught up on the DVR. Did you guys see the Modern Family episode about going to Palm Springs?

Needless to say, I don't really want to spend my anniversary weekend playing poker with Billy Dee Williams (although that would be pretty cool) or eating Cherries Jubilee. ;) I haven't been out to the Palm Springs area since my childhood, so maybe my memory of paradise amidst swaying palm trees and glitzy restaurants is a little smudged by time?

However, I have faith in you, Food Lushers. I know a lot of us hail from the Southern California area and many of you have probably vacationed in Palm Springs at some point, so tell me: where should we eat? (We'll have fun no matter what, but even a sub-par location can be dressed up with lots of great food, obviously.) It doesn't have to be a swanky find - greasy spoon gems are fine by me. Advise away, and thanks in advance!

(Photo credit: TV Guide.com)

My Favorite Cookie Swap Contribution AND Reader Help: Roll-out Cookies

by Caitlin

Ahh, cookie season. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. Especially if you're in the Larger Pants Selling Business, and if you are then maybe also call me because I'm predicting I'll need your help soon.

For much of my childhood my parents' friends had an annual cookie decorating party around the holidays. It's one of my most dear childhood Christmas memories, and in my adult years I've longed to recreate it.
It was such a wonderful treat to go over to their house and spend an evening sitting at a table covered in a rainbow of colored frostings, sprinkles and candies as bin after bin of sugar and gingerbread cookies in various shapes appeared non-stop.

Joyce, prolific hostess, spent weeks baking hundreds of cookies. She'd freeze batch after batch until the evening finally arrived. She made a simple sugar frosting which she'd color with food coloring and pour into muffin tins - a great strategy. We each had an area to work in, and after using little paint brushes and loading our cookies up with decorations galore we'd carefully place them on wire cooling racks to dry. Some were garish, loaded with as much extra sugar as possible, others we took our time on and were little works of delicious cookie art.

Angels, trees, stars, candles, gingerbread people small and large: We loved that the shapes were familiar year after year, but what excitement there was if she debuted a new shape! For several years she even made special gingerbread house pieces for my brother and I to construct. Those gingerbread houses are what first taught me about royal frosting and that there was such a thing as sugared violets. Some flowers were edible?! 12 year old Caitlin was in awe. 

A marvel our hostess was.

Over the past few years I've longed to recreate those wonderful memories. I've collected various sprinkles, jimmies, sanding sugars, and adornments. My baking cabinet is full, and my husband rolls his eyes at the mention of colored sugars. The truth is, aside from the issues of first not having the space, and lately not having the time, a major inhibiting factor is that...I'm afraid of cut out sugar cookies. I haven't had good luck with them in the past. I don't quite have the technique down, and I don't have any recipes I love.

I need your help, dear readers! How can I achieve a roll out sugar cookie that will keep it's shape, that carries the frosting and decorations well while still imparting a little taste, and which won't break your teeth to bite into? A sugar cookie that looks as good as it tastes: That's what Santa can bring me.

These two recipes look promising, but I've got a little Rollout Cookie PTSD. So much work, and what if it's not worth it?

Gingerbread Snowflakes

Holiday Sugar Cookies

(Photo from Epicurious)

Dear readers, can you help?

And! In return I offer you my favorite cookie swap contribution:These molasses crinkles. My grandmother always made molasses crinkles so I'll always have a soft spot for them, but they were specifically requested for a party last year and this recipe did not disappoint. Spicy, sweet, chewy, they are true holiday perfection.

I'm supposed to be attending some cookie parties soon, and (spoiler alert, friends!) I'll be bringing these to both. They were a huge hit last year, and why mess with a favorite? My secret trick, as with all cookies, is to underbake them slightly to retain that chewy softness. They'll still cook a bit when you take them out, so leave them a little shiny on the tops.

Also, find a fun, festive, cocktail napkin to unfold and display them on, and people will think you're more put together than you are.

(Photo: me)

Cooking with kids

by Elsha

My older kids are four and almost three, and they LOVE to pretend to cook. I imagine that they would also love to help me actually cook, but I don't let them. I used to attribute it to age, four isn't nearly old enough to help with the cooking, right? But my four-year-old nephew helps his mom cook, as does his three-year-old brother. When my dad is cooking he'll let my kids help him. Apparently it's just me keeping them from helping more in the kitchen. 

This has made me curious.Do you let your kids help you cook? What age do you start? What kind of responsibilities do they get? I don't know if I'm ready to deal with their "help," but I don't want my kids to end up in college not knowing how to do anything but boil spaghetti noodles. Tell me how it works at your house!

Reader Help: Grocery Shopping

By Julie

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I grocery shop. It may not be the most efficient way, but it works for me and for us as a family. I clip coupons when I can, and read the circulars so I can get the most bang for my bucks. Every two weeks I go through my kitchen, make a list of the things I need, and head out to Walmart. As much as I generally dislike having to shop at Walmart, the low prices are a siren song to my frugal little heart. Plus, I can take all those circulars there and they will price match, so I don’t have to run all over town.

Recently, I’ve added a pre-Walmart trip to Aldi, because if anyone is going to beat a Walmart price, it’s Aldi. Their selection isn’t as vast as the behemoth box store, so I can’t get everything I need, but I can get quite a bit. This is good on many levels, including that my time in Walmart is greatly reduced.

Of course, I fill in during the week as I need milk, eggs, and bananas. These are the things we always seem to use up in seconds (either that, or my son is hoarding fruit under his bed and I’m too scared to look). And because it is fun for me, I like to go to Sprouts on Wednesdays because they let their circulars overlap and so there are double the items on sale that day. They also have free coffee samples. Oh, and their produce just seems fresher and is often cheaper that the aforementioned behemoth.

I don’t meal plan because it feels constrictive and I prefer to figure out dinner on a day to day basis. I keep staples around the house (I have a refrigerator and a deep freeze) so I can have the freedom to change my mind. I like to think I have enough cooking know how to make substitutions for ingredients I don’t have on hand, or I just don’t make that recipe until do.

So that’s what I do. I reserve the right to amend my process at any given time, especially given that I’m about to ask: How do you grocery shop? Have you developed any tricks to make it easier/faster/cheaper?

Reader Help: King Soba Sweet Potato & Buckwheat Soba Noodles

By Jessica

I am a grocery impulse shopper. I'm not tempted by the end caps close to the registers, no, I'm tempted by interesting packaging, weird names, unusual ingredients or things I've never seen before, buried deep in the regular shelves. Which is how I now have a package of King Soba Sweet Potato & Buckwheat Soba Noodles in my house and if I had seen the Pumpkin Rice & Ginger? I'd have a package of those too.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what to do with them. My normal course with buckwheat noodles is to make a batch of sesame noodles but I feel like the addition of the sweet potato in these means I should do something different with them, I'm just not sure what. 

If you had these noodles, what you would make?

(Photo from: Food Life Passion )

Preschool Potluck: What I Made

by Jen L.

First off, lushes, THANK YOU for the wonderful suggestions! Each and every one of them has been added to my list o' potluck dishes/birthday party foods.  You guys are the best.

So what did I decide to bring to the potluck?

Tiny, slightly blurry iphone picture. Gotta love it.

 

I went with my version of baked ziti, complete with homemade tomato sauce, and strawberry brownies.  My husband, who gets panicky about things like this, asked me to PLEASE make something I knew he and Dean would like.  Pasta is our fail-safe around here.  I made my simple tomato sauce with diced onion and green bell peppers, tons of garlic, ground beef and herbs.  I even threw in a can of diced tomatoes for good measure.  I cooked the sauce all afternoon, then boiled the noodles about 30 minutes before time to leave.  Once it was all mixed together, I put it in a 9 X 13 pan, topped it with a mound of mozzarella and parmesan cheese and zapped it in the oven on 375 til the cheese was bubbly and just starting to brown.  It was a great comfort food dish.  And it went over well with parents and kids.  Success!

The strawberry brownies, by the way, didn't stand a chance.  All that was left was the pan.

Thanks again for your help, dear readers!

Eating Fresh Coconuts: a Tale of Woe

By Dani

My Hubs and I recently bought a VitaMix blender, and we have been whipping up delicious, healthy smoothies almost every morning for the last month or so. One upside to having a juicer or heavy-duty blender is that it makes us more adventurous -- I'm much more likely to buy produce that I'm not sure how to cook or prepare, because I figure I can always throw it in a smoothie if it doesn't work out.

There is a downside to this philosophy though, and it was made manifest with my most recent failed purchase: a peeled organic coconut.

It looked like this (minus the straw and fancy stand, of course) and I thought, "hey it's already been peeled! We have loved fresh coconut on every tropical vacation we've ever been on! I've discovered smoothie-making heaven!" But it was not to be.

Once I got it home, I started choppping slivers of the outside "meat" off and put a few pieces into a smoothie. While most of the smoothie was greens and other fruits, this coconut made it completely undrinkable. There were tough, stringy fibers in every sip that could not be blended or chewed. In other words, it was super nasty.

So I started to think that the outside (even though it's peeled, perhaps the white part is still considered "husk"?) wasn't edible. However that means that there's very little usable in a coconut - just the water and the few teaspoon-fulls of flesh from the water cavity. Is that right? Perhaps being peeled (as was suggested in this Chowhound forum) is bad for the coconut and makes it tough?

This lady seems to think that opening up a fresh coconut and using every bit of it is a walk in the park. What do you think?

(Image credit: AgroFruits, who seem to also believe that peeled coconuts taste great and I am a failure.)

Reader Help: What do I bring to a preschool potluck?

by Jen L.

I need your help, dear readers.  My son's school, which is a preschool for three and four year olds, is having a family potluck next week.  It's a chance for us to meet all his little friends and their parents and get to know his  school community better.  Here's my dilemma--I have no clue what to bring.  I know I'll bring some kind of dessert, maybe brownies or a sheet cake.  But what about my dinner offering?  Do I go with the typical covered-dish casserole and do a chicken spaghetti?  Do I spend the day making lasagna?    Given the fact that the majority of the folks I'm cooking for are under five years old...  What will please their little palates, yet satisfy the adults, too?  Does it even matter? I kind of imagine the kids eating three bites each, then going to play with blocks.  Help me out, lushes.

(Photo: Potluck clipart)

Reader Help: What to Serve With White Port

By Erica H.

I'm currently on a bit of a diet, and have reached the point at which I spend a great deal of time thinking about things I will eat in the future, when my 30-day sentence is up. Daydreaming about things I would like to be eating is already one of my primary activities, second perhaps to breathing, but it currently has the extra spice of The Forbidden. It so happens (by careful design) that Day 31 is my anniversary, and the bottle of Porto Blanco I obtained on a springtime trip along the Texas Wine Trail is waiting patiently for this very occasion.

The problem is, I'm having a hard time getting organized beyond "drink the white port." Part of the issue is that my current state of deprivation is causing slight fantasy-idea-overload (COOKIES-QUESO-TWIZZLERS-MAPLESYRUP). The other part is that I've never had this particual beverage outside of a tasting room.

I know that ruby and tawny ports are generally considered a post-meal drink, so I've been casting about in the dessert-recipe arena. I also know that figs are in season, so I'm considering something along the lines of these Baked Figs with Honey, Ginger, and Vanilla. Or, frankly, I could go Fig, Gorgonzola, and Honey Tartines and call it a meal. Though, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, white port strikes me as a lovely breakfast time treat.

What do you think? Am I barking up the wrong (fig) tree? I'm open to any suggestions that don't involve steamed broccoli.

Reader Help: Back to School Lunch Dilemma

By Julie

Monday is the first day of school for my second grader.  He is utterly excited; I am totally stressed out.  One of the reasons is lunch. For the past two years, we have had exactly three lunch options in rotation: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (the odds-on favorite), a hot dog, and, on occasion, a Lunchable (I know how some people feel about these, but I just don’t want him to starve at school). Even though he‘s not terribly picky at home and seems to eat constantly, when it comes to the contents of his lunchbox, he has, ahem, a certain discerning taste.  And it’s driving me nuts. What is wrong with a good old ham and cheese?

Hit me with your ideas to shake things up a bit, please. Otherwise, I’m going to have to take out stock in Skippy.

(Photo Credit: Amazon.com. Yes, this is the lunchbox we're using this year. I just wish it could be as easy to fill it as it was to choose it.)