It’s Almost Time for Maple Weekend!

Posted on February 22nd, 2009 in Breakfast Foods, Cooking Tips, Day Trips, Dutchess County Farm Markets, Dutchess County Grocery Stores, Food History, Side Dishes by Chef Jill

When you think of Sunday morning breakfast, the first things that come to mind are the mouthwatering aromas of coffee brewing, bacon or sausage frying, and yummy maple syrup that will blanket a pile of fluffy pancakes. It’s a nice relaxing breakfast, or late brunch if you like to indulge in a little extra sleep. 

Most of us have had real bacon, sausage and coffee.  However, maple syrup is a different story.  More people use grocery store brands like Aunt Jemima and Mrs Butterworths, which consist of high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and assorted chemicals, than the real thing. They don’t know what they’re missing.  Once you try real maple syrup, you won’t want to go back.  First of all, there’s the taste.  It’s all natural.  Sure, man has has to coax that flavor out, but it’s worth the wait, and the price!  Real maple syrup is also a healthy food.  (Healthy like dark chocolate though, so you don’t want to live on the stuff)  Maple syrup is an excellent source of manganese and a good source of zinc.  Both help boost our immune system, so skip pancake syrup and use the real deal. 

If you like candied sweet potatoes, glazed carrots or a glazed baked ham, maple syrup is the sweetener to use.  Yea, brown sugar tastes good too, but it doesn’t have the character of pure maple.  You can use it in most recipes that call for a sweetener.  It makes a delicious topping for ice cream, yogurt and oatmeal too.  (It’s also really good on pancakes and waffles)

Canadians will say theirs is better, but I say go with the local stuff.

Remsburger Maple Farm is having their annual Maple Festival March 21-22 and 28-29 from 9:00 am to 4:00pm at the Dutchess County Fairgounds.

Watch them make maple syrup.  The aroma coming from the sugar shack is intoxicating.  I wish I had a sugar shack in my back yard!   Save room for some pancakes, I know we will!

(The maple cotton candy is awesome!  And don’t forget to check out the honey too)

http://remsburgermaple.com/

Who would want to eat a scoop of high fructose corn syrup pecan ice cream anyway?

 

Leftovers: The Story of Prepared Foods

Posted on July 9th, 2008 in Food History, Food Opinion, Personal Chef by Ira Weiss

I was talking with a friend the other day and the topic of leftovers came up. They flat out said they hate leftovers and reheated food. That statement had me scratching my head in wonderment. Modern prepared foods are entirely based on the concept of leftovers and reheated food. Only if my friend bought only raw ingredients and prepared everything from scratch would they avoid eating leftovers and reheated food.

For Example:
 
Canned foods are cooked right inside the can after it has been filled and sealed. The ready to eat soups are leftovers which are reheated. Usually with chemicals added to help "preserve" them for a long shelf life. Campbell’s Condensed Soups are cooked, then continually cooked to make it condensed, and then placed in the can and brought back up to temperature to kill off bacteria before it is sealed. Canned veggies are also cooked right in the can. Jarred foods are precooked too. Again, this is to kill off bacteria.
 
Frozen vegetables? They’ve been blanched. Par-cooked so their cellular structure can adapt to the freezing process.
 
If your family eats cold cuts or hot dogs they are also pre-cooked. Formed meats like boiled ham, chicken loaf, bologna, and hot dogs are made of meat from "various parts" and cuts of the animal that are not able to be sold in the butcher department. This meat is then sent through a grinder, placed into a form and cooked. They are in essence leftovers. Even your turkey breast or roast beef from Boar’s Head was pre-cooked.
 
Frozen dinners, the wonderful plastic things that you have in your freezer. Healthy Choice, Stouffer’s, Swanson; all leftovers that require reheating. When you buy frozen raviolis the dough may be uncooked, but the cheese or meat inside has been precooked for health safety reasons.
 
Pasta that you buy in a box. Ronzoni, Mueller’s, Bertolli, etc. The pasta has been cooked and then dehydrated. When you reboil pasta it is essentially reconstituted, reheated leftovers. And the tomato sauce you purchased in a jar is the same. Also precooked waiting to be reheated. Sorry, but Annie’s all natural or Kraft Mac & Cheese is leftovers. I’m not sure whether it comes with a powdered cheese or a liquid cheese package, but that’s precooked too. Powdered cheese is ground, dehydrated cheese with other stuff added in to help "stabilize" it.  Or is that dried then ground? Hmmm. And liquid cheese isn’t much better.
 
Most if not all of these foods are prepared weeks or months before they reach your dinner table…
 
Yes, we use store bought pasta, peanut butter, sesame tahini, canned beans and occasionally, canned tomatoes plus other prepared foods in our cooking. This is because there’s nothing wrong with them and the texture and flavor can make a difference. Especially, in the winter when fresh vine-ripened tomatoes are not  readily available. We will also use frozen vegetables if fresh aren’t available, but we notify you first. We do however make our own pasta sauce – never from a jar. Of course, if our client’s wish for us to make pasta and beans from scratch, we can do so.
 
90% or more of the food we prepare is from scratch using choice meats, fresh vegetables and fruit. And we buy organic upon request.
 
This is the beauty and simplicity of Dinner’s On The Table Personal Chef service. When Dinner’s On The Table cooks your meals you can count on the food being only 0-6 days old by the time it’s eaten (if eaten during the weekly timeframe between cookdates). We don’t add any preservatives or chemicals.  2-3 dinners are kept in the fridge and the rest placed in your freezer to be thawed 24-36 hours prior to eating. Meals frozen for 3-7 days never get freezer burn and have very minimal if any textural differences than if they had been left in the fridge. We’ve actually tested this in our home before we started the company.  Any dishes we feel would be affected by the freezing process we recommend to be left in the fridge and eaten within 3 days.  
 
And we hope you agree that they taste much better than the mass-produced TV Dinners you buy in the grocery store. Our satisfied clients say it all, http://hudsonvalley.ratingsmart.com/businesses/23289/listing.
 
So, in essence, the concept of disliking leftovers, or if you wish, prepared foods, is a state of mind. Because we eat them everyday of our lives. Civilization couldn’t have grown to this level of sophistication and size without them.