cooking

So I was going to review the dark chocolate coconut GFB Gluten Free Bites I received in the Must Have Box I was sent by Popsugar but I�m sharing a recipe I created of my own version instead. I�ve noticed a lot of healthy products and raw foods use dates as a sweetener. Because I have a food sensitivity to dates and can�t eat them, I sometimes adapt recipes and use prunes in place of dates.  Even if you have no issues with dates, there�s good reason to choose prunes instead. While prunes and dates are about the same in terms of iron, fiber and protein, when it comes to sugar, carbohydrates and calories, prunes are lower. Prunes are also significantly higher in antioxidants including vitamin K and vitamin A.  A  number of studies  show consumption of prunes not only helps prevent osteoporosis but actually reverses bone loss thanks to a combination of bone building calcium, magnesium, phosphorous and copper.  I�ve always loved dried fruit, it�s high in calories s...

I've enjoyed some very special dinners lately, but it was an unpretentious lunch at Americana Grill   Eat Americana that I�m most excited to tell you about. But first, a little background. It was several years ago when I first discovered Broken Record , a restaurant in the back of a dive bar in the Excelsior, a part of the city so far off the beaten track that you have to get on the freeway to get there. The kitchen was run by James Moisey and Shane LaValley. Their food seemed like pub grub on the surface but it was so much more than that. There were burgers, sandwiches, salads and some Southern things like crawfish and grits, buttery biscuits and mac and cheese. They also served a walnut pie that I miss to this day. The food was inexpensive and sometimes a little over the top, like a burger with bacon ground into the mix, but always good.  Chef James Moisey at Americana Grill The two chefs went on to great success at Rickybobby in the lower Haight for three years. And then ...

A few years ago I received a shipment of SweeTango apples courtesy of the growers and used them to make an individual apple crisp . This year, I was contacted to be a SweetTango blog ambassador, and was also hired to create a couple of extra crunchy recipes using raw apples. One of the recipes I suggested wasn�t chosen, but I was eager to make it anyway and it turned out to be a real keeper.  The SweeTango was developed at the University of Minnesota and is cross between a sweet Honeycrisp and a tangier Zestar! apple. It�s grown in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, and Nova Scotia, Canada. While it�s fine to bake SweeTango apples, they are particularly good raw. In addition to being juicy and sweet with a complex flavor that�s sweet, spicy and tangy, these apples are really known for their crunch. And there�s a reason for that. The apples have cells twice the size of most other apples. How crunchy is the SweeTango? It's acutally the Guinness Book of World recor...

Earlier this year I was avoiding caffeine and drinking only herbal tea. Herbal tea is really a misnomer, there is no such thing. Tea is made from leaves of the tea plant, camellia sinensis . Black tea, oolong, green tea and even white tea is made from the leaves of this plant. The different styles and colors come from how it�s processed. Herbal teas are more properly tisanes, a French term coined in the 1930�s. It can contain herbs, flowers, spices or other plant material. It is generally caffeine free.  I�m always trying to find tisanes that taste like something, anything. Often they are too bland or one strong flavor like licorice or rose hip takes over. Recently I discovered two fantastic blends from a small company called Tocha Tea . They were created by Venus Tsui, who was struggling with getting enough sleep as a new mom, and turned to a book of old Chinese remedies. The teas were inspired by her experience with herbs and are packaged in biodegradable sachets so you can see t...

There is chile and then there�s chili. Chiles are sometimes called peppers, but that�s not really accurate. Pepper comes from peppercorns. Confusing things even further there is chili which is short for chili powder, made from powdered chilis and chili short for chili con carne, a stew made with fresh chilies or chile powder. The reason I bring this up is that when I received a carton of freshly roasted Hatch green chiles, I set out to find a recipe for chili con carne, made with Hatch chiles and let�s just say Google and I found it rather challenging.  Mostly I found recipes for pork chili verde but a request was made for beef. Lisa over at Homesick Texan has what looks like an amazing Chile Verde Con Carne made with beef, but it has 17 ingredients, which is fine if you�re making a big batch. But if you�re making a small batch during the week, my version is much simpler with a lot fewer ingredients.  As with all chili, you should let your taste be your guide. This year I got...

Although it�s a French grape varietal, Malbec really flourishes in Argentina  where it was first introduced in 1868 . But for a long time only the Argentinians got to enjoy it. For the last 50 years or so it was a big wine and a bit on the brash side, but that�s changing. Malbec today can be much more elegant, lower in alcohol and more complex. It's grown pretty much in every wine growing area of  Argentina and varies in style from one wine region to another. Mendoza is the region you're most likely to see. It's a high plateau, under the Andres on the western edge of the country and it's where 70% of Argentina's wine is grown.  I'm a fan of Argentinian Malbec, perhaps because it has a lot in common with another favorite wine of mine, Merlot. But it was only about 10 years ago that I discovered it, which isn't all that surprising because it wasn�t until the 1980�s and 1990�s that Argentina began focusing on creating wines for export. The wines began to take o...