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Everyday Food: Kicked Up A Notch!

Have you seen the latest issue of Everyday Food magazine?  Here is a picture of it, with Martha and Emeril on the cover.  Emeril will now be doing a regular feature for the magazine, called, what else, “Kick It Up!”

This issue is all about grilling and other summer cooking.  What’s really nice is that you can get a lot of the recipes on the website, on the Table of Contents page for the current issue.  Here is the Table of Contents for the July/August issue.

Most of the names of the recipes are clickable, and these are available for free download.  The ones that aren’t…sorry, you will just have to buy the magazine!

You should first try the recipes online…and if you like them, you will probably want to subscribe to this magazine.  This is a magazine designed for regular people…no fancy, hard-to-find ingredients, and most recipes are quick and easy to prepare.

There is also an Everyday Food TV show on PBS…check your local listings to see if it airs in your area.  And new this year is a spinoff of the Everyday Food show, called Everyday Baking.  Check ‘em out!

Ten things I would never want to wear…

In no particular order…

high heels
pink baseball clothing
sexy costumes
pantyhose
dresses/skirts
tube tops
underwire bras
thong underwear
nail polish
fur coats

I guess my X chromosomes were wired wrong, because women ate *supposed* to like all of this stuff. And as far as I care, if women do like it, fine with me! It just isn’t me!

Except for the fur coat thing, though. Killing animals just for fur, when there are perfectly good synthetic products out there, is just plain evil.

Stuph

If you came here yesterday and found something wrong with this site, I apologize. I was having some problems with the old installation of WordPress, and the only way I could think of to fix them was to upgrade to the newest version, 2.5.whateveritisthisweek.

Luckily, the upgrade went off without a hitch. I’m always afraid something will go wonky during an upgrade, that I will lose the entire blog. Never mind that I backed up EVERYTHING first!

This computer is acting a little wonky as well…I think I need some more computer memory to help speed things up a bit. Or maybe I just need a new computer.  Gotta think about it some before I plunk down any money.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging!

Get Inspired: Taco Salad

I LOVE taco salad, and this is an easy and very tasty one to make at home. Click on the image above for a large printable copy of the recipe, this will open in a new window.

A few tips here - 90% lean ground beef is kind of pricey. You can buy cheaper ground beef and use that instead. Use a little more than a pound, maybe a pound and a half. After browning the beef for 5 minutes (as in Step 2), drain the beef in a colander to get rid of any excess fat. Return beef to the pan and proceed with recipe. This is important, as you don’t want your salad to be swimming in fat.

Cilantro - either you love it or you hate it. If you don’t like it, you’ll find that it has kind of a “soapy” taste. Use flat-leaf parsley instead.

Finally, you should definitely use the suggested garnishes - avocado (or guacamole), red onion, cheese, and sour cream.

And there you have it!  An easy, quick and very tasty summer meal, courtesy of our friends at Shaw’s and America’s Test Kitchen!   Enjoy!

Another one of those shows…

…that I like to watch, but will probably never try any of the projects from, is The New Yankee Workshop. It features Norm Abram, who is also on This Old House, building a different piece of furniture each week. He has built everything from curio cabinets to benches and chairs to kitchen islands to poker tables.

Norm has every fancy power tool under the sun, no doubt given to him by the many sponsors of the show.  Also, his workshop is ginormous.  He makes the projects look so easy, but for those of us who don’t have the tools that he does, nor a workshop large enough to house them, making some of this stuff could be a challenge.  It’s easier just to buy furniture.

But still, the show is fun to watch.