♦  In the Salon this week  ♦

New movie starring . . . a dumpling!  ♦  Find restaurants like Bourdain  ♦  Those sneaky grocery stores  ♦  The celeb chef connection  ♦  Title recipe  ♦  Egg whites to the rescue  ♦  In “My Week”: saving avocados, walnuts to the rescue, two-ingredient bagels, miso fudge redux, used up more Mountain Dew, yay 

Tidbits 

Newsy, schmoozy stuff for cooks 

♦  Like foodie movies? Here’s the trailer for a new one titled “Bao” coming from Pixar about, yep, a dumpling that comes to life. Wait, will we be able to eat dumplings after this???  Watch

♦  Yes indeed, though we’re home cooks, we do occasionally like to eat out, maybe even pick up some ideas for our own kitchens – but how to find the restaurants most worth our time and resources, especially in unfamiliar territories? “Travel and Leisure” lets us tap into Anthony Bourdain’s experience to see how he does it. Bourdain’s cheat sheet

♦  CNBC has taken a look at impulse purchases, saying it can hit up our purses for an average of $5400 a year. And guess what perp ranks highest? “Most of the spur-of-the-moment outlays go toward food, with 70.5 percent of respondents saying that category was the major culprit.” Oops. One suggestion: “Taking a minute to ask yourself if you truly need whatever you’re suddenly eyeing can help stop you in your tracks.” {uh huh . . . did y’all talk to passionate cooks???}  The rest of the story

CS Marketplace Spotlight 

Do you like to keep up with high profile chefs?

Now, so easy to connect with the chefs you know from their TV shows, top rated restaurants, and best selling cookbooks, over 100 in all.! Here, all in one Kindle book, is the scoop on their fascinating histories,  restaurants across the country, websites, email addresses, social media, newsletters, blogs, merchandise, and classes, as available. And because they’re links, the information is always up to date.

“Celebrity Chef Book of Links”  ♦  CS Marketplace

Featured Recipe 

There may be other cookbooks this helpful, but pretty sure not too many 

Ree Drummond, bless her heart, has created a cookbook where for every single recipe she shows step by step photos. The helpfulness also shows in sharing her go-to staples, 12 for the freezer, 15 for the fridge, 20 for the pantry.

There’s also a personal and personable vibe throughout the book thanks her talking-right-to-you style. And also because it features a bunch of family pictures, dog and horse pix, and chatty captions for each and every one.

And not too surprisingly, the book is cover to cover with the kind of hearty down home fare, appetizers through desserts, that she typically preps for her cowboy/girl crew on her Food Network tv show,”The Pioneer Woman.” This one from “Come and Get It” is simple and satisfying.

Recipe for Cap’n Crunch Chicken Strips  ♦  Ree’s “Come & Get It” Cookbook

Tip  

The first item in the “what you can freeze” article by Reader’s Digest mentioned in Tidbits last week is egg whites. This is the one in my Kindle book but with a slightly different focus, and I pass it along with a caveat. I have long used egg whites to treat simple kitchen burns, and in my experience when I’ve applied them fairly quickly there’s usually no redness, no pain, no blistering, and no problems.

But as I note in the book, apparently there’s some controversy about the practice so I urge you to research online to decide this for yourself. The freezer connection is because that’s where I keep the egg whites so I always have some handy, just pressing  my finger into them until a slight thaw can coat the skin.  50 Fun & Unexpected Food Prep, Presentation & Storage Tricks, 99 cents

A Peek at My Week

♦  Oh happy day. It’s not often I have leftover avocado, but on those occasions when I do I’ve typically bundled it up in Press ‘n Seal {those of you that have my “50 . . . Tricks” book know how many ways I’ve found to use this magical product}, but there would still be a bit of browning. Well this time I was wrapping up some ham in aluminum foil and after covering up the ham there was still foil left so threw in the avocado and a piece of tomato too. Next day, voila! pristine avocado. Should have known because that’s how I store celery {also in the “50” book}.

♦  Stress happens. Sometimes we know why, sometimes we don’t, but whichever it is, we would like to see it go away, right? I had read an article making the case for recapturing calm by “reaching for a handful of walnuts instead of a martini.” So recently when I started feeling some of the symptoms of stress I did indeed head for the walnuts. And you know what, woohoo! it actually lived up to its billing and will be a go-to from now on. But I do have a question: anything wrong with both???

♦  Well this was a pleasant surprise. While I do have a decent bagel place in town it’s a bit of an excursion so was intrigued by an odd recipe to make your own, calling for one expected ingredient {though I used the all purpose mix} and one unexpected {additional optional}. Surprisingly chewy and crusty! Note that even though the dough was a bit sticky, out of the oven the bagels came right off of the parchment paper. Also. and since this is the first time I made them no way of knowing if this had an effect, just to somewhat simulate the classic recipe, I sprinkled a bit of water before baking, two finger flings worth.  Easy bagels

♦  Found a way to use some of that miso fudge from last week. Melted it on pancakes. Yeah it was good.

♦  And speaking of hotcakes, they also helped me use up some more of that leftover Mountain Dew. There’s a  recipe on my pancake mix box that calls for melting a tablespoon of butter in a glass 9″ pie plate in a 450 oven, then pouring in a batter of one cup of the mix combined with 1/2 cup water and an egg, baking for 15 min or till tests done. This is a really convenient way of making pancakes but I found them a little flat. Ha! This time substituted the MD for the water and voila, more flavorful, better texture, nicely browned top {in the toaster oven done in 12 min}.

♦  Posted “Be a Better Business Writer in Nine Easy Steps” {mine, on Kindle} on Nice Life Books  – Thursdays

♦  Kept Adoption Message Items on DoggieShirtz – Thursdays

♦  Added Adoption Message T-shirt & more on Amazon

Cook with passion and a party spirit, whether for a crew, or for two, or just for you