If you've ever forgotten to soften the butter for your baking, Marcy Goldman has a tip that will get you mixing in no time. She suggests shredding cold butter with a large box grater so it warms quickly and blends easily into the batter.
Five teams of local chefs paired with local architects will battle for the best gingerbread house this weekend at the annual Christ Kitchen Gingerbread Build-Off. In the Iron Chef-style event, the teams will decorate their gingerbread houses (or mansions or barns, if past year's creations are any indication) in three hours with the public watching. They'll have to include a mystery ingredient revealed that morning.
Bertolli freezer meals have scored well in the past with The Spokesman-Review reader food panel. Tasters weren't as impressed with the new Mediterranean style line of dinners.
The Jundt Art Museum will host a free public walk-through of its new exhibit "Food for Thought" at 10 a.m. Friday. Karen Kaiser, the museum's assistant curator for education, will lead guests through the collection of food-related images.
Make your favorite take-out foods at home with the new "Take-Out Menu Cookbook," by Carla Snyder and Meredith Deeds. Snyder and Deeds tackle dishes from 12 of the most popular ethnic cuisines including Chinese, Thai, Indian, Italian, German, French, Japanese, Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Moroccan, Mexican, Greek and Spanish.
In my Thanksgiving memories, Mom always got up in the wee dark hours to put the turkey in the oven and it roasted forever. And just when you thought you couldn't wait any longer (or that you couldn't possibly eat another black olive from the veggie tray), the meal was served. It really doesn't take that long. But I can never remember from year to year how long that bird needs to roast.
We know you probably can't pass off instant mashed potatoes as homemade on Thanksgiving. But Idahoan makes some pretty tasty taters, according to The Spokesman-Review Reader Food Panel. Idahoan has always fared well with our tasting panel, so we recently whipped up two new varieties for tasters to consider. Panel members liked both the Baby Reds with Roasted Garlic and Parmesan and the Buttery Yukon Gold potatoes, giving them four-and-a-half and three-and-a-half stars respectively.
Bake up those holiday goodies with flour made from wheat grown in the Northwest. Stone-Buhr is the first major flour brand in the country to offer an all-purpose flour made exclusively from local wheat.
Pop the cork. Tap that keg. Friday is the annual Cork and Keg Festival at the Mirabeau Park Hotel and Convention Center, 1100 N. Sullivan Road. There will be more than 100 wines and 30 beers from the Inland Northwest and beyond.
Keep your holidays simple with Diane Rossen Worthington's new cookbook. "Seriously Simple Holidays: Recipes and Ideas to Celebrate the Seasons," includes suggestions for shortcuts, menus, wine pairings and make-ahead game plans.
While you were sleeping this weekend, The Grub Rustlers were stoking the smoker fires at the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational Barbecue in Lynchburg, Tenn. The Sandpoint team won an invitation to the competition after they landed top honors in the Montana State Barbecue Championship in August.
Food panel tasters are always suspicious when vegetables and fruits land on their plates. Taste testing new food products from the grocery store often means picking through the latest processed and convenience foods on the shelves. Steamed broccoli and carrots are sure to cue the alarm bells.
Help The Lands Council choose its new signature coffee blend from Thomas Hammer Eco-Brew beans. Guests at a Nov. 8 fundraiser will learn about roasting and blending coffees from Tom Hammer and roastmaster Dave Rier of Thomas Hammer. By the end of the evening, which includes wine and hors d'oeuvres, participants will have taste-tested and chosen the new Lands Council Coffee blend.
If you're curious about local, sustainable food, the Bioneers conference Friday through Sunday offers a menu of ways to learn more. First, the Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network is hosting a harvest and kick off party from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday in the Community Building lobby, 35 W. Main Ave. in Spokane. Speakers will talk about sustainable agriculture in Washington and food will be served.
The little goblins at your door later this month might come back for more if Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with Caramel is what you drop in their bags. Then again, you might want to keep it for yourself, Spokesman-Review reader food panel members said.
Just the word "bacon" is enough to make some people weak in the knees. Cookbook author James Villas is one of them. "I don't hesitate for a moment to proclaim bacon to be the greatest and most beloved food on earth," he says in the opening line of his new cookbook. Villas waxes on about his love for cured and smoked pork throughout, offering recipes for everything from breakfast (of course) to dessert. Bacon and Peanut-Butter Chocolate Truffles, anyone?
Hungry for more local food news and recipes? Add this bookmark to your favorites: spokesmanreview.com/blogs/freshsheet. We've launched a Fresh Sheet blog, where I'll be dishing about recipes, kitchen tips and tricks and fun food finds. I hope you'll drop by to read it, add your own thoughts, post recipes, and ask questions.
Have you ever eaten Inchelium Red Garlic, Washington Marbled Chinook Salmon, or Aunt Molly's Ground Cherries? Slow Food members hope you will. The international group, formed to celebrate and protect the food traditions, wants to preserve "endangered tastes" – foods on the brink of extinction – with its Ark of Taste. The idea is to call attention to delicious traditional foods or foods linked to the memory or identity of a group by including them in its Ark of Taste catalog. And they hope the attention will eventually put those foods on your plate.
Buyers are wary when food makers start messing with a classic. But in this case tasters, both young and old, were happy with the new flavors of Oat Cluster Cheerios Crunch. The slightly sweet, cinnamon touched whole-grain Os mixed with crunchy oat clusters were a hit with the Reader Food Panel, earning four stars for flavor from both kids and adults.
Some recipes have a story. Whether it's the carrot cake passed down three generations before it was finally written down or the cake innovated to rely on an unusual ingredient because others were in short supply, America's Test Kitchen has collected them in a new cookbook.
It's time again for the annual pilgrimage to the honey-drizzled highlight of fall – Greek Festival. The 72nd annual dinner at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, 1702 N. Washington St., runs from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. It features a traditional dinner menu each night for eating there or take-out, including beef kapama and orzo tossed with browned butter and myzithra cheese. Dinners are $12 for adults or $6 for children under age 12. Dinner is served each day beginning at 4:30 p.m. Lunch is served at 11 a.m.
Diners on the patio at Luna are surrounded by edibles destined for the restaurant's menu. Grapes in the midst of turning from green to purple hang on an arbor, Asian pears line the outdoor bar, Japanese eggplant are tucked into planters. On the trees above hang plums, Pink Lady apples and … furry, squat little pears … or, maybe apples?
They're Oreos, after all. The children guests at a recent Reader Food Panel treated them as such, happily snacking on the soft cream-filled cookies. Both the original and the chocolate creme flavors scored four and a half stars from the kids.
