There seems to be this idea out there that kids will not eat vegetables. There are suggestions to disguise the vegetables as trees, or puree them and hide them in the brownies. I just don’t get it. Sure, some kids are neophobes — they will view anything unfamiliar with suspicion. And some kids won’t touch anything green. But I think it’s our job as parents not only to get them to EAT vegetables, in some sneaky and underhanded manner, but to actually get them to like vegetables, as vegetables. That’s going to serve them a lot better in life than never eating spinach unless it’s part of a cupcake.

The challenge is in how to do that. And there is no answer that works for every kid. Try different things. Prepare vegetables in different ways. Try roasting them, or sauteeing with a little bacon, or serving a salad, or baking into a lasagna. Let them dip the vegetables in ranch dressing, or cover them with a cheese sauce. If they don’t like green vegetables, cook carrots or cauliflower or pattypan squash. Make vegetables, in all of their wondrous variety, a part of their life.

Before you run screaming for the hills, don’t think that the Nuni is sitting there saying “How about some cardoons for Sunday brunch today, Mom?” She’s not a great eater in general in terms of quantity, and macaroni and cheese or ice cream tend to be more successful than bell peppers and eggplant. (And I fully admit that there have been nights when dinner WAS ice cream, ideally washed down by a vitamin and some green juice from Trader Joe’s (that stuff is magic — it looks like pond scum, but tastes like bananas and mangos, and has things like spinach and seaweed in it). But I keep trying. I serve her the veggies she’ll reliably eat, like carrot sticks and raw broccoli, and I keep trying new preparations on her. And occasionally, I hit gold.

Last week we were driving home, carrying on our typical patter “Who did you play with today? What books did you read? What do you want for dinner?” (the answer is usually “Macaroni and cheese, because that’s a dish she remembers), when she suddenly piped up “I want kale for dinner.” Kale? My child wants kale? Not one to miss an opportunity, I stopped at the Whole Foods on the way home to pick up some kale, and rushed when I got home to prepare these kale chips.
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Read the rest of Kale Chips with Furikake — Feeding the Wees (208 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: kale, Kid Friendly, Vegetables, Vegetarian, weeknight

So let’s talk about bacon. Apologies to my kosher and vegetarian friends, but I’m going to level with you — Bacon is good stuff. Smoky, salty, a little sweet, with an edge that can only be described as “porky”. And the aroma! The smell of bacon frying is one of the most intoxicating scents in the world. It makes your mouth water just thinking about it, doesn’t it?

Bacon has also become ubiquitous. Whether it’s “home cured pork belly” at a fancy restaurant, or hiding in vegetables, pastas, or chicken noodle soup, bacon has become the it ingredient. It’s even showed up in desserts — the maple bacon doughnut at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, Oregon was probably one of the earliest examples, but a quick browse through Tastespotting will reveal recipes for bacon brittle, bacon snickerdoodles, bacon cupcakes and even bacon macarons. I wish I could be all foodie snob and turn up my nose and say “Bacon is so DONE. It doesn’t actually go with EVERYTHING,” but the truth is that I, too, have been seduced by the beast. You may have noticed bacon popping up in recent and not-so-recent recipes, but I have never crossed into the dark side to feature bacon in a dessert.

Until now.

Bacon Salted Caramel Brownies. You may be skeptical. I was. Bacon in a dessert? And a chocolate dessert? Bacon doesn’t make EVERYTHING better. But the phrase kept repeating in my mind. Bacon Salted Caramel Brownies. Maybe it was a Twitter chat hosted by Scharffenberger chocolate, or a girlfriend telling me that David Lebovitz had told her that if she were going to try any one of his recipes, it should be the Dulce de Leche Brownies, or Alice Currah’s Bacon Caramel Bar recipe, but Bacon Salted Caramel Brownies came to me, and I couldn’t get them out of my head.
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Read the rest of Bacon Salted Caramel Brownies (541 words)

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Post tags: Bacon, Brownies, Salted Caramel

Wednesday is Saint Patrick’s Day (don’t forget to wear green or the leprechauns will pinch you) and even though my family is only moderately Irish, and I, in fact, have never been to Ireland, my family celebrates every year without fail. Part of it is that my grandparents were married on March 17 (and enjoyed the luck of the Irish — they were married for 59 years), and part of it is that we happen to like celebrations, and if that celebration involves food, then we’re definitely in.

So March 17 sees us feasting happily on beer, corned beef, more beer, English mustard (don’t tell the people who are actually Irish!), beer, cabbage, Jameson’s (a change from beer), mashed potatoes, and always, always Irish soda bread. This might not look like the Irish soda bread you’ve seen — there are no raisins, no caraway seeds. But this version, a “brown soda bread” made with half whole wheat and half white flour, is more authentically Irish, according to Darina Allen and Rory O’Connell, founders of the Ballymaloe Cooking School. And it’s incredibly satisfying – hearty and only slightly sweet, with a crunch to the crush and a melting interior. Warm from the oven with a pat of butter, it really can’t be beat.
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Read the rest of Irish Soda Bread — Erin Go Bragh (279 words)

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Post tags: bread, breakfast, brunch, holiday, quick bread, Saint Patrick's Day

As I may have mentioned before, I generally receive a several cookbooks for major gift-giving occasions. This isn’t surprising; after all, I have a known cookbook problem, and I have several cookbooks on my Amazon wishlist. I’m fairly familiar with the major cookbooks that are released, what the buzz is, and what the classics are. But this Christmas my aunt (who is a fantastic cook) gave me a book I had never heard of — the Auberge of the Flowering Hearth, by Roy Andries De Groot. “It’s the book that inspired Alice Waters,” she told me. I thanked her politely and added the book to my already crowded shelf of food and cookbooks.

A month or so later, I had finished my book club book for that month and was looking for something to read, and my eye fell on the Auberge. The book is unassuming, with its seventies cover and relatively unknown author (who was at some point the President of the Gourmet Club, which I’m sure had some real meaning in 1973, but sounds made up to me, like something an enterprising high school student would use to pad their college application), but I thought it would be an excellent soothing bedtime read.
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Read the rest of Giveaway, The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth and Endive Salad with Bacon (1,059 words)

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Post tags: Bacon, Giveaway, salad

When I was a little girl, my favorite restaurant was a steakhouse in my hometown called the Sawmill. The interior was one of those 1980’s restaurants with no windows, an open kitchen, dim lighting, a terrarium, rough-hewn wood beams and leather club chairs, but to very small me it was heaven. I always ordered a steak sandwich and a Shirley Temple (in a short glass, with extra cherries), but what really made the restaurant my favorite was the old fashioned salad bar. Young children don’t usually have that much control over what they eat, but at a salad bar I was master of my destiny. After much trial and error (what is the POINT of baby corn?) I settled on the winning combination of romaine lettuce, spinach (this was before the era of ubiquitous mixed greens), chick peas, scallions, croutons, bacon bits, blue cheese dressing and beets. This was a particular treat because we NEVER had beets at home — to this day my father claims to be allergic based on a rash he got in 1948 (and to this day, I remain skeptical about the existence of such an allergy), and I loved their earthy sweetness.

Fast forward to 2006, and when enjoying a lovely (outdoor) dinner at a local Greek restaurant in Los Angeles, I discovered Patzaria — a Greek spread made from yogurt and beets. Spread on toasted pita bread, the sweetness of the beets tempered by the tang of the yogurt, this spread was my favorite beet dish I had had since those childhood salads. So I decided to reconcile the two experiences, and come up with my own patzaria that replicates the flavors of my childhood nostalgia with a modern Greek spin.
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Read the rest of The Three B’s — Beets, Blue Cheese and Bacon Dip (338 words)

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Post tags: Bacon, Beets, Dip

Today we’re returning to our Savour Fare Kitchen series with a post on Essential Kitchen Tools. While pots and pans are a little more universal due to either their straightforward functionality or their high space requirements, the tools you keep in your kitchen are idiosyncratic. I have a tendency to pick up kitchen tools right and left — people give them to me as gifts, I receive them in goodie bags at blog events, and I am magically drawn into every Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma I walk past. As a result, this list is not going to be a comprehensive listing of my personal kitchen tools, nor can it be an exhaustive list of every tool you should own. If you really love cherry clafoutis, you should probably indulge in a cherry pitter. If you make cobb salad every Saturday for lunch, an egg slicer might be your bag. This list is just intended to serve as a starter list of some tools I use and brands I love. Additionally, read on to the end to find out how to enter the first entry in the Savour Fare March Madness Giveaway series and win some of my favorite kitchen tools!

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Read the rest of Giveaway and The Savour Fare Kitchen — Essential Kitchen Tools (1,227 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: Giveaway, Kitchen Equipment, The Savour Fare Kitchen

One year ago today, I was sitting around with nothing to do, and so I started a food blog. OK, it didn’t exactly happen like that. If you’ve been reading along, you have probably realized by now that I have a life that’s rather full, what with my full time (not food-related) job, a wild monkey of a two year old running my household, and a husband to boot (though given his childcare and dishwashing contributions, I think the husband nets positive in the time calculations). But I still make the time to cook. It was my hope, when I started this blog, that I could give a little insight into how real people prepare their meals. Cooking good food, from scratch, can fit into a busy life. And I hope that in this past year this blog has inspired you — to cook when you otherwise might not have, to change up your routine, or to try something new.

This blog has certainly inspired me. It’s challenged me to figure out how recipes can be made more flavorful, more streamlined or more consistent. I’ve gone outside my comfort zone and discovered new foods. And I’ve been able to write down and record some of my family favorites.

So happy first birthday, Savour Fare!

Now let’s talk about a party.
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Read the rest of Strawberry Orange Cream Cake – Happy Birthday, Savour Fare! (955 words)

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Post tags: birthday, birthday cake, cake, strawberries

The summer after I graduated from college, I took off for Europe. I wasn’t living the bohemian life with a backpack and a Eurail pass (Quel horreur!), I was traveling with my parents and about 30 college juniors on a summer program for my mom’s university. The downside of this plan was that I spent three weeks in a hotel room with my parents in what may be the most boring down on the French Riviera. The upside was that we got to take a leisurely coach ride (OK, it was a bus, but coach sounds much more romantic with its regency overtones) from Paris, through Southwestern France, and into Provence. We visited Chateaux in the Loire Valley, peered over the defensive walls in Carcassonne and tasted wine in the caves of Bordeaux. But the experience that really stuck in my mind was the day we visited the goat farm. We drove up through bucolic pastures into a fenced yard which held any number of baby goats, and then we were ushered to a small restaurant where we ate a five course lunch featuring goat cheese. There was goat cheese quiche and goat cheese flan, and aged cheeses with fruit. But the dish that I loved the best and that I still remember, many years later, was a goat cheese salad with honey. The sweetness of the honey perfectly balanced the pungency of the cheese, and the vinaigrette on the salad added a lovely acid note.

It was that dish that I had in mind when I created this maple mustard chicken with goat cheese. I’m always looking for new things to do with chicken, which seems to be the ubiquitous protein, and to add some flavor to chicken breasts. In this dish, Chicken breasts are pounded thin, and then marinated in a sweet vinaigrette of maple syrup, mustard and lemon juice. They’re then spread with good fresh goat cheese and some arugula (which adds a lovely nutty taste) and then baked.
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Read the rest of Maple Mustard Chicken with Goat Cheese and Arugula (326 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: chicken, weeknight

Something funny has been happening this winter — kale has become a staple in my refrigerator. A week rarely passes when I don’t buy a bunch, either from the farmer’s market or during a Whole Foods run. It’s a combination of being drawn to the purported health benefits of kale, admiring its ruffled appearance and just plain liking the taste. Kale has a savory heartiness that doesn’t contain the metallic tones of spinach or the sometimes bitter flavors of collards or mustard greens.

Sometimes I make kale chips or crispy kale (google and you’ll find a kajillion recipes — one of these days I might even get around to posting my recipe, but it usually gets eaten too fast to take pictures), but more often, especially when my kale buying enthusiasm and my cooking time do not overlap, I end up making this creamed kale. It can be made with wilted greens, which is a plus in the flexibility department, and is easy and delicious to boot. In fact, if you’ve been paying attention round these parts, you may have noticed creamed kale keeping company with Lamb Top Round and Pommes Anna on New Year’s Eve, or setting off this chicken sausage casserole. It’s a versatile and hearty dish, and one that has become a regular in my kitchen.
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Read the rest of Creamed Kale (134 words)

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Post tags: kale, Vegetarian

I have a little bit of a cookbook problem. You see, when we moved to our current home, we dedicated a reasonable sized bookcase to the cookbooks. It had four shelves, was about two and a half feet wide, and seemed perfectly fine. Until I started putting my cookbooks on it. There was a little overflow, a few cookbooks I put on another shelf, some books that I recategorized as “travel books.” But the problem only got worse. It’s not that I buy a ton of cookbooks — I mean, I do buy a few, sometimes to cook with, sometimes as a souvenir when I’m traveling, sometimes because I really can’t resist a used book sale. But I also receive cookbooks as gifts. And cookbooks have a way of finding their way into my house in other ways too. As a result, I have several cookbooks that are more for recreational reading than actual cooking, per se, and several more that never really see the light of day (but do look so ornamental on that bookcase. And the surrounding bookcases as well.)

The point is, I have a lot of cookbooks, and while I don’t mind this, my husband seems to think my collection is a bit … excessive. So you know a new cookbook is good when he comes up to me and says “You know, that cookbook really fills a niche that I think was missing from your cookbook collection.” This cookbook isn’t only endorsed by me, it’s endorsed by him, and that is a rare thing indeed, when it comes to cookbooks.

The cookbook in question is, of course, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook by Jaden Hair. People who are up on the food blogging community will recognize Jaden from her popular blog, Steamy Kitchen, and if you’ve met her in person or seen her on TV, you know that she has a lot of personal charisma and energy (Full disclosure — I met Jaden at the 2009 Blogher Food Conference, and I received a complimentary copy of the book through the conference after party), but even if you’ve never heard of Jaden Hair, this is a book you’ll want in your kitchen.
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Read the rest of Steamy Kitchen Cookbook Review and Garlic Butter Noodles with Shrimp (742 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: Asian, cookbooks, Noodles, shrimp, weeknight