Author: Daves Specialty Foods Admin

Read that Label!

I want to begin by assuming you are not standing in the kitchen in your skivvies eating chef boy r dee out of the can with a rusty fork. Know your food! This is your reminder to read before you eat. Reading while eating is also awesome, but it all starts with the label…the FOOD label. Know your food!

I have said in so many cooking discussions that the more you know about your food, the better that food will be for you. Simply tossing a chip in your pie hole without having any knowledge of the whereabouts of that chip’s birth is never a good idea! Most people freak out when told how a food product they are consuming is made; and respond with: Well, you only live once…give me another oreo!

Well…not so much!

Checking out the label of a prepared product provides you with so many options—Do I even eat this, Is there a “cleaner” option, What the heck is that, I heard this chemical additive is getting a bad rap, etc. It is very simple to look up any ingredient to find out its edibility and its origin (MSG is derived from seaweed. This is how you take natural and turn it Unnatural).

Do you know how soybean oil is processed?

Do you know what carrageenan is?

Do you know who….or what….cut your meat?

Do you know what hydrogenated oil is?

Do you know where that carrot was grown?

How about those aweful “baby” carrots…WTF

Read your labels—your life actually truly depends on it! There is a movement now to get GMOs labeled—currently not a law and that is a no-brainer in my world—JUST LABEL IT is the movement to get that done.

Live better—you only have this awesome life—Make it a healthy one!

This past Wednesday, we managed to fit over 80 food enthusiasts in the shop for an awesome Thanksgiving prep cooking demonstration.

THANK YOU ALL FOR COMING OUT!!

We covered it all; from the proper way to cook and carve your dead bird, to creating a day-by-day cooking schedule for the week of Thanksgiving to saving yourself from a stress filled holiday. Below you’ll find some of what we covered on Wednesday’s demo:

Organize, Plan, Prep: Think like a chef!

No more: -Mystery stuffing (anything boxed that makes for a great maraca when you shake it) -Mystery pie filling -Cool Whip… -Cheap pies (they all know it!) -Bottled gravy

Apps & Munchies: Keep it simple! No heavy appetizers that fill your stomach before the main event.

Your schedule for the week of Thanksgiving:

• Monday: -Cut mirepoix (celery, carrots, onions) -Make pie crusts, roll out and freeze. –Cut bread for stuffing, seal in plastic baggie and freeze. -Roast sweet potatoes (Skin and all! Remember, there is no starch in sweet potatoes, so reheating them later will be clean and easy!) -Make crumble topping for pie -Roast your nuts.

• Tuesday: -Peel/cut apples for pies (Take a deep breath. I know brown apples were a concern for some, but remember: when you cook your delicious, home made apple pie, your apples will brown naturally in the oven!) -Prep your sweet potatoes (remove the skin, and dice, mash or puree to your hearts content!)

• Wednesday: -Open your dead bird (avoid a juicy, yucky mess on Thanksgiving day! Place in pan and jam it back in your overflowing fridge) -Cook all of your pies (this gives them time to settle, and for the crust and fruit to absorb the juices– no soupy pies!) -Cook/blanch your veggies.

• Thursday: -Roast your bird -Rest your bird -And remember, NO FOIL!! –Make that awesome gravy! 

Awesome Turkey Gravy

Ingredients:

 1/2          Diced Onion 

   2              Diced Carrot

1 rib         Diced Celery

2 cloves       Minced Garlic

2 TBSP           Butter

¼ cup             Flour

1 quart           Stock

½ TBSP         Herbs de Provence

                        Salt and Pepper

 

Method: 

Place onion, carrots, celery and garlic in sauce pan with butter. Saute to brown and add flour. Stir well to lightly brown and slowly whisk in stock. Bring mixture to boil and add seasoning.

This is our very first blog for the new website so I will make this short, super sweet and enlightening–

As I travel, cater and generally run into people, it is occurring to me there are less and less truly independent people…not only mentally independent, but physically independent. Let me explain…Mental independence means you are actually able to function 100% of the time without that leash of a cell phone ( and I and the rest of my small posse don’t care whether you have the 5s or the 6s or the droid thingy ) glued to your waste of a hand with that under-utelised neck bent down waiting for a buzz, a beep, or some irrelevent Justin Beiber tweet. This is the opposite of mental independence–this is total dependence and it really makes those robotic people look like, well, robotic people…!

Now for physical independence and its true meaning–Those in my posse have noted that when information is blathered out on the boobtube, the internet (you mean all that stuff is not always true…?), or the in-laws, and a person does no further investigation to find true truth and actual facts, that shows lack of physical independence and a total dependence on any so-called news to get your so-called facts that are mostly not so much…

The bottom line–open your eyes, look up and out at our beautiful way more than 6,000 year old world, think for yourself and speak, find and spread the truth. Simple…and at times I worry there are only a few of us left–Make yourselves known! Thank God our customers are the few and be proud of yourselves!

Till the next passion excites me, the Dave