January Newsletter

Welcome everyone to the New Year!  2012 is setting out to be a good year for us and we hope that it will be for you as well. 

We are a little late with the newsletter for the beginning of the year as December was a VERY crazy month.  Moving into the New Year saw David with a new job title and associated responsibilities at one job and a few more homes sold and activity at the other.  We are researching opportunities and creating several new items.  Caitlin was at it again with her creative juices adding The BBQ Fairy’s Dust to our already long list of low sodium custom blends and we should have two more Quick meals ready this week or next.

Last night David and I were watching Food Network, as usual, a show called “The Big Waste”.  It was astonishing to see and hear just how much food goes to waste every year from farms, stores, and restaurants.  There were several reasons for the loss, one reason was customers at u-pick places picking something and discarding it in the field because they found another, didn't like the one they picked, or just changed their minds and tossed the product into the field!  They interviewed an educated gent, with current employment who they found dumpster diving at restaurants in his neighborhood, in New York.  There were probably 20 garbage bags of food that the restaurants had tossed and inside the bags were perfectly usable vegetable.  The chefs, Bobby Flay, Michael Symon, Anne Burrell and Alex Guarnaschelli, were teamed up girls against the guys for 2 days to find and salvage foods and then create dinner for 100 guests and being judged on the meals.  They went to chicken farms and found 3 coolers full of slightly imperfect chickens, chickens with torn skin or broken limb but perfectly eatable birds, just not birds that the general public would purchase.  They hit many locations in search of food for the dinner, vegetables galore, seafood, chicken, prosciutto and much, much more.  All the products they found were examined by a neutral judge verifying that the products they found to use were actually safe.  They even included checking the temperature.  While at a fishmonger he told a story of a banquet that was cancelled and the fish, 100 pounds, was returned and they were going to have to discard of it, the chefs used the fish.

It was amazing and appalling to us as we watched in horror the literally tons of perfectly eatable food that are going to waist, and this was only in the New York area.  I know that there are issues here as well.  I am aware of issues with out of the area individuals using the u-pick and discarding fruit they think is un useable (of course there are those that eat WAY more than what the pay for and then they argue about it). 

Tip.... Don’t have time for a dessert or not a successful at baking, find a packaged desert mix that you can convert into personal cups, most deserts are way more food than we need, serving personal sized (4oz) servings go over well and will feed twice the number on the box!

Fancy Feasts Ahi Tuna Poke It was a rather last minute decision to do anything for New Year’s Eve this year and we choose to stay home and entertain a few selected guests.  I had scheduled enough time Friday morning to be at Costco when it opened as I was looking for a few daily items and found that they had the fishmonger there.  As I started to walk around I made a few changes but ended up with, 2 lobster tails, a piece of Ahi tuna, 4 pieces of filet mignon, a salmon and a rack of lamb.  You would think I was feeding an army with this amount of food, but I was only feeding 6 and I only purchased small pieces of everything I purchased.

The idea behind my madness was lots of appetizers with the salmon being the main course along with a salad and rice and I knew that we would be eating for a long time being that we were starting at 6 pm.  So I would imagine you are saying what did I do with this food, well I started with the Ahi and made poke out of that and served with scoop type chips (they stay crisper), a recipe I shared I an earlier issue, the filet, I wanted to purchase a section of the whole filet but all they had was a monster piece that priced out around $100.00, not what I needed, I froze the pieces I had for 2 hours wrapped in cellophane so I could slice it thinly to pound out for Carpaccio.  I diced up red sweet onions and tossed them with cappers to sprinkle over the top just before serving.  The lobster I par baked, removed the meat from shell, wrapped in prosciutto with horseradish and diced into medallions, under the broiler and done. David purchase some sausage links and those we grilled and put into the oven to crisp up a bit and sliced, the lamb pops were wonderful (even if I do Say so myself), just a simple marinade and a quick trip on the grill (recipe below) then I did our Hometown Lemon Salmon on a cedar plank on the grill and finally for a light dessert, I made lava cakes in personal ramekins yum!  (If there is ever a recipe you would like and cannot find it, please do not hesitate to contact me, I’ll be more than happy to send it to you and I am still working on our cookbook)

Hometown Lemon Salmon on Cedar Plank Carpaccio

Lamb Pops 1 tablespoon Lemon olive oil Zest and juice of one lemon 2 tablespoons of fresh oregano chopped 2 table spoons minced garlic Couple grinds on the salt grinder Couple grinds of Royal Pepper 1 small single side of lamb Trim the fat and silver skin off the lamb, once you feel you have removed all that you can, slice between each bone.   In a 4 cup glass bowl combine the remaining ingredients and stir, then coat each pop, both sides place back into the bowl when all are done cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.  Grill, grill pan, or broil 3 to 4 minutes per side and serve.