Category: Food

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Now here’s a prep time I’d like to see someone achieve:

MELON, PINEAPPLE AND GRAPE COCKTAIL

(can be prepared in 6 minutes from start to finish)

1 melon
1 fresh pineapple
1 c seedless green grapes, halved
3/4 c white grape juice
fresh mint leaves for garnish

Remove seeds from melon. Use a melon baller to scoop out melon. Remove skin from pineapple; core and cut into bite-size pieces. Combine fruits in serving bowl and pour white grape juice over all. Serve immediately or cover and chill until ready to serve. Garnish with mint leaves. Serves 4-6.

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Now, if you were to start counting from the time you finish slicing grapes, an Iron Chef (or the French guy who can debone a whole chicken in 60 seconds) might be able to do this in 6 minutes. But unless you’ve got the world’s smallest melon (what kind, anyway?), even I, trained by a mom who trained with Hawaiians in the art of butchering pineapple, would be hard pressed to make it in even 10. I’ve also noticed that this calendar seems to think it impossible to make fruit salad without some kind of juice marinade, which is a foreign concept to me. Is it a function of California versus the Midwest again? Something to do with having better and juicier fruit here? Or do some people just think all salad has to have dressing?

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Time to add an “outrage” category. This is just insane: A church panel has invalidated a girl’s communion because she can’t eat wheat (original article here).

The girl has celiac disease, which means any amount of wheat can cause her serious health problems. A local priest was willing to let her use a rice-based wafer, but higher-ups declared it was invalid — that if there wasn’t wheat, it didn’t count. She can either take the communion with a wheat-based wafer, or not take it at all.

For all intents and purposes they’ve excommunicated this girl because of a medical condition.

Good thing I’m not Catholic and the sacrament doesn’t involve peanuts.

I wonder if the church would be willing to pay for emergency room visits (or funerals) resulting from this kind of situation?

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From my calendar today, another appetizer that’ll make everybody finish everything else on the buffet first:

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CHICKEN BALL

1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese
2 cans (4 3/4 oz) chunky chicken
1 sm onion
5 drops Worcestershire sauce
3 drops Tabasco sauce
1 T lemon juice

Combine all ingredients. Chill until firm. Roll into a ball; then roll in nuts. Refrigerate at least 24 hours before serving.

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Atkins-friendly, sure. Appetizing, probably not to anyone I know. One of my co-workers said it sounded yummy, though. I’m wondering, what do you do with the onion? It’s kind of hard to roll a whole onion into a ball…..

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The ingredients list for what my calendar calls SPICY GUACAMOLE DIP:

1/2 c mayonnaise
1 lg avocado, peeled and mashed
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 c minced onion
1/4 c green chiles, drained and chopped
1 T lemon juice
1/2 t salt

This reminds me of the Gallery of Regrettable Food recipe for Hot ‘n’ Spicy Tex-Mex Chicken, which involves removing an atom of chili powder from its lead casing and waving it carefully over the casserole. Then I recall with thank-God-it’s-over nostalgia the time I asked our waiter how spicy the dressing on the spinach salad with rare ahi tuna was, received the answer “just a little spicy,” and subsequently spent half an hour attempting to extinguish my taste buds. (This was made worse by the fact that I was on Weight Watchers pretty hardcore at the time and couldn’t make myself eat bread to get rid of the burn.) I guess there must be people who think Ortega canned chiles are spicy, but I’ve never met any. Still, it’s oddly comforting knowing somebody out there has a more tender tongue. Maybe I’m not such a hopeless white girl after all.

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Congress has passed passed the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act, mandating the top 8 food allergens appear on labels in plain English! The voluntary labeling over the past few years has been very helpful. Well, some of it has — the “processed in a facility that also processes XYZ” labels mainly amount to a CYA statement, although I’m sure there are people sensitive enough that it does help.

The NPR story provided some examples of why this matters, including a story of a college student who had a very similar experience to one I had a few years ago: he bought a chocolate chip cookie from a vending machine — a brand he had been eating with no problems for several years — but they had added peanut flour to their mix without labeling the change. He died within 15 minutes. When it happened to me, I had enough medication to stop it. But I don’t eat anything from Famous Amos anymore.

Some other nice provisions include having the FDA do a study on cross-contamination [archive.org], and having the CDC track allergy-related deaths.

Further reading: The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, The Food Allergy Initiative. [Update: The organizations have since merged as FARE.]

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Today’s recipe:

LIVERWURST PATE

1 lb liverwurst
1/2 t basil
1/4 c minced onion
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese
1/8 t red pepper sauce
1 t mayonnaise
red or black anchovy paste
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, crushed (keep cloves separate)
parsley

Mash liverwurst with fork. Add 1 clove garlic, basil, onion, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly. Mound into an igloo shape on plate. Cover and chill. Blend together cream cheese, 1 clove garlic, red pepper sauce and mayonnaise. Spread over liverwurst. Refrigerate for 8 hours. Spread with anchovy paste right before serving and garnish with parsley. Serves about 15.

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Typist’s note: I actually like liverwurst, but this sounds disgusting. I assume there are people who would beg to differ, but I don’t know any.

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Today’s pathetic recipe:

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APPLE YOGURT

2 c fruit-flavored yogurt
4 apples, cored and sliced

Spoon yogurt into 4 serving bowls and top with apple slices. Serve chilled. Serves 4.
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Now let’s look at just how craptastic this is. First off, it’s labeled a dessert. Secondly, 4 apples?? Unless we’re talking miniature Galas off your tree, this is not only difficult to spoon up but also way too much fruit for the yogurt. Laying the slices on top would overflow the dish and completely obscure the yogurt. I suppose one could arrange the slices standing up in a flower pattern and use the yogurt as dip, but why serve that chilled? Thirdly, this is the second recipe in the calendar for basically the same thing; the first one was with orange yogurt and tangerines. However, put some orange blossom honey (and possibly a little finely chopped candied ginger) on that and you’ve got something slightly resembling dessert. For this one to fly, you’d need to use Yoplait Whips (or a similar product) and some caramel sauce. Oh, and half the apples.