The 2020 Holidays Recipe Collection How you doin’? When Joan and I were the co-hosts of The Food Show we developed a Holiday Cookie Exchange for our audience. You’ve got to remember… this was before the internet and if people wanted to participate, they had to send in their recipes via snail mail! We published a book with all the recipes and each participant received one. When the recipes were received, they were reviewed by our executive research and development team and turned over to the chefs in the California Kitchen to test bake. It was a fun time in the kitchen for all with Christmas Carols playing and a big tree off in the corner—everyone couldn’t help but get into the holiday spirit. This recipe is an old family heirloom recipe that was made by my mother. I got this recipe from my brother, Roy, and have rewritten it pretty much the way it was originally received from her old friend, Amy Gollins. I did clean it up a little bit to make it more understandable. As I kid, I watched my mother make this recipe and I even helped roll them out many times. I seem to remember she sometimes added sour cream to the dough, sometimes cream cheese and on one occasion some soapy dish water! It didn’t make any difference to her, she still baked them. Mom’s Original Rugelach As written by Ed’s Mother (1956) Prep time: 1 hour Chill/proof time: 8 to 10 hours (or overnight) Bake time: 15-20 minutes Yield: 3 dozen cookies Ingredients 1/2 pound butter 3 egg yolks 1/2 cup half and half 2 (.25-ounce) packets of yeast 1 tablespoon granulated sugar 3 cups all-purpose flour Cinnamon-Sugar Ratio 1 cup of granulated sugar 4 tablespoons cinnamon into a bowl Directions
ChefSecret: Not included in the original recipe… mom would whip up 6 egg whites with a cup of sugar and slather that onto the rolled-out dough before cutting and rolling into cookies. She would let the dough rise for 20 minutes, baking them for 25 minutes until done. Feel free to add nuts, mini chocolate chips, even some jam to your taste. Covid-19 Quip of the Day: “Never make a Mother mad! She can remember stuff that hasn’t even happened yet.” ------------------------------------------- Do you have a question or comment? Do you want to share a favorite recipe or pictures with our readers? Send your thoughts to ed@perspectives-la.com. All recipes and cooking tips are posted on our website https://www.perspectives-la.com/covid-19-survival-guide. ------------------------------------------- Here is wishing you the very best for the upcoming holidays. To you and everyone dear to you, be strong, be positive, stay well, stay safe and be kind welcoming in the holiday season. If you have a little extra in your pockets to share with others at this difficult time, please consider donating to Feeding America. Thank you for reading. #Dessert #Cookies #Rugelach #HolidayRecipes #Holidays2020 #QuarantineKitchen #Covid19 #FeedingAmerica #PerspectivesTheConsultingGroup ©Perspectives/The Consulting Group, Inc., 2020
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The 2020 Holidays Recipe Collection How you doin’? Fall is here and there is a chill in the air. Are you feeling a little peaked or under the weather? That’s the way I felt on one of my last trips to Rome. Le Terme Del Colosseo is a beautiful restaurant located between the Colosseum and the Imperial Forums. I was feeling a little under the weather when I visited Rome and didn’t want a whole lot to eat. That could be considered a crime in Rome when you feel you must try everything on the menu, or at least I do. I told the waiter of my dilemma. He said I have just the solution for you. It is Zuppa Di Orzo Di Pollo Al Limone (Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup). He described it as an Italian version of Jewish matzo ball soup—Jewish penicillin—and that it would have me feeling great in a half hour. It wasn’t on the menu, but he asked the chef to make it for me. That’s just the way this restaurant is along with many others in Italy. If they have the ingredients, many chefs will cook special orders for you. If you are going to Rome any time soon (post Covid-19), be sure to put Le Terme del Colosseo on your “must do” list. It is convenient for lunch while sightseeing, and dinner is a real experience where diners are entertained by "Roman Fantasy"… costumed singers who will take your breath away. Their repertoire includes all the most famous and well-known Italian folk and opera songs and therefore is suitable for all—Italian and non-Italian alike. When my steaming caldron of special soup arrived tableside, I could see it was comprised of tender chunks of chicken in a lemony broth with orzo pasta, carrots, onions, celery and shards of baby spinach. The waiter cracked an egg, separated the yolk from the white and streamed the egg white into the hot soup (something like a Chinese egg drop soup). This has now become one of my favorite soups to enjoy on cool fall evenings. By the way, it worked! Thirty minutes after the soup arrived, I was combing through the menu for my next courses. Prep time: 20 minutes Cook time: 1 hour Yield: 6 servings about 3 quarts Ingredients 4 ounces orzo pasta (uncooked) 1 teaspoon olive oil 1 carrot, chopped, or more to taste 1 rib celery, chopped 1/2 yellow onion (medium), chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano salt and ground black pepper to taste 1 bay leaf 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice 1 lemon, zested 6 ounces cooked chicken breast, chopped 1 large egg separated (just use the egg white for this recipe) optional 1 cup baby spinach leaves 1 lemon, sliced for garnish 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese Directions
ChefSecret: You’ll love the look of the egg white threads throughout the soup. It really upscales the whole offering making it ideal for a main course. Covid-19 Quip of the Day: “Does anyone else think Halloween was totally unnecessary this year. Afterall, I’ve been wearing a mask and eating candy for the last 7 months.” ------------------------------------------- Do you have a question or comment? Do you want to share a favorite recipe or pictures with our readers? Send your thoughts to ed@perspectives-la.com. All recipes and cooking tips are posted on our website https://www.perspectives-la.com/covid-19-survival-guide. ------------------------------------------- Here is wishing you the very best for the holidays. To you and everyone dear to you, be strong, be positive, stay well, stay safe and be kind welcoming in the holiday season. If you have a little extra in your pockets to share with others at this difficult time, please consider donating to Feeding America. Thanks for reading. #Soup #ChickenSoup #Orzo #LeTermeDelColloseo #HolidayRecipes #Entrees #Holidays2020 #QuarantineKitchen #Covid19 #FeedingAmerica #PerspectivesTheConsultingGroup ©Perspectives/The Consulting Group, Inc., 2020 The 2020 Holidays Recipe Collection How you doin’? Every day I get all sorts of food related emails; most people are asking for a recipe or ingredient sourcing information. But occasionally, I get some interesting information that I want to pass on to you. That’s the case with this Guide to Butter that I received from Gelson’s this morning. Gelson's is an upscale regional supermarket chain operating in Southern California. It operates service-oriented stores mostly in upmarket neighborhoods. The Mayfair Connection began years before Gelson's did. Estimates put the genesis of the chain sometime around 1929. In 1948, Arden Farms Company owned both Mayfair Markets and Van’s Markets. Arden created a new chain of stores: "Mayfair Markets", from the two existing chains. Arden-Mayfair gradually sold off most of the stores, as the market favored supermarket formats that were larger in size. Over time, all the larger, upscale Mayfair stores were renovated to become Gelson's. Gelson’s market is grocery store that my family has been shopping at since they first opened the store in Century City, California. I have a very close connection to Century City, which has nothing to do with butter—but it’s interesting anyway. The land on which Century City sits belonged to cowboy actor Tom Mix, who used it as a ranch. It later became the backlot of 20th Century Fox (now Disney), which still has its headquarters just to the southwest. In 1956, Spyros Skouras, who served as the President of 20th Century Fox and his nephew-in-law Edmond Herrscher, sometimes known as "the father of Century City", decided to repurpose the land for real estate development. The following year, in 1957, they commissioned a master-plan development from Welton Becket Associates, which was unveiled at a major press event on the "western" backlot later that year. As a young boy, I used to ride my bike to Western Street and sneak through the fence to watch them film cowboy movies. I used to dress up in my chaps and strap a holster on my hip and play cowboy with “real” cowboys—Giddyap! I was often invited to have lunch on the set with the cast and crew and even got put on a horse once or twice… didn’t I feel important? In 1961, after Fox suffered a string of expensive flops, culminating with the financial strain put on the studio by the very expensive production of Cleopatra, the film studio sold 180 acres to a developer and Alcoa, for $300 million ($5.4 billion in 2020 dollars). Now that’s a helluva lot of bread & butter. Now, here’s buttttter! If all the fats got together and held a popularity contest, butter would surely win hands down. Butter makes our baked goods tender, moist, and flaky. It pulls the flavors through our savory dishes. Sauces are lush with it and gravies are thick with it. Most importantly, good butter simply tastes wonderful — it gives a purpose to toast. And now is an especially thrilling time to be cooking and baking with butter. There are more butters than ever in our dairy case: Sweet, salty, cultured, European, goat, and ghee, just to name a few. Of course, while all that variety is inspiring, it can also be a little baffling. What’s the difference between all these butters, and what are we supposed to do with them? Here’s a list of all the major butter categories and how to put them to use in your kitchen. The good news, butter lovers and cooks, is that no single butter is perfect for everything, and every butter is special—so you might have to try them all. Sweet Cream Butter — Salted and Unsalted This is the butter most Americans have in their fridges. It’s made with sweet cream—meaning fresh pasteurized milk versus cultured (see below)—and per regulations, must be at least 80% butter fat. In its salted form, it’s great for finishing stuff: melt it and drizzle over popcorn, swirl it through your mashed potatoes—or drop a knob of it on your steak in the last minutes of cooking. If you’re baking or making a sauce, it’s better to use the unsalted variety because it gives you more control over flavor. With its high water content, it’s particularly good for choux pastry or cream puffs! Grass-Fed Butter Made from the milk of cows that feed on grass, this butter has a yellow hue that can vary in richness with the seasons—as the cows move from summer grass to winter hay. It has a fresh, pleasantly herbaceous flavor. Those grassy notes are harder to pick out once the butter is in foods, but if you’re making something like a beurre blanc, you may want to use a butter with a more neutral cream flavor. Is grass-fed butter good for you? It may have higher levels of Omega 3 Fatty Acids than conventional sweet-cream butters, but you’d have to eat an awful lot of butter to match benefits of other sources, like fish, nuts, and seeds. Ghee Ghee is a rendered butter, meaning it’s cooked to remove the water and milk solids—leaving pure, golden butter fat with a wonderful nutty flavor. What’s the difference between ghee and clarified butter? Basically, the cooking processes are very similar, but clarified butter doesn’t brown, so it has a more neutral flavor. Use ghee in your Middle Eastern and Eastern Asian dishes, like dal or curry, or for making butter sauces—like a lemony dip for lobster. It has a very high smoke point, so it’s also great for frying stuff. Bonus: It will keep in an airtight container in the cupboard for one month. European-Style Butter Although different countries and producers may have their own butter recipes, there is a consistent tradition throughout Europe: Butter is slowly churned until it achieves a butterfat content of at least 82 percent. It’s also allowed to ferment. This approach means that it melts faster, and it has a super-rich, lightly tangy flavor and a soft texture. For all those reasons, bakers prefer European-style butter. It makes pies flaky and cakes rise a little higher, and it gives laminated doughs, like croissants, a beautiful airy texture. The high butterfat also means less water, so it’s a good butter for pan searing a steak or a piece of fish. Cultured Butter A cultured butter is made either by allowing the cream to ferment or by adding live bacteria to it before it’s churned, much like yogurt. It often has a very high butterfat content, up around 86% depending on the producer. That gives it a silky mouthfeel and a rich, complex flavor—full of cream and yet slightly sour from the cultures. Again, the high butterfat equals less moisture: This butter will make your biscuits flakier, your cookies crisper, and the crumb of your cake more tender. And, with all those cultures, it may also be easier to digest! Goat Butter Made with milk from goats, this butter has a similar fat content to sweet-cream butter but is otherwise quite different. Goats don’t process their feed the same way cows do, so the butter is white, and it has a distinct flavor—it’s tart, like good yogurt, yet sweet and light. (One of the tasters called it “dessert butter!”) It generally comes salted and it has a low melting point, so it’s nice and soft. Use it like you would salted sweet-cream butter. Goat butter is also a great alternative for people who are allergic to cow’s milk or lactose intolerant: It’s lower in casein and easier to break down and digest than cow’s milk. Whipped Butter Whipped butter has air or nitrogen gas whipped through it, which makes it soft and fluffy. It’s considered healthier because—what with all that air—there’s less fat per tablespoon. (And by law, whipped butter only has to be 25% butterfat.) Whipped butter is too melty and foamy for cooking. Its superpower is spreadability, so it makes a great table butter—it’s not going to shred your toast! Serve it with muffins, baguettes, and sweet breads. ChefSecret: Whipped butter is easy to whip at home using a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Covid-19 Quip of the Day: “What did the sick parent make their kids for lunch? Mac and sneeze.” ------------------------------------------- Do you have a question or comment? Do you want to share a favorite recipe or pictures with our readers? Send your thoughts to ed@perspectives-la.com. All recipes and cooking tips are posted on our website https://www.perspectives-la.com/covid-19-survival-guide. ------------------------------------------- Here is wishing you the very best for the upcoming holidays. To you and everyone dear to you, be strong, be positive, stay well, stay safe and be kind welcoming in the holiday season. If you have a little extra in your pockets to share with others at this difficult time, please consider donating to Feeding America. Thanks for reading. #Baking #Butter #Ghee #ClarifiedButter #CulturedButter #Gelsons #HolidayRecipes #Holidays2020 #QuarantineKitchen #Covid19 #FeedingAmerica #PerspectivesTheConsultingGroup ©Perspectives/The Consulting Group, Inc., 2020 The 2020 Holidays Recipe Collection How you doin’? Over the years, so much has been written about pie. Even Shakespeare had something to say on the subject--Death by pie has been cemented in literary legend. Shakespeare killed off two characters in Titus Andronicus by baking them into a pie. And then there was Sweeney Todd, the fictional Victorian character who ran a London barber shop and disposed of his victims by baking them into pies. And don’t forget pies popping-up in many a nursery rhymes—Four and twenty blackbirds were baked in a pie in ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’, Simple Simon met a pie man in his eponymous rhyme and even Little Jack Horner stuck his thumb into a pie. A starring role… A pie in the face punctuated comedies throughout the early days of film. One of the earliest examples comes from Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson’s Mr. Flip in 1909. Mr. Flip follows the exploits of Flip (Ben Turpin), an abusive general store manager, who receives a pie to the face, after sexually harassing every woman he encounters. The cream pie offers the perfect physical representation of punishment. Not only were pies readily available, cooling on the windowsill of every home in the neighborhood, but also, they were visually dynamic, popping on screen in grainy black and white. But without a doubt, no film could match the gravitas of The Great Race’s finale. Reportedly, the pie scene used 4,000 pies at a cost of $18,000; the full scene ran 4 minutes and 20 seconds and cost about $200,000 to shoot in 1965. It’s hilarious! At some point between 1909 and 1974, the pie fight had become cliche, and like every other movie cliche, Mel Brooks lampooned it in his masterpiece, Blazing Saddles. Brooks even features a chef announcing the “great pie” fight. Now you level up your pie game—for either eating or *throwing—with ChefSecrets and techniques every professional pie maker knows. Read on to get the inside scoop on everything from making beautiful crusts to working with the fillings. 1. Keep Ingredients Cold Butter should be kept refrigerated until using; solid vegetable shortening can be stored in the freezer without freezing hard as a rock. Add ice cubes to a measuring cup and fill it with more water than you'll need; add ice-cold water to the pastry mixture a tablespoon at a time. Great pie starts with a great crust. 2. Refrigerate The Dough After Every Step Wrap and chill dough immediately after mixing so that the flour can absorb all the liquid. Chill it after rolling it out and lining the pie pan, to relax the dough and prevent it from shrinking in the oven. For double-crust pies, roll out the top crust and refrigerate it on a flat plate or parchment-lined sheet pan while you prepare the pie filling. 3. Handle The Dough As Little As Possible Try to patch cracks in your dough rather than re-rolling the crust. Over-handling makes the pastry tough. 4. Use As Little Flour As Possible When Rolling Out The Dough The pastry can absorb extra flour, which will also make it tough. After rolling out the dough, brush off loose flour with a pastry brush or gently brush it with the edge of a clean kitchen towel. 5. Bake Plain Crusts Or Filled Pies In A Hot Oven To Set The Crust's Structure Most recipes call for a high initial temperature and then a reduced oven temperature for the rest of the baking time. For quiches, custard pies, and cream pies, it's a good idea to pre-bake the crust, a.k.a. "blind baking" the crust. 6. Vent Double-Crust Pies Cut slits in the top crust or use decorative cutters. This allows steam to escape, which is especially important for fruits with high moisture content. You can also create a lattice top for the pie. 7. Use Aluminum Foil Or "Pie Shields" To Protect The Crust Loosely fold two-inch-wide strips of foil around the edges of the crust to keep it from getting too dark during the long bake time. 8. Bake Pies On The Lowest Oven Rack On A Preheated Sheet Pan This helps prevent soggy bottom crusts. A rimmed pan also prevents juicy fruit pies from bubbling over onto your oven floor. 9. Bake Your Pies Long Enough Fruit pies, in order to thicken properly, need to be hot enough for the filling to boil. Custard pies require delicate handling: if you over-bake them, they can crack, pull away from the crust, and "weep," or lose moisture. Custard pies are done when a knife tip inserted an inch from the center comes out clean (the center will firm up as the pie cools). 10. Let Pies Cool Before Serving The filling needs time to set or else the pie will be runny. Bake your pies well in advance so that the filling has time to set. A warm pie does not make for easy slicing. If your family prefers warm pie, cover the pie loosely with foil and warm in a preheated 300⁰F for 15-20 minutes before serving. Fruit pies should cool at least four hours before slicing; custard pies should cool for two hours before serving or being refrigerated. Practice makes perfect! These ChefSecrets for making the perfect pies will get you to the next level. Serving Great Pies Make your pie extra decadent by serving it with a dollop of whipped cream. For a boost of flavor, add two tablespoons of sugar (or more to taste) and teaspoon of vanilla extract to every two cups of heavy whipping cream—or make it even merrier with a splash of liqueur! For a delicious sweet-tart topping, use half sour cream (not low-fat) and heavy cream. A scoop of ice cream is another way to serve a great fruit pie. ChefSecrets: Please don’t tell anybody, but in high school I started a business--Hit Man—We Deliver! For $25 we would throw a pie at anyone you wanted. We scored on several hundred people, before the police intervened and shut us down. The mayor had no sense of humor. Covid-19 Quip of the Day: “Because of the Covid-19 Pandemic, Finland just closed its borders again. You know what that means. No one will be crossing the finish line.” ------------------------------------------- Do you have a question or comment? Do you want to share a favorite recipe or pictures with our readers? Send your thoughts to ed@perspectives-la.com. All recipes and cooking tips are posted on our website https://www.perspectives-la.com/covid-19-survival-guide. ------------------------------------------- Here is wishing you the very best for the upcoming holidays. To you and everyone dear to you, be strong, be positive, stay well, stay safe and be kind welcoming in the holiday season. If you have a little extra in your pockets to share with others at this difficult time, please consider donating to Feeding America. Thank you for reading. #Dessert #Baking #Pies #BestPies #TheGreatRace #SweenyTodd #HolidayRecipes #Holidays2020 #QuarantineKitchen #Covid19 #FeedingAmerica #PerspectivesTheConsultingGroup ©Perspectives/The Consulting Group, Inc., 2020 The 2020 Holidays Recipe Collection How you doin’? It’s time to start the count down for Christmas with this classic holiday drink and get everyone in the holiday spirit. Get ready for the holiday season the right way and update your beverage menu with this festive cocktail–Santa Hat Martini. Combining tart cranberries, sweet vanilla, and the tropical flavor of coconut, makes this one of Santa's favorite cocktail! Lay back, and pretend you're soaking up the sun instead of shoveling the snow. Prep time: 5 minutes Yields: 1 cocktail Ingredients 1/2 ounce coconut syrup, Torani, plus extra for garnishing Confectioner’s sugar Grated coconut 4 ounces cranberry juice 2 ounces coconut rum 1 ounce vanilla vodka Directions
ChefSecret: Torani is a San Francisco company. They specialize in flavored syrups ranging from the Classic Vanilla to Toasted Sesame. The company was founded in 1925 in San Francisco's North Beach by Rinaldo and Ezilda Torre, who immigrated from Italy. The couple coined the “world's first flavored latte” and brought popularity to the classic Italian soda to North Beach in SFO. Covid-19 Quip of the Day: “How times have changed—Pretty wild how we used to eat birthday cake after someone blew all over it. Those were the good old days.” ------------------------------------------- Do you have a question or comment? Do you want to share a favorite recipe or pictures with our readers? Send your thoughts to ed@perspectives-la.com. All recipes and cooking tips are posted on our website https://www.perspectives-la.com/covid-19-survival-guide. ------------------------------------------- Here is wishing you the very best for the upcoming holidays. To you and everyone dear to you, be strong, be positive, stay well, stay safe and be kind welcoming in the holiday season. If you have a little extra in your pockets to share with others at this difficult time, please consider donating to Feeding America. #Cocktail #HappyHour #Martini #SantaHatMartini #HolidayRecipes #NationalBrownieDay #Holidays2020 #QuarantineKitchen #Covid19 #FeedingAmerica #PerspectivesTheConsultingGroup ©Perspectives/The Consulting Group, Inc., 2020 |
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