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Eating Snack Food – Yum!

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By Diane Forrest

With the recent Super Bowl game, you may be surprised to learn how much food was consumed during that one sporting event.  According to statistics, Americans will eat 30 million pounds of snacks on Super Bowl Sunday. Those snacks break down to 11.2 million pounds of potato chips, 8.2 million pounds of tortilla chips, 4.3 million pounds of pretzels, 3.8 million pounds of popcorn and 2.5 million pounds of nuts. Viewers will also consume more than 1.23 billion chicken wings during Super Bowl weekend, according to the National Chicken Council’s 2013 Wing Report. Chicken wings are not the only junk food on the palates of Super Bowl viewers. They will be reaching for pizza, millions of slices of them. According to PizzaMarketplace.com, two of the largest pizza chains report that on Super Bowl Sunday sales for pizza will skyrocket. Pizza Hut will sell more than two million pizzas or 16 million slices and Domino’s will sell 11 million slices.

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I am giving you these stats to let you know that the Super Bowl is the start of National Snack Food Month.  The super bowl is the second largest food fest, following Thanksgiving, and people consume around 1200 calories in snacks during the game.  Normally, when I think of the super bowl, I think of the commercials, the half time show, and all the great food.  Football is the last thing on my mind.  So, it makes sense that we start the snack food month with a bang.  Also during the month of February, there is not much to do other than stay inside.  It’s usually too cold and wet to go out, and there are so many colds and germs floating around.   Newswise.com lists these activities that occur during the month of February:

Watch an old movie on TV (53 percent)

Eat a favorite snack food (45 percent)

Call an old friend (45 percent)

Reread a favorite book (35 percent)

Bake cookies (34 percent)

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Another favorite activity is snacking, adding on that extra layer of heat to your body.  When I think of snacks, I think of chips and cookies.  However, I have been trying to eat healthier, and have been munching on celery sticks.  Even when eating my favorite thing, chocolate, I have been eating the dark chocolate covered raisins.    You can still snack, but choose healthier foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, even low salt, and low fat popcorn.

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You don't have to be perfect; even I have to have some McDonald's French fries or puffy Cheetos every now and then.  But you can start off slow, and incorporate some healthy choices along with some of your favorite snacks, and before long, who knows, you may just want the healthy food.

Diane, 

We decided to be healthier this year during the super bowl and enjoyed these two platters:

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National TV Dinner Day - 2012 Update

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By Chef Diane

Growing up dinner time at my house wasn't the greatest, that’s why every time my parents went out, and we always loved to have TV dinners.  We always love the little kids TV dinners that had hot dogs, and hamburgers...they were such a treat for us.

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The first TV dinner was invented in 1953 by Swanson’s.  The purpose was to get rid of some turkeys that they over bought.  The turkey dinner came in a metal tray with dressing, frozen peas and sweet potatoes.  They were heated at 425 F for 25 minutes, and would easily fit on a TV tray.  In the first year of production, Swanson sold the dinners for 98 cents, and expected to only sell around 5000, however the popularity of these dinners exploded, and over 10 million were sold.

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Today, these microwavable dinners are sold in dishes that are safe for use in the microwave. You can find nearly any type of meal already prepared in a frozen dinner from the original turkey and dressing, to chicken, to seafood and pastas.  My husband would love to shop in the frozen food aisle and choose various dinners; however the picture would always look better than the meal inside.  That never stopped him from trying more and more.  I personally like the mac and cheese dinners, and the frozen pizza, and I have also tried the lasagna and other pasta dishes.  These make the perfect meal for a quick bite, or when you don't want to take the time to cook from scratch.

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Today is National TV Dinner day.  The term “TV Dinner” is now synonymous with any prepackaged, frozen meal that requires little preparation and contains an entire single-serving meal. Modern-day TV dinners can be cooked in the microwave (instead of the oven) and include gourmet recipes as well as organic and vegetarian dishes.   Although they are no longer called TV dinners, you can still pick one up and cook it in your microwave and enjoy it while you are watching your favorite show.  So stop by your freezer section and pick up a TV dinner tonight and relive your youth.  Or, just get out of cooking for tonight.

Bake for Family Fun Month

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By Chef Diane,

The world has gotten so high tech lately that families are spending more time apart than they are together.  Kids are playing their video games; mom is texting and dad in the recliner watching the game or a movie.  While these activities are fun and entertaining, spending time with your family is also just as entertaining, and important.  Did you know that February is Bake for Family Fun Month?  I have been doing some searching on this subject and found out that homebaking.org has some recommendation’s for this month.  The first week is to just get started baking, slowly introducing your family to the idea of baking.  Week 2 is baking for your valentine, the third week is for baking history and traditions and the final week is baking for others.

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When my son was growing up we would bake together often, he grew up loving to cook and it ended up being a beneficial activity since his wife is a stranger in the kitchen.  As I was thinking what would be a good idea for you to try with your family, I first thought of cookies, which is a simple and fun way to spend the evening, also tasty once you are done. But then I thought, why not make a real family night.  Friday nights at my house were always pizza and movie nights, so I found a great recipe to share with you for baking your own family pizza.  I would recommend making the dough the day before to let it set.

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Pizza Dough

• 6 cups flour
• 3 cups warm water (temp. about 115 degrees F) Add some olive oil or other vegetable oil to the water (2-3 Tablespoons). Standard vegetable oil is fine. Use Extra Virgin Olive Oil for a little more flavor. Optional: Replace a half-cup or so of the water with milk. It makes for a more tender crust without sacrificing texture
• 1 tbsp kosher salt (coarse sea salt is good too. If you're using table salt, reduce by half (not positive, but it sounds about right).
• 1 1/2 tbsp instant dry yeast (I buy yeast in a big bag, so I don't know how many of those packets this translates to)
• In a large bowl, mix water, oil (optional: milk), yeast, and salt. Add flour and stir. You may find that mixing it with wet hands is easier than stirring. I don't recommend breaking out the mixer for this, as it doesn't have to be kneaded. You'll be making a mess for only a few minutes' work.
• This is very wet dough, so it will not form into a ball. It should not be liquid, though. It should be sticky, but able to stand in lump without slumping into the sides of the bowl. If it's too dry (forms a tight ball), add a little water and massage it into the dough with wet hands until it loosens up. It is not necessary to knead the dough if you can leave it in the fridge overnight or for a few days.

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Cover lightly (not airtight: use plastic wrap). Stick it in the fridge for 2 hours before using. For best results, make this a day ahead and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Or let it sit in the fridge for a few days. It will keep for more than a week, and the longer it sits, the more flavor and chewiness (gluten) it develops. The slower rise in the fridge prevents the gluten from breaking down as the action of the yeast expands it. I have had very good success with this: it has a less "fluffy" texture than rising at room temp.

Pizza Sauce

SAUCE:

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 6 fluid ounces water
• 1/2 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Directions:

Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion until tender. Stir in tomato paste and water. Season with sugar, salt, black pepper, garlic powder, basil, oregano, marjoram, cumin, chili powder and red pepper flakes. Simmer 15 to 20 minutes.

Putting together the pizza:

Heat the oven to 500 degrees F (yes, very hot). If it's hotter, you may scorch the dough a little, but that's actually a good thing in my book. Most professional pizza ovens run at over 700 deg F and some of the wood-fired ovens hit 900 deg F!

• Flour the work surface liberally. Scrape the dough out onto the work surface. Remember, this dough is very sticky, it will almost pour out of its bowl.
• Divide the dough evenly. For 18" pizzas, I cut the dough into three lumps. They are about 1lb. each.
• Flour the dough and your hands and form the dough into balls. Forming a ball is a challenge because the dough is so sticky and the lumps are usually misshapen. Put a little flour on your hands, take two opposite sides of a lump and stretch them out, then fold them back over the center of the lump and push them together with your fingers. Rotate the lump 90 degrees and repeat for the two sides perpendicular to the first stretch. You'll now have a vaguely square lump. Pick up the dough, flip it over, and and curl the edges underneath and into the center until it makes a fairly even ball. It will "tighten" a little. Flip the ball over and squeeze together the loose edges that you had tucked under. Flour the work surface and let the dough rest. Let it sit until the oven is preheated. It will do a little rising again. To keep the dough from getting a dry crust, you can rub a little oil on it, or let it rest under a damp towel.

After the rest time:

• If you're using a pan, coat the bottom and sides with oil (olive oil will do, but it's cheaper to use veggie or canola or similar). If you're using a pizza peel and a stone, liberally cover the peel with corn meal or dried bread crumbs. This will allow the dough to come off the peel as if on "ball bearings."
• Flour a dough ball and put it on a floured work surface with a little room to work with. Flatten the dough with your fingers, trying to leave a little bit at the edge for a crust. Try to push from the middle out to the edges, all around. Every so often, flour the top, scrape up the edge, flip it over, flour it some more, and keep stretching.
• With your fingers together, carefully pat the dough, stretching it as you go. It may be necessary to flip it over now and then. It helps to have a dough scraper to help to keep it from getting stuck to the work surface (did I mention this dough is wet and sticky?). Use flour liberally. If the dough is cold, it will be easier to pick it up by the edges, stretching very gently.  When it's close to the size of your peel or pan, flour your hands and pick up the dough by working your hands underneath it (again, gently). Try to get the dough to drape over the back of your hand, so that your fingers don't poke through. Quickly lift the dough and place it on the peel/pan. You can finish some of the stretching here, if you need to. If rips develop, try stretching dough over from thicker parts toward the problem spot. Squeeze together the edges of the rips to mend them.
• Top with whatever ingredients you like

Baking:

1. For a pan, just slide it into your oven.
2. For peel and stone, pick it up and shake it a few times to try to loosen up the pie. If you were very liberal with the cornmeal, it should start moving around very easily. Put the end of the peel near the back end of the stone, tilted slightly downward. Very gently shake the pie off of the peel, moving the peel back as the pie slides off. If it comes off in a total mess, have pizza delivered and try a pan the next time.
3. Check it after 6 minutes, but it can take 8-10 minutes for it to get nicely browned. You may want to rotate the pan halfway through.
4. If using a peel, slide it under the pie and transfer to a cutting surface. If using a pan, take it out and use a spatula or something to slide the pie out of the pan onto the cutting surface. If it's stuck (to the pan or to the stone), work around the stuck area gently and get it loose. It may tear a bit, but it will still be edible.

After you finish your pizza...try topping it off with some homemade brownies and ice cream while you are playing monopoly or shoots and ladders.  Have fun with it and start a new family tradition.

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Pizza with Everything Except

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By Diane Forrest,

When my son was smaller we would always start the weekend with pizza and movie night.  He started off with just a cheese pizza, and then as he got older he wanted pepperonis added.  These days he orders pizza with everything.  He recently took a trip with his friend to Atlanta Georgia to watch the Braves play baseball.  They stopped at a pizza place called Big Pie in the Sky Pizzeria .  It was featured on the food channel as home of the biggest pizza.  They have a pizza called the Carnivore, which has everything but the kitchen sink on it.  You can click on the site to see how big they are, the video compares a slice of pizza to the size of a small baby.  My son and his friend only ordered a "small" and became "pizza drunk".

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Today is National Pizza with Everything Except Anchovies Day.  Pizza has been part of the European diet since the Stone Age when it was baked beneath the stones of the fire. Though it was first created by the Greeks, it was the Italians who truly made it famous. Italian pizza chefs often season their flat bread pizzas with a variety of different toppings.  Anchovies are a small oily fish that is high in sodium.  They are used in North America as a pizza topping or in a ceasar salad.    I was watching a video clip the other day taken in California.  A whale had come straight up to the top, mouth open, and nearly got a surfer in his mouth.  He was catching anchovies and they were swimming to the surface to get away from the whale.  The seagulls overhead were watching all this, so what the whale didn’t get, the birds swooped down to catch.

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So today, order your pizza without Anchovies, leave something for the whales and seagulls to eat.