Strawberry Hill Confectionary’s Whirl-Ease Tea
Some people have a foot fetish. I have a tea fetish. I love loose leaf teas, but sometimes I don’t have time or the patience to wait for tea to steep. I’ve seen a lot of oddball inventions, but tea on a stick? Yep. It’s called Whirl-Ease Tea and it’s quick: Just dip the stick in boiling water, stir around, and you’ve got yourself a cup of tea in under a minute. (We’ve clocked it.) Even better, it’s made by Strawberry Hill Confectionary, a green and gluten-free company, that’s come up with sweetened tea “lollipops,” so there’s no need to add more sugar. Whirl-Ease tea pops come in jasmine, green tea, black lemon, mango, and peach. If you need a little more sweetness, they also make clover honey on a stick as well as a leaf-shaped maple syrup pop....
Read MoreCarmine's Gnocchi with Bolognese – Pre-Marathon Dinner
By Chef Glenn Rolnick(Serves 2-4) Ingredients: 2 oz blended oil 1 oz sliced garlic 2 oz Spanish onions finely chopped 1.5 oz carrots peeled finely chopped 1 oz celery stalks cleaned finely chopped 1/4 tsp salt & pepper mix 1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary 2 tsp chopped fresh oregano 2 tsp chopped fresh basil 2 tsp chopped fresh parsley 1 small bay leaf 8 oz ground beef 2 oz loose sweet Italian sausage 2.5 oz Carmine’s red wine 3 oz veal stock 6 oz of a can whole peeled tomatoes, 2 oz of the juice 1 lb fresh gnocchi pasta [fresh potato and pasta dumpling] Procedure: Heat oil in 8” in sauté pan on high heat Add garlic & brown Add onions, carrots, celery, half of the salt & pepper mix & brown Add oregano, rosemary, basil, parsley, bay...
Read MoreRouge Tomate's Chocolate Banana Napoleon
By Pastry Chef James DiStefano(Makes 1) Ingredients for the Banana Bread: 3 1/2 sticks butter 15 oz sugar ¼ cup + 1 tsp. non-fat yogurt (fage, pink label) 4 eggs 17 ½ oz. all purpose flour 1 ½ tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. baking powder 1 ½ tsp. kosher salt 20 oz. (about 3-4 bananas) ripe banana (cut in to chunks) ½ cup toasted sunflower seeds Preparation: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit2. Lightly spray cake pan with pam, then lightly dust bottom and all sides with granulated sugar. Set aside.3. Combine butter and sugar and place in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Turn mixer on to medium speed.4. Continue to mix until butter and sugar are light and fluffy. This will take roughly 5-7 minutes.5. Turn off machine and scrape down the...
Read MoreHalloween Cookie Pan
It’s almost Halloween — my favorite holiday. Who doesn’t love to dress up and eat lots of candy? But if you’re feeling too old to trick or treat, or just lazy, you can still indulge your sweet tooth. Buying a sack of snack-sized candy doesn’t take much effort. If you’re a baker, you can make homemade, Halloween-shaped cookies. If you’re not a baker, you can use ready-made dough. There’s a variety of molds, each with 12 scary shapes, including a ghost, candy corn, and a tombstone. The pan’s even easier to use than individual cookie cutters. It’s a nonstick pan, so the cookies are easy to pop out. You can serve as is or decorate with frosting. They’re perfect to pass out to trick-or-treaters or to bring to a Halloween party. Now, I just need to find the perfect...
Read MoreHalloween Treats & Eats
Liddabit Sweets Saturdays at the Fort Greene Brooklyn Flea Market (In the schoolyard at the corner of Lafayette & Clermont.) www.liddabitsweets.com Ever had a handmade candy bar? Neither had I until I stopped by the Brooklyn Flea Market. Liddabit’s candy bars make ordinary Halloween candy seem like child’s play. Nobody’s debating the merits of a Snickers or Milky Way Bar, but they’re not the healthiest or most original snacks. Liddabit’s gourmet bars are all made by hand with local ingredients. For Halloween, they’ve created a stellar Pecan bar and Pumpkin Pie bar. The pecan bar has a pie crust bottom topped with pecan dulce de leche, bourbon ganache, and a coating of dark chocolate. It’s intense. The pumpkin pie is made with spiced pumpkin caramel ganache, marshmallow fluff, a pie crust base, and enrobed in dark chocolate. Grown...
Read MorePorter House's Skirt Steak with Chimichurri Glaze
By Executive Chef Michael Lomonaco (Serves 4) Ingredients: 2-1/2 pounds skirt steak 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 large ripe tomatoes cut into wedges 1 small Bermuda onion, thinly sliced 1 bunch watercress, washed and dried, and coarsely chopped Chimichurri sauce II: 1 cup olive oil ¼ cup white vinegar 1 cup flat leaf parsley leaves 1 small white onion, diced, about ¼ cup 2 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped ¼ teaspoon red chili flakes 1 ½ teaspoons dry oregano sea salt black pepper Procedure: 1. Combine all the chimichurri ingredients in the bowl of a food processor or blender process for 1 minute, and set aside. Season the sauce with salt and pepper, and taste. The chimichurri may be prepared three days in advance and refrigerates well. Kept refrigerated it will last for up to a week. 2. Cook...
Read MoreDay One – 5:31 p.m.
Not most the productive day. I’m not pointing any fingers, but I really miss my coffee. I do have to admit that I loved my pineapple, apple, & mint juice. My only regret is how fast I drank it. I keep eyeing tomorrow’s juice and having to close the refrigerator door. Pacing is an issue with juices. You take a few big sips and it’s gone. Dinner’s going to be a tough one. I’m impulse juicing, so I still have to face a restaurant, a menu, cocktails, and look the other way. I will be bringing my hyper-healthy dinner to the restaurant in my bag. No, I don’t care if that’s tacky. I can’t bear to watch others eat and not participate. Even if my dinner is fennel salad and dill...
Read MoreDay One – 2:27 PM
Note to self: Next time, clean out your fridge before you do a cleanse. And the counters. I almost ate a stray M & M. I had it in my hand and then reality set in. Don’t even look inside your fridge. Mustard and onions are started to seem appetizing on their own. And definitely don’t have rice krispy treats sitting around. And let me pose this question: Is life without coffee really a life at...
Read MoreRestaurant Girl – On A Cleanse
I used to roll my eyes when I heard the word “cleanse.” Cleanse, what for? Why deprive yourself of steak, lamb chops, seafood, salty, crunchy french fries, dark chocolate, and a good cocktail. To be honest, I’ve always been a little jealous of people’s willpower to resist restaurants, solid foods, coffee, and wine. I surrender at the sight of a menu or glittery stemware or even a warm bread basket. You’d think by now I’d have some self-control or even some cynicism about the glories of food. Nope. I still get just as excited about pizza, peanut butter, caramel apples, and ice cream as I did when I was little. Only these days, I get really excited about a great cassoulet or uni sushi or homemade soba crowned with pork belly or Grand Marnier souffle. But I ate one...
Read MoreRub Away Bar
I love garlic. It boosts the flavor of any dish, but really is delicious all by itself. Unfortunately, it’s not much fun to cook with since the smell lingers on your fingers for days on end. Washing your hands repeatedly does little to kill the smell. But washing your hands with this Rub A Way bar does. Instead of suds, think stainless steel to get rid of the pungent odor of garlic. Or onions, fish, or anything else that smells slightly unpleasant. Rub A Way’s even shaped like a bar of soap, so it looks right at home next to your sink. CrateandBarrel.com,...
Read MoreTater Tots on the Rise
It’s too soon to declare tater tots a trend, but we’ve noticed them surfacing on menus all over town. It makes sense with all the fried chicken, biscuits, and bacon. Maybe some chefs were getting bored of french fries, or they wandered through the freezer aisle and got inspired to reinvent this frozen finger food. Tater tots are really just bite-sized hash browns, or as the Australians say, “potato pom-poms.” We found some creative, low and highbrow spins on this comfort food classic, like pork belly studded tots at Dylan Prime or jalapeno-bacon at Heartland Brewery, or a classic tot at Crif Dogs. Crif Dogs 113 St. Marks Place 212-614-2728 Crif Dogs’ annex — the not-so-secret PDT [Please Don’t Tell] cocktail lounge — hogs most of the attention for their cocktails and deep-fried dogs. But the tater tots...
Read More5 Reasons to Visit Foxwoods this Fall
Where do chefs go after New York? Recently, a number of them have resurfaced at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. It’s a little like a recession-friendly Vegas minus the airfare. Chef Kevin Long worked at Park Avenue Cafe before turning up at Shrine at the MGM casino, while Chris Shea spent time at David Burke before DB Prime. If you’ve never dined at Radius, Michael Schlow’s highly acclaimed Boston restaurant, you might want to head to Foxwoods to eat at his new spot, Alta Strada. Not a bad day idea for a day trip. Alta Strada’s Spaghettini Pomodoro By Executive Chef Michael Schlow (Serves 1) Ingredients: 2oz Extra Virgin Olive Oil 11oz Milled Tomatoes sliced garlic (11 slices) 4.5oz spaghettini Salt Pepper Crushed Red Pepper Flake Sugar 1oz chopped Italian Parsley Procedure: Place olive oil and garlic in...
Read MoreWine Label Remover
How many times have you fallen in love with a wine and forgotten the name of the bottle? Maybe you were a tad too tipsy or it was impossible to peel the label off the damn bottle. That makes it difficult to remember which wines are exceptional and which aren’t worth buying again. This wine label remover makes it easy to keep track of your favorites. Just remove the back of the clear sticker, rub it over the label, and the laminated label peels right off. (You can even keep a few labels in your purse.) Now you can start a wine journal to keep track of labels and wine notes about each varietal and vineyard you taste. I think we should start a little wine club of our own, so sign up for the weekly newsletter (in the...
Read MoreQ & A with Anita Lo
2009 hasn’t been the best year for chef Anita Lo. Her Asian barbecue spot, Bar Q, as well as the Rickshaw Dumpling Bar on Eighth Street shuttered this year. And just this summer, a fire shut down Annisa, Lo’s highly noted, Asian-fusion restaurant in Greenwich Village. But Anita Lo’s not one to call it quits. She proved that recently when she appeared on Top Chef Masters. She’s forging ahead with a cookbook, plans to reopen Annisa late fall, and even leading culinary tours through South Africa. Single/Married/Divorced (What’s the latest?)Seeing someone… You were recently eliminated from Top Chef Masters following the buffet lunch challenge. What went wrong during that challenge? Is it different to cook on tv or are you not thinking about the cameras while you’re in the kitchen? Coming from a small, fine dining restaurant, buffets are...
Read MoreBia Garden – Reviewed
*** Three Stars Address: 154 Orchard St., btwn. Stanton & Rivington Sts. Phone: (212)780-0100 Cuisine: Vietnamese street food Vibe: Hush hush backyard beer garden Occasion:; Group dinner; Beer binges; LES dining. Hours: Dinner; Seven days a week, Sun-Thu, 5p.m-12a.m., Sat & Sun,5p.m.-2a.m. Don’t Miss Dish: Crispy pork belly; Duck nem sausage; Baked whole fish. Average Price: Appetizers, $10, Entrees, $15, No dessert. Reservations: No reservations accepted. Cash only.Capsule: An exotic beer oasis on the Lower East Side. Think La Esquina by way of Vietnam and you’ve got Bia Garden, which recently opened on the Lower East Side. If you’re not the kind of eater that hunts down restaurants, you might miss it. But it’s worth discovering. There’s a dinky grill out front, the kind you’d find in someone’s backyard in the suburbs. Step down a flight of stairs...
Read MoreLandmarc's Salmon with Ratatuouille & Olive Tapenade
By Chef/Owner Marc Murphy(Serves 4) For Ratatouille 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1 small red onion, large dice 2 cloves garlic, chopped 1 red bell pepper, large dice 1 small eggplant, large dice 1 zucchini, large dice 1 yellow squash, large dice 1 28-ounce can peeled crushed tomatoes A bouquet garni of 2 sprigs fresh thyme, 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, 1 bay leaf kosher salt freshly ground black pepper For Salmon 4 6-ounce salmon fillets, skin on 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil kosher salt freshly ground black pepper 1/4 cup tapenade (see recipe) Preparation:Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat Add onions and garlic, cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Add bell pepper and eggplant, cook until softened, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Add zucchini and squash, cook until tender, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes and bouquet...
Read MoreYerba Buena Perry – Reviewed
**** — Four Stars Address: 1 Perry St., at Greenwich AvenuePhone: (212)620-0808Cuisine: Modern Latin cooking Vibe: Sleek, lively West Village haunt Occasion: Group dinner; Casual date; Night out. Hours: Dinner; Mon-Wed, 5p.m..-11:30p.m., Thu-Sat, 5p.m.-2a.m, Sun, 5p.m.-2a.m.Don’t Miss Dish: Manchego croquetes; Tilapia tacos; Lechon (Roasted suckling pig); Watermelon fries: Churros.Drink: Mezcal MaidFinish With: Cinnamon-dusted churros with dulce de leche & chocolate sauce Average Price: Appetizers, $11, Entrees, $25, Dessert, $9.Reservations: Reservations recommended. Cheat Sheet:Drink the: Mezcal MaidNibble On: Manchego croquetes, tilapia tacos, flounder limeno cevicheEat: Lechon (Roasted suckling pig)Finish With: Churros with dulce de leche & chocolate dipping sauces Capsule: Julian Medina on the rise in Greenwich Village You never really have a great meal at a bad restaurant. Did you ever notice that? Chef Julian Medina has had his share of restaurant successes, but Yerba Buena Perry is his...
Read MoreCheck out My Book – Try This
