It has been a crazy week with grades from the Fall Semester due this week and personally I was screaming for vegan ice cream. However, when I could finally sit down to write I found that I was less interested in writing about any of our ice cream products or even our Indoor Outdoor Portable Grill. Rather my friends and I kept talking about our Infusion Water Bottle. So I is for Infusion Water Bottle
One of the things that I love about this bottle is that regardless of whether you are a person who likes to sip what they are drinking (like my wife) or chug (like me), this bottle works for everyone. The strainer, which comes with the bottle, allows you to position what you are infusing in ways that do not interfere with your drinking, whether you are a sipper or a chugger. If you are a sipper, the fruit or herbs you are infusing go below the strainer. If you are a chugger, then that which you are infusing goes above the strainer. The idea is that regardless of how you choose to drink your beverages, this water bottle works for you.
Read moreGrowing up my mother taught me one way to make pasta. You boil the water, you put the pasta in for the time on the box, and then you drain it and pour the sauce over it. We won’t talk about her sauce here. The only time you did something different with the pasta was if you were making the boxed macaroni and cheese, in which case you added the powdered cheese, butter, and milk and stirred. That was how I was raised to think about pasta. My only other memories of my mother and pasta was when she was making a noodle kugel, but then she still made her egg noodles the same way or kasha varnikas in which she boiled the noodles and added them to the kasha. Overall, her basic approach was boil, drain, and use.
Read moreWhoo hoo! I am so excited that I have made it through the alphabet one more time. I am sure my fellow blogger Julia Fox is going to miss seeing me post each week, but I am not sure I am ready to do it a third time, well at least not yet. Blogging my way through the alphabet food wise has been fun and I have learned about some interesting dishes and foods along the way. Today, I am going to end with one of my favorite foods Ziti. Baked ziti, for me, is so comforting. It is not because it is something I grew up with fond childhood memories of, as my mom was not a good pasta cooker. Well, her pasta was fine, it was the sauce that was memorable and not in a good way.
Ziti like elbow macaroni and any pasta with a whole in the middle catches my attention because it provides a tunnel for all the sauce to travel in and through. When I get a tray of baked ziti with the sauce, sausage, and cheeses melted throughout, it just makes my mouth water
Read moreAs I sit here sucking down another 28 ounces of water flavored with slices of lemons and limes, it was obvious the focus of my blog was going to be water. It was not just my being intentional about drinking half my body weight in water, which inspired this week’s blog, but also the messages about water I received from my spiritual addiction to the Food Network and Cooking Channel. So many things we do in the kitchen and in the preparation of food include water. We use water to cleanse our dishes and cooking utensils whether it is in a dishwasher or when washing them by hand. We use water to wash fruits and vegetables. We use water to soak beans, to rinse grains such as quinoa, or to rinse the liquid off canned beans. We use water to cook so many things including potatoes, rice, quinoa, pasta, beans and so much more. We use water to make ice cubes for drinks or to shock vegetables or seafood after blanching or precooking them. We use water in making simple syrups and in making a wide diversity of beverages, especially those that might cool us off on a hot summer day (lemonade, iced tea, iced coffee, etc.). There is not a meal prepared in the kitchen, which does not include water, yet rarely do we give water much thought or consideration.
Read morePerhaps it was because I spent a good part of the day in the kitchen baking loaves of bread, that I began to think about why the process of bread making is so spiritual for me. With most of the breads that I bake, it always starts with a little yeast mixed with water and sugar. Water, in most spiritual traditions is life giving and spiritually cleansing. Conversely, it has been suggested that as people evolve spiritually, they have less craving and a lower tolerance for sugar. Perhaps, that is why when preparing the yeast mixture there is a significant amount of water and yeast, but very little sugar.
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