Blog Archives
Cheat Code: Roasting Jack O’lantern Pumpkin Seeds
It’s that time of year again. It’s almost Halloween, which means it’s time for witches, ghosts, goblins, and jack o’lanterns! Pumpkins and jack o’lanterns are some of the best Halloween decorations because they look nice and fun, but are also food! That’s right, all that gloop you pull out of your pumpkin to carve it has a bonus snack hidden within. Pumpkin seeds! Pumpkin seeds are a good snack because they’re a good source of protein, fiber, vitamin E and vitamin B. They also contain the good fats that can help lower cholesterol. So you could definitely think twice before just throwing all those seeds out. But before eating them you need to roast them.
Augh! I didn’t know you were gonna kill it!
Quick Recipe: Sesame Pancakes
Pancake recipes tend to call for some sort of fat in the form of oil or butter, to keep the batter moist as it cooks. This recipe substitutes the regular vegetable/canola oil and uses sesame oil. If you’ve never had it before, it has a dark, rustic flavor and smells absolutely amazing, like pure concentrated sesame cookies. You can generally find it in every Asian market, and even most supermarkets now stock it, though it tends to be fairly expensive in regular stores. If you’re concerned about price, you can easily use oil blends, where its cut with canola oil. It keeps the same delicious smell and flavor, but is just a bit lower in concentration. The pancakes themselves taste like sesame cookies and have a nice enough zing to stand up against syrup.
Quick Recipe: Grilled Garlic Naan
For those of you coming to this recipe after seeing our cooking demo at the Long Island Garlic Festival this past weekend, welcome! We’re glad you liked our demo/free samples enough to try making this recipe yourself. I hope you’ll check out and try some of our other recipes as well.
Most people’s experience with naan is from eating it in Indian restaurants. Naan is a leavened flatbread that originated in Asia. Traditionally it is baked in a clay oven called a tandoor, but since we, and I’m assuming most of you, don’t have a tandoor we’ve taken to cooking it on the grill. And if you don’t have a grill, or the weather isn’t conducive to grilling outdoors, you can also use a cast iron grill pan. Trust me – you’re going to want to find a way to make this naan. It’s garlicky, and buttery, and delicious. And it goes great with chicken tikka.
Quick Recipe: Homemade Fried Mac ‘n’ Cheese Bites
Of all the ridiculous “hey let’s fry that!” foods that popped up over the past decade or two, mac ‘n’ cheese bites is my favorite. They have the cheesy, creamy goodness of macaroni and cheese, but self-contained in a nice crunchy package. The salt in the batter and as a garnish brings out that cheese flavor even more so.
Obviously this does require some prep in advance. Give yourself an hour since these need to sit in the fridge to firm up for that long. OR if you want to be crafty, make a bunch of mac ‘n’ cheese ahead of time, stick it in the fridge, and enjoy these whenever you want at a later time! The longest part is making the original macaroni and cooling it together, so if you already have it congealed in your refrigerator, you can pop ’em out and cook up a batch in like 10 minutes flat!
Quick Recipe: Creamed Spinach Grilled Cheese
I know this sounds like kind of a strange sandwich, and it probably is, but stick with me on this one. Despite being a national chain, Boston Market has my favorite creamed spinach around. I’m not sure how they do it, but it’s just really good. It’s not too cream-y, not too spinach-y and it just tastes good. We somehow had some leftover at my house the other day, and I really wanted to eat some of it for lunch, but I didn’t want to just sit there eating creamed spinach because that wouldn’t be a very satisfying lunch. So I decided to make a sandwich out of it. And it was really good! You can use whatever creamed spinach you like, it doesn’t have to be Boston Market, but I can’t guarantee it will work as well (additionally, if you want to use fresh spinach leaves instead that’d probably work too. I’d recommend using baby spinach leaves though).
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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