Archive for the ‘Food news’ Category

Eatpress recommended cookbooks

Posted on: March 23rd, 2009 by admin 3 Comments

When eatpress just doesn’t have quite what you’re looking for- here are some trusty ‘friends’ to help you find what you need.

The best vegetarian cookbook is the classic Moosewood cookbook. Moosewood is famous for its vegetarian and vegan recipes hand-written and illustrated by Mollie Katzen into the book first published in the late 1970′s. Since then it has been revised and more cookbooks have been written by Molly, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest is also a classic. The range of dishes in these books is wonderful, so is her website.

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Nigella Lawson does show off her sexy in the kitchen (tiresome), but she has some really great sweet recipes and good recipes for big dinners and celebrations- especially in Feast. If it’s chocolate you’re looking for check out Nigella, she may be cocoas biggest fan.

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Jamie Oliver, some love him, some hate him, but his Jamie at Home cookbook is really great. If you’re lucky enough to have a plot of earth, check out this one of Jamie’s books for some really nice, healthy, wholesome, fresh from the garden recipes as well as growing tips and when to plant veggies.

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Just recently someone kindly gifted us a Barefoot Contessa cookbook- Back to Basics, by Ina Garten. Garten is a New Yorker who owned a specialty food store in that city for a long time. Her books are good for recipes that use pretty simple easy to get ingredients in really tasty ways.

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The Asian Vegan Kitchen: Authentic and Appetizing Dishes from a Continent of Rich Flavors is a great vegan cookbook. These days it is getting easier and easier to find good cookbooks for vegetarians, vegans, raw foodists etc. This is an all round Asian cookbook with recipes scanning India to Japan.

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For Raw foodies or anyone with broad eating ranges, RAW the uncook book, is a truly great one and anyone raw or otherwise will enjoy the inspired and healthy recipes in this book.

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Country Breads of the World: 88 of the worlds best recipes for baking bread, is an amazing book for bakers of bread. No bread machines here, just a delicious selection of breads from everywhere!

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Maggie Beer is well known for her cooking expertise. At 736 pages, Harvest is bound to become one of those staples in home kitchens, the book that has everything. She likes to be called a cook and not a chef, but really her food speaks for itself.

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Speaking of classics Stephanie Alexander is another cookbook author whose epic kitchen masterpiece could be all you need. Championing Australian ingredients and recipes The Cooks Companion is a must have for anyone who needs a good broad general index of great recipes and ingredients.

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Of course there are a million cookbooks in existence, and everyone has their fav. These are just a few of our tried and true, but let us know your picks and we’ll keep this list growing.

Tips for tuesday

Posted on: March 10th, 2009 by admin 2 Comments

Everyone has some good time saving tips for when they’re cooking. Next time you peel ginger, use a spoon and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to just peel the skin and not the flesh.

Do you cry while cutting onions? If they’re cold when you cut them it will be better and when you do cut, chop the top first and leave the root till last, that’s where most of the nasty sulpheric compounds are.

If you have kids and need to sneak more veggies in their diet- why not add zucchini or beetroot to your next chocolate cake. These veggies grated, make cakes really moist and delicious and might counter-act a little of the rest of the cake!

Bad eggs float in water, good ones sink.

Use your ice cube trays for storing extra liquids, like tomato paste, stock or demi-glace, fresh squeezed lemon or other citrus. Then the next time you cook, just pop on in the recipe. No waste!

If parsley is washed with hot water instead of cold it retains its flavor and is easier to chop.

Beets practically pop right out of their skins after they’re boiled if dipped in cold water.

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Let us know your handy ideas and we’ll keep posting!

Australian Grand Dairy award winners

Posted on: February 22nd, 2009 by admin No Comments

There is an amazing range of dairies in Australia and good products are really quite readily available. Last week dairy products from across the country were recognised by Dairy Australia at an awards ceremony in Melbourne promoting quality, excellence and innovation in Australian dairy foods.

A gruyere from Tasmania won the highest accolade among Australian cheeses, while a cream made from Gippsland milk claimed the Champion Dairy Food title.

The Australian Grand Dairy Awards were awarded to 18 products selected from more than 330 entries in cheese, milk, yogurt, ice cream and other dairy, representing 85 Australian dairy manufacturers. Highly qualified technical experts, cheesemakers, providores, food media and chefs helped select the award-winning products.

Multi-award winning Heidi Farm in Tasmania received recognition this week for the Grand Champion Cheese title at the tenth annual Awards, with Gippsland Dairy Pure Double Cream claiming the Grand Champion Dairy Product title.

International judge Professor Sebastien Roustel, from the premier cheese and dairy education facility in France ENILBIO, was impressed by the high standard of quality among this year’s entrants, saying “Australian dairy farmers’ focus on quality milk enables them to produce world-class dairy produce.”

The dairy awards also acknowledge the achievements of the highly skilled and pioneering people who produce these award-winning foods. Manufacturing excellence and innovation awards as well as cheesemaker scholarships were presented on the day.

Much of the award-winning dairy is available at local supermarkets (in Australia). We included links to a couple different dairies, you can take a look for yourself and also familiarise yourself with their logos, so you can recognise the good stuff next time you’re shopping. A cheese tasting perhaps? Perfect with wine and friends.

Stay tuned for a brilliant Heidi farm recipe using their amazing gruyere. Of course most countries have similar awards so why not check out what’s special in your area.

What’s in season today?

Posted on: February 17th, 2009 by admin No Comments

It does change almost weekly and like we’ve said before, seasonal food is always fresher and doesn’t travel from as far. So it tends to be cheaper, tastier and better for the environment. Why not ride the old pushy to the store too? Then you can eat cake for dessert to regain your energy. Right now here’s what’s in season.

North America:

Still those root vegetables are sweet after the winter, also go for asparagus and fennel right now, so delicious in salads, or steamed. Grapefruit, tamarillos and oranges should be starting to appear and be quite tasty. We had some great fish the other night, cooked with grapefruit juice- fresh and delicious.

Europe:

Oranges, really really tasty right now. Full of goodness, health wise, and perfect to use for sweets and savory- what a bonus! Other citrus- like blood oranges and grapefruits are also great now, so do try some.

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Guinea fowl and venison have been hunted now, so they’ll be fresh and tasty too. If you’re feeling like a sophisticated night of dining, prepare some little fowl with the fresh citrus (just bake it in the oven moderatly for about 45 min), you’ll impress yourself and it’s not all that difficult!

Down Under:

Well according to my sources wine is in season now! Of course it was an Australian who gave me that inside scoop, although we all know that it’s in season world-wide currently. It’s nearing the end of summer and we all know there is nothing like eating a fresh ripe tomato. They should be the perfect flavor right now, and good for salads, soups and sauces. Anyone who proudly grows them and has too many- we’re going to do a sauce with them this week.

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Otherwise most other fruits should be perfect now, plums, peaches and tropical fruits like bananas and pineapples are all warmed from summer and really sweet.

You can always ask what’s in season, or what’s presently most fresh at your local fruit and veg store, they usually quite like to be asked, and they really know. Stay tuned for some citrus cocktails and that famous tomato sauce recipe!

Celery mmm

Posted on: February 17th, 2009 by admin No Comments

Celery requires more calories to eat and digest than it contains.

Get into it…

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Eating a National Emblem

Posted on: February 15th, 2009 by admin 3 Comments

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Greenpeace has been promoting the message that kangaroos are greener than you’d think. In a release touting the Australian icon as the perfect protein for the environmentally conscious meat eater.

In Australia, the Rural Industries Research and Development Corp. have funded a strategic plan to improve the image of kangaroo meat worldwide by publicizing its health benefits: low fat (under 2%), most of which is polyunsaturated, and only 98 calories per 100 gram (3.5 ounce) serving.

The controversial Greenpeace report is claiming the main reason kangaroo meat is ‘green’ is because the animals don’t ‘break wind’ as much as other farmed animals. Cows and sheep release higher quantities of methane through belching and flatulence, which means if only 20% of beef consumption was cut in favor of kangaroo, it would reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by an astonishing 15 megatons by 2020. They need less food than sheep or cattle, are better adapted to drought and are far less damaging to the fragile topsoil than their sharply-hooved bovine counterparts

I admit, it’s very meaty, gamey and rich, but if you like a good dose of iron and a bbq, and you haven’t got a lot of cash, it’s definitely for you. Some people have a problem eating a national emblem, but there really are too many of them, so you’d be doing everyone a favor.

Read more and see what you think http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/skippysizeme

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Go Organic!

Posted on: February 11th, 2009 by admin No Comments

Organic foods are made according to certain production standards, meaning they are grown without the use of conventional pesticides and artificial fertilizers, free from contamination by human or industrial waste, and processed without ionizing radiation or food additives. If livestock are involved, they must be reared without the routine use of antibiotics and without the use of growth hormones, and generally fed a healthy diet. In most countries, organic produce may not be genetically modified.

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If you’re really into getting the best out of your food, you can also go for biodynamic produce. Biodynamic agriculture, a method of organic farming that has its basis in a more spiritual world-view, treats farms as unified and individual organisms, emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a combined, self-nourishing system. Regarded by some proponents as the first modern ecological farming system, biodynamic farmers believe healthy, well-structured soil, rich in humus and high in biological activity is a prerequisite for any sustainable agricultural system. Sounds far out, but when you think of what the moon does to tides, it makes sense to think big. For more info on biodynamics or certified organic, click the links!