Cookware Gallery
Archive for March, 2011
Fettuccine with Shrimp Recipe
As a lover of Italian food, I couldn’t resist trying a new recipe for fettuccine with shrimp and chickpea tomato ragout. All you need is some non-stick cookware (there are plenty of nonstick cookware sets to be found online) and the following ingredients:
Fettuccine noodles, 8-10 ounces; 12 ounces of cauliflower florets; 1 tablespoon olive oil, 16 ounces jumbo shrimp; 3 cloves minced garlic; 1 tablespoon ginger; chopped medium sized onion; ¼ teaspoon dried rosemary; 1 teaspoon kosher salt; 1 can chickpeas; 1 can crushed tomatoes; ½ teaspoon crushed red chili flakes.
Cook the fettuccine noodles al dente in slightly salted water. When they are done, drain them and then place them in a saucepan. Place the cauliflower on top and steam the florets for 4-6 minutes. Remove the cauliflower and set them aside. Heat a saucepan full of olive oil, and then add the shrimp and seasonings. Next add in the chickpeas and crushed tomatoes, cooking for 2 minutes. Finally, add in the already cooked pasta and cauliflower and toss the whole thing. Buon Appetito!
Healthy Food Matters – Mark Bittman
I’ve always enjoyed the critical musings, righteous outrage and sober teachings of Mark Bittman (New York Times Food columnist). Cooking with Mark is always about good taste, honest nutrition, and reverence for the organic green of food production and distribution. Whatever the menu, Mark’s aim is always a lesson in balance—serving a balanced meal for whole health, serving a balanced lifestyle for a sustainable Earth.
Cooking green isn’t just a recipe, it’s an attitude. In a previous post, we looked into our cupboards to revisit our food buying habits based on Three Principles of the Pantry: cook from scratch; cook what you have; revitalized your pantry.
Mark lives these principles, and stumbles in the face of change too. If you’re not familiar with Mark Bittman, take a minute to get to know him—he’s personable, entertaining, and a worthy guide for learning what & how best to cook for the health of body & planet.
Take these links:
- his introductory note to “The Food Matters Cookbook” is honest and, as you will see, illustrates a common attitude about healthy eating we all commonly share.
- more recently, Mark’s NY Times column: “Food: Six Things To Feel Good About.” He is purposefully withholding some of his ‘bittman’ spice.
As always, Cook healthy, eat honestly, thrive–use cookware designed to retain nature’s honest efforts—premium Stainless Steel Waterless Cookware, the ultimate in lifelong durability, beauty and performance.
Serving a Large Dinner Party
If you like to entertain a lot of guests at your house for dinner, then you need to be able to maximize your space. My home is pretty small so I prefer people to stay seated. It’s a lot less chaotic if I and maybe one helper go back and forth from the kitchen to retrieve the latest hot dishes.
One of my friends who also hosts large dinner parties is fortunate to have a large kitchen and dining room. To create a laid back atmosphere she likes to set out all the food for the evening in a large buffet. Since there are only so many burners on a stove, she uses several electric frying pans to cook food and keep the contents warm. These are just two ways you can accommodate a large dinner party.
The Maxam Family of Quality Waterless Cookware
Maxam is USA born and bred, and now a family of brands known world-wide as the finest Stainless Steel Waterless cookware you can own–Quality, Affordability, Durability, Performance:
- Maxam®
- The World’s Finest®
- Chef’s Secret®
- Precise Heat®
- HealthSmart®
- Wyndham House®
- Yorkville®
…a family of brands with 60+ years of waterless cookware craftsmanship and innovation. Maxam holds patent for the Steam Control System® (or vented knob) and first to aid stove top baking with the Thermo-Knob System® (internal utensil temperature control).
Maxam Cookware employs the highest American standards for material quality and fabrication in the industry–that’s a given. But what sets Maxam apart from all brands of Stainless Steel Waterless cookware is VALUE—the ultimate in cookware performance at AFFORDABLE price points (see A Lifetime of Value to more fully appreciate the value of these pots and pans).
The reason Maxam cookware sells for @ $250 instead of $2500 is simple and straightforward:
> NO Storefront Markups (stores cost money to operate & you pay for it)
> NO Distribution Middlemen (buy direct from Authorized Dealers)
> NO Demonstration/TV/Celebrity Markups (when you buy on-line)
The costs of doing business on-line are pennies compared to operating stores, hosting home or county fair demonstrations or paying for Wall Street marketing campaigns, celebrity endorsements, etc. Operating this Blog for example adds less than a $1 to cookware represented by our sponsor, ChoiceCookery. And yet ChoiceCookery.com reaches tens-of-thousands more buyers than any storefront or cookware demonstration.
High price is not a measure of quality; it’s a measure of marketing expense, shelf space, and outrageous profit margins. There’s no reason to pay the price. Shop around, become informed, and choose wisely:
- Buy from Authorized Dealers who will service you
- Buy on-line (avoid the mark-ups)
- Speak with dealers, ask questions
- Good representatives will ask you questions too
…about your cooking methods, family size, meal types and help you choose the perfect cooking utensils for you and your family. Contact ChoiceCookery and get to know the source.
Cook healthy, eat honestly, and thrive.
Pantry Principle: “…dinners from scratch are a snap”
When last we saw Leslie Cole (staff writer for The Oregonian FoodDay section), she was on her way home with a stack of new cookbooks under her arm and a story to write. Her hunch was that good taste & nutrition shouldn’t take hours at the stove.
Her aim was to banish the tired, the empty and bland from weeknight meals, and do so in less than 20 minutes (revisit Cooks on the GO). What she discovered were some novel, time-saving and nutritious cooking strategies that quickly and easily relieved the rush and fret of weeknight family dining.
Three common principles in the ‘quick & easy’ cookbooks Leslie reviewed are these:
- Cook from scratch
- Cook what you have
- Revitalize your pantry
The backside of these principles, Leslie now reports, is common to many of us on any given weeknight as we look to our pantry for inspiration: “In their first six years of marriage, Dan and Leah Bader’s idea of a home-cooked meal was opening a jar of pasta sauce to pour over spaghetti.” But that’s not a pantry.
The Weeknight Menu: we all get stuck now & then on ‘What to cook tonight?’ Not to worry. Enjoy Leslie’s latest FoodDay article, “The Pantry Principle—thanks to staples on hand, dinners from scratch are a snap.”
The Pantry Principles: Leslie finds the three principles alive & well in Katherine Deumling’s lusciously informative website Cook With What You Have. Katherine’s practical approach to Good Taste will have you rethinking what you buy and put in your pantry (for all the right reasons).
Katherine’s latest March 8 blog (Winter Squash x 4) reminds us that at least four nutritious and easy meals have been resting in the potato bin since November—not the potatoes, but that Squash. Try Katherine’s simple and timely Onion and Squash Panade for example.
…or our Butternut Squash Soup in “Harvest the Nutrition of Fall Squash.”
Katherine’s Advice: revisit your pantry & review your buying habits—healthy foods don’t come in cans, and fresh foods don’t bulge your budget either. Fresh whole food is the best source of natural balance & nutritive complexity. Remember to use cookware designed to retain the wholesome goodness of nature’s honest efforts—Stainless Steel Waterless Cookware.
Cook healthy, eat honestly, and thrive.
Decadent Saucepan Brownies
I’ll admit that I have a huge sweet tooth. Fortunately (or unfortunately for my waist line) my friends are constantly supplying me with new dessert recipes to whip up. I was recently forwarded a recipe for decadent brownies that are primarily made in the most versatile kitchen cookware piece, the saucepan.
The recipe calls for ½ cup of butter, one cup of sugar, 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, two eggs, one teaspoon vanilla, one cup flour, ¾ teaspoon baking powder, a dash of salt, and ½ cup chopped pecans (optional). Preheat your oven to 350. Then melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the sugar, cocoa, eggs (one at a time), and vanilla. Add in the flour, baking powder and salt. Finally fold in the nuts and pour the mixture into a greased baking pan. You’ll want to bake the brownies for about 25 minutes. Let the brownies cool before delving into them.
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