Category: Chefs and Restaurants (Page 5 of 12)

      Product review: Pizza Free Fat Free Pizza

      September 11, 2012 /

      So once again, I have found myself in need of losing a few pounds. Only this time, it’s doctor’s orders because of high blood pressure and being about 20-25 pounds overweight. I like South Beach because of how easy it is…i.e. you don’t really have to count calories or weigh food. But after the brutal two-week period in which you eat no carbs, you have to gradually add carbs back in. That’s hard if you like eating fruit, cereal, bread, pasta, rice and potatoes, even if it’s the healthy versions of those things. And your breath stinks during those two weeks as well. So this time, my wife talked me into doing Weight Watchers. She told me I did not have to go to meetings, but that even though it’s a pain to count points and log everything, you can eat anything you want. And I figured, why not? If Charles Barkley can do it, why not me?

      Luckily, someone told me about Pizza Free, a fat free pizza company in Ohio. I love pizza as much as anyone, but when I first heard this, I thought, “Fat Free is so 10 years ago!” But alas, since the single serving pies are just 6 points on Weight Watchers (a number listed proudly on the website), I had to try them. So we ordered the smallest quantity available, which was six pizzas, and they were $39.99 including shipping.
      But regardless, I was still extremely skeptical. Fat free cheese to me is like rubber, and since we live in Wisconsin now I was even more skeptical about that. But hey, the pizza is delicious, and the cheese isn’t flavorless rubber! You can’t overcook it or the crust and cheese will burn, but if you do it until the cheese just melts, it’s perfect. The tomato sauce has a nice flavor as well, not the processed flavor that dominates frozen pizza or Italian meals.

      Of course, Pizza Free does not taste like traditional pizza, but as healthy pizzas go, and especially THIS healthy, you absolutely can’t beat it. And not only is the cheese and crust fat free, but the whole 6 inch pie comes in at just 248 calories.

      Intrigued? I figured you might be. Check out www.pizzafree.com for more information.

      Chefs and Restaurants, Healthy, Product Reviews, Your Kitchen

      Magazine recipes that linger–cole slaw and “flapjacks”

      August 2, 2012 /

      If you are like me, you read new food magazines voraciously, especially ones that have cool typeface and awesome photos like Food Network Magazine. But then after trying a recipe or two, they pile up until you have a chance to clip your faves. I swear there is a business idea in there, if only I had time to develop such an idea.

      Anyway, that being said, there are recipes I have clipped that I go to–frequently. One such recipe is the one I use for cole slaw from…wait for it….GQ. I have to hand it to GQ. My comp subscription has made me feel old at times, but every month I look for its recipes and ideas about food. Seriously. So in the June 2008 issue, there were barbecue items–how to cook a hamburger properly for one, how to make kickass grilled peaches for another. But the one that stood my test of time was the cole slaw recipe–it’s simple, it’s classic, and it’s delicious. It also gives me a template even if I veer a bit with the ingredients, but I never seem to want to because of how delicious the original recipe is.

      Then there was this other one–an article and recipe in the March 2010 issue of Bon Appetit. This is a mag my mom reads and probably has 35 years worth of them piled up, but I grabbed one in an airport one day and wound up clipping this article about British “flapjacks.” Food journalist/blogger/restauranteur Molly Wizenberg wrote it and made these things appear to look and sound delicious. The recipe haunted me for two and half years until I pulled it out again the other day. The one thing holding me back–an ingredient called golden syrup, which is only available in specialty food stores and British import shops. They are not pancakes per se, but more like cookie/granola bar hybrids that they call flapjacks. The ingredients are simple–quick cooking oats, butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and a pinch of salt. I’ve always loved the taste of oatmeal and oatmeal cookies and anything made with oats, but dang…golden freaking syrup. Finally, I realized something. The last few months I have found things the new-fashioned way–online. Well, duh. You can buy anything on Amazon.com these days. So there it was–Lyle’s Golden Syrup, maybe $5 a can but about $10 in shipping. That was fine with me. It arrived and I made the recipe the next day. My wife and I devoured the whole tray and I made another tray which I devoured this past week. Now let’s be frank–a stick of butter will make almost anything taste good. But these flapjacks are the bomb, and I suspect we will make them again this weekend, making two trays or more.

      Thank you, Molly Wizenberg. You brought me something from your own experiences/memories, and now I’m going to get really fat eating them because they taste so good. Now, if anyone can share a recipe that resembles those Buitoni toaster pizzas from my childhood that they don’t make anymore, I will be forever grateful.

      Chefs and Restaurants, Food on a Budget, Grocery stores, Healthy, Ingredients, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      More pizza and eggs

      June 27, 2012 /

      Chef JimI recently whipped up a kickass omelet using cut up pizza as the filling. It’s a combination that I’m not sure why it’s not done more. So when I was in upstate New York last week visiting family, and had the most awesome pizza from Bud’s Place, I commented that this pizza was so good, I might have to have it for breakfast with my eggs in the morning. And I wasn’t joking.

      So the next day, I heated up a slice of pizza (my sister showed me that the best way to re-heat pizza is in a frying pan, and she was right). Then I fried an egg, sunny side up, and slipped that right onto the pie. Pure heaven. Seriously, I wasn’t hung over but if you can think of a better hangover food combination, tell me what it is.

      Man, I’m hungry now. I wish I had some pizza on hand!

      Chefs and Restaurants, Food on a Budget, Ingredients, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      Food Network Star is back

      May 21, 2012 /

      If you are a reality show junkie, you can get your fix pretty much year-round and on every major, minor and/or cable network. Food Network’s signature reality show–the type of show that has weekly eliminations–is Food Network Star, the program they use as a breeding ground for, um, Food Network stars. It’s now in its 8th season, and what really put this show on the map was the winner of Season 2–a dude named Guy Fieri. More recent winners have been Jeff Mauro, the Sandwich King; Aarti Sequeira, and her show Aarti Party; and Melissa D’Arabian (Ten Dollar Dinners).

      In recent seasons, they have had 8-10 contestants, but this year they expanded it to 15 and started it earlier in the calendar year. The first episode aired last Sunday and episode 2 was last night. This year, instead of having regular judges and food network execs Bob Tuschman and Susie Fogelson along with network superstar Bobby Flay, the producers have done it differently by making up three teams of five–each with a coach. Flay is now a coach, and his competitors are Giada De Laurentiis (who was a judge for most of last season) and Alton Brown (who has also guested on the show) The contestants were hand-picked by each coach–and as you might expect, they sort of reflect their coaches’ personalities and, to some degree, their cooking styles. The team that wins the weekly challenges is all safe, and Bob and Susie choose one from each of the other two teams for potential elimination. The two are given a task in which they will be judged by Bob and Susie only.

      Some of these contestants look like stars immediately, which is usually the case early on. It’s also typical for some of them to look just awful the first week or two as they may know how to cook, but presenting that on camera and/or to a live audiences is another thing altogether. There just aren’t many people out there who can do that effectively. Cristie Schoen from Team Alton is one of those who just couldn’t do this, and she was sent packing last Sunday. But Josh Lyons from Team Giada barely escaped elimination. That guy fronts a rock band (something he referred to about twelve times last week) but he is really awkward talking about food on camera.

      Last night it was between Kara Sigle of Team Bobby and Judson Allen of Team Alton. If Alton had lost another team member, it would not have looked good. But Kara was the one sent home, and wow, was she ever awful in the main challenge, in which the contestants had to use a landmark NYC restaurant as a reference point to create a dish that they had to describe while being a “tour guide” on a double decker bus. Kara had Sylvia’s in Harlem, known for chicken & waffles. Kara complained about her assignment and was doomed from the beginning, especially when she tried to just re-create the dish and not do anything creative with the idea.

      So it’s down to 13, and while we don’t intend to post a weekly recap, we may write about the show every once in a while. If you watched it last night, let us know your thoughts in the space below.

      Chefs and Restaurants, Food TV

      Pink slime–no, thanks

      May 15, 2012 /

      It’s become a buzzword/term in 2012–pink slime.

      Like you, I had no idea what it was until I read an article two months ago in Mother Jones. This is how the article describes it: “the cheeky nickname for scraps of slaughtered cow that have been pulverized, defatted, subjected to ammonia steam to kill pathogens, and congealed into a filler for ground beef.” It goes on to say that McDonald’s was using it but planned to stop doing so, along with Taco Bell and Burger King, who also succumbed to the public outcry.

      But pink slime is apparently in school lunch ground beef. It’s in packaged and frozen burgers, and even in commercially sold ground beef. Wow. How the hell do you get around that if you eat and enjoy burgers, meatballs, meat loaf or other ground meat products?

      I know what I”m doing. I’m not eating fast food ground meat. I’m thinking twice before ordering something made with ground beef in a restaurant. For home use, we buy ground beef from a local farm (at the farmer’s market here in Madison) that we know is organic and high quality, or from Trader Joe’s, which states on its website that their ground meat does not contain pink slime. We are not ready to give up meat entirely, but what we are also doing is trying to eat one or two vegetarian meals per week.

      I am not naive enough to think that there isn’t crap like this in many foods–or pesticides or whatever. But pink slime? It’s vile, it’s scary and it has no place on my plate or on my family’s plates.

      Chefs and Restaurants, Green Living, Grocery stores, Healthy, Uncategorized, Your Kitchen

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Mikey’s Kitchen

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑