Cooking Archives - Page 7 of 13

Father’s Day Wrapped in a RedEnvelope: Infrared Laser BBQ Thermometer Review

June 7, 2010 TechyDad Cooking, Review

As you might have guessed from my frequent Cooking With TechyDad posts, I love to cook. I’m also a fan of Alton Brown (the God of Cooking Geeks) and have often drooled at some of the gadgets he employs. One of these is a laser thermometer. If he wants to see how hot something is, he doesn’t use no stinkin’ stick thermometer. He whips out his laser and shines it on the object. In a split second, a digital display tells him just how hot it is.

When I heard that RedEnvelope was offering Dad Bloggers (via Dad-Blogs.com) a chance to review some items from their Father’s Day Gifts collection, I was intrigued. When I saw the infrared laser BBQ thermometer on the list, I knew I had to review it.

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Dear Kid Saturday: Selective Vegetarianism

June 6, 2010 TechyDad Cooking, NHL, Parenting

Dear NHL,

Tonight, I made burgers using peanut butter as the special ingredient. (More on that in a later post.) I figured that a burger would go over great and you were excited about it. I don’t cook meat that often due to the high prices of Kosher meat, so a meat meal at home is a rare treat. (Our last one was probably over a month ago.) When the burger was served to you, you suddenly changed your mind. You didn’t want to eat it and screamed and shouted. Amoung your tear-filled rationalizations as to why you couldn’t eat the burger was that you liked milk. This confused us so we asked what that had to do with anything. You told us that cows give milk and you love milk so you couldn’t eat something that came from a cow that was killed. You insisted that you didn’t eat meat.

Now, if this were due to some epiphany regarding cruelty to animals or something, I might have ended the conversation there and respected your decision. However, your mother and I sensed that your anti-beef stance was less about animal rights and more about simply not wanting what was on your plate. We asked you about chicken nuggets. After all, you love eating those and they’re made of meat. Your answer was that you didn’t like chickens and so were fine eating them.

Your mother and I looked at each other and though we didn’t burst out laughing right there, we were laughing on the inside. We’re quite sure that you’ve invented a new form of vegetarianism. I’ve dubbed it Selective Vegetarianism. You eat or don’t eat meat depending on how much you like the kind of animal it comes from. Fond of cows? No beef for you. Can’t stand chickens or turkeys? Poultry is fine on the plate.

In the end, you very reluctantly ate a few more bites of burger before having some yogurt and watermelon. We also think we know why you rejected the burger and it had nothing to do with the beef. The recipe called for onion and the texture of that probably threw you. Next time, I’ll make the burgers without onion… and maybe I’ll use turkey so we don’t trigger any selective vegetarianism again!

Aloha Friday: Recreating #DisneySMMoms Recipes

June 4, 2010 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Cooking, Disney, DisneySMDads, DisneySMMoms, Recipe

While we were at Disney Social Media Moms, we were included in a dinner along with 400 volunteers. At the time, we thought that the food that we ate was part of a Robert Irvine/Dinner Impossible challenge. Sadly, it turned out not to be the case. The volunteers got Irvine’s food and we “just” got Disney food. I say “just” because the food was exceptional (as is par for the course at Disney). In fact, having seen what Robert Irvine created, I’m happier with what we were served. Still, it would have been cool to have been part of a Dinner Impossible challenge.

One dessert in particular stood out. It was a warm brownie torte that tasted like it was uncooked warm brownie batter (and I mean that in the best possible way). Here’s a photo, although Disney Food Blog has a better one.

We had gotten a couple plates of these and when the boys (who by this point in the night were exhausted) refused it, I ate the second plate. For some reason, my chocolate-brownie-lust overpowered my brain and I only realized too late that I had eaten B’s plate! I vowed to recreate the dish as soon as I saw how it was made on Dinner Impossible. Of course, once the episode aired, it became apparent that this dish wasn’t part of the show. I’m on my own now in recreating it, though I have a few ideas.

My Aloha Friday question for this week is: Have you ever recreated a dish you’ve eaten out somewhere? If so, how successful were you? If you haven’t, is there a particular dish that you’d love to be able to recreate?

Oh, and if anyone has any pointers for recreating this, I’d be happy to hear them.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #41

Aloha Friday: Cooking with Kids

May 20, 2010 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Cooking, Food, Parenting

Last week, NHL, JSL and I made pita pizzas for dinner. As young kids, they can tend to limit the foods they want to eat. JSL, for example, would eat Macaroni and Cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner if we let him. Yet, they also like doing things with me and my hope is that cooking with them will help expand their culinary horizons.

My Aloha Friday question for this week is: Do you cook with your kids? If so, what have you made with them?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #39

Cooking With TechyDad (and NHL and JSL): Pita Pizzas

May 18, 2010 TechyDad Cooking, Food, JSL, NHL, Parenting, Politics

NHL and JSL love the Disney Channel. One of the "mini-shows" they have on (filling time between regular shows) is "Tasty Time with ZeFronk." In this show, a dachshund (ZeFronk) makes tasty snacks which a cat named Dom always steals. After one episode showing Pita Pizzas, NHL remarked that he wanted to try making this. We made a trip to the grocery store and later that week, we were ready to cook.

First, we gathered our ingredients. Pitas, mushrooms, cheese, sauce and meatless pepperoni. (You can use real pepperoni if you’d like, but it’s not Kosher so we use the soy-based variety.)

Next, we did what ZeFronk always does before cooking: We washed our hands!

Now, it was time to cook. I laid four pitas down on two cookie sheets.

The boys took their positions by the stove, standing to step stools to help them reach. I put some sauce on each of the pitas and the boys used a spoon to spread it out. (There are no action photos of JSL because I was too busy helping him to take photos.)

Next, NHL spread out some mushrooms. JSL protested at this saying he didn’t want mushrooms so I let him know that we could customize it. He could have no mushrooms, no pepperoni. B and NHL could have mushrooms, no pepperoni. I could have the works.