Yes, hard to believe, but Thanksgiving is just 9 days away. We’re exciting - and we’re actually traveling this year. As much as we loathe hitting the road on the holidays and dealing with the traffic, it’s actually kind of nice not to be the one cooking the big meal this year. Although we will be back to hosting at Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, our neighbors have already put up their Christmas lights and decor. It’s a little disconcerting to me to see the all of the Santa stuff when Thanksgiving hasn’t even arrived. I guess they’re just too excited to wait, or they’re trying to beat the winter cold. Not a bad idea!

Desserts are always enjoyed, but at this time of year they seem to take on a whole new level of importance. When it comes to holiday gatherings, the meal and the desserts are the centerpiece of the occasion. Whether pecan and pumpkin pie are the family favorites or it’s cheesecake covered in strawberries, the list of delectable choices is endless and the results tremendous if you have your baking basics covered.

Before things get busy, you might want to check out your kitchenware supplies and make sure you have all of the baking pans and tools you need for your baking projects. Beat the rush now for a smoother, more enjoyable holiday season!

The cold air and gray skies of November have arrived.  It’s great when you can spend much of the weekend outdoors and then retreat to your warm home for relaxation and family time. It’s also a nice time to bake up some homemade goodies for snack time - anything from muffins and fresh bread to oatmeal cookies and chocolate covered apples.

Around here we certainly eat a bit more as it gets colder, so that’s why we try to get out whenever we can and burn off some of the calories we’ve been stuffing ourselves with. And the holidays aren’t even here yet!

Awhile back I happened to be visiting with a friend who was raving about her George Foreman Grill. I had seen the many commercials on TV, but as you know, the things they say about a product on TV isn’t necessarily the truth. But we cooked some chicken on it and it was then I became convinced  that I really had to buy one, and so I did. I took the plunge and went for the George Foreman G5 Grill with all of the bells and whistles.

I am not exaggerating when I say I love my grill. I love that I can cook my favorite meats and fish in any kind of weather and get that great grilled flavor. From a healthy perspective, the fats drain away, which is fantastic! The plates are interchangeable so I can make waffles, or bake pancakes, fry bacon- and with 84 inches of cooking space, it’s a perfect size for my family.  And the plates can be tossed in the dishwasher for easy clean up, which is a big plus in my house. This is a fabulous indoor electric grill that I know I will enjoy using for many years. With it’s sleek red exterior it even looks great in my kitchen if I don’t get a chance to put it away. No doubt about it, I have become a huge fan of George Foreman grilling.

Suddenly there is so much to do around town it’s hard to pick our favorite for the day. We love our fun family weekends, especially if we take an extra day off and make it a nice long weekend. The weather is perfect for long hikes and afternoon basketball, soccer or football. Then you can just back and relax on the couch with hot chocolate, popcorn, and a movie. Does it really get any better?

Our big state fair is going on right now, where we read the new fried food for this year is fried pecan pie. Because pecan pie doesn’t already back enough calories in it….? It’s a great family day spent there, but it will cost you - I think our friends went the other day and easily spent over $120 for their family of four. Wow! But they said they had an amazing time and would absolutely do it again.

Sunday breakfasts were always a big deal in our house. It was family time, and Dad was the one who loved making our big Sunday breakfast. Eggs and homefries with bacon, buttermilk pancakes with sausage.  Waking up to the smell of breakfast cooking and coffee brewing was wonderful. And it still is. Now the Dad in our house still makes the pancakes, he’s a pro. He gets out our big non-stick double griddle and whips up enough pancakes to last us the week.

Before we had a double burner griddle making pancakes took forever. But now we easily cook 8 pancakes or so at a time and now we all get to sit down and enjoy the warm, fresh pancakes in record time.  It’s nice actually sitting down together for breakfast instead of eating in shifts. We’ve certainly found that having a quality stainless steel fry pan makes many of our stovetop cooking go so much smoother.  

Another great thing about this time of year is….football season! While we don’t get out to as many games as we’d like to, it’s great family fun to watch the games together, and munch on some great football snacks like chips and salsa or a big, delicious hero.

One of our favorite teams, the Carolina Panthers, is having a very good year so far. Itwill be interesting to see what the season has in store for them!

Clay is probably one of the lesser known cookware materials used in today’s kitchens. Not nearly as mainstream as aluminum, cast iron, stainless steel, or copper, clay cookware is actually another excellent choice in kitchenware and something worth considering for your kitchen cookware collection, especially if you enjoy roasting or baking your meals. The covered clay bakers are noted for creating healthier, juicy, tasty roasts as the entrees cook in their own natural juices versus the need for any added fats.

 You’ll find more details in attached clay cooking article article that can give you some insights to it’s use, history, and versatility. Now that you’l be having the oven on more, wouldn’t it be fun to cook your next roast in a clay baker?

Today is September 22nd, so fall has officially arrived, though the weather the past few days ushered it in early. Around town the stores and garden centers have beautiful mums and pumpkins on display. The colors are so vivid and inviting, I find it hard to pick just a few mums and pumpkins for the porch. 

Normally we wait until October and hit the local farmer’s market, but the plants were so healthy and the pumpkins such a nice size at a surprisingly reasonable price, well, we couldn’t resist! So at our home we’ve officially said goodbye to summer and hello to Autumn. We were ready anyway since the mosquitos were getting a little too plentiful - they are one thing about summer that we will not miss.

We thought it would be fun to do a product review now and again based on our own personal experience or those of our customers.  Since it’s such a great “all-around” skillet, we decided to start with this fabulous stainless steel chef’s pan by Gourmet Standard.

They have a great reputation and offer a great variety of quality frying pans, skillets and more. When Cook’s Illustrated did reviews on saute pans, their pan was reviewed comparable to All Clad, for a lot less money. So if you are in the market for some good cookware at a fair price, you have to check out the latest offerings from Gourmet Standard.

One of the magazines my young son gets is called “Highlights“.  It’s a great little magazine, it has a couple of cute age-appropriate stories, a picture puzzle or two, a recipe, and usually a game you can cut out and play on the last pages. Very sweet, though he is just about on the verge of outgrowing it, so I’ll have to be on the lookout for a good replacement - we know kids love getting mail!

We usually try the recipes and this last issue’s recipe was so easy - chocolate covered bananas. Here’s how simple it was: Cut 2 bananas in 1/2, place a popsicle stick in each, freeze for 30 minutes (we put ours on wax paper on a tray & added a couple of strawberries too)- then microwave 1 cup of chocolate chips with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil for about a minute until melted. Let your child dip/swirl the bananas in the chocolate- freeze again for 30 minutes and that’s it. My son loved making it and eating it - and what kid wouldn’t?

Part of the enjoyment of a delicious dinner is wondering what kind of yummy dessert will be served after it.  I don’t know about you, but I always make sure I leave enough room for dessert. Whether it’s gelato, pie, cake, pastries, or some other scrumptious treat, it’s hard to pass up a taste.

Homemade desserts are wonderful too! And they can also be great fun to experiment with.  Running out of ideas?  Here are a few tasty desserts and special treat ideas that can give you some perfect starting points.

It seems like yesterday I was pondering the fact it was almost the 4th of July. Now, how can this be? This weekend is the Labor Day weekend?  And I know sometimes I get so caught up in the crazy schedule of life I completely forget what the holidays truly represent - beyond having a day off!

I often remind myself of the many sacrifices made to live the way we live today, so I remember to appreciate how good I have it compared to my grandparents. It seems like a much more hectic life sometimes, but it’s filled with so many more conveniences than Grandma and Grandpa were ever able to enjoy.

Gourmet Standard makes fabulous cookware. Quality, long-lasting, and beautiful looking.  One of my favorite lines is their Copper Tri-Ply. Now of course with the copper exterior you’ll want to hand-wash the pots if you want them to look great for for a lifetime. But just look at this copper stock pot for example - what’s not to love?

Imagine all of the wonderful soups and dishes you can create in this beauty!

I remember fondue being very popular when I was a growing up.  There were these great wine and cheese places around town and they had lots of board games to play, and of course, fondue. We’d go to kick-back with a few friends and end up spending hours there,  treating ourselves to different wines and yummy fondue.

Gourmet Standard has this fabulous fondue set that’s perfect for a get together or family fun. We love dipping fresh fruit like strawberries and bananas in chocolate (oh, and marshmallows or chunks of pound cake too).  Or another favorite is pretzels, bread or apple slices in cheese. Not only is fondue a fun, wonderful treat - it’s like an instant party!

I was just over on the Martha Stewart site, one of my favorite places to visit on the web. And of course I was salivating over her current feature on summer appetizers. Marinated mozzarrella, ginger shrimp with tomato relish,  chicken satay with peanut chutney sauce and the list goes on. You can check out the list and photos on her site - I’m not sure which one I’d like to try first but they all look wonderful and oh so tempting.

I love visiting sites like hers and others because sometimes I just plain run out of ideas on something different to make for dinner or a get together, especially in the heat of summer - and I can find such wonderful (and relatively easy) new goodies to make and try. It’s a great way of introducing family and kids to new foods and tastes too. 

Do you love watching all of the great food shows as much as I do? I salivate as I watch chefs whipping up their great dishes and oh, the desserts! I was flipping through the channels earlier and came across a wedding show devoted specifically to wedding cakes. This particular part of the show was showing cakes that ranged from “$500 to $5,000″. Wow, $5000 for a cake I thought?  Then I saw the cakes…works of art! How could you put a knife in them? But as beautiful as they looked, I think I’d want to know what a $5,000 cake tastes like….

The creativity is amazing. It would be wonderful to be able to study with one of these cake masters, to learn to create such beautiful desserts. Imagine the impressive goodies you could create for the next family holiday!

Well it’s hard to believe it but it’s the July 4th holiday weekend approaching. Time to hit the store and buy lots of great goodies for a big backyard barbeque - it even looks like the weather will cooperate.

 There’s a lot of fun to explore around town and it’s such a nice time to kick back and spend time with our favorite people.  Hope you and yours have a very Happy and safe 4th of July!

If you’re a fish-lover like many of us here are, there’s nothing like  cooking up some fresh fish for dinner in the summer - especially if it’s your own catch of the day.  Have you ever baked up a tasty fresh water Rainbow Trout you’ve caught in your favorite river? Or grilled a delicious Flounder or Striped Bass you reeled in from the ocean? (We love this great fish spatula from Gourmet Standard - it makes flipping the fish over  so much easier!)

We usually serve ours up with a fresh salad and a pasta dish on the side. Oh, and wine, we mustn’t forget the wine.

Here on the East coast we’ve had a long, record-breaking heat wave (and it’s only June!)  It’s definitely time to get out the ice-cream maker and start whipping up some nice, cool treats.  Homemade ice cream is so much fun - it’s not tough to make and you can adapt just about any recipe to your personal liking.

We love to experiment with the different fruits like banana, strawberry, peach, cherry - which also make a great sorbet when we’re in the mood for something lighter and bit less fattening. But sometimes we just have to make something rich and there’s nothing better than a dish of homemade rocky road or butter pecan ice cream. Yum!

When I saw these beautiful chafing dishes and this classy soup tureen I felt this overwhelming need to buy them and throw a party.  The truth is while we do a lot of the big holidays around here, we’re not generally party-throwers throughout the year.  But these servers are so enticing, it’s hard to resist.  Now to figure out where to store them..

We were away and we missed last week’s episode of Top Chef.  After finding the time to unpack, catch up on business and get back into a bit of routine it was time to catch up on the latest news from Bravo’s Top Chef. 

Was anyone surprised that Spike was eliminated? Not around here, but we are still a bit puzzled to see that Lisa remains but Dale doesn’t.  If you read Tom’s latest blog you’ll see some interesting comments from him on the perspective on Dale’s elimination from a viewer’s point of view since it’s one of the times he wasn’t participating as a judge. It’s worth a read.  So now let’s see what next week brings - I’m glad we’ll be here to check it out.

Salad is often thought of as something on the side or to be served before a big meal, but salad makes a great main dish too.  Especially as we get into the summer season, a nice cool salad tastes so good.

There are countless proteins that round off salad making it a satisfying meal - nuts like walnuts, almonds, cashew - eggs - cheeses like gorgonzola, blue or cheddar — and one of our favorites, sliced chicken cutlets. Top it off with one of your favorite dressings - store bought or homemade.

Right now is prime strawberry season in our area and we try to go strawberry picking anytime we can. The farms have a pretty small window of opportunity around here- generally the month of May and into early June if the weather cooperates.  Too little rain and the plants stop producing and well, too much rain and they cease to flourish. I have great respect for the people who farm, it is hard work and you are always at the mercy of Mother Nature. Plus they’ve told us they are often being tempted with offers from developers for their land. 

When we go strawberry picking we always freeze a bunch of them so that we can use them later to make smoothies or ice-cream or just to munch on.  We’ve learned the trick to freezing your strawberries is to first lay them out flat on a cookie sheet or any pan that fits in your freezer (we line ours with wax or parchment paper) and then bag them once they’ve been frozen.  This way you can pick out them out individually as needed instead of them being frozen solidly together.  Here are some great strawberry recipes too if you’re looking for something different to create!

What, it’s from a jar, a can? Well the truth is at our house it usually is made from canned tomatoes and tomato puree with some spices tossed in. And when we cook our favorite vegan meatballs in the sauce the taste is really good and we spend the rest of the week dipping Italian bread in it until it’s gone.

Now that’s not necessarily what sauce is all about, so I think I’m overdue to start practicing making some real sauces sometime soon – and not necessarily tomato sauce since there are hundreds of different kinds of sauces I could try and create. While I still might not be cut out for a career in fine dining, it will be fun to try. And honestly any excuse having something new to dip bread into sounds like a perfect excuse to me.