Salt cellars are back in style. Check out this cute oyster shell cellar (at left) from Provisions in Roanoke. Photo by Lindsey Nair l The Roanoke Times.

We love our mothers, but sometimes it’s devilishly difficult to buy them the perfect gift.

“I don’t need anything,” she might say, or “Just buy me a card.”

But if a card doesn’t seem like enough and your favorite mother figure loves to cook, today’s column might help.

I’ve scouted four local kitchen shops, asking owners and employees to suggest hot new products and must-have gadgets for the chef/mom.

If your mom doesn’t like to cook, don’t worry. Some of these gifts are just right for a lady who wants to sit back and sip coffee or relax with breakfast in bed.

Warning: Some of these items are so neat you may find yourself shelling out for two of them — one for Mom, one for yourself (I’ve already asked for some of those silicone lids for my birthday). In that case, you’ll be well-equipped to prepare a special meal or dessert for the occasion, so check out the recipes on Page 3 that two local chefs learned from the women in their families.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Update: I got an email from the owner of Steger Creek, which was not featured in this article. He said they carry a wide array of gourmet foods and kitchen items, including the Charles Viancin lids and the corkcicles I suggested in the column. Those lids are apparently really hot right now, so this is another place to find them. Plus Steger Creek has lots of non-food-related gift items, as well. Click the link to learn more about the stores (they have one in Roanoke and one in Forest).

Check out the full gift guide here, along with these recipes:

Lemon Cake (submitted by Sandy Krebs, head chef of the Regency Room at Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center)

Cracker Jack Balls (submitted by Alex Eliades, owner, Bread Craft)

What do you plan to do for your mom for Mother’s Day? If you are the mom, what are your hopes for that special day?

Pan-seared trout at Lucky in downtown Roanoke. Lucky! The Roanoke Times/file photo.

Just a few hours from the time I post this blog entry, many of us will be clinking classes, sipping bubbly, blowing noise makers and exchanging big kisses with the one we love. Some of us might be zonked out on the couch before the ball drops or tucked into our cozy beds knowing we’ll feel better in the morning.

Having spent my holiday “vacation” trying to recover from influenza, I’ll probably be one of the couch potatoes tonight. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ALL partake in some lucky food tonight or tomorrow to get the new year off to an auspicious start.

Here are some foods traditionally considered to be lucky:

1. Greens are one of the most well-known lucky foods, which happens to be pretty convenient because you can still find some nice greens in the dead of winter. Greens are thought to be lucky because they resemble money. It’s as simple as that. So get yourself a big mess of collards going on the stove, saute some kale, cook a bunch of cabbage or add a handful of greens to a hot pot of soup such as this New Year’s Day Black-Eyed Pea Soup. You’ll feel richer even if you aren’t.

2. Legumes. Beans, peas, lentils all fall into this category and are considered lucky because they resemble coins. So there we go with the money thing again, but considering the state of the economy, perhaps we should all eat double helpings of the greens and beans this New Year. Different beans are consumed for luck in different parts of the world. According to Epicurious, they eat sausages and green lentils just after midnight in Italy, something like split pea soup with sausage in Germany, and lentil soup or lentils with rice in Brazil. Here in the south, we love to get our luck from black-eyed peas, those deliciously earthy little legumes.

3. Noodles. The longer, the better. At midnight in Japan, they eat soba noodles, which symbolize longevity. Do not break the noodle until the whole thing is in your mouth. If you don’t want to make an Asian dish, make spaghetti and let the kids have fun slurping up the noodles without breaking them.

Keep reading. Click “Read more.”

Read more »

It is a tradition here on the Fridge Magnet blog to give away gifts during the week between Christmas and the New Year. I call it the Cookbook Countdown to the New Year. This year, I have more than cookbooks to give away. I also have some “For Dummies” schwag from the folks who bring us the popular yellow-and-black self-teaching books. You know, like “Cooking for Dummies,” “Woodworking for Dummies,” “Ventriloquist Dummies for Dummies.”

OK, I made that last one up. But you get the picture. The schwag I have includes grilling mitts, an insulated coffee mug and a drawstring bag.

This year, I’m tweaking the giveaway dates a little bit. The prize blog entries will begin on Monday, Dec. 24 and run through Friday. I’ll be back on New Year’s Eve to resume our conversations about food, and I’ll be checking comments through the week next week, although not as frequently on Monday through Wednesday. So if your comment does not get approved and show up right away, don’t worry.

I’ve saved some of the very best cookbooks I’ve gotten over the past few months for this giveaway. They include:

“Lard: The Lost Art of Cooking with Your Grandmother’s Secret Ingredient” from the editors of GRIT Magazine
“Thomas Keller Bouchon Bakery” by Sebastien Rouxel
“Cooking Italian with the Cake Boss” by Buddy Valastro
“Fresh” by Tyler Florence
“Cooking Season by Season: 1000 Recipes to Cook through the Year” by various authors

To be eligible to win one of these cookbooks, check the blog every day next week and leave a comment on the blog entry. I will announce all of the random winners on New Year’s Eve. Good luck to you all, and have a VERY HAPPY HOLIDAY!

Getty Images/iStock photo

The most commonly despised foods and drinks tend to share one characteristic: they are in some way overpowering to the senses.

Cilantro and liver, for example, are strongly flavored. Limburger cheese and durian fruit are an assault to the nasal passages. Oysters and okra? Well, they’re a textural turn-off for many people.

The holiday season most assuredly has its share of foods that are disliked, if not despised. Chief among them, sitting right on the throne next to the fruitcake, is eggnog — that sweet, thick, creamy bastion of holiday happiness.

Or horror, if it’s not your thing.

While I adore eggnog, I know it has its haters. I happen to live with one who declares the beverage too viscous, too sweet, and just plain “gross.”

When I introduced this polarizing topic on my Fridge Magnet blog recently, I fully expected the ratio of haters to lovers to be 50-50. However, while I found that those who don’t like it are pretty adamant, most readers who responded said they enjoy eggnog, and some even wish it were available all year long.

A recurring theme in our conversation was that quality counts when it comes to this particular beverage, and those who are familiar with homemade eggnog said no store-bought version can ever compare.

To continue reading this column, click here.

Click these links to see recipes for:

Cooked Eggnog*
Spiced Chocolate Eggnog
Eggnog French Toast
Eggnog Bread or Muffins (a recipe submitted by Wendy Blair, owner of Rose Hill Bed and Breakfast in Old Southwest Roanoke).

* A note about this recipe. I made it twice – once with my KitchenAid stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and once with a handheld electric mixer fitted with standard beaters. I found that the handheld mixer worked better. Four egg yolks is not really enough to use the stand mixer. If you doubled the recipe, however, it might work better. When I used the hand mixer, the egg yolks were a butter color by the time I finished adding the sugar.

I missed our annual holiday potluck at work last week because I was in the Outer Banks visiting relatives and finishing my holiday shopping. Don’t feel too sorry for me, though – I had some great crab cakes made with my stepfather-in-law’s crab from his summer crab pots (he freezes a bunch). I also had tasty gumbo and the best Dom Ka Gai soup and fresh rolls ever at the Thai Room on the beach road.

But we have a recipe contest with the potluck every year and from what I understand, the winning recipe was a real treat. Editorial assistant Danielle Dunaway took first place with her bacon macaroni and cheese, and she was kind enough to share that recipe with us (see below). It looks pretty darn easy!

Another recipe I’ve been wanting to share originally came from my friend Libby Rackleff. She brought these peppermint-patty brownies to our house for a Christmas gathering and they were so good that my other friend/editor, Kathy Lu, made them for the work potluck last week.

These are easy, too. All you have to do is make your favorite brownie recipe, with our without chocolate chips in the batter, and then frost them with melted York peppermint patties. You can use a 12-oz. bag of peppermint patties or more, depending on how thick you want the icing layer to be. There is no need to mess with a double boiler — just put the peppermint patties in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke them for one minute. Stir, then nuke them for another 30 seconds. Stir again and they should be ready to spread on top of the brownies. If not, microwave in 15-second increments until they are spreadable.

Alternatively, I have seen recipes that say to bake the brownies, then layer peppermint patties on top of the brownies and put them back in the oven for 5 minutes, or until melty enough to spread around on top of the brownies.

For some reason, I liked these brownies better than recipes that have the whole patties embedded in the brownies. As an added bonus, York peppermint patties are fat-free. Of course, they contain a bunch of sugar. But oh well, see the holiday party rules for my response to that.

Has anybody discovered a great new recipe since we last shared our latest cooking adventures?

Read more »

Fridge Magnet file photo.

Well, we’re heading into one of the most popular party weekends of the year, which means lots of you will be going to a shindig where there will be piles of great food. What do you eat and what do you skip?

Decisions, decisions!

This might be a good time to share these holiday eating tips. I last posted these in 2010 after somebody forwarded them to me in an email, but they’re so good that they bear repeating. I’m off early, but I’ll be approving comments. I hope everybody has a great weekend!

Holiday Eating Tips

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Holiday spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door where they’re serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It’s rare. You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It’s not as if you’re going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It’s a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It’s later than you think. It’s Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That’s the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

Read more »

The Roanoke Times l File photo.

The holidays will really get into full swing across Southwest Virginia this weekend with events such as Dickens of a Christmas in downtown Roanoke and the Grandin Village Holiday Market.

Dickens, which lasts three Fridays in a row starting tonight, will kick off this evening with the Christmas tree lighting, high school chorus performances, carriage rides and much more. Later this month, they’ll bring back the faux snow for all the kiddies to enjoy. For all the details about Dickens, check out Annie McCallum’s article in today’s newspaper.

The fourth annual Holiday Market in Grandin Village will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. tomorrow, and it’ll include open houses at businesses throughout the village with treats and specials. There’ll also be an indoor holiday market in the space between Surf & Turf and Valley Bank on Grandin Road that will feature locally made crafts and art. There will also be live music, food vendors and a door raffle of select vendor items.

For more information about the holiday market, check out Facebook pages here and here.

This is a great weekend to make the most of our beautiful downtown and the cute community of Grandin Village, but that’s not the only place you’ll find holiday happenings this weekend and in the coming weeks. To see a big list, click here for our calendar listings.

If you are involved in an event or have a favorite one you’d like to tell readers about, feel free to leave a comment with info on this blog entry.

Have a safe and fun weekend, everybody!

This holiday season, I want to take on one of the most contentious of culinary topics. That’s right, you read the headline: eggnog.

I come down on the pro-eggnog side, but judging by anecdotal evidence – that is, me asking people if they like eggnog – it seems it might be 50/50 or less.

I just never could understand the dislike of this traditional holiday beverage. It’s sweet, creamy, finely spiced and very accepting of a splash of rum. My favorite Christmas movie scene involving eggnog was in “National Lampoons Christmas Vacation,” when Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid guzzled spiked eggnog from reindeer-head cups with antlers.

That’s actually the only eggnog movie scene I can think of.

Okay, let’s hear from an anti-eggnog person, my dear husband.

Me: You don’t like eggnog, do you?
Him: No.
Me: Why not?
Him: Too sweet, too thick.
Me: So you like the flavor of it?
Him: Not really, no. Don’t like the flavor. I mean the flavor is not horrible, but the thickness and the sweetness of it is … gross.

Well, that’s definitely not a term we want associated with the culinary.

Eggnog is made from eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla and spices, all ingredients normally delicious on their own, as well as together in countless recipes. How is it that they create such a reviled product?

Let’s hear from the eggnog haters and the ‘nog lovers in the bunch.

Why the love? Why the hate?

… is some marjoram.

Seriously, when a relative recently asked me what I wanted, I said “marjoram.” OK, I also said I wanted some cinnamon. Preferably from Penzey’s, my favorite spice company. I do think it was the Korintje Indonesian cinnamon from Penzey’s that put my pumpkin pie over the top on Thanksgiving. Fancy, fancy.

Ever year on the Fridge Magnet blog, we dream about the kitchen appliances, utensils, gourmet food products and other gastronomic gifts we’d like to find under the Christmas tree or around the Menorah or wherever gifts appear in your house. Think hard, because you never know who might be reading these comments (Santa reads this blog, just so ya know).

I don’t need much for the kitchen this year, other than some extra time to cook. I already have shelves in the basement stacked with appliances that won’t fit in my kitchen. Pressure cooker, turkey roaster, mandolin, electric griddle – that’s where they live. And I have my Kitchen Aid mixer, as well as a nice new food processor my hubby gave me last year.

So instead of listing more stuff that I need (besides marjoram), I’m going to list some of the most useful kitchen-related gifts I’ve received in the past. Maybe this’ll give you some idea of what to request or what to purchase for a foodie friend or family member.

Read more »

istock photo

I Hope everybody has a safe and happy holiday weekend. I’ll see you back here on the Fridge Magnet blog on Monday.

Laurie McAdam l The Modesto Bee, 2007

‘Tis the day before Thanksgiving, and all through the land, new cooks look at turkeys and think, “I need a hand.”

The giblets are nestled all snug in their bag, and new cooks are thinking, “Please, don’t let them gag.

“Don’t let the gravy be lumpy or the ‘taters be cold, or the stuffing be dry or the pie taste like mold.”

In the holiday spirit I offer this guide, because you are my readers and I’m on your side.

Now STUFFING! Now BERRIES! Now WHITE TURKEY MEAT!

You’ll get it all done and say “Bon appetit!”

Thanksgiving Dinner Q&A

Q: I don’t have time to thaw the turkey the standard way — in the refrigerator. Is there a safe way for me to do a last-minute thaw?

A: Turkey can also be thawed in cold water or in the microwave. To thaw in cold water, allow 30 minutes per pound. Keep the turkey in its plastic wrapping and submerge in cold tap water (the sink, a five-gallon bucket or a cooler works well). Change the cold water every 30 minutes until the turkey is thawed. Cook immediately after it is thawed to prevent foodborne illness.

Because microwave cooking times vary, you will need to check your owner’s manual to determine what power level to use and how long per pound to nuke the bird. It is important to cook the turkey immediately after it is thawed.

To continue reading this Q&A, please click here.

Check out the Roanoke.com food page for last-minute recipe ideas.

Got any Thanksgiving questions I did not address in the Q&A? Feel free to ask here on the blog. I’ll be responding all day!

Maybe it was my imagination, but the grocery store seemed busier yesterday and the grocery lists I saw in shoppers’ hands looked a bit longer. And, of course, those aisle displays of Libby’s canned pumpkin, Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix and the like were getting a lot of business.

I’m hosting Thanksgiving at my house this year and will be cooking for five people. That’s not such a big party, but I did spend more than my usual Sunday amount at the store as I tried to remember everything on my list (forgot whipping cream. I always forget *something*).

Since we won’t have a big crowd, I’m doing a simple turkey breast this year. I do plan to brine it, rub it down inside and outside the skin with herbed butter, and roast it in an oven bag to ensure that it is moist. Besides that, I’ll make mashed potatoes, herbed dressing, gravy, and pumpkin pie. Mom’s bringing her famous, secret-recipe broccoli casserole and I’m turning to my good friend Sister Schubert for the rolls. During the time I would have been making homemade rolls, I can drink wine.

The recipes I plan to use for those dishes are linked up in the previous paragraph. I don’t need a recipe for mashed potatoes – I cook the taters in the pressure cooker, then mash them with cream, sour cream, butter, pepper and seasoned salt. I don’t think turkey breasts come with giblets, do they? This will be the first time I cook only a breast. So I’ll start my gravy with chicken broth and add whatever juices come off the bird.

Wednesday’s column will be a 911 Q&A for folks who are preparing Thanksgiving dinner this year (especially if it is their first time). The one thing I would tell everyone NOW, instead of waiting until Wednesday, is don’t forget to thaw out your bird! It should be in the refrigerator now! If you forget, however, there are a couple of tricks I’ll share on Wednesday.

Don’t forget to enter to win “The Daily Cookie” by Anna Ginsberg. For details on how to enter, click here. The deadline is 9 a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday, 11/20,12).

What are you cooking this week for Thanksgiving? Happy prepping!

In case you missed it, our Best of Holiday Shopping 2012 guide was available as an insert in the Sunday paper on Nov. 11, 2012. If you can still get your hands on a Sunday paper, please check out the beautifully designed guide packed full of holiday shopping, decorating and entertaining ideas.

Several of you have asked how you can find our roundup of restaurants serving Thanksgiving dinner. The list provides a good idea of what area restaurants are offering on Thanksgiving Day, including the hours, prices and bounty provided. If your favorite restaurant is not listed, give them a call to find out if they are open. Most of these places also are open Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, and Christmas hours are noted in each listing. Click here to see the guide.

To see the rest of the content, including Christmas tree purchase and care tips, recipes, day trip shopping destinations, holiday light displays, and of course all of the winners in the Best of Holiday categories, click here.

Finally, click here to fill out a short survey and let us know what you think about our guide.

Frankenstein heads. Photo by Rebecca Barnett l The Roanoke Times.

I’m a fan of Pinterest.

For someone who likes cooking, gardening, crafts, fashion, art, traveling and more, it’s easy to find gorgeous pictures and Internet articles I can “pin” to my “boards.” Better yet, because I save too many magazine clippings, recipes and cookbooks, Pinterest offers me the liberating ability to hoard online to my heart’s content.

But the content on Pinterest is sometimes annoyingly perfect. The wedding dresses, gowns and jewelry can be beyond the average person’s means; gardens and craft projects that look so easy are often anything but.

This is particularly true in the realm of recipes, which are typically accompanied on Pinterest by professionally styled images. At home, the finished product might be delicious but the appearance probably won’t be up to Pinterest standards.

For Halloween, I decided to test some of the cutest recipes I discovered through Pinterest to determine if they were more like tricks than treats. With the help of two coworkers, we tested six recipes – a pumpkin-shaped cake made by stacking two Bundt cakes, Frankenstein heads made from crispy rice treats, white chocolate ghosts, witch hat cookies, witch brooms and white chocolate “bones.”

Some of the results made us cackle like a witch over her cauldron, but others made us scream like a vampire in the sun.

To read more, click here.

Click the links to see these recipes:
Pumpkin Spice Cake
Monster Toes
Spider Web Pumpkin Cheesecake

(The rest of the recipes from the column, including the Frankenstein heads, are in the body of the column, so just click the link to read more, above)

Does your family have a favorite recipe you always prepare around Halloween?

Photo courtesy leewrightonflickr/flickr

When I start hearing about Thanksgiving and Christmas before summer has taken her last curtain call, I get just as annoyed as the next gal. But today I want to talk about Thanksgiving turkeys, and if you’ll hear me out I promise it will make sense that I’m writing this column now instead of two months from now.

Every year about mid-November, I am contacted by readers who want to know how and where they can buy a locally raised turkey. I always have to tell them that local birds are a great idea, but they’ve waited too long.

A number of farmers in Southwest Virginia raise turkeys and butcher them just in time for the holidays, but those birds usually are spoken for long in advance – sometimes a year in advance! So when it comes to this topic, procrastination is not an option.

I spent some time last week calling farmers to get an idea of how many turkeys still are available for order. While a good many have been put on reserve (for example, 200 of the 300 birds at Bright Farm in Floyd County already have been ordered), there still are several hundred up for grabs within reasonable driving distance of Roanoke.

To continue reading this column, click here.

To see a list of places you can buy a local turkey, click “Read more.”

Read more »

… make dinner for their families every night * take their wives out to eat on Friday * have made 450 pies in their lifetime * couldn’t live without frozen vegetables * put bacon in everything * can’t eat bread * think skim milk looks like blue water * are repulsed by mushrooms * can get homemade biscuits in the oven in 10 minutes * buy all of their eggs from local farmers * can’t get their kids to eat anything except Kraft macaroni and cheese * make the same cheese ball every Christmas * like leg of lamb for Easter * use Philadelphia Cooking Creme and don’t care who knows it * give a little wine to the dish and a little to themselves * have a huge collection of cookbooks * have a huge collection of food phone apps * eat an apple a day * hate oatmeal * visit a new restaurant the minute they hear about it * spend every Sunday in the kitchen * look at the clock driving home and wonder how another work day stretched to 7 p.m. and they don’t know what’s for dinner again * wait all year for fresh, local asparagus * like canned asparagus and don’t care who knows it * drink only microbrews * tried to bake a cake but couldn’t get it out of the pan in one piece * make their kid a milkshake when he comes home crying about bullies * cook eggs for breakfast every day * drink Carnation Instant Breakfast every day * carry on ethnic food traditions * know when a restaurant has closed before anybody else * hit up the Asian market every Wednesday night to get the best stuff * know what fischietti is * get up at 2 a.m. every day to run the bakery * opened a dream restaurant and lost everything * have ice cream every night before bed and don’t care who knows it * grow the finest tomatoes around * can’t coax a tomato from the vine no matter how hard they try * are allergic to nuts * are allergic to everything * cut out recipes they’ll never make * turn out perfect fudge every time * shovel a path through the snow to the grill * won’t eat high fructose corn syrup * have never been to a farmers market * make collard greens on New Year’s Day * think Monsanto is the devil incarnate * don’t know who Monsanto is * like to kick it up a notch * get ticked when the Indian restaurant doesn’t believe they want it Indian-hot * vow to eat baby carrots then throw them away when they’ve turned white * are known as the “cake lady” * make a whole bowl of popcorn just for themselves * sliced off a finger tip in the mandoline * make hollandaise sauce look as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich * know how to butcher a deer correctly * eat squirrel and don’t care who knows it * turn to chocolate on a bad day * haven’t drank a drop of alcohol in years * aren’t afraid to try new recipes on company * think they’re better than any 5-star chef around * are doing well to get soup and sandwiches on the table some nights * treasure nothing more than getting the whole family around one table.

Most of all, happy holidays to my readers who love to eat and never get tired of thinking and talking about food. You’ve made another year wonderful. Here’s to 2012!

Al Hubbard, owner of Healthy Stuff Cakery and Cafe on Grandin Road, is holding a toy drive for underprivileged children. If you bring in a new toy anytime between now and Dec. 23, you will be entered to win a piece of Hubbard’s original mixed media art valued at $850.

If you’ve ever been to Healthy Stuff, you have probably noticed Hubbard’s art decorating the cafe. It’s incredibly colorful and cool stuff. For an example of what it looks like, check out this picture of one of his pieces that was on display at Center in the Square. I don’t know that this is the exact piece he’s giving away, but it gives you some idea of his style.

The rules are simple: Just head into Healthy Stuff anytime between now and Dec. 23 with a toy valued at $7.50 or more. You may enter multiple times by bringing multiple toys. The drawing will be held on Dec. 23 at 5 p.m. While you are there, of course, you can enjoy some of Al’s healthy and tasty foods such as his cakes, cookies, butternut squash waffles or pe-cran chicken salad.

Healthy Stuff Cakery and Cafe
1731 Grandin RD SW, Roanoke, VA 24015
540-345-2407

http://www.healthystuffcakery.com/

Hours:
Mon: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Tues. through Thurs: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Fri. and Sat.: 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sun: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Roanoke Times news staff had its annual holiday potluck on Tuesday, and while I only returned in time to sample a few of the dregs (I was working – go figure!) I understand that there were some pretty fine contributions to the table this year.

We always hold a vote at the holiday party and have folks choose their favorite dish. The winner receives a gift card. This year, the winner of the contest was metro columnist Dan Casey, who brought smoked, pulled pork barbecue. Dan tells me that he used the recipe of Paul Giordano, who was featured in our Look Who’s Cooking series not long ago. Here is a link to Paul’s profile and recipes. Way to go, Dan.

Other dishes that earned praise were Danielle Dunaway’s baked potato soup, which is made with cream of celery soup and looks wicked easy; Cathy Benson’s broccoli salad with dried cranberries and bacon bits; and Rebecca Holland’s Cranberry-Orange Bundt Cake, which was covered in a blanket of delicious glaze. I think Mark Taylor’s Brunswick stew was quite a hit, as well — I don’t have that recipe so we all wonder what kinds of critters might have been in there. He is the outdoors writer, after all, so I’d be a little disappointed to learn it did not contain any squirrel. Aha! I knew it! And you see, Mark, I wanted the recipe! And I knew it was yours!

I have recipes to share for the soup, salad and cake. Knowing how much my father loves orange-flavored treats, I think this cake will probably show up on our family table. Thanks to my co-workers for passing these along. Have you discovered any wonderful recipes at holiday potlucks this year?

Cranberry-Orange Bundt Cake (recipe is for one large cake or 18 miniature Bundt cakes)

Broccoli salad with Craisins

Baked potato soup

Late addition: Mark Taylor’s Brunswick Stew

And as long as I’m sharing recipes, I might as well pass along a Christmas spice cookie recipe that I received today from the folks at Swiss Colony.

Roanoke Times file photo

We’ve talked about holiday cookies this year and shared some recipes, but we have yet to really delve into that other big category of Christmas treats: candy. I know lots of folks who wouldn’t think to whip up a batch of candy outside of December, but when the wreaths and ornaments come out they start dreaming of fudge, peanut butter balls, pralines and other special-occasion treats.

It doesn’t take a “Sweet Genius” (anybody watched that bizarre show?) to know that candy is so fickle – just a few degrees in temperature or a little too much humidity can ruin a whole batch. I have even heard people say that a woman should not make candy at certain times… and that’s as far as I’ll go with that interesting advice.

Here are a few candy-making tips from my favorite candy cookbook, “Field Guide to Candy” by Anita Chu:

• Cook sugar on a clear, dry day. Sugar absorbs water, so excess humidity can lengthen the process or prevent the candy from turning out right. Chu advises turning on an air conditioner to make the kitchen cool and dry.
• Use a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, at least 3-quart size. Chu recommends aluminum and copper pans because they conduct heat evenly. Use unlined copper pans. The best thing is a “sugar pot,” or a large, all-copper saucepan.
• Watch for crystallization that can ruin sugar syrup. If a stray sugar crystal or particle gets in your syrup, it can turn the entire mix into a mess. You must throw out crystallized sugar syrup and start from scratch with a clean pan. Chu says agitating the syrup at the wrong time can cause crystallization.
• Prevent crystallization by using “doctors” or “interfering agents” such as cream of tartar, lemon juice, corn syrup, butter and cream.

Read more »

Faces look ugly when they’re printed askew.

Um, okay, enough with butchering lyrics by The Doors. It’s time to talk about the strangest holiday candy of them all: Marshmallow Peeps! Yes, these squishy little buggers with their waxy, machine-stamped eyes have reared their sugared heads again with the announcement of the first ever “Deck the Peeps” holiday art contest.

Another brainstorm from the folks over at Just Born, this holiday contest invites peep-le to create awesome holiday art with the candy, take a picture and email it to them for a chance to win … are you ready for this? … ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS WORTH OF PEEPS! Why, that might *even* be enough to reimburse the winner for all of the Peeps they purchased to Super Glue to a cardboard form in the hopes of winning!

The second-place winner receives $50 worth of Peeps & Company stuff, while the lucky third-place winner will take home a fabulous candy prize pack.

Get those brain cells grooving, folks, because it’s going to take an astonishing idea to beat out all of the other folks who are surely rubbing their hands together with glee and anticipation. And no, in this particular sentence I’m actually NOT being sarcastic, because I’ll bet this contest draws quite a few entries.

For more information about the contest and to enter your photo to win, click here. I, for one, will not be entering the contest because the mere mention of Peeps brings back traumatic memories. But let’s just say YOU wanted to do a Peeps project to enter in this contest. What would you make?

My brother-in-law has contributed many special gifts to our family besides love, respect and patience.

For one thing, Jeff tells hilarious stories about his bizarre childhood pets, including a de-skunked skunk and some groundhogs. But more importantly, he shares his mother’s phenomenal annual assortment of Christmas cookies.

Every year, Alice Mollohan bakes the same highly anticipated treats: molasses cookies, pecan tassies, date pinwheels, pineapple diamonds, and kiffels with apricot filling. She starts on them early and freezes a bunch before the holiday, if she can smack her husband’s hand away from them.

It didn’t take long for the Nairs to start looking for a certain Tupperware container when Kim and Jeff arrived from Ohio on Christmas Day.

I think the cookies impressed me not only because they are delicious, but because we didn’t really have any cookies we made every year other than frosted and decorated sugar cookies. That seems unusual to me now because I have heard from so many friends who associate specific cookies with the holidays.

To continue reading this column, click here.

Recipe links:
Stuffed date cookies

Tropical fruitcake cookies

Berliner kranser

Mustazzoli

What kinds of cookies do you make ever year?

The Roanoke Times will have a booth at Dickens of a Christmas in downtown Roanoke tonight, where we’ll be sharing some tasty samples (first come, first served!) and selling copies of our 150th anniversary cookbook, “Flavors of Home.”

Our table will be located in the parking lot area of the market near farmer Mark Woods.

Here are some of the amazing local recipes you’ll find in the cookbook, which benefits Roanoke Area Ministries: Liberty Station cheese sticks, Elsie Wertz’s potato salad, Hotel Roanoke Brunswick Stew, Angler’s Cafe chicken Senegalese stew, Nair family Thanksgiving stuffing, Zorba’s falafel, Miller & Rhoads’ Missouri club sandwich, Angler’s Italian cream cake, and Thelma’s meatloaf sauce. The book is a great gift for anybody who loves to cook and wants some Roanoke flavor! It makes a great teacher gift, too, for just $15 per copy plus tax.

If you cannot get to Dickens tonight but are interested in buying a cookbook, here is a link to the online order form.

Here is a link to an earlier article about Dickens of a Christmas with details about the event. In addition to these Friday night activities, the “Shop Differently” campaign means that many downtown shops are open for extended hours on Thursday nights until 9 p.m. this season. After 4 p.m. on Thursdays, the city is offering free garage parking. Here is a list of participating merchants: http://www.downtownroanoke.org/.

Have a great weekend!

Dear Santa,

We, the writer and readers of the Fridge Magnet blog, are writing to ask if you might be able to bring us some kitchen toys this year. We promise we have been really good.

We’ve used new recipes and techniques in the kitchen and tried not to curse when things didn’t work out. We’ve made comfort food for friends, family and co-workers who needed love and help, and we’ve tried to “clean as we go,” as they say, while we are cooking.

We have tried not to drink too much of the wine we were supposed to be putting in our food, and we have tried to support local producers and shop the outer walls of the grocery store. Also, we have been sure to quality-control test a lot of food so that other people would not be poisoned by it – especially stuff like cookies and big hunks of roasted meat.

Therefore, we humbly ask if you might consider checking out our wish lists and talking to the elves about some prizies for us.

The blog writer says that she feels pretty blessed as it is to have a new kitchen floor, but if you decide that she has been good enough to deserve a few other things, she would really love to have a new food processor that doesn’t sound like a wailing banshee whenever it is used. And she would also like a Fiestaware butter dish to match her plates, since the old, ugly maroon one conveniently broke.

The readers are now going to leave their wish lists in the comment section of this blog entry, so please be sure to read all the way to the bottom. Even if you can’t manage to bring us any or all of what we desire, we want to say that we are thankful to have food to eat and homes with kitchens in which to cook. Bless those who don’t.

Sincerely,

The Fridge Magnet family

Illustration by Grant Jedlinsky/The Roanoke Times

Poor little Jell-O salad is positively quivering with feelings of inadequacy.

At least it has the relish tray and some sparkling cider to keep it company.

Of the 32 Thanksgiving side dishes that competed in the “Turkey’s Best Teammate” bracket we printed Nov. 2, those were the only three that did not make it into the top four on any of the 60 completed brackets I received.

But let’s face it: No matter how delicious the Jell-O salad, how inviting the relish tray or how fizzy the cider, they just did not have a turkey leg to stand on with heavyweights such as mashed potatoes and herb stuffing in the game.

Even those venerable Thanksgiving foods were edged out – albeit by one vote each – by our ultimate champion: pumpkin pie.

Click here to continue reading today’s column. Also contained within the column is some information about restaurants that will be open tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day.

The recipes with today’s column are intended to help you repurpose your turkey day leftovers in a more exciting way than the usual soup or casserole. Here are the recipe links:

Curried turkey
Easy samosas
Cranberry conserve

Roanoke Times file photo

Correction – This event is on Sunday, Dec. 11 rather than on Saturday, Dec. 10, as was previously reported.

Back in 2007, I wrote a feature about a couple in Floyd who honor their roots each year by following some of the same Christmas traditions they learned to love while growing up in Germany. Among other things, Barbara and Clemens von Claparede-Crola and their children make an Advent calendar, use real candles on their tree, fill shoes with gifts for St. Nicholas Day and build an elaborate gingerbread house.

I think about the von Claparede-Crola family every year around this time, so it was a nice surprise when I recently got an email from Barbara. She wanted to tell me about a fundraiser that will allow others to experience some of their family holiday traditions.

On Sunday, Dec. 11, Clem and Barbara will host a German Christmas Cocktail to benefit the Jacksonville Center for the Arts in Floyd. She is on the board of directors there.

The party will include about 20 different varieties of German Christmas cookies, Dresdner Christstollen (a fruit-filled cake famous in Germany around the holidays – but better than American fruitcake), heavy hors d’oeuvres and German Christmas punches. A young singer from Opera Roanoke’s youth group will be there to sing Christmas carols in German and explain German holiday traditions.

All of this will take place in the family’s beautiful and unusual home, which will be decked out in mostly German decorations, including Barbara’s German nutcracker collection.

Tickets for the fundraiser are $55 per person and $100 per couple. As of now (Monday), there are about 40 tickets left for this event. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 540-745-2784.

Update: I was going to choose two winners of the McCormick spice kits today, but nobody who left a comment on this entry said they needed them. So I’m going to revise this a bit and ask, does anybody actually WANT them? If you would like to have one, please leave a comment. I’ll include those who have already left comments and will give this contest a bit more time – until noon on Tuesday. Thanks. End update.

I remember the first time I hosted Thanksgiving dinner at my house. After experiencing what was essentially the same wonderful gathering with my family every year since I was old enough to remember, I felt so out of sorts. But I also felt excited, because I was proud to show off my home and set a beautiful table for our mixed group of guests.

I was lucky that my dad was there to help me with the turkey, which was an expensive local bird I certainly didn’t want to screw up. I was also lucky that some of my guests brought side dishes, but it was still left to me to cook the bird, make mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and a few other accoutrements.

If this will be your first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner, I’d like to offer a little help:

1. For advice on how to brine and cook your bird, check out these archived blog entries here and here.

2. If you want to know how to make what is, in my opinion, some really awesome stuffing, click here.

3. You can also search the PlateUp recipe database for all sorts of recipes for side dishes and dessert.

4. Finally, if you are lacking some of the seasonings needed for the big dinner, I’ve got TWO nice Thanksgiving dinner kits from McCormick that I’m going to give away right now.
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At Thanksgiving dinner, no real estate is more valuable than the room in your stomach and the space on your plate.

This is where turkey and gravy play center and the side dishes jostle for position. And no matter how delicious or nutritious they are, someone’s always going to be left in the pan.

Will it be the sliced, jellied cranberry sauce that gets skipped for another year? The glazed carrots or seven-layer salad that are benched? The pie that always looks so good in warm-up mode but gets elbowed out by the competition?

To help you plan your attack this year, we put together a bracket of 32 popular Thanksgiving side dishes. You’ll have to choose your favorite at some point, so it might as well be now.
I’d love to see which sides make it to your culinary Final Four and which one is guaranteed a place at your table before all others. So mail your completed bracket to me, Lindsey Nair, at The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, VA 24010 or email your top four and the winner to lindsey.nair@roanoke.com.

You can print out a smaller copy of the bracket from our entertainment page on roanoke.com. Click here to access that page.

I’ll announce the overall winners the day before Thanksgiving. Have fun!

Day of the Dead cookies. Photo by Sam Dean/The Roanoke Times

When I was a kid, my idea of Halloween food consisted of a bucketful of candy and whatever quick dinner my mom threw together for us to eat before we headed out on the streets for trick-or-treating.

The more Americans become obsessed with food and cooking, the more Halloween-themed recipes I see. There have always been decorated cupcakes and cookies, such as these spider cupcakes, but recently I’ve seen cute little mummified hot dogs wrapped in crescent roll strips, deviled eggs that look like little Lucifers, and a cheese ball covered in bright orange chips and decorated with a Jack-O-Lantern face.

If you love Mexican food, you can also use the holiday as an excuse to get your hot ‘n’ spicy fix. That’s because Halloween falls just before the Mexican holiday el Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. In case you missed it, I wrote an article about this holiday for Sunday’s paper, and the story included a lengthy recipe for homemade tamales. Whether you make your own authentic Mexican cuisine or get some from your favorite restaurant, there’s an idea.

Amanda Cockrell, who was featured in the Sunday story, has purchased cookie cutters, candy molds and other stuff from a website called Reign Trading. They are an especially good source for sugar skull molds.

I’m very interested to hear whether your family has any Halloween food traditions besides candy. Is there a special recipe you prepare every year for a Halloween party or for the enjoyment of your family at home?

I’m suffering from that dazed feeling one has after being away from work for more than a week at a stretch. It is a good feeling to return renewed and ready for a fresh year. However, I feel I have missed out on sharing all the tasty things I’ve cooked and/or eaten over the past week and a half!

It would be impossible to name them all (and I dug into some of the grub so fast I didn’t even get pictures) but here are a few highlights:

On Christmas Eve, I made yet another batch of those wonderful Fine Living Orange Butter Cookies with Grand Marnier Glaze, because my father loves anything citrus-flavored and I wanted to take some fresh cookies to his house.

I also made up this easy candy tin to haul around from one house to the next over the holidays. In the bottom right corner are Oreo truffles (similar to these) I made with my mom. Beside them are pretzel sticks dipped in white candy coating and sprinkled with crushed candy cane. The chocolate bark was an incredibly easy, spur-of-the-moment invention. I simply melted an entire package of chocolate candy coating, then stirred in 1/4 cup of peanut butter, about 1 cup of toasted pecan pieces and maybe 1/2 cup dried cherries. I spread that in a 13×9-inch casserole dish and let it harden completely before cutting into pieces. It was candy for dummies!

On Christmas Eve, my husband and I traditionally have a quiet dinner at home before the craziness and the hectic travel of Christmas day begins. This time, we decided on venison tenderloin. My brother-in-law’s friend killed this deer on Nair property this fall and butchered it at my request.

It just so happens that Matt has experience processing meat and was able to extract the prettiest whole tenderloin I’ve ever seen from a deer. This photo shows the tenderloin doubled over and wrapped in bacon. I learned the bacon trick from U.S. Foodservice Chef Jeff Bland, who noted that venison is very lean and the bacon can help to baste it as it cooks and keep it moist. Boy, was he correct. I roasted this to about 135 degrees and served it with a horseradish sauce from Joy of Cooking.

The sauce calls for a basic bechamel (butter and flour to make a roux, then stir in milk and simmer until thickened) with 3 Tbsp. of horseradish added, along with a little dry mustard, a little vinegar, a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper. It was delicious.

On Christmas Day, my father fried oysters and his wife, Mary Beth, made delicious macaroni and cheese and cole slaw. I was so tired by that point in the evening that I didn’t even get a picture. The main attraction occurred the next day anyway. Check out this huge, honkin’ prime rib roast my sister and her husband bought at Leach’s Meats and Sweets in Norton, Ohio. This monster weighed in at about 14 pounds.

In this first picture, you can see that my father has already prepared it for roasting by rubbing it down with spices and trussing it. He placed it fat side up on a roasting rack and roasted it in the oven until it reached an internal temperature of 130 degrees. Considering that some of the family likes their beef gray and dead (Kim) and others like it still mooing (aunts), that turned out pretty well. Kim got the end piece and the aunts got the ruby-red center pieces. I got my nice, medium-rare slab. We ate until we busted!

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UPDATE: Beet Queen, you have won “Growing Tasty Tropical Plants.” Congratulations! Send me your full name and shipping address at Lindsey.nair@roanoke.com and I will mail it out to you next week. Thanks for playing, everyone, and have a safe and happy holiday weekend! END UPDATE

It is Christmas Eve, the day when legions of folks traditionally rush out in a frantic, last-ditch effort to find the perfect gift — oh, who am I kidding, SOME kind of gift — for those loved ones not checked off their lists. I figure it makes good sense to give away a last minute book here on the ole Fridge Magnet blog to wrap up our Countdown to Christmas in free books.

Today’s book is an unusual one. It is not actually a cookbook, but it is food-related:  “Growing Tasty Tropical Plants in Any Home, Anywhere” by Laurelynn G. Martin and Byron E. Martin. When I first saw REAL oranges growing on REAL trees in Florida as a kid, they might as well have been L. Frank Baum’s (possibly drug-induced) fantasy tree that grew lunch boxes in “Ozma of Oz.” Well, that was a random reference. Suffice it to say that I have always found tropical fruit trees amazing and slightly mythical, perhaps because I have spent the majority of my life living in Colorado and Virginia.

BUT, the Martins promise you CAN grow tropical plants that bear fruit such as lemons, limes, citrons, grapefruit, kumquats, figs, olives and cinnamon right in your own home. If you have the guts to try this, or know someone crazy… er, talented enough to try it, then you need to leave a comment on this blog entry for a chance to win this book! I’ll take entries until 5 p.m. today.

UPDATE: The winner of “Simple Comforts” is… drumroll, please… Cathi! Cathi said ”The cover of this book reminds me of childhood winter lunches. Soup and grilled cheese was the best!” and her number was picked. Cathi, please e-mail your full name and shipping address to lindsey.nair@roanoke.com and I will send out your book next week. Happy Holidays! END UPDATE

The holiday has drawn one day nearer, and my thanks go out to those of you who are sticking with me, whether it be at work or at home, in the last days before Christmas. My gift to you is a chance at winning the third cookbook in our Countdown to Christmas: “Simple Comforts: 50 Heartwarming Recipes” from those geniuses at Sur la Table.

According to the press materials that came with this cute lil’ book, it was inspired by comfort foods. They define comfort foods as “the best things about childhood in edible form.” I can certainly agree that when I’m feeling down or ill, I am comforted by such childhood faves as grilled cheese sandwiches, potato soup, brown beans with cornbread or a steaming pot of chili.

Sur la Table has put a sophisticated twist on some of these favorites, which means you’ll find recipes like Stilton-stuffed burgers, beef and bean chili with chipotle cream and roasted pineapple sundaes. For a chance to win this belly-rumbler, simply leave a comment on this blog entry by 5 p.m. today.

UPDATE: Today’s random winner is Amy, but since we have at least three Amys who read this blog (and entered to win this book), I need to be more specific! The winner is the Amy who left comment #16 on this thread, and who wrote: “Soup! I would love to win this book!” Amy #16, please send me an e-mail with your full name and shipping address at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com. Congrats! Two more days of giveaways, y’all. END UPDATE

Alrighty, friends and neighbors, it is time for the second book giveaway in our Countdown to Christmas in books. And today’s cookbook is hot off the press!

The recently released “Mr. Sunday’s Soups” was written by Lorraine Wallace, who is married to Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace (Mike Wallace’s son). I have not caught Mr. Wallace’s show, but apparently his nickname is “Mr. Sunday.” And apparently, Mrs. Sunday is quite the little soup maker. Her husband likes to rave about her soups on-air.

Now, Lorraine Wallace has released a book of her soups, and what better time of year than the dregs of winter to learn a few new soup recipes? How about Minestrone & Arugula Salad Soup, Ancho Pork & Hominy Soup, Salmon Chowder or Mexican Albondigas, a concoction enriched with Mexican-style meatballs?

I am going to share that last recipe here. In order to win this book, please leave a comment on this blog entry before 5 p.m. today. I will select the winner randomly. Best of luck!

UPDATE: Congrats to blog reader Doug, who left comment #18 on this entry. Doug has won “Recipes Every Man Should Know.” And now you will know, Doug! Shoot me an e-mail at Lindsey.nair@roanoke.com with your name and shipping address and I’ll mail this book to you ASAP. END UPDATE

Welcome to the first day of our countdown to Christmas – in free cookbooks! For each of the next four days, I will be rewarding one lucky blog reader with a free book just in time for the holly and jolly.

First up, “Recipes Every Man Should Know” by Susan Russo and Brett Cohen. You know, when I was a youngster, our neighbor took her daughter on a trip,  leaving her husband and son behind. At some point, they asked my mother, “How do you make dishwater?” I am not joking. Maybe they were, but my point is that some men (and women, okay) could use some serious help in the kitchen.

This book is not quite that elementary. It teaches the hapless reader how to make such staples as eggs, pancakes, burgers and grilled vegetables, but also branches out into more impressive recipes such as fish tacos, beer bread, pasta carbonara and sweet potato fries. Concoctions like bacon brownies and beer margaritas up the dude factor a bit.

I’ll share that recipe for bacon brownies here. If you want to win this cute little black book, simply leave a comment on this thread and cross your fingers for a random win. I’ll announce the winner by 6 p.m. today.