Blame it on higher unemployment rates or nostalgia for things past, but the current trend in side dishes is to welcome back baked faves such as classic cauliflower gratin. I made one myself a few weeks ago and I was surprised by the reaction I got at the table. My dining companions that night were my son (age 13) and my cousin (age 21). You’d think I had introduced them to a new, exotic food. Not only did they love it, but they both marveled and asked what this wonderful new concoction might be. Neither, apparently, had ever eaten a veggie gratin before.
I was prompted to make cauliflower gratin by a recipe and picture in a British food magazine (I forget which one) and by the many mentions of veggie crumbles and bakes that I’ve noted turning up more often in books and on TV shows. Some are classic (like the one I served which featured steamed cauliflower draped in a roux based cream sauce enriched with lots of Cheddar) while others are updated like the cranberry-crumb topped sweet potato gratin pictured above.
How do you feel about gratin-style side dish veggie casseroles? Too much work or a great make-ahead solution?
Baked apple recipes that combine sweet and savoury elements are popping up in recipe books and on menus more often. Served as either a side dish for dishes such as pork chops or ham or as a combination dessert and cheese course, these identity challenged little morsels add an interesting twist to home entertaining menus, too.
Here’s a “trendy” recipe you can try out on your friends and family:
Cheesy Stuffed Baked Apples
4 Granny Smith apples
1/4 cup (50 mL) softened butter
1/3 cup (75 mL) lightly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (125 mL) each dried cranberries and chopped walnuts or pecans
1 1/2 cups (375 mL) shredded aged Cheddar cheese
Sauce:
1 cup (250 mL) cranberry or apple juice
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp (15 mL) brandy
1 tsp (5 mL) butter
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Core each apple, leaving the bottom intact. Cream the butter with the brown sugar and stir in the cranberries, walnuts and 1/2 cup (125 mL) of the cheese. Divide the mixture evenly between each apple, packing it gently into the cavities.
2. Arrange the apples in a 9-in (23-cm) round cake pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until tender. Transfer the hot apples to a deep serving platter and sprinkle tops evenly with remaining cheese.
3. Set the hot baking pan on the stovetop over medium-high heat. Add the juice, cinnamon stick and brandy and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes or until the pan juices are reduced and slightly thickened. Discard cinnamon sticks. Whisk in butter. Drizzle sauce over the apples on the platter. Makes 4 servings.
How do you feel about sweet and savoury baked apples? Hit or miss?
There’s no doubt about it, vending machines have a bad rap. It’s true. Tell someone you drank coffee from a vending machine and they look sympathetic. Tell someone you had to assemble your lunch from a vending machine and they offer you a chair. Tell someone you’ve been eating from a vending machine for a week and they call social services and get you into a treatment program.
But, what if vending machines were filled with things that are good to eat? Would you use them? A company in Denmark is testing this idea out by providing vending machines to farmers so that they can work in their fields and sell their wares to the public, too. The idea is that they fill them with freshly harvested foods and then people driving by stop and buy the chilled, fresh fruits and vegetables.
Likewise, Spain’s Lofresco is marketing a vending machine program that will make fruit snacks and other healthy produce foods available wherever you buy a Coke.
Would you buy farmers’ market fare from a vending machine? What about healthy snacks like fruit salad?
Remember shake and bake? Well, put that product out of your mind while I tell you about how this concept is manifesting itself as we approach 2010. Today’s shakers and bakers aren’t cooking up chicken but pancakes, cupcakes and muffins and they don’t even have a bowl to wash when they’re finished!
Products such as Batter Blaster (an organic pancake and waffle batter in a pressurized can) and Dr. Oetker shaker batters are taking the mess out of baking and making it an anytime activity. There’s even a gadget that dispenses pancake batter as cleanly as these products, for those among you who like to make their own batter.
Who’s buying these products? Parents who want to serve a hot breakfast without a lot of fuss and muss and occasional cooks (like students) who don’t keep a lot of ingredients in their pantries.
What do you think of this kind of baking? Gimmicky or a godsend?
Two weeks ago when I was getting ready to send out a notice to my food trend newsletter subscribers that the Autumn of issue of Topline Trends was posted, I discovered that the company that handled my subscriber list was no longer in business. Vanished. Vamoosed. Gone.
To be honest I was heart broken. Topline Trends has been building its readership for over 10 years and to lose contact with all of those loyal readers was a blow. I really didn’t know what to do. Sometimes life gives you lemons and you just don’t have a good lemonade recipe at hand. Then it hits you: you can always ask others for help. What’s the worst that can happen? People can say ‘no’ but so what?
That’s where you come in: Hoi En Tang, my technical guruess, has already been a tremendous help by rising to the occasion to create a new subscription system. What you can do now is to please follow this link, read the autumn issue and sign up to be notified when each quarterly installment is ready for viewing. You could even tell a few friends about it. Or not. I get that you’re busy.
Regardless, thanks for reading today and thanks for any help you can offer!
During these difficult economic times have you lost any of your favourite or trusted suppliers?
