Food Meme

I stole this meme from Meno - her answers are here. The point of this meme is to take your blogging name and come up with a food (and a fact to go with it) for each letter. I had to think about it for a while: it was harder than I thought to come up with something for each letter..

M is for MACARONI AND CHEESE. I’m not a mac and cheese snob - I don’t mind eating the stuff out of a box - but I really do love to make it from scratch. There’s a pretty good recipe on the box of Prince elbows that I use - of course, I put in about 100% more cheese than is called for…

R is for ROAST BEEF. I’ve gotten pretty good at roasting beef - having a good thermometer means that I’m no longer guessing at when it’s done (and guessing badly). A nice roast with some baked potatoes and white trash casserole and some crescent rolls and butter - heaven.

S is for SPAGHETTI SAUCE. I really do make a kick-ass spaghetti sauce. My current favorite application is to ladle a little too much of the stuff over fresh three cheese tortellini, sprinkle the whole thing with mozzarella cheese and toss the plate under the broiler. Add a small salad and some garlicky, salty garlic bread and dinner’s ready!

C is for CHOCOLATE! (what else?!) Chocolate is truly one of my favorite things; soothing, yummy, versatile. I tend not to eat much chocolate in the summer months, which is one of the things I love about the advent of autumn - I start eating chocolate again… and let’s not forget the hot cocoa. As for the fact about chocolate, did you know that, according to a reliable source from the culinary department at the college where I teach, a typical American eats an average of 12 pounds of chocolate a year? I SO blow that curve…

H is for HAZELNUTS! I love the things, especially in chocolate! My husband, long ago, introduced me to Nutella, and I’ve never been the same. Truly - I’d never experienced the stuff before he fed some to me and truly, I’ve loved it ever since. My favorite Nutella application is on pound cake, but I’ve discovered that it’s also fabulously yummy on shortbread, waffles and, hell, just on a spoon. Here, from the Nutella website, is a little history, which will constitute this food’s fact:

Nutella®, in its original form, was first created in the 1940s by Mr. Pietro Ferrero, a pastry maker and founder of the Ferrero company. At the time, cocoa was in short supply because of rationing due to World War II, so chocolate was very limited.

So Mr. Ferrero used hazelnuts, which are plentiful in the Piedmont region of Italy (northwest), to extend the chocolate supply.

I is for, duh, ICE CREAM. I tend to not eat ice cream in the colder weather, but I do love the stuff. I’m particularly fond of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, but I also really enjoy a good, plain chocolate, a nice fruit sorbet, or Dove Bar - I’m not too picky…

L is for LEMON CHICKEN. I also make a really great chicken piccata. Chicken fillets pounded (or sliced) thinly, seasoned, breaded, and fried in a combination of olive oil and butter; and a sauce made of some really good white wine (if you wouldn’t enjoy drinking it, don’t cook with it), a lot of butter and FRESH lemon juice - the fresh part is really, really important; don’t bother using bottled lemon juice. A bed of al dente linguine holds up the chicken, which is ladled with sauce and sprinkled with lemon zest and a couple of capers. Serve it with the rest of the wine…

I is for ICING (do you know how few foods there are which start with “I”?!). I grew up with one of three things - frosting from a can (which I still have a nostalgic love for), grocery store frosting, or Crisco-and-food-coloring frosting (I mentioned, here, that my beloved grandmother is of the Crisco generation). It took me a fair bit of research and experimenting to come up with a consistently good icing recipe, and I’ve found it - at least, for chocolate cakes: Bring a pint of sour cream to room temperature, then melt about 10 ounces of semisweet chocolate, finely chopped, with a tablespoon of butter (I use the microwave, but you can do this in a saucepan over gentle heat). Cool the chocolate slightly, then combine with the sour cream. I finish it with a little Ghirardelli Ground Sweet Chocolate and spread it over Auntie’s favorite birthday cake.

YUM!