Today’s Food Tip: Fresh Basil
Lamb Chops from Omaha Steaks
Did you know Omaha Steaks carries much more than beef. Try their elegant and impressive varieties of lamb. Choose from rack of lamb, boneless leg of lamb, and loin lamb chops.
Just look at easy it is to prepare delicious loin lamp chops:
Preparing the Chops
Thaw chops. If you wish, marinate in the refrigerator for about 12 hours in pineapple juice.
Grill or Broil: When charcoal broiling or oven broiling your chops, it’s best to begin grilling or broiling lamb chops them about 4″ from the source of heat, moving rack closer to heat later. Broil approximately 6-8 minutes for rare and 10-12 minutes for medium-rare turning once during that time. Use a meat thermometer. Rare chops will register 120° to 130°; medium-rare 130° to 140°. Prepare one or two chops per serving.
Are You Ready to Be Naturally Thin?
If you’re tired of dieting and are ready to be “naturally thin” then you’ll want to read this book from Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel.
What I love about this book is that Frankel shows you how to make better food choices and learn to control your portions without depriving yourself of ANY of the yummy, delicious, decedant foods you love! Her tips and advice just make sense. If you follow them, you’ll be naturally thin, but, more importantly, you’ll be healthier, too.
Order the book here now to start living your life as the naturally thin person you are supposed to be!
Door to Door Organics
If you live in the Kansas City area, you can have the freshest organic fruits and vegetables delivered to your door once a week or once every other week from Door to Door Organics.
This is a great way to “eat fresh” and you can actually save money, too, IF you plan your weekly menus around the fresh produce that is delivered to your door. I usually go to the Door to Door Organics website each weekend to see what will be included in the box of goodies that will be delivered to my door on Wednesday. Then I plan my menus and make out my shopping list for additional items I’ll need in order to prepare the meals I have planned for the coming week.
I’ve also found that planning meals around what comes in the delivery box has made me a more creative cook. For example, I’ve learned a simple recipe for Swiss Chard, and it has now become one of my favorite side dishes even though I NEVER bought Chard of any kind when I shopped for fresh produce at the grocery store.
Planning menus around the “fresh” foods that come in the box each week has also helped my whole family eat fewers processed foods.
For more information visit kc.doortodoorganics.com
Door to Door Organics is also available in other cities. Check out the other delivery areas here now.
Presto! It’s Pesto!
Pasta with a basic pesto sauce is a casual dinner to enjoy any time. But it’s particularly nice eaten outside on a warm summer evening. The beauty of pesto is you don’t have to cook it. Just pop a few ingredients into your blender or food processor and – Presto! It’s pesto!
For a delicious pasta and pesto dinner, simply cook some of your favorite pasta and drain it (but save some of the water for making the pesto – see recipe, below). Make the pesto, then pour some of it onto the pasta and mix the two items together. Grate a little extra Parmesan onto the pasta, if desired. Serve with a green salad, crusty bread, and a glass of your favorite wine.
Here’s a recipe for traditional Basil Pesto, taken from the cookbook, Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes
BASIL PESTO
2 c. (packed) fresh basil leaves
1/4 c. toasted pine nuts
1 garlic clove
1/2 tsp. salt, plus more to taste
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper, plus more to taste
About 2/3 c. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
In a blender, pulse the basil, pine nuts, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper until finely chopped. With the blender still running, gradually add enough oil to form a smooth and thick consistency. Transfer the pesto to a medium bowl and stir in the cheese. Season the pesto with more salt and pepper to taste.
The pesto can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate.
And here’s the SECRET to making pesto into a great pasta dressing. “Mix in just enough of the pasta cooking liquid to get the pesto to coat the pasta, but not so much that you’ve created pesto soup,” says De Laurentiis. She also says that while traditional pesto is a green sauce made with pounded basil and pine nuts, “these days any uncooked sauce that’s easy, quick, and pureed can be called a pesto.”
Look for additional pesto recipes in her cookbook.
Free Ice Cream Today
Get FREE ice cream today!
Today is National Doughnut Day!
Did you know that the first Friday in June is National Doughnut Day in the United States?
That’s today!
This annual event was started in 1938 as a fund raiser for the Salvation Army.
Today, get a FREE doughnut in honor of National Doughnut Day at your local participating locations for the following:
Krispy Kreme: All customers receive a free doughnut. No purchase necessary.
Dunkin’ Donuts: Free doughnut with the purchase of a beverage.
LaMar’s: All customers receive a free Ray’s Original Glazed doughnut. No purchase necessary.
Shipley Do-Nuts: Free glazed doughnut with purchase until noon.
Now at Dean & Deluca Online
For retail orders of single packets of our Divine Dill Dip Mix, please go to Dean & DeLuca online.
Insalata Caprese
Since this is one of my favorite dishes in summer, I just HAVE to share it again.
Easy Insalata Caprese
It’s tomato time! And, if you’re a gardener, you might be wondering what you can do with all those luscious tomatoes growing in your backyard right now. One of the easiest, yet most delicious, dishes to enjoy at the height of summer, when tomatoes are plentiful, is Insalata Caprese (named for the Island of Capri, Italy). The secret to this delightful dish is using only the freshest ingredients.
When served with fresh bread and a glass of chilled white wine, Insalata Caprese makes the perfect summer lunch. Here’s all you need:
2 lbs. vine-ripened tomatoes that are red, juicy and flavorful and have never been refrigerated (Get them at your local farmer’s market if you don’t have your own backyard vegetable garden)
8 to 10 leaves of fragrant young basil (Again, check for basil at your farmer’s market if you don’t grow your own)
1 lb. good quality fresh, moist mozzarella (The best mozzarella for this dish is made from buffallo milk – mozzarella di bufala – but that’s hard to find, so cow’s milk mozzarella – mozzarella fior di latte – works well for this, too)
1/4 c. genuine extra-virgin olive oil
To make the salad:
Slice the fresh mozzarella and the tomatoes into rounds. Alternate slices of mozzarella and tomato on a platter (or individual salad plates), overlapping them for effect.
Tear the basil leaves into small pieces and sprinkle them over the slices of tomato and mozzarella.
Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Just before serving, drizzle with olive oil.
That’s it! I told you it was easy.
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For wholesale information visit Beyond the Expected Marketing.
For retail sales of gourmet coffees and teas, plus an interesting story, article, or essay to read each day, visit Heavenly Java.
Garden Pizza
Try this “Garden Pizza” right now in summer, when you can gather most of the ingredients straight from your garden (or load up on them at the farmer’s market) – sweet orange and yellow peppers, juicy red tomatoes, and basil so fresh it will take your breath away.
Start with a single-serve prepared pizza crust like Boboli, or some flatbread. I prefer a flatbread-wrap type bread called Flatout. You’ll need one single serving Boboli or one piece of Flatout per person.
Use a pastry brush to spread the Flatout, or pizza crust, with a light coating of olive oil, then put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 5 to 7 minutes.
While the crust is in the oven, take a few pieces of fresh garlic and saute them in olive oil. Then, remove them from the oil and mash them in a bowl with a fork. Add about 1/2 cup of softened cream cheese to the garlic and mix together well. This will be enough cheese mixture for about 4 individual pizzas.
Remove the pizza crusts from the oven. Cover the top of the crusts with the cream cheese mixed with garlic, spreading it out evenly over each pizza. Next, for every two pizzas, cut an orange pepper and a yellow pepper into thin strips, slice a ripe tomato, and tear a few fresh basil leaves into small pieces. Place all these items onto the top of the pizza crusts (as shown). Grate a little Parmesan cheese over the vegetables and add a little freshly ground pepper. Put the pizzas in the oven for about 15 more minutes until the cheeses melt. Serve immediately.
