NoFood4You Childhood Hunger Awareness Event!

We all eat. We all like to eat or you wouldn’t be here on my food blog. Did you know though that there are children right here in my county (about 10,000 of them to be exact) that go hungry every single weekend? Don’t kid yourself…they are in your counties too!

These are the children in the Lee County school system that are on our county’s Free & Reduced Lunch Program. It’s a great program that provides breakfast and lunch to these children during the week at school, but, what happens to some of these children come the weekend? Unfortunately they are going without food.

CCMI (Community Cooperative Ministries Inc.) is trying to solve this problem. They have implemented a Backpack Program in which a child is given a backpack full of food to feed him or her over the weekend. 700 children take home enough food for the weekend each week!

They want to do more though and this is where you guys come in! CCMI and local businesses and community participants are committing to the NoFood4You weekend on April 24 – 26, 2009. Now this is not just a local event. This can be done anywhere to help build awareness of Childhood Hunger nationwide.

This is what it entails: At lunchtime on Friday, April 24, designated participants will join children at Orange River Elementary and Sunshine Elementary for lunch. The participants including The News-Press reporter Francesca Donlan, ABC-7 anchor Len Jennings, Sarah Owen and others (ME!!!), will eat a typical school lunch that is served in the cafeterias. The participants will then attempt to go without anything else to eat until they gather together again on Monday morning for school breakfast.

You DO NOT have to be here to participate in this event. You can join us virtually,by signing up through Facebook or CCMI website and following us on Twitter. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see how much of an impact we can make if we all do this together?

Some participants are going so far as to donate the money that they would have spent on food over the weekend to CCMI. You too could do this event and donate the money to YOUR LOCAL food bank or soup kitchen!

To participate sign up at either our Facebook Event page or to the CCMI website sign up page. The more people we have involved the more exposure and interest we will be able to get!

This is an organization that is very near and dear to my heart and I hope you will all join me in the NoFood4You weekend. I’m just asking you to try. Put yourself in these children’s shoes for one weekend and experience what they are facing year-round.

Judy

Cinnamon Chocolate Brownies

The other day I was in a cinnamony mood. I think it’s because first thing in the morning I walked past one of those kiosks that sell the cinnamon pretzels. Poor me it was all I could think about for the rest of the day!!! I was going to make snicker doodles but Lori of The Recipe Girl’s favorite recipe has shortening in it and I was sadly out of shortening! I decided that I would try my hand at Cinnamon Chocolate Brownies and am I ever glad that I did!

I used my favorite brownie recipe and added 1 Tbsp of cinnamon to the batter. This was a really great treat and although it didn’t fully satisfy my craving (really need to get shortening) it was close!

Cinnamon Chocolate Brownies (Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookies.)

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for pan
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter an 8″square baking pan. Line pan with parchment paper, leaving 2 inches hanging over the sides. Butter parchment paper.

In a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, stir together butter, chocolate, and cocoa powder. Set aside to cool slightly.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

Combine sugar, eggs, and vanilla using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale, about 4 minutes. Add chocolate mixture and mix until combined. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Spread evenly with spatula. Bake about 35 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet. Let cool in pan about 15 minutes.

Lift brownies out of pan. Cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into squares.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Road Trip and Pepperoni Rolls!!!

As most of you know we spent last week, the girls spring break, in the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania. T’s Dad has colorectal cancer, and has been in treatment for about a year now. Please go and get checked. It’s really a simple procedure and could save your life! A colonoscopy is recommended (by the American Cancer Society) for men and women after the age of 50 unless there is a history in your family. I simple screening could have saved this tragedy! BTW...T's Dad is only 60! Anyway off my soap box…

We went up to help lighten the load a little bit and just spend a bit of time with the family. It was a great trip. We got to see and pet some cows, build a bonfire and roast marshmallows, eat at Primanti Bros. (not once but twice!!!), play outside on a beautiful spring day, watch a blizzard come through and then build snowmen and have a snow ball fight, go for a walk through the woods that T. grew up hunting in looking for morel mushrooms (finding nothing but ticks, egad!), and sharing a bunch of wonderful meals with family that we very rarely get to see. How can that not be good?

Fudge the Cow. Last year the girls bottle fed him. This year he followed us through the field like a puppy!

Grandma and the Grandkids watching the bonfire. This was a beautiful day. The next day it snowed!!!

Roasting Marshmallows!!!

Snow Angels for Peter of Kalofagas

Blizzard!!!

Snowman, this was the small one. The big one was the next day after it had snowed a lot more!

A man and his girl…These are the same woods that T. grew up hunting in. It was a real joy for him to show them to the girls!

And the dogs came along!!!

Lunch from Primanti Bros. The perfect meal of efficiency! A pastrami sandwich with French Fries and coleslaw on white bread! Why mess with sides when you can have it all together!

So this is really what this post is about…Pepperoni Rolls. One of the things that we always do when we are faced with a long drive is to plan food for the trip. We do not eat fast food so it makes us feel really bad when we have nothing to eat on a road trip but burgers and fries. We always pack sandwiches but this time T. wanted to try something different and was it ever good! I had never really heard of these before and I guess they are a regional thing from West Virginia and Pennsylvania are. He made them with a great dough recipe using the bread machine and then stuffed them with mozzarella cheese and ground up pepperoni. These are shelf stable and left us full and satisfied during a very, very long drive to PA!!!

Pepperoni Rolls

1 recipe for your favorite baguettes or the recipe we used for the bread machine follows!

From The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook

1 1/2 cups water
3 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp gluten with vitamin C
1 3/4 tsp salt

2 1/2 tsp SAF yeast or 1 Tbsp bread machine yeast

Directions:

• Place all the ingredients in the pan according to the manufacturer’s instructions (mine has the liquid first, then all dry with yeast last in a well)
• Program for the dough cycle and press start.
• The dough ball will be sticky. Do not add more flour at this point.

Pepperoni Rolls

Dough – see above
mozzarella cheese, grated
pepperoni, shredded using a food processor or sliced

• When the dough is done it’s cycle, remove from pan and separate into 8 individual dough balls.
• Punch down the dough and shape into 8 rectangles.
• Fill the dough with cheese and pepperoni
• Roll up the dough rectangles tucking in the ends as you go.
• Place seem side down on a greased baking sheet and bake in a preheated 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned.

Serve immediately or these can seriously be left a room temperature and eaten as is. They are also great served with a plate of spaghetti and sauce!!!


I am submitting this to BYOB (Bake Your Own Bread) hosted by Sandy of At the Baker's Bench. This is a great challenge to get you baking more of your own baked goods. Better for you and cheaper in the process!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Sausage Gravy and Biscuits

We are still in Pennsylvania visiting T's family until tomorrow. As we were sitting around the huge pan of lasagna last night our conversation once again turned to food. We started throwing out ideas for breakfast and someone mentioned sausage gravy and biscuits. My FIL's eyes went real big! This would be a huge hit in the morning. Funny thing is this is such a simple meal to make. Who knows why we don't have this more often!

Simple Biscuits (no idea where I got this from. I have been using it forever!)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 1 cup milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in milk until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.
3. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead 15 to 20 times. Pat or roll dough out to 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Repeat until all dough is used. Brush off the excess flour, and place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet.
4. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges begin to brown.

Now onto the sausage gravy. This is T’s deal. For some reason he has always been the cooker of the gravy!

Sausage Gravy (T’s recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5# loose breakfast sausage
• Flour
• Milk
• salt & pepper to taste
• Fresh Sage

Directions:

1. Fry sausage on medium high until cooked through. Add flour (estimate same amount of flour to grease produced by sausage) reduce heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes.
2. Start adding milk a cup at a time stirring until thickened then add another cup of milk until after 10 minutes of cooking gravy is not getting thicker.
3. Season with salt, pepper and fresh sage.

Serve the sausage gravy over the fresh baked biscuits and enjoy. This is one of our favorite breakfast and is always requested by guests!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Pumpkin Bread with Dried Cranberries

Not sure if all of you know this but we are out of town all this week. We did a marathon “Road Trip” and drove from Southwest Florida straight through to the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania. My Father-in-Law’s cancer has returned and he has been going through a rough time with the treatment and all so we decided that this Spring Break would be best spent hanging out with the family in PA.

Dakota making snow angels for us! LOL!

So far this has been a great trip. We have been able to lend a hand, a bit of moral support, and help feed the masses! Seems there is always an extra mouth for dinner. How fun is that?

Today I made chili for dinner but also wanted to make sure there was a snack ready for whoever walked in or came to eat dinner with us. There was a half used can of Pumpkin puree in the fridge so it was going to be pumpkin bread and based on all of the other ingredients I found this was the best recipe I could come up with. Turned out really good too, definitely a keeper! Loved the dried cranberries in this!

Pumpkin Bread with Dried Cranberries (adapted from About.com)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups AP flour
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups pumpkin pureé (15 oz can)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup dried cranberries

Preparation:

• Combine flour, spice, baking powder, and salt in bowl; stir to blend the dry ingredients well.
• Combine eggs, sugar, pumpkin, and oil in a mixing bowl, beating until smooth.
• Stir in flour mixture, then stir in cranberries. Spoon into a greased and floured 9x5x2-inch loaf pan.
• Bake at 325° for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Finest Foodies Friday – April 3, 2009

Jenn, The Leftover Queen has asked me to step in and help her out for a couple of weeks by posting the FFF so without further ado…

As always here is what the FFF is all about. Finest Foodies Friday! FFF is a weekly Friday post featuring favorites from The Foodie Blogroll! We do this so we can share in the rich diversity of what The Foodie Blogroll has to offer by featuring some of our favorites and yours!

What is the Foodie Blogroll? It is the first and fastest growing free membership blogroll for food bloggers and has become a wonderful community to share ideas about all things food related. With a membership of over 3000 food blogs, I am sure you can find much inspiration and new friends!

The only requirement to be featured here on FFF is to be a member of The Foodie Blogroll and be displaying The Foodie Blogroll widget on your blog. If you are not yet a member, but you have a food blog and would like to join us, please click here!

If you have a favorite foodblog on The Foodie Blogroll, that you would like to be featured here on FFF, please join us over on The Leftover Queen/Foodie Blogroll Forum, and post your favorite Foodie Blogroll foodblogs here.

This week I have chosen to feature bloggers who are very active in the Leftover Queen Forum.  I love going on to the forum to just see what everyone has going on.  This is my thanks to some of the posters!

Essentially Healthy Food
Suzie Banks is a freelance food writer based in Nottinghamshire, UK.  She has posted several Royal Foodie Joust entries and her dishes are just beautiful!  I especially loved the Pan forte dipped in Chocolate!!!

Domestic Muse
Karen describes her blog as “Random thoughts on the art and science of cooking, cleaning, and homemaking.”  To me it just looks plain yummy!  You need to check out her April’s Fool joke cake!  Pretty funny!

Sam’s Recipes
Samahita is a food blogger out of India who cooks to satisfy her creative urge and the stomachs of dear ones around her!  Her post about her visit to a tea factory was most interesting!

Mirch Masala or AKA Superchef (on the Forum)
Great food blog.  Superchef is very active on the Leftover Queen Forum.  Nice blog and I love the Roasted Potatoes Herbs De Provence!

Gourmet Traveller 88 or AKA jswching (on the Forum)
Beautiful blog with some great recipes and pictures.  I loved looking around it and think the bobsledding looks like soooo much fun.  I can’t wait to try the effortless grilled chicken Wings with Asian spices!

That’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed this week’s FFF. Remember, if you would like to see a blog featured here, who is part of the FBR please visit the forum and nominate them.
WE NEED NOMINATIONS!!!!!!

Also we all love to know how people came to find our blogs, so please visit all of our featured bloggers today and don’t forget to tell them that you found them via Finest Foodies Friday!

Asian Inspired Chicken Salad

You know those meals or snacks that you make all the time but never really even think about writing about because to you they seem so normal? This recipe is one of them.

The other day I checked in with my tweeps on Twitter (follow me here) and mentioned that I had just had an Asian Chicken Wrap for lunch, thinking nothing at all of it other than it was really good and I used up the leftover chicken, when I got about 5 replies asking me to post it. I thought about it and still had some left so I was able to get some pictures of it.

Now this is not really a recipe but a list of ingredients because it really all depends on how much chicken you have on hand or if you decide to cook chicken special to make this.

Chicken (cooked, remember-leftover dish), diced
onion, diced fine
water chestnuts, drained and diced
mayonnaise
sesame oil
Coleman’s Dry Mustard
Salt and Pepper
White Pepper
Granulated Garlic

Mix the dry mustard with the sesame oil and then mix into the mayo. Makes for a much smoother mix.

We serve this in sandwiches or just as a salad, sometimes we use wraps or pitas. This time all I had was a tortilla shell and it worked great!!!

Hope you like it!!!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com