Weekend Cooking – In Good Taste

Minestrone Soup from Healthier Traditions: Italian Cookbook

Maris Callahan — Fri, 22 Mar 2019 22:22:21 +0000

When people think of Italian food, nutrition is not often the first thing that comes to mind. When I think of Italian food, I think of Romeo’s, a pizzeria and restaurant in my hometown that serves everything from pizza by the slice and fresh subs to baked ziti and rigatoni ala vodka. I think of Giada De Laurentiis’ classic Italian lasagna made with homemade tomato sauce, homemade bechamel sauce, beef, spinach and three different kinds of cheese. I also think of Italian friends whose Sunday dinners and holiday meals can best be described as “carbs on carbs on carbs.” That’s why it’s truly a gift to all of us that there is a new Italian cookbook to help us satisfy our Italian food cravings with more nutrition and just the right amount of carbs. The Transamerica Center for Health Studies is a nonprofit dedicated to helping employers and consumers achieve the best value and protection from their health coverage. Healthier Traditions: Italian Cookbook is the fourth edition of the Healthier Traditions Cookbook series with 18 recipes created and reviewed by registered dietitians. I love that each book in the series focuses on a different type of cuisine: Italian, Mexican, American […]

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Slow Cooker Spiced Apple Butter

Maris Callahan — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 13:00:54 +0000

Can you tell I’ve been on a slow cooker kick recently? Between making bolognese sauce in the slow cooker and rounding up 10 slow cooker recipes that I’m dying to try, you might say I’m a little bit obsessed with the idea of “set it and forget it.” So, it should come as no surprise that I decided to take three pounds of apples from the farmers’ market and make slow cooker apple butter. I used to claim fall as my favorite season, because of one day in 2006 when I was at my first job in New York City. During my lunch breaks, I would take walks just to get out of the office and get some fresh air. New York in the summer can be kind of disgusting, what with the garbage piled on the streets and high-reaching humidity. Fall there was always, quite literally, a breath of fresh air. I remember taking a walk on a particularly crisp day in early October and feeling hopeful and excited. I was probably excited to do things like pick apples and buy my annual bag of candy corn, bake pumpkin bread, consume copious amounts of apple butter and look forward […]

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10 Slow Cooker Recipes to Make on Sunday for the Week

Maris Callahan — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 13:00:32 +0000

In years past, I’ve been just as excited for fall as every other white girl who likes to wear leggings as pants and sip the annual pumpkin spice latte. Summer is hot and sticky and you sweat just standing outside, and there was a time in my life that I looked forward to sweaters. At some point in the past few years I’ve grown to appreciate, well — maybe cult-like worship is a better term — summer: weekend days by the pool, after-work happy hours on rooftop terrace restaurants, and the sunlight that takes the sting out of the miserable winter and spring we have in the Midwest. The one thing that I am really looking forward to though is using my slow cooker more often. It seems unnatural to be making soup, stew and chili when it’s 90 degrees outside and we have access to a grill, but the idea of “set-it-and-forget-it” meals is growing increasingly attractive the busier I get. As long as we’re on the subject, I want to talk about my slow-cooker for a few minutes. I have the KitchenAid Multi-Cooker, which comes with a 2-in-1 reversible steam basket and roasting rack. It has 10 cooking settings […]

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Slow-Cooker Bolognese Sauce

Maris Callahan — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 17:55:42 +0000

The only thing better than having a pot of hearty bolognese sauce bubbling on the stove is having a hearty pot of bolognese sauce bubbling in your slow cooker for eight hours while you sip a glass of wine and catch up on your Bravo. Bolognese sauce is one of my favorites to make because one batch will go a long way in a lasagna, baked pasta dish or simply over your favorite brand of pasta. And it’s only right that a classic Italian sauce should pair with a classic Italian pasta. Barilla® pasta has been a staple in my kitchen for a long time and this week, I learned about Barilla Collezione, an artisanal premium, bronze cut pasta that perfectly holds sauces for a restaurant-quality pasta experience at home. I’m all about a restaurant-quality anything at home. Before we talk about why I discovered Barilla Collezione, let’s have a little pasta lesson, shall we? Barilla Collezione is extruded through bronze dies, a process that gives the pasta a rough, porous surface, resulting in a texture similar to homemade pasta that is optimal for sauce cling. And I’m also all about an optimal sauce cling. Each Collezione pasta shape is […]

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Other People’s Food: Summer Recipes I’ve Tried and Loved

Maris Callahan — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 04:48:58 +0000

Summer is the best. It’s the best for a lot of reasons, but my first second and third reasons are all one word: outside. Being outside makes me happy in ways that being inside does not. I like to be in pools and sitting beside pools in equal measure, and I enjoy farmers’ markets, grilling and dining al fresco. It stays light out later than 4:00 p.m. and I don’t have to arm wrestle Henry into a coat in order to take him outside for .3 seconds to do his business before he bolts back inside. This is not to say that I enjoy nature in all of its forms – for example, I would not like to go camping because allegedly, you have to do your #2 in a hole in the ground. No thank you. Since I have little of relevance to tell you about sitting by a pool or going to the farmers’ market to buy cheese and croissants (because isn’t that why everyone goes to farmer’s markets?) I would like to talk about what we’ve been grilling. Main Dishes The Best Barbecue Ribs Ever These should also be called the easiest barbecue ribs ever because […]

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