meat.pro is meat you can’t beat

Filed under: Feast Your Eyes, Ingredients

Pecan milk. Photo: Flickr, Alejandra of Always Order Dessert.

To call this creamy, cinnamon-specked beverage simply a “nut milk” is an understatement — it’s clearly not something to be wasted on a bowl of cereal. In fact, on her blog, Always Order Dessert, milk(shake) maker and photographer Alejandra writes, “It’s lusciously creamy and tastes kind of like an amazing nutty milkshake, except that it’s actually healthy.”

When served in a wine glass and punctuated with two perfect pecans, this non-dairy “milk” — which also contains honey, coconut milk, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, sea salt and sugar — certainly gives cashew milk (or soy or almond milk, for that matter) a run for its money, even if it does take eight hours to make. We can think of only one thing that would make it more appetizing — a shot of Kahlua!

[Via Flickr]

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cheese Course, Food Politics, Ingredients

Photo: Max Shrem.

Unlike a book not to be judged by its cover, you can always judge a cheese by its rind. Manchester, a raw goat’s milk cheese from Consider Bardwell Farm in West Pawlet, Vt., has a stunning rustic rind (that must be eaten!) with ridges and brownish-yellow molds. In the U.S., we tend to associate mold with spoiled food; however, when it comes to artisanal cheese — especially Manchester — this association is just plain wrong.

The clay-like appearance of Manchester’s ridges (which comes from the use of Italian cheese-basket molds) cannot be separated from the cheese’s smooth, sweet aromatic flavor, which makes it comparable to a French Tomme de Savoie. In fact, it’s the bacteria and mold around the cheese that contribute to this deliciously well-balanced masterpiece. Just eight weeks into the aging process, Manchester’s rind already develops spots of red mold on what Peter Dixon, dairy foods consultant and cheesemaker at Consider Bardwell Farm, calls a “wild rind.”

By “wild,” does Dixon mean to say that the molds and the bacteria grow naturally out of nowhere? Well, yes and no. After making Manchester, Dixon uses a soft brush dipped in whey to wash the rind. “Whatever microbes like that [whey] will grow,” says Dixon. “We make the cheese, and then create the look by turning the cheese and rubbing it a couple of times a week.”

Continue reading Manchester - Cheese Course

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Television/Film, Newspapers, Ingredients

We’re fans of the Chicago Tribune’s “Cheeseburger Show,” and we had to chuckle as “cheeseburger bureau chief” Kevin Pang gears up for a the fall burger season with a tribute to “Perfect Strangers.” It’s kind of a sloppy scene-by-scene re-enactment — perfect for a cheeseburger. Click on the photo for the video. (Warning: Mild vulgarity by French Fry.)

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Ingredients, Fast Food

Burger King Double Cheeseburger. Photo: sjeemz, Flickr.

The King has had a change of heart. Starting Oct. 19, Burger King will offer its quarter-pound double cheeseburger for $1 nationwide. This comes after we reported back in July that franchisees turned down a plan to instead sell the double cheeseburger for a buck, forcing the chain to plan a coupon campaign targeting nearly 80 million households nationwide.

But Nation’s Restaurant News reports that the $1 promotion is just the fast-food giant’s latest attempt to boost sales following a 4.5-percent drop in the last quarter.

Continue reading Burger King to Sell Quarter-Pound Double Cheeseburger for $1

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Budget Cuisine, Retro cookery, Ingredients

Ripe summer tomatoes. Photo: The Ewan, Flickr.

In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.

When I was a kid, the end of the summer brought with it a painful, unpleasant tradition. Every August, when the farmers’ market was filled with tomatoes, my parents would buy a few bushels, and the whole family would spend a couple of days blanching, peeling and processing the fruits. Every time, the process resulted in clothing and skin that reeked of tomatoes, fingers that stung and a freezer full of watery tomato sauce that we would defrost throughout the year.

As an adult, I have continued the tradition, although I make my sauce in the fall, when cooking pleasantly warms and perfumes the house, rather than turning it into a sweatbox. I also prefer using canned tomatoes, rather than fresh ones: In addition to sparing my fingers from burns, they produce a sauce that is richer, more flavorful and has a better texture than my parents’ marinara. On the other hand, I still use my mom’s recipe, which she learned from her Italian godmother, although I add a little bit of red wine vinegar, which gives the sauce more depth. Ultimately, it’s a spicy, fennel-accented marinara that freezes well, tastes delicious and is inexpensive to make.

Get the recipe for all-purpose marinara after the jump.

Continue reading Flashback to the Seventies: All-Purpose Marinara

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Tip of the Day, Ingredients

Why buy a jar of processed peanut butter when you can easily make it at home?

Continue reading Homemade Peanut Butter - Tip of the Day

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Health & Medical, Ingredients, Fast Food

McDonald’s at Chicago’s Navy Pier. Photo: jwrb,Flickr.

A Chicago man has filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s Corporation after he says he swallowed a gold earring in his sandwich.

The man purchased the sandwich on Aug. 11 from the McDonald’s at Chicago’s Navy Pier, according to the suit filed on Wednesday in the circuit court of Cook County, Ill.

Continue reading McDonald’s Sued Over Gold Earring in Sandwich

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: The Skinny Chef, Ingredients, How To

Ropa vieja. Photo: Jennifer Iserloh.

This week, we’ve had our first cool night on the East Coast, which got me craving something warmer for dinner. Savory beef with a soupy tomato sauce is my favorite Cuban country dish (with the exception of black beans and rice, of course!).

I’ve always wondered about the name, but realized the shredded beef does indeed resemble a twisted old dress shirt. There are several stories as to how the dish was named, but my favorite is about a very poor man who didn’t have money to buy food for his family. He took some “ropa vieja” — old clothing — from the closet and cooked it in a pot with a lot of love. Miraculously, it turned into a rich and hearty beef stew.

My old clothes recipe, after the jump.

Continue reading Ropa Vieja for Cool Autumn Nights

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Feast Your Eyes, Ingredients

Honeycrisp apple. Photo: Happy in a Bag.

We’ve started watching the leaves change to all different shades of red, brown and yellow. Fall colors also abound in apples. But with all of the options out there, which variety is one to eat while watching the trees’ brilliant transformations? Well, if you’re is a fan of consuming crisp fruit in crisp weather, Honeycrisps are definitely the way to go.

Based on the status updates of food lovers all over Facebook, it seems many were lucky enough to get their hands on Honeycrisps over the weekend, including blogger Happy in Bag who managed to hold off biting into this one long enough to snap a picture.

[Via Happy in a Bag]

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Tip of the Day, Ingredients

Ever wonder why there’s a whole slew of different cheese knives in those fancy sets?

Continue reading Picking the Right Cheese Knife - Tip of the Day

Permalink | Email this | Comments