National Food Day

National Food Day is Wednesday, Oct 24, 2012.  This is a day to celebrate food by spreading the idea of eating real.  What is eating real?  It is eating food that is nutrient and mineral rich which originates from pure sources enabling our overall health to be bolstered.  Ie. Real. 

Eating real is being mindful of what we are putting into our bodies and serving our families.  For instance, a box of macaroni and cheese is not eating real.  The cheese and the macaroni are not real, but a concoction of chemicals to create a taste.    

Eating clean is the mindful search for food that is grown without herbicides, pesticides, fungicides.  It is meat that has been raised naturally without growth hormones, unnatural diets or antibiotics.  Why is this important?  Fat cells become the storage center for all those –cides, hormones…toxins.  We eat the meat which has the fat infused in it.  (Large groupings of fat we can easily remove, most fat we cannot remove.)  The fat has high concentrations of toxins in it then we put it into our bodies and guess what? Our bodies take the toxins and deal with the on-slot the best way it can, buy creating more fat.  Or we eat –cide laden produce and a similar process occurs, locking the toxins into our fat cells.

Mindfulness of what we ingest is the goal of National Food Day.  The food game has changed dramatically in the last 50 years.  We need to be conscious of what those changes mean to our health.   I am just learning, I feel like such a “young-un” in the process, thankfully I know how to research and ask a ton of questions.   

Celebrating the Farmer's Market

This past Friday, we hosted the chefs from our local Hilton Garden right here at the Copper Kettle. They created a variety of small dishes inspired by the Farmer’s Market items offered just down the block. For the sampling they used the fresh corn, baby potatoes, and spices bought only minutes earlier. One especially delicious and simple dish involved fresh string beans and peppers, lightly crisped in a wok strait off our shelf. While all of this tasty fresh produce filled our bellies, we agreed you should all have the opportunity to enjoy it as well. This got our minds wandering toward similar recipes found in a cookbook called Big Small Plates written by Cindy Pawlcyn. The book highlights the use of “small plates” of three or four dishes to create an entire meal. The idea is for everyone to sample a few bites of each creation; a wonderful idea for everything from parties to family meals. We encourage you to stop by the Farmer’s Market and pick up these fresh ingredients for a “small plate” dinner tonight!
Here is a recipe from Big Small Plates very similar to what the amazing Hilton chefs created Friday:

Grilled “Street” Corn: Serves six
3-4 tablespoons homemade or high quality mayonnaise
½ teaspoon minced garlic
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 ears garden fresh corn, husks left on
1 lime, cut into 6 wedges
“ (Pre-grilling) Stir the mayonnaise and garlic together in a small dish. Mix the salt and cayenne together in another small dish or in a spare salt shaker. Put the Parmesan cheese on a small plate for rolling.”
“When you are ready to serve, grill the corn over a hot fire for twelve to fifteen minutes, rolling it around so it cooks evenly. If you have other food to grill for the meal, move the corn to the side of the grill. To serve, shuck the corn and break each ear in half. If the corn has cooled down too much, run the cobs over the grill. Stick corn holders on ends, brush with mayo, dust with salt and cayenne, and roll in the Parmesan. Serve warm with individual lime slices.”

We also suggest cutting the corn off the cob and mixing the ingredients together in a bowl. In Mexico, venders supply hot sauce to pour over the mixture for additional flavor. We suggest Cholula!
For a backyard party, serve it in plastic cups with spoons!

First Farmers Market Recipe

Grilled Vegetable Sandwich on Artisan Bread
· Marinade for veggies: Whisk together:
· 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped-use your garlic zoom for added summertime fun!
· 1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
· ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Use your favorite vegetables such as: bell peppers, red onion, tomatoes, eggplant etc. Slice the vegetables thick and use the expandable grill basket or dice them and use the grill wok. Add to the marinade and let sit for 30 minutes at room temperature. Heat the grill to high and grill those veggies! Pick up some Artisan Bread, drizzle cut side of the bread with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and grill cut side down for 1 to2 minutes. Brush with vinaigrette and top with the grilled veggies! For the vinaigrette: whisk together, ¼ cup balsamic vinegar, 1 T. Dijon mustard salt and pepper.
Enjoy! Brought to you by the tasteful minds at The Copper Kettle. www.mycopperkettle.com

"Thinking Outside the Bun" with Grilling!

Hot dogs, hamburgers, and homemade potato salad are three things that usually come to mind when planning a summer barbecue. But what if I said spicy fruit on a stick? Here at the Copper Kettle, we like to mix it up. So try this delicous recipe recorded below; it is sure to surprise and delight your friends and family!

Grilled Fruit Kabobs

1 honeydew melon
2 cantaloupes
8 ripe pears, peaches, mangos, or apples
*dice fruit into 1 1/2 inch cubes

2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1/2 cup lime juice
2 fresh jalapeno peppers; seeds and veins removed and roughly chopped
4 tablespoons of red chili powder

18 (6 inch) bamboo skewers, soaked in water for 20-30 minutes

Directions:

Cook the sugar and water together in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves. This should take about five minutes.
Allow the syrup to cool.
In a blender, add the sugary syrup, lime juice, jalapeno peppers, and red chili powder.
Blend thoroughly, roughly 1 minute.

Place the fruit on the skewers, alternating the types for flavor and visual appeal.
Place them into a non-metallic shallow pan.
Pour the marinade over the fruit kabobs, and let soak for at least 1 hour.
Turn them occasionally.

Preheat the grill to low heat and grill the kabobs on both sides until you see the brown grill marks.
The fruit should be warm; it will take roughly 5-7 minutes.
Remove the fruit from the kabobs, or leave them on the sticks to serve.
Brush them with the remaining chili sauce for an extra spicy fruit sidedish!

Concert last night

Elton John’s music vibrated through me. Every inch trembled, from my toes to the top of my head. He raised quite a bit last night for the Matthew Sheppard Foundation! That got me thinking: if one artist could do that for one cause he believes in, what could many artists do for other causes? Stretching that further, what could regular people do for a cause that reverberates in their heart? Taking it home, what can I do for those special causes I believe in so much? Retail businesses are lucky is some ways, we are always presented with opportunities to donate to organizations. I have my handful that I give to more than the norm lot. Hospice, Breast Cancer issues, Aids, and Spectrum to name a few. This snow storm gives me a good chance to contemplate how to make my donation work more efficiently.

Quiet before the storm.

The quiet month of March is moving over for April! April is one of my favorite months. A little wilder weather with snow OR rain, Easter is this month and my mind revs up for the warm months of summer! I'm struggling with which orders to place first. In a perfect world I would place all the orders I could possibly want. Very excited over some new Wyoming made cutting boards that arrived yesterday.

Spring Time in the Rockies

Wind, snow, and cold! It is spring time in the Rockies! I really enjoyed last weekend when we had such wonderful warm weather. I want to plant a garden! I want to be out and about in the warm sunshine; walking, seeing friends. In time. Now it is time to bake bread and shovel snow. Later this evening it will be time for a book, a glass of wine and a warm fire.