Tasting Panel Wizards: Cara, Cassie, Rachel, Jen, Trista, Noshaba

I’m here in Chicago this week with our research and development group.  You really need to thank these ladies, but not as much as I do!  We go out and scour the land (ok – well food shows) for hot new ideas to bring to you.  I come home with boxes of great ideas to taste – and these ladies do all the hard work!

They organize the samples, create the questionnaires, recruit the folks to taste, and analyze the results so that we refine and bring you the products that you will love!  They’ve been expert and refining fragrances to grace your home, but they have enthusiastically jumped in to support Two Sisters Gourmet – so as you enjoy the new products that we have released – thank these ladies!

Just so you know, they just finished a test of some new products for the next catalog that they promise you will love!

Tweet This Post

1.  A long cool drink is in order.  You can make a killer raspberry iced tea, or something more exotic that pink with fruit in it – I always like a Planter’s Punch

2.   Set the table for fun – Decorate with colorful placemats and flowers or fruit, like a whole pineapple and some lemons and limes

3.  Cook and Eat outside – Nobody wants to heat up the kitchen. Make a great fresh green salad topped with TSG Garlic Parmesan Vinaigrette.  Skewer some Caribbean Chicken Kebobs made with Island Ponzu Sauce.  Have piles of light fresh fruit for dessert

4.  Set the mood with steel drum music and candles (maybe Banana Leaf) flickering.

Enjoy your tropical getaway!

Tweet This Post

I think like many people, my food junk food intake has a strong correlation to my mood – one extreme or the other and I am all over junk food!  In our family it takes many forms.  A stressed day at work brings on my secret delight – a bag of crunchy Cheetos!  My husband is mint chocolate chip ice cream hand packed from the local creamery ( you know that has more fat).  My daughter would be mac and cheese and my son would be pizza.

Apparently , according to Nielsen, Oklahoma City has the highest per capita rate of junk food consumption.  Food Network came up with an odd but delicious assortment of 30 ways to top a hot dog, but most surveys agree that America’s top three items are

1.  Chocolate

2.  Pizza

3.  French Fries

4.   … in fact fried everything.

If you are YouTube, you can find videos for fried ice cream, pizza, Snickers, hamburgers but the most popular seems to be the ubiquitous fried Oreo!

Click here to view the embedded video.

What’s your favorite junk food?

Tweet This Post

Basil is one of my personal favorites.  I grow it year round.  Just smelling my hands after I have picked basil makes me feel the lightness of summer.  So what do you do with four basil bushes?  EAT!

5 Easy Ways to Use Fresh Basil

1. Add flavor to scrambled eggs – just cut up a couple of leaves and add.
2. Add flavor to tossed green salad – toss in a handful of leaves whole
3. Make basil sauce for chicken or fish – just throw some basil, olive oil and lemon juice in you blender or food processor and drizzle over the food while cooking
4. Fresh Tomato, Basil and Mozzarella salad (Caprese)-  use more than just your basil: Alternate slices of fresh tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, sprinkle with basil, olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette (proportions to your taste, but don’t use much because the fresh taste is best!)
5. Classic Pesto – The real reason we have four basil bushes.  Pesto is the family favorite. While this recipe is basic, feel free to adjust to what your family likes – we like extra garlic in ours. With garlic, parmesan and pine nuts it goes on everything from pasta to pizza, and it uses cups at a time!

Bon Appétit!

Tweet This Post

Barbeque in America is big business! Everyone thinks the BBQ from their region is the best – Texas, Memphis, Kansas City, Carolina.  There are barbeque festivals in almost every state in the union – over 500 and counting! At the Memphis in May International Barbeque Festival people compete for over $100,000 in prizes. There are sites dedicated to ribs! And  party people who specialize in grilling, roasting and smoking!

Silly me, I just used to slather ribs with sauce and throw them on the grill for a nice char – boy was I mistaken.  To do really great ribs, they need to be slow roasted for several hours and just finished on the grill.

How to Make Great Ribs – Easy but NOT Fast

Again there’s a lot of regional lore about what’s best.  Some people recommend boiling them to cook them, but generally that leaches out the flavor.  In our house you rub the ribs lightly with oil. Sometimes we then pat on a dry rub of our favorite spices. Then you can put them in a crock pot smothered in your favorite  for several hours on low or wrap smother them in sauce and wrap them in foil in the oven for several hours.  The key is low slow cooking about 225 degrees, until the meat starts to separate easily from the bone. You can use either TSG Raspberry Grilling Sauce or try this recipe with Sisters Southern Sweet Barbeque Sauce – or a combination of both!  Here a link to the TSG recipe that’s a little faster.

Then onto the grill for that caramelized and crispy finish. 

Easy Grilled Corn Too!

If you don’t want to cook inside, I recommend BBQ roasted corn for a perfect picnic.  Just take your corn in the husk – soak it in water for about an hour – then drop onto the grill.  The corn will cook inside in about 10-15 minutes.  Or if you like a little char and don’t have the hour, take off the husk,  brush with olive oil and drop directly on the gril.

Keep all the mess outside with almost no clean up after – that’s my idea of a summer vacation!  Even better, Tom  is coming for the weekend and he’s going to do the ribs!

Tweet This Post

Kids Love Grilled Vegetables

For those of you who lament every getting your children to eat vegs – this has to be the answer.  Take just about any fresh veg you can find, slice it, spray or brush lightly with  it with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and it’s guaranteed to vanish!  My family generally moans when I ask what vegetable they want with dinner, but in the summer I have to grill three times what I think is the correct amount because it is stolen before it ever hits the table.

For a family, you can make it a fun day if you start at the farmer’s market in the morning where everyone can pick “their” vegetable to include.  Maybe you can make it a game to add one “new” variety each week. This way each child has a vested interest in trying their new vegetable!

Easy Grilled Vegetable Recipe and Variations

My  husband, – you know, Mr. BBQ  – and I have different opinions about the best, easiest, and tastiest methods for grilling vegetables but the result is the same.  I like to slice my vegs in pretty large pieces and put them straight on the grill for those nice markings you get in restaurants.  I like yellow squash (it seems to hold up better than zucchini) red peppers, onions, asparagus, eggplant (for me- just the little ones) , onions and mushrooms (they go fastest).  Really simple oil, salt and pepper is great, but you can add a little extra flavor by marinating with balsamic vinegar – and for a little extra flavor you can add fresh basil, rosemary or oregano – depending on your taste! If you are short of time you can use TSG Garlic Parmesan Vinaigrette, Vermont Maple Dijon, or Island Ponzu Sauce.

By the way – those mushrooms and tomatoes seem to grill best on a skewer – they’re a lot easier to handle en masse!  For the onions and asparagus, it helps to have a smaller vegetable grill to put on the barbeque so they don’t fall in.  Here Rick and I differ – I think they should still be metal for texture in the barbeque – and not coated.  He likes some of the “basket” styles better, but I think they come out more steamed than grilled. And a little “spritzer” is handy to get the oil/marinade on the flip side when you turn them over.

Either way – when they are finished don’t put them in the oven to keep them warm – they get mushy.  Besides, if you leave them out on a nice platter – everyone who goes by steals some and they’re one of the healthiest snacks you can find!  Eat up!

Tweet This Post

My son has a sign in his room – Garlic is the 5^th food group!  And in our family that’s true.  There are very few things that can’t be improved with Garlic.  Growing up in California, garlic is a staple.  Gilroy is the garlic capital of the world and its festival is world famous.

The Amazing History of Garlic

Garlic is one of the oldest seasonings available too!  It was used and worshipped by the Egyptians, making it’s way to King Tut’s tomb, as well as the Greeks and Romans. Both cultures used it as food an medicine. It can even keep away vampires and other evil spirits in many cultures! At least in the old mythology – and it can certainly keep away undesirable advances on occasions. Although other cultures claim it is an aphrodisiac.

Garlic is also now proven to be good for you.  Isn’t it amazing how many “old folk remedies” really have real benefits (like grandma’s chicken soup).  Garlic is supposed to help lower blood pressure and while that is debatable, Louis Pasture found that it has great antibacterial properties.  Garlic was even used as an antiseptic in WWI.

Great Garlic Ideas

I suppose that’s why Two Sisters Gourmet Outrageously Garlic is consistently one of the top three products in the line.  It has great garlic flavor.  My daughter takes a jar to school every semester and she doesn’t even really have a kitchen – you can use it a thousand ways. Most easily it makes an addictive dip with either sour cream or a combination of sour cream and mayonnaise.  You can also let it soak in some olive oil for a great bread dip (add a little parmesan cheese and pepper and WOW!). You can always sprinkle it on fresh vegetables or French fries for some extra zest. Last night I added it to creamed spinach and had flavor at a whole new level.

Four Easy Recipes

Here are links to four of our easy recipes for Outrageously Garlic:

1. Cheesy Garlic Bread Dip

2.  Lemon Garlic Shrimp

3.   Garlic Roasted Potatoes

4. Tangy Turkey Burgers

Tweet This Post

quick, easy apple cake recipes

Summer is coming up!  The kids will be home and there will be lots of outdoor entertaining and picnic opportunities!  Want some help in feeding the crowds? How about simple ways to use Apple Cake Mix to make a variety of new taste treats?  There are a lot of great recipes in the TSG Recipe Box to tantalize your taste buds, but here are five new, easy ways to use apple cake!  Thanks to Rita Held our great recipe creator!

Send us your recipe ideas and earn a chance to win 3 boxes of apple cake.  We will choose ten recipes at random in a drawing

Five Great New, Easy Recipes for Apple Cake!

1.  Apple Cocoa Nut Cake

2.  Cranberry Coffee Crumble Cake

3.  Cranberry Orange Loaf

4.  Crispy Walnut Chocolate Cookies

5.   Pecan Cake with Coconut Frosting

Tweet This Post

It’s no surprise to anyone who has tasted it – beer bread is the number one item!  The family will devour it before it’s cool and it only took five minutes to make.  Beer bread is probably the most versatile of all of  our products.  We like to say that everything should be used in at least three different ways –but we have 21 ways to make beer bread!

Beer Bread Top Five Recipes

Beer bread is great!  It can take on any flavor that you like.  Making it with beer is traditional, but if you don’t have it on hand  – any carbonated beverage will do.  Personally, I prefer it with  club soda (not being a beer fan).  But here are 5 of the top ways to change it up.

1. Corn Beer Bread: Add one can of creamed corn to beer bread mix.  (Add 1 TBSP Over the Edge Herbed Spinach if you like) Bake in a 9×9 pan at 350 degrees for 35-45 mins.
2. Garlic Cheese Bread:  Mix as directed and add ½ cup each grated parmesan and grated cheddar cheese.  Mix in 1 TBSP Outrageously Garlic.  Sprinkle Outrageously Garlic on top.  Cook as directed
3. Sweet Breakfast Bread: Mix with Mountain Dew, add 1 cup chocolate chips or cinnamon chips.  Bake as directed.
4. Irish Soda Bread: Mix with 12 oz. Club soda, and ½ cur orange flavored dried cranberries.  Bake as directed.
5. Pizza Muffins: Mix with light beer, add 1 cup parmesan or mozzarella cheese, ½ cup chopped pepperoni, 1 TBSP Outrageously Garlic.  Bake for 20-25 minutes in muffin tin at 350 degrees.

Tweet This Post

History of Asparagus

Asparagus is a member of the lily family – see very spring.  This vegetable has been around for centuries and was popular among the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. Emperor Augustus is said to have coined the phrase “as quick as cooking asparagus.”  Louis the XVI also loved the plant and had his gardeners grow it year round in green houses, stemming  its modern romance.  Thomas Jefferson had a whole garden reserved for growing asparagus.

How to Purchase and Store Asparagus

Asparagus is on the expensive side and tends to be a party food. That’s because you can’t harvest an asparagus plant for the first three years, and it is labor intensive to grow.  It is high in Folic Acid and a good source of potassium, fiber, vitamin B6, A and C, and thiamin.

Many people are a little unsure of what to do. When selecting asparagus, choose firm stalks with deep green tips that are closed.  Asparagus with slimmer stalks tends to be more tender.  Store them with the bottom wrapped in a damp paper towel in the coldest part of the refrigerator.  As with all fresh things, eat as soon as possible to get the most  flavor and nutrients.

5 Great Recipes Ideas

As the Romans knew, cooking asparagus is a snap.  Just steam or drop a bundle in boiling water for a couple of minutes, until bright green.  You can also spray with a little oil and grill for a short period.  Asparagus can be used in a variety of ways – straight as a salad with a little dressing, as a crudités with any dip or in other interesting recipes.  Here are two salad dressings you can use with asparagus, and three other delicious Two Sisters Gourmet recipes.

Five Great Recipes to Show Off Asparagus

1. Oh Honey! Dill Vinaigrette
2. Onion Chive Herb Salad Dressing
3. Asparagus Spears Wrapped in Prosciutto
4. Smoked Salmon Asparagus Wraps
5. Asparagus Tomato Bake

Tweet This Post