I had a very special series of kitchen dates this past week. I refer to any event in the kitchen when I try something for the first time, as a “kitchen date”, since I have to really pay attention to what is going on the entire time, spend quality time with new ingredients and equipment, getting to know them – all the ins and outs, the quirks and the possible incompatibilities and then assess if this new item/process will become a part of my regular routine or not.

There are two major themes going on here – one is food preservation, and the other is gluten free baking. I have been talking about wanting to learn to preserve food, and can for quite some time now. I got the Ball’s Complete Book of Home Preserving several months ago, and have really been waiting for the right time to dive in and make something. Inspiration hit when the lovely folks at FromTheFarm.com sent me several pints of fresh blueberries. Obviously we ate quite a bit of them au naturale, but when I had quite a lot still after several days, I figured I needed to do something to preserve the rest…and then it hit me – MAKE PRESERVES.

So I did. I opened the book to the index and chose a recipe that featured blueberries and other ingredients that I had already. Then I did something that could have been disastrous, I tweaked it – a lot! The whole time I was second guessing myself – here I was making preserves for the first time in my life, and not using pectin, and not using the same ingredients (or the same amounts) as the recipe stated! But with my typical luck, it turned out great! The color is amazing, and the taste, really really incredible – and it actually set. Plus instead of being too sugary sweet for my taste, like most jams and preserves, it has really retained its blueberry fruit flavor. I am so excited to now have 3 jars of spirited blueberry preserves to enjoy this year! One jar I have already used to make a delicious gluten free cake which I will post later this week.

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Our second April Foodie Blogroll Giveaway giveaway has us teamed up with D’Italia
D’Italia is an awesome online Italian Grocer! Need some gourmet salami? How about some truffles to shave over pasta, or real Italian espresso? You don’t need to look any further than D’Italia! If you need to send a nice gift to someone who loves gourmet or Italian foods, they also have beautiful and delicious gift baskets! This is a great company owned by Vince DiPiazza – yes you saw that correctly, we share the same last name, but still have not chatted to see if we are related or not! LOL!

We received several samples from D’Italia so far, and all were OUTSTANDING. We first got a fantastic salami trio, and we were ecstatic that not only did it taste amazing, but there were no nitrates in them! Something that is near impossible to find these days, much to our chagrin. Roberto loves salami, and I am big fan, so this totally made our day. We enjoyed the salami with some fantastic Olive Grissini (also from D’Italia) – which are crunchy Italian breadsticks. Grissini is usually what you get instead of a bread basket at restaurants in Italy, and again, my Italian taste tester said these grissini were to perfection. They were light and crunchy with just a hint of olives. Great to serve with an antipasto and Limoncello spritzer like we did!

The winners of the D’Italia giveaway will be receiving a basket filled with incredible goodies:
Aged Balsamic Vinegar, Sicilian Sea Salt w/Fresh Blood Orange Zest, Parmigiano Reggiano Spreadable Cheese, Sapori Italiani Mix (Capers, Olives, & Oregano), Sicilian Green Olives and Olive Oil. Now who wouldn’t want that??? Please remember to to make sure that you are an active member of The Foodie Blogroll, and that you have the widget displaying correctly. This giveaway is available to members in the Continental USA.

If you would like to learn more about our contests and giveaways, and how you can be eligible, please check out the Contests and Giveaways Page on FoodieBlogroll.com
If you are not yet a member of The Foodie Blogroll, you are certainly going to want to join us for your chance to win these awesome gifts!

Remember, we still have 2 more weeks of the Flirty Aprons and FromtheFarm.com giveaways through the end of March! Plus the Patric Chocolate giveaway in April as well!

So here is another couple of recipes that I made using wonderful products from FromTheFarm.com who will be sponsoring a Foodie Blogroll Giveaway during March and April!

I received some lovely pears from EW Brandt & Sons. The Brandt family has been a part of Washington state agriculture since 1907. Located just south of Yakima, WA they grow, pack and ship premium pears, apples and stone fruit. This farming family strives to deliver the most flavorful and unique products that can be grown in their region. Through the years, they’ve added acreage, new packing facilities, and a nursery program that allows them to better coordinate their own tree development to diversify into various tree fruit varieties. And these are some beautiful and tasty pears. I really have never seen such lovely ones before – not a blemish on them, super smooth outer skin. Just gorgeous- and the taste? Like a pear should be – crisp and delicious!

The first thing I did when I got a case of pears from EW Brandt & Sons was start asking around for wine poached pear recipes – something I had always wanted to make. So I went on Twitter and asked around. My good friend Peter, from Kalofagas had two recipes to share with me, (hereand here) and so I kind of took the method of how he did his and added my own twist to it.

I had leftover mulling spices from the Gløgg I made for our Winter Solstice Cocktail Party and so I decided to use that in lieu of cloves, cinnamon sticks and star anise. I used Pumpkin Blossom Honey and Blackberry Honey Creme from Honey Ridge Farms to make the wine syrup.

Honey Ridge Farms is a really fantastic company. When I read the materials they sent me with the package I was really happy to read this statement: “We are a long time bee keeping family (5 generations) who believe that honey is nature’s best sweetener”. I would have to agree. I am a huge fan of honey, and maple syrup – if I could figure out how to bake with them, that is all I would ever use…sounds like another good project for me…Anyway their artisan honey is minimally processed, gently warmed and strained, but not filtered. This retains all the complex flavors this honey has to offer. The Pumpkin Blossom honey we got has a sweet and spicy robust flavor – and the color is beautiful.

I also received 3 Honey Cremes, and decided to use the Blackberry Creme in this recipe as it would compliment the berry notes in the Shiraz-Grenache wine I was using. Their honey cremes are blended with the finest fruits and spices and are never cooked – again retaining the natural goodness of the honey. It is delicious stuff and there is so much you could do with them – topping for ice cream, yogurt, on hot cereal, even spread on toast.

Anyway, I also decided to make a vanilla – maple cream to go with the pears – you can see the recipe after the cut.

We got another interesting product from Honey Ridge Farms – Balsamic Honey Vinegar. I know, I wondered what it was too when I saw the bottle. So I got to reading labels and literature to figure out what it was. It is a balsamic type vinegar made entirely from 100% honey! This makes it sulfite free and really does have the flavor of balsamic vinegar. You can use it in place of grape balsamic in salads, marinades and sauces. Plus, Honey Ridge Farms donates a percentage of their profits on this product to fund research for maintaining bee colony health – which is very important.

Strawberries are in season here in Florida right now. I am not a huge fan of them, but I do enjoy them when they are soaked in balsamic vinegar. If you have never tried this, it may sound weird, but I promise you that the flavors work together like magic! The vinegar brings out the sweetness of the berries. So I chopped up some strawberries and added 1/3 cup of Honey Balsamic over the top. I also mixed in about a TBS of the Clover Honey Creme (also from Honey Ridge). I let that all sit in the fridge for about an hour or two – you could do it over night, if you can wait that long! It was really delicious over vanilla ice cream! I am also looking forward to having some over yogurt.

Please check out this post and The Foodie Blogroll’s Contests and Giveaways Page to see how you can be eligible to win one of our awesome giveaways we have going on.
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So of course after receiving all those wonderful products from FromTheFarm.com I was inspired to start experimenting with them right away.

Santa Sweet Grape and Ugly Ripe Heirloom Tomatoes

Santa Sweet, the name of the company is also the name of the seed variety of this original grape tomato. The company owns the particular seed variety along with the Ugly Ripe heirloom variety seeds. Therefore they are the first company to bring the grape tomato to the United States. Any other company who sells “grape tomatoes” and are not Santa Sweet- their seeds are a cousin of the original. These grape tomatoes are super sweet and very pop-able. Children love their shape and taste. The Ugly Ripe tomatoes are reminiscent of a delicious tomato fresh from my grandfather’s backyard garden. They may be ribbed and bumpy, but their flavor is delicious and full of pure tomato flavor. Perfect to eat like an apple, or chopped in salads.

I live with a “tomato connoisseur” who just fell in love with both of these varieties of tomatoes. So much so, that all we really did with them was make wonderfully simple salads dressed with balsamic vinegar and and extra virgin olive oil.

My favorite salad was these dressed tomatoes over a bed of spicy organic arugala, mixed with a nice ripe avocado and some smoked cheddar cheese. It was like summer in a bowl. We ate these kinds of salads for 3 days straight!

FromTheFarm.com offers a Tomato Variety Pack that includes 6 Ugly Ripe tomatoes and 2 pints of Santa Sweet Grape tomatoes!

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Sierra Olive Oils and Spice Packets

So everyone has been asking to see how I roast a chicken in my tagine. I love my tagine and I try to come up with as many uses for it as possible. I am a huge fan of roasted chickens, and I usually roast one or two a month and I always make soup from the carcass. So when I got my tagine as a present, I did an experiment and roasted a chicken in it. As with anything you put in a tagine, the chicken came out super tender and falling off the bone – with no basting or liquid necessary. You literally throw it in the tagine, and throw the tagine in a 350 F oven and cook for about 1 1/2 hours. That is it!

This time, I decided to rub my delicious organic roaster with Sundried Tomato and Basil Olive Oil from Sierra Olive Oils. The company had also sent me a variety of spice packets used for dips (which are not available yet, but will soon be), but I thought it would be fun to try one as a rub for the chicken, so I chose the garlic variety.

I had some leftover fresh fennel that I stuffed the bird with. It came out perfectly delicious. Served with peas, it was a delicious and homey dinner, and almost too easy to make!

The Foodie Blogroll, in partnership with MiniMates is giving away 5 MiniMate Refrigerator Deodorizers. MiniMates are little devices that sit in your refrigerator and fight off any bacteria that might be living on the surface of your food. Through the use of activated oxygen (which breaks down odors and kills microbials leaving only pure oxygen with no residue), the MiniMate helps eliminate harmful pathogens like E.Coli and Salmonella. That way, your food lasts longer and is safer for you to eat.

This is a wonderful giveaway to anyone that cooks – I mean who wouldn’t want a device that keeps your food fresher for longer? The MiniMate is about the same size as a box of baking soda, and the only maintenance is changing the batteries every few months.

To read more about this product, please check out their webpage and watch the video.

So please be sure to sign up for The Foodie Blogroll so you can be eligible to win!

Eligibility: You must be and active and eligible member of the Foodie Blogroll, residing in the US. If you are not a member yet, all you have to do in order to be eligible is sign up for the Foodie Blogroll, be approved and have the latest version of The Foodie Blogroll Widget on your blog. You will then be put in the random pool to win !

Dates of Giveaways:
Friday February 6
Friday Feb 13th
Friday Feb 20th
Friday Feb 27
Friday March 6

Also a reminder that we are giving away a free month’s membership to Sensei for Weightloss next Monday. So please check out the rules for how you can be eligible!

Hi Everyone. I have some really exciting news to report! We are getting ready to launch a new month of fabulous Foodie Blogroll random giveaways in February, sponsored by Cedar’s Mediterranean Foods, Inc. It will be called “Mediterranean Monday’s Foodie Box Giveaway”.
Inside will be packed with samples of their newest products and a Cedar’s T-shirt!

If you don’t know about Cedar’s, here is some info to get your mouth watering and your stomach rejoicing. Cedar’s is one of the nationally leading manufacturers of Mediterranean Foods, and some of their products recently won 2008 American Masters of Taste Gold Medals for the best tasting in America. These foods include hommus, tzatziki, and pita chips. The people at Cedar’s believe strongly in the Mediterranean Diet and are working with other companies, like The Mediterranean Food Alliance and Oldways to try to teach consumers about the health benefits of eating a diet filled with fruits, vegetables and healthy fats. All things we love here at The Leftover Queen. I was very honored and excited to find out that The Leftover Queen blog was mentioned in an interview of Nicki Heverling, the Program Manager at MFA as a source to find information on eating the Mediterranean way.

Speaking of good fortune, yesterday I was the lucky recipient of one of these Mediterranean food boxes – because you know, I want to sample this great food too – and I can tell you right now that you do not want to miss your chance to be eligible for this giveaway. Inside my Mediterranean box of goodies was pita chips, 2 varieties of hummus, 2 varieties of tzatziki, spinach dip and a very cool t-shirt. Yum yum yum. So you all can guess what we had for dinner, right?…I thought so – a lovely meze/antipasti of all this great stuff. Everything was delicious. Roberto’s favorite was the pita chips and spinach dip and I loved the tzatziki the best – especially the roasted red pepper flavor, which I have never seen before. The baked pita chips are super crisp and the dips all had great flavor.

Also on this plate of food is some delicious chorizo (back left corner of picture) that I received as a gift from my good friend Nuria who blogs Spanish Recipes all the way from Spain! She was kind enough to award me and a few other with this tasty treat by way of saying thanks for bringing extra traffic to her blog this past year. I would have thought just a thank you email would have been enough. But if you know Nuria, you know she goes out of her way to be thoughtful and generous. So thank you Nuria! It was delicious and tender. We loved every bite and we can’t wait to enjoy the rest.

Well, we wanted to involve the whole family in this treat, so we let Pepino lick the plastic seal over the Cedar’s hummus. I am not sure which he preferred, as he was too busy licking to tell me

So, if you are not an active member of The Foodie Blogroll(meaning you are not displaying a new personalized Foodie Blogroll widget), please go sign up today !

We will be featuring 4 giveaways like this – one per week during the month of February and you really don’t want to miss out!

Here I am with another great product for you. Lately I feel like I have been a party to a really great trend. The trend in healthy food products,  products that are 100 % natural without fillers, corn syrup, propylene glycol, artificial sweeteners and other what I like to refer to as “food crap” that companies like to pass off as actual food ingredients. This is especially hard to achieve when it comes to fruit juices.

Go to any convenience store or supermarket and grab the first juice you see, and likely one of the above ingredients will figure into the equation. Much to my dismay. So when I was contacted to do a product review from Komet Marketing for Genesis Today, a line of superfruit juices, the first question on my mind is what’s in it? Amazingly nothing but juice and some citric acid. So why drink something like a Boost Juice? Well Superfruits are big these days, and it is not because they have exotic names like Açaí and Goji, but because they are powerful antioxidants.

Genesis Today knows this, but also knows that some people are turned off by the sometimes bitter taste of the pure superfruit juice, so they have created these Boost juices in order to address that concern by mixing the highest potency of active superfruit ingredient levels with juices like pear, strawberry, dragonfruit and prickly pear to make it taste better. Not only this, but the superfruits are wild harvested.
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Recently I was sent another great product to review. I was contacted by Hazel over at Freida’s Inc. about a new, fresh garlic product that is now on the market. Hazel told me that the product is made using all natural ingredients and no preservatives: fresh USA-grown garlic, canola oil, lemon juice and salt — that’s it. It sounded too good to be true, a dream come true product review. Something that sounded great and totally fell into pace with my Mediterranean eating habits. So of course I agreed to sample it.

The package from Frieda’s arrived overnight in a cooler with ice. I recieved the original Freida’s Garlic Delight as well as the chipotle flavor – imagine my delight. Immediately I checked out the ingredients and it was just as Hazel had said – all natural and no preservatives! Each tub is 7 oz. and so my head was just swimming with ideas of what to do with these tubs of garlicky goodness.

This package could not have come at a better time. It arrived the same week that Roberto’s mom arrived here from Rome. So I thought it would be great to get everyone’s opinion of the product. The first thing we did with the original flavor was to make garlic bread – what better, simple way to showcase the flavor of this product? Good garlic bread’s merit is based on the subtle, yet earthy flavor of garlic. When I opened the tub, I was immediately hit with a lovely, sweet and nutty garlic aroma – similar to the smell of roasted garlic. As I dipped my spreader into the container the spread was light and fluffy. All good signs.

Some of us got adventurous and decided to put a piece of prized Iberian Acorn Ham, a lovely gift from Nuria, on top.

I must say I am very pleased with this product. The garlic bread was so good that we decided to try the spread with several other recipes: we put it in hummus, in a dipping sauce for sweet potato fries, as well as the Koftas and Buffalo Wings we made for Movie Night. Everything turned out great.

With the Chipotle flavor we used it as a sauce for a spicy shrimp pasta that we served when my mom was here this weekend to celebrate Mother’s Day. We included her in Movie Night and enjoyed this delicious pasta dish, while watching Into The Wild, a movie that stays with you long after the watching. Similar to garlic, that stays with you long after the tasting.

The chipotle garlic spread was a perfect smoky heat with a great garlic punch. I think it would be delicious as a sauce for fish tacos, in cole slaw, or slathered on hot, fresh corn on the cob!

Each tub comes with a recipe and there are two other great flavors, Sun Dried Tomato and Green Olive, both of which sound wonderful! You can also get other recipe ideas on the Frieda’s Inc. website. I honestly thought when I received this product that it was a great idea, but that I would never really use it myself – I have fresh garlic cloves that I use in nearly everything I cook and I don’t get products that overlap. But after sampling this, I changed my mind. The texture and taste is so good, and it is just so convenient, that I told Roberto I might need to be buying this soon.

If you would like to learn more about the various products that Freida’s Inc. offers, including organic, tropical and latin produce, as well as gift ideas and gourmet foods, please check out their webpage. If you would like to know where you can purchase Frieda’s Inc. products near you, please click here or check the produce section at your grocery store or market.