I’ve written about my love of Chinese food; one of the hardest decisions of my childhood was to have Italian or Chinese food for my birthday dinner. 

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Growing up in NJ, there was a lot of good Chinese food from take-out only to my favorite place called The Jade Isle. Technically it was a Polynesian restaurant, but they had Chinese food and a pool inside with turtles and fish. I loved their pupu platter!

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Being gluten-free has put a damper on my ability to eat Chinese food. We used to go to PF Changs, which has a gluten-free menu with ok joined and ok food. Then we heard about Ala Shanghai in Albany. 

Ala Shanghai is very gluten-free friendly, with choices clearly marked on the menu. Some of the menu items are a gluten-free dream come true, like sesame or crispy beef. Other fried dishes are prepared in a non-contaminated fryer; dishes like General Taos, sesame, sweet and sour, and orange chicken. This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but these items are never available in Chinese restaurants because the frying oil has wheat in it. 

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My favorite is their steamed shrimp dumplings, another thing you can’t get at traditional Chinese restaurants. The owners are very nice, and the service is fast and professional. Even if you aren’t gluten-free and in the area, you should check it out. Call ahead for a reservation since the place is always packed.

Making Chinese food in a home kitchen is hard to do. I make pretty good Thai & Korean food, but Chinese cuisine is still a challenge. It never really tastes like authentic Chinese food except for Chicken & Broccoli.

I have been making this Chinese dish for ten years. The recipe is easy and on point. I have posted photos and the link to Simply Whisked recipe on my Facebook page for years. Many people have used the recipe with the same success. Even though I use a Chinese wok, you can use any large skillet.

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Chicken and broccoli are dishes I also used to order at Chinese places. Because it has soy sauce in it, which has wheat, I can’t have it anymore. Gluten-free people use tamari sauce with us like soy sauce just without wheat. 

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The well-known brand La Choy’s soy sauce is also gluten-free and cheaply found in any grocery store. It says gluten-free right on the bottle. Their teriyaki sauce is gluten-free as well. 

I use boneless chicken thighs when making this recipe. It takes a bit extra time trimming away the fat, but the thighs have more flavor than boneless breasts and stay moister.

I won’t take credit for this recipe because it isn’t mine. It is one of the very few recipes I follow and don’t change. I included the link to this recipe above.

Egg drop soup is a very simple soup to make. My recipe tastes pretty darn close to egg drop soup at a Chinese restaurant. I experimented with different ingredients and amounts until I found what I liked best.

Most recipes don’t tell you to keep the ginger and scallion bottoms whole, steeping them in the broth. This takes away the task of fishing out ginger and scallions in your broth. I remove them before I add the cornstarch slurry and eggs. The flavor is subtle, but it’s there. Another trick that I learned from trying many recipes is adding the sesame oil to the eggs while scrambling them. It helps the eggs come together better in the broth without it.

I have written many times about trying a new recipe once to see if you like it, if you don’t you can adapt it to your taste. With this recipe, I taste it throughout the process. After adding the ginger rounds and scallion bottoms, I let the broth simmer for 10 minutes; I taste it.

Tonight, I was satisfied with the taste coming from the scallions and removed them. There wasn’t enough ginger taste, so I added another ginger round and let it simmer for five more minutes. That did the trick! I removed the ginger rounds from the broth.

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The other secret to making egg drop soup is to stir the broth in a whirlpool manner while adding the cornstarch slurry. I check to see if the soup is too thin or too thick. I make adjustments if necessary. I do the same whirlpool method when adding the eggs and sesame oil.

I give the soup a taste and decide if it is salty enough. Instead of adding kosher salt, I add 1/2 tsp soy sauce at a time to adjust the seasoning. This depends on the saltiness of the chicken broth you used for the soup. Tonight I added 1/2 tsp to the finished soup. Some recipes call for white pepper in their egg drop soup. I don’t like it, so I leave it out but add it if desired. Be careful; it is potent stuff. I think it takes away from the lovely ginger flavor.

I hope if you are a Chinese food fan like me, you will try these recipes that have proven successful over and over, saving yourself a trip to get Chinese take-out.🙂

Egg Drop Soup

Ingredients

4 cups chicken stock
2-3 rounds of fresh ginger
2 white scallion bottoms
2 Tbsp cornstarch
3 Tbsp water
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp sesame oil
2 sliced green scallion tops

*** 1/4 tsp white pepper optional
***Soy sauce to taste

Directions

Add the chicken stock, ginger, and scallion bottoms to a pot. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Taste the broth. Remove the ginger and scallion bottoms when you are happy with the flavor.

For the cornstarch slurry, mix the water with the cornstarch well in a small bowl. Stirring in a circle, add the slurry to the simmering broth. Stir aggressively to prevent lumps from forming.

In a small bowl, scramble the eggs well and add the sesame oil to the eggs.

Add the egg and sesame oil mixture to the broth in a circular motion to the thickened simmer broth. Add the sliced green scallions. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Check for seasoning adding optional white pepper or soy sauce to taste.

To serve, garnish the egg drop soup with more sliced green scallions. Enjoy!

Makes 3-4 servings.

I’ve had two words on my mind since Saturday, fancy toast. Fancy toast? One of my friends who has to follow a strict gluten-free diet told me about fancy toast. Toast doesn’t just mean breakfast anymore but can be for snacks, lunch, or dinner. I remember cereal commercials that said something like, “Juice, toast & Trix.” There was always toast included.

When I was a kid and watched cereal commercials, I wondered why they always had orange juice as part of a healthy breakfast. In my experience, orange juice and milk from my cereal tasted like vomit. Kind of drinking orange juice right after brushing your teeth. Bla!

It’s hard to pop in anywhere and find a muffin, scone, or breakfast sandwich when you are gluten-free. It’s equally hard to find something simple and easy like soup and a sandwich for lunch. It’s the same story with dinner. When you have to be gluten-free it gets tiring looking for restaurants or delis that have gluten-free choices. Gluten-free choices that can be trusted are a whole other issue. Luckily, there are a few very good places in the Albany Capital District area in NY.

It’s easier to eat at home when you are tired of always looking for someplace safe to go. Unless we are on the road, we eat three meals a day at home. It’s hard enough to come up with dinner ideas, but figuring out breakfast and lunch dishes as well is exhausting. It’s easy to get caught in a food rut so I was excited to hear about fancy toast.

Fancy toast goes one step further than avocado toast. Avocado toast became mainstream and trendy in the 2010s. When people think of avocado toast, they think of California and hipsters.

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True, Californians and hipsters love their avocado toast, but you can now find it in the most remote, unlikely places. In the beginning, people couldn’t wrap their heads around a piece of toast costing $3 with just some avocado slices, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lime juice. Today, avocado toast costs between $7-10 dollars in some areas!

Avocado toast has run its gamut to many people, and they over this trendy food. Enter fancy toast. Fancy toast isn’t new; it has been around since the mid-2010s but now gaining popularity.

Fancy toast isn’t anything new in England, where they have been eating Welch Rarebit since the 1500s. Welch Rarebit is a piece of toast topped with melted cheese, mustard, and spices. It’s economical, easy to make, and tasty! Today the Brits still love their Welch Rarebit, but their favorite is beans on toast.

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Beans on toast. I loved baked bean sandwiches on white bread when I was a kid, so this sounds delicious to me. They don’t fancy up their beans; they pour them right from the can over their toast. I would still be in on this one as well, plus the Welch Rarebit. Yum!

Now being gluten-free, we can’t have our fancy toast on gorgeous slices of sourdough bread, crusty peasant bread, or crispy baguettes. We have to have our fancy toast on the best gluten-free bread we can find. Most toasted gluten-free bread tastes and holds up better than untoasted bread anyway. We have found the companies Schar and Trader Joe’s bread the best.

My friend shared with me what they made that week for fancy bread. She showed me pictures from Instagram #toasts for all. The photos were gorgeous, with so many fantastic ideas. I also looked at #fancytoast and found more. Marty went on YouTube and found endless fancy toast videos.

What I am most excited about the new fancy toast idea is you can be as creative as you wish with endless possibilities. All you need to do is look in your refrigerator and pantry.

My friend found lots of fancy toast components in Trader Joe’s. She bought different fruits and vegetables than she usually buys. Then looked in the cheese section for anything spreadable or meltable. There are plenty of sauces, jams, pestos, and hummus to choose from as well.

We will be making a trip to the Albany area on Tuesday, another delivery day. By then, I will have a list of items to pick up at Trader Joe’s for our fancy toast. I want to pick three sweet and three savory ideas whose ingredients can be reused and recreated for at least six other toasts. The beauty of the elements is that they aren’t raw meats that must be defrosted or purchased for a meal idea.

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I have saved many fancy toast ideas to inspire me since I am new to the toast scene. I thought I would share them with all of you too. Many of the ingredients we already have in our fridges and pantries, we are one step from a new idea for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

For the folks that are watching their carbs, there is plenty of low-carb bread to choose from and sweet potato toast. Sweet potato toast! Who knew? Well, I did when I was watching my carbs, which turned out to be a bust, but that’s an old blog post.

Sweet potato toast is a thick slice of raw sweet potato that is lightly coated in oil and then baked until crispy. I made it once, and it was terrific. It’s a lot more work than toasting a slice of bread, but the idea and recipes are out there if anyone wants to give it a go.

Now it’s time to put on my thinking cap and decide what first types of fancy toast I will be making. Of course, I will share them with you and let you know what I think. Tomorrow I am making a batch of hummus to have on hand. I am also going to Aldis for groceries and start my fancy toast hunt.

It’s taken me a long time to get the timing right when cooking. You know the scenario, rushing around trying to get all the dishes done simultaneously, and in the meantime, something always gets cold, burned, or forgotten about. I can’t tell you how many times I forgot to serve those delicious little Pillsbury crescent rolls I used to make before we had to go gluten-free. I also burned them a bunch of times! 😖

When my sister Jennifer was here, we talked about the stress of everything being done at the same time for dinner. I told her my secret…my oven. If I use the oven for baking a dish, when it’s done I will pull the dish out and turn my oven down to 140-180 degrees. Once the oven cools down, I put the dish back into the oven and any other component that is done already.

When using your oven as a warmer, you are practicing good food safety. When food isn’t kept at the proper temperature, bacteria can grow and cause foodborne illness. Now, this won’t happen in a short amount of time but can occur if you prepare a lot of dishes for a dinner party or holiday dinner.

Hot food must be kept hot and cold food must be kept cold. Food temperatures between 41-135 degrees represent the danger zone. The longer the food sits in the danger zone, the greater the risk of bacteria growing on food.

Think about how long potluck dinner dishes, both hot and cold, hang around on the table at a 4-5 hour event. The danger zone begins when a dish is taken out of the oven or from the refrigerator. Then the dish is transported to the potluck and sits at room temperature for hours.

Getting food to the proper temperatures to start off with is an essential part of cooking. If you aren’t using a thermometer to check the temperatures of your food, you are putting undue stress on yourself, worrying if the food is done. Checking food temps take the guesswork out, therefore, taking away the stress and worry.

Barbeques and cook-outs always make me nervous when I see the person barbequing chicken and not checking the temps. I would not and have not eaten chicken at a bbq for this very reason.

Below find proper cooking temperatures for the following foods:

Poultry, stuffing, or pasta dishes made with poultry, meat, seafood, or fish must be cooked to 165 degrees.

Ground beef, pork and other meats, flavor injected meats, ground, chopped, or minced seafood should be cooked to 155 degrees.

Seafood, steaks & chops (beef, pork, veal, lamb), roasts of beef, pork, veal, and lamb should be cooked to 145 degrees.

For grilled steak temperatures and doneness click on this link.

When preparing cold dishes, you must get the food into the refrigerator as soon as possible. Cold food should be kept at 40 degrees and below. This also includes making food ahead for the next day, such as a pot of spaghetti sauce, stew, or soups. The quickest way of cooling the dish down before it sits too long in the danger zone is to put it into a shallow container and get it into the fridge as soon as possible. (Within 2 hours.)

Don’t put steaming hot food directly into the refrigerator on the flip side. This can lower the temperature of the entire refrigerator placing everything in the danger zone until the temperature goes back down again.

When using the oven to keep food warm, be sure to have the oven temperature at 140 degrees or above. Cover food with oven-proof lids or aluminum foil to prevent food from drying out.

Reheating leftovers can be done in a saucepan, microwave, or oven. Temperatures should be taken when reheating leftovers as well. Leftovers should be reheated to at least 165 degrees. Be sure to cover the food being reheated in the oven to prevent them from drying out.

Yesterday morning, I made Marty and me Sunday breakfast. I made Belgian waffles with sausage links. The greatest thing about my new equipment pantry is getting to my small appliances easily and quickly! I have not made waffles in the past because I didn’t want to take everything out of the cabinet to get to it.

I started the sausage on the stove and made the waffle batter while the sausage was cooking. After the sausage was done, I popped it into the 160-degree oven to stay warm.

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Next, I heated up the waffle iron and started making waffles. I have the type of waffle maker that flips back and forth. When I remove the waffle from the maker, I put a big spatula on one side, flip the waffle on the spatula, and put it into the warm oven.

I put a cooling rack on the oven rack when keeping waffles warm. The cooling rack holds the waffles keeping them crispy and not soggy like a sheet pan does.

We didn’t have eggs with our waffles yesterday, but if we did, keeping the waffles and sausage warm in the oven while the eggs were cooking is the way to go. I used to put the waffle and sausage on the plate while cooking the eggs, but they got cold quickly. One of my biggest food pet peeves is food that isn’t hot.

Nothing is more off-putting to me when I eat out is lukewarm food. I want my food hot and my cold food cold. I hate when I put a meal on the table at home, and it isn’t hot enough. I have reheated it in a fit of swears and fury in the past. I can control myself in my older years to not just take the whole plate and throw it in the trash like I would have when I was much younger. Imagine that? 😬

Look for a blog post soon following up on food thermometers. I use four different types for various things, but having one good one is all you need.

Being friends with a chef who cooks for us often has taught me not only about foods I have never heard of before but also the techniques.

Our friend Martin has been a private chef for the last 20 years but comes from a long history of working as the executive chef in restaurants in NYC, the Hamptons, NJ, and various other places. 

A couple of weeks ago, Martin had us over on a Sunday night, a Sunday night when the kitchen was torn apart. I laughed when he called to invite us; I told him I wished he would all day. 

We had Filet Mignon Steaks, Roasted Asparagus, and Potatoes Romanoff.

I eat small portions and get filled up quickly, but I ate almost everything on my plate that night. Martin was amazed while he watched me eat. It made him happy. It made me happy because the food was delicious and all the food we ate for the last week was either made in the microwave or toaster oven.

The steak was a perfect medium-rare and very tender. I love asparagus anytime, but those potatoes! Holy shit, they were good. They were also in the oven before we got there, so I didn’t get to see how he made them. 

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I asked what kind of potatoes he made. He said, “Potatoes Romanoff.” Potatoes what? I had never heard of them before. I never play a food know-it-all with Martin and asked him about the potatoes. He told me he shredded baked potatoes added some shallots, cheddar cheese, sour cream, salt, and pepper. Everything is lightly tossed and piled high in a casserole dish, then baked until golden brown and crispy.

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I looked up recipes and the history of these famous potatoes, and Martin was right on the money with the ingredients and technique.

Potatoes Romanoff originated in a restaurant in Greenwich Village in the city called The Strip House. A second location of The Strip House was located in Las Vegas; how fitting!

The Strip chef, John Schenk, made a special potato gratin that went perfectly with steaks. Chef John took a dish he remembered his mother making while he was growing up and turned it into an upscale dish. The dish his mother made was funeral potatoes.

I’ve heard of funeral potatoes but never really knew what they were. Well, duh, potatoes, but what else? Funeral potatoes were a side dish served at a luncheon after a funeral or at a potluck dinner.

Funeral potatoes are a hot dish and are popular in the midwest; however, I’ve seen them in a Pennsylvania Dutch Amish cookbook. The main ingredients are hash brown potatoes, cheddar cheese, cream of chicken or mushroom soup, sour cream, butter, corn flakes, or crushed potato chips. The casserole is usually served with baked ham.

I decided to make Potatoes Romanoff this week, and the dish came out just like Martin’s. We didn’t have it with steak, but with stuffed peppers. I was going to make mashed potatoes but tried these instead. I will be making them again.

It’s late as I am finishing up this blog post. I got home from belly dance class around 8:20 pm; it was almost 9 pm when we ate dinner. I made corned beef earlier in the day and made Rueben sandwiches. This is how my brain works…On Saturday, I saw a vendor making Rueben panini sandwiches at the Troy Farmers Market. It wasn’t gluten-free, so I could only wish I could have one. Sunday morning, while grocery shopping, I bought a…you guessed it. A corned beef!

Dance class was great again tonight. The three new belly students from last week came back again this week! I was thrilled when they said how much they like the class and how fun it is. That’s always been my goal! ✅ Yip!

I am exhausted and will literally have to drag my ass upstairs to bed. That’s a wrap. Goodnight!

Last night I posted about the German meal I made for Sunday dinner. While making the red cabbage I took photos and mentally noted amounts and directions for a recipe I would write today. The red cabbage recipe is really for our Vermont Spätzle website, but I am also sharing it with you.

Today, while scrubbing our home kitchen floor on my hands and knees, I started thinking about why red cabbage is called red and not purple. The same thing goes for red onions, which are also purple.

The bigger question to answer is why the hell with the modern invention of a mop was I scrubbing on my hands and knees? The floor was so dirty from the kitchen project; a mop wouldn’t do the job correctly.

The color of red cabbage comes from a pigment called anthocyanins. Depending on the soil’s acidity levels, where it is grown determines the color. If the soil is acidic, the cabbage will be red; if neutral, the cabbage will be purple, and yellowish-green if alkaline.

So why is it called red when it’s almost always purple? There are many answers I found today when I looked up red cabbage. All colors come from primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, and are used to name things. For example, red cabbage and red onion peels and leaves were used to make a natural reddish-blue dye. Blue and red make purple. Germans call red cabbage after it is cooked blaukraut. Blau is blue in German, making more sense. Red hair is on the yellow side, giving redheads a golden orange-red color.

Some people think it is called red cabbage because of where you live; some places call it purple cabbage, apparently not here. There are dozens of other reasons why red cabbage is called red and not purple, so we get the point.

I use bacon fat to sauté the onions, apples, and red cabbage before the braising process for my red cabbage recipe. I always keep a jar of bacon fat in the refrigerator, which we refer to as liquid gold or porky goodness. The bacon fat gives the red cabbage a lovely flavor that can’t be mimicked with butter. However, butter can be used for vegetarians, and some kind of oil can be used for vegans I suppose. I use the real deal.

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I mise en place all the ingredients before I start cooking. The cut on the vegetable is a rough chop meaning the pieces don’t have to look like perfect dice for this braise. The apples and onions disappear at the end of the cook time.

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My recipe is the perfect balance of sweet and sour, but feel free to add more vinegar if you like it that way. I use apple cider vinegar but have also used white and red vinegar; it’s up to you and what you have on hand. Please do not go out and buy a specific vinegar for this recipe.

The cooked red cabbage freezes well. We always have it for one meal; then, I freeze the rest.

Without further adieu…here’s my recipe.

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

1 head of red cabbage
2 medium apples
1 medium onion
2 Tbsp bacon fat
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp whole cloves
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup water
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Remove the outer leaves from the red cabbage. Wash and dry the cabbage. Cut the cabbage into quarters and cut out the stem. Thinly slice the cabbage.

Peel, quarter, core, and roughly chop the apples. Roughly chop the onion.

In a dutch oven, over medium heat, melt the fat of your choice and sauté the onions and apples until the onions are translucent but not brown. Stir in the cabbage, mixing thoroughly. Sauté for 10 minutes on medium heat.

Add the kosher salt, pepper, bay leaf, cloves, brown sugar, vinegar, and water. Stir to combine. Cover and simmer on low for 2 hours, checking and stirring the cabbage every 30 minutes.

Cook until the cabbage is tender and the apples are no longer visible. Check for seasoning, adding more kosher salt and pepper to taste. Remove the bay leaf and any visible cloves. Warn your diners there may still be cloves in the cabbage while they are eating.

Guten Appetit!

We own and operate a German food manufacturing business called The Vermont Spätzle Company. You would think I made more German food than I do with a German company.

Yes, our spätzle is considered a German food; however, I use it as I would any pasta as our customers do. In Germany, spätzle is served with cheese, caramelized onions, or brown gravy.

Our spätzle can be made with pesto, shrimp scampi, topped with Bolognese sauce, with Asian sauces, casseroles, and soups; you name it. Basically, it can be as simple as sautéed with butter or as complex as you wish with endless possibilities.

Our newly updated kitchen is done but still needs a few things to finish it. When everything is complete and the kitchen is finished, I’ll do a reveal. Tonight, I will show you how gorgeous the new tile wall and hood vent look. The area is so bright, light, and airy. I no longer cook in a cramped, dark space with a vent hood that wasn’t appropriate and constantly over-heated.

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I’ve had a head of red cabbage in the fridge for quite a while and needed to use it. I decided to make a traditional German dinner. On the menu, roasted pork tenderloin with mushroom cream sauce, sauteed spätzle, and red cabbage.

Red cabbage, not something that everyone makes very often or at all for that matter. I make a very good pot of red cabbage with my recipe I adapted from an old German cookbook from Dr. Oetker. I’ve been making it for at least 30 years and have gotten rave reviews from Germans. We had a German garden railroad event at our house; I made German food for Germans. This was long before the spätzle business, but I still felt confident that my food would pass the taste test.

As a cook who has cooked for many other people professionally, you always have a little anxiety just before service. Every cook wants their dishes to be delicious and loved by the diners. This event was no different. I made a super-strong vodka drink when it was over and celebrated I pulled it off.

I remember I grilled different German sausages. I made hot German potato salad with red cabbage. I also made a Black Forrest sheet cake that was a huge hit. I kept busy while people were eating and were so proud when the guests all told me my red cabbage was better than their mothers and omas. This was a huge fucking compliment if there ever was one!

Back to tonight’s red cabbage, I decided to write the recipe for my dish to publish on our business’s website along with many other recipes I wrote. Customers always ask for German food recipes that go with our spätzle, so this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

I mentally noted quantities, directions, and cook times while making it this afternoon. I will sit down and physically write the recipe tomorrow. I’ll share it with you guys, too, if anyone has a craving for red cabbage. My recipe is the perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty, and savory; plus, it isn’t hard to make. Jarred red cabbage is tasty, but homemade is the real deal and is much better.

As I started sautéing the red cabbage on my spotless stove surrounded by the new white tiles and light gray walls, I tried to be extra careful not to splatter. I guess this was a ballsy move, almost asking for trouble, but whatever, the stove is for cooking. During clean-up, I was happy I didn’t make a mess at all.

I took demo photos as I prepared the red cabbage and some pictures of the finished plate for the spätzle business. The German meal was perfect for a cold Sunday night with snow in the forecast, plus it was terrific too. Marty loved it! 🥰

Right now, I am going outside to make sure the hatches are battened down and pick up the dog’s balls. I’ll be sure to bring in some flashlights. 40-50 mph wind gusts will accompany the snowstorm forecasted to start soon. Terrific right? The power company is warning people for power outages already. Ugh. They say 8-14 inches of snow with wind, then turning to rain and ice. Ick.

A beautiful snowstorm when you have nowhere to go is one thing, but no one likes the shit show of a storm coming. Be safe and stay warm, my upstate NY and Vermont friends.