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Uncategorized Video How-to

Thanksgiving Video Roundup

I am currently in the process of retooling for my next blog marathon, which will commence next Monday. Last month’s 31 Days of Pumpkin was a great success, so I am inspired to push on with more daily recipe postings around a theme. Tune in Monday to find out what the secret ingredient will be. If you don’t want to miss a single post, make sure to become a fan of StreamingGourmet on facebook or follow me on Twitter.

In the meantime, I want to bring your attention to my other project – StreamingGourmet, the videohosting site devoted to all things culinary. For Thanksgiving, we’ve assembled collections of the best videos from across the web in each of the important categories: Turkey, Stuffing, Sides, Apple (pie+) and Pumpkin (pie+). To embed these collections on your website, click on “embed this” in the lower left hand corner of the collection.

Click on a thumbnail to view the video.

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Dessert Pumpkin Uncategorized Video How-to

Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

Mini Pumpin Cheesecake
Mini Pumpin Cheesecake

Day 24 of 31 days of pumpkin and we come to a fun, easy video recipe provided by the Karo Company, the corn syrup makers. The clever trick here is baking the cheesecakes in muffin tins lined with paper and lined with gingersnap cookies. Mini-crusts for mini cheesecakes. Genius.

I feel guilty using corn syrup since I read Michael Pollan’s books, but I wasn’t sure how to substitute my way out of it here. If you have an idea, please share it in the comments section. In the end, I figured one recipe a year can’t be all that bad. Right?

Categories
Casseroles Pizza and Pasta Sides Uncategorized Vegetarian Video How-to

Mac-n-Cheese w/ Hidden Broccoli & Cauliflower

Mac-n-Cheese w/ Broccoli & Cauliflower Hidden Inside
Mac-n-Cheese w/ Broccoli & Cauliflower Hidden Inside

My four-year old is a very picky eater. If he could have macaroni and cheese at every meal, he would. So I’ve taken to hiding healthy foods in the mac-n-cheese to ensure he’s getting enough nutrition. This version worked pretty well. If I were making it for myself, I would have used stronger cheeses like (you guessed it) Gruyére, and I would have added other punchy flavors like garlic or nutmeg. But I wanted this dish to go down without a fuss, so cheddar ruled the day.

I didn’t conceal from him the fact that I was concealing healthy foods in his macaroni and cheese. In fact, I enlisted his help during the broccoli and cauliflower grinding process. He loves to push the button. We used my new Cuisinart mini chopper. It’s a snap to pull out, use, and clean up.

Cuisinart Mini Prep Plus
Available at Amazon - Click here
Iain
My son
Broccoli Chopped in the Mini Prep
Broccoli Chopped in the Mini Prep

Macaroni & Cheese with Broccoli and Cauliflower
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups broccoli florets
1 1/2 cups cauliflower florets
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 lb elbow macaroni
3 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 1/4 cup whole milk (or heavy cream to make it really decadent)
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese (we had fun shredding ours in a vintage Mouli)
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 Tbsp melted butter

Broccoli & Cauliflower sautéeing
Broccoli & Cauliflower sautéeing

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Put broccoli florets into food processor and grind into teeny weeny pieces. Remove to a bowl. Repeat with cauliflower.

2. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add broccoli and cauliflower and toss. Basically, we’re browning these vegetables just a little bit to enhance the nutty sweet flavors they bring to the dish. After a few minutes, turn off the heat and leave for later.

3. Bring salted water to boil in a large pot and boil the macaroni. Since you’re going to be baking this dish, you can shave off a minute from the boiling time recommended on the package.

4. In the meantime, for the roux, heat the milk in a saucepan to almost boiling. Remove from heat for later. Melt butter in a heavy-bottom saucepan. Add flour and whisk continuously. Sautée flour for 3 minutes. Don’t let it brown or it will get bitter. Add the warm milk in a steady stream and whisk continuously. Simmer gently (no boiling!) until thickened, about 2 minutes. Add shredded cheese in small batches, incorporating each batch completely. Season with salt. Add broccoli and cauliflower and stir until well combined. At this stage, you have a kind of broccoli-cheddar cream soup. You could use this sauce for lots of different things. I put it over a baked potato and it was awesome.

5. Mix bread crumbs and melted butter in a small bowl.

6. To assemble, pour macaroni into a baking dish that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. I used this small Le Creuset dish. Stir in the sauce, coating all of the macaroni completley. Top with the buttered bread crumbs. Bake uncovered for 25 minutes or until bubbly. If topping is not already browned, you can put it under the broiler for a minute at the end.

Le Creuset. Available at Amazon
Le Creuset. Available at Amazon

Want to see a bunch more macaroni and cheese ideas? Check out this video collection at StreamingGourmet.com:

Looking for more broccoli recipes? Check out ComfyCook’s collection of Broccoli recipes collected from BSI participants around the blogosphere.

Categories
Uncategorized Video How-to

How to Embed a Video Collection

Want to embed videos quickly on your food blog? In just a few minutes, I created this playlist at StreamingGourmet and then used the Grab Widget Code tool to create this player. Embed it on your site or create your own playlist to embed.You can also embed individual videos.

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Basics

Getting ready to use Celery Root

Next week, I’m going to do a recipe using celery root. In the meantime, here’s a video from Gourmet’s test kitchen to get the gnarled ball rolling.

Categories
Basics Uncategorized

Hard-Boiled Disaster

Hard Boiled Egg Exploded in the Boiling Water
Hard Boiled Egg Exploded in the Boiling Water

Last night, I decided to make some hard-boiled eggs for a chef’s salad. Well this chef is embarrassed to admit that I had it in my head that 20 minutes are required to hard boil an egg. I also couldn’t remember if I was supposed to bring the eggs and the water to a boil together or boil the water first and drop in the eggs. I second guessed myself a couple of times and then decided to boil the water first.

I think I did everything wrong. The photo above demonstrates that. The eggs were overcooked. It turns out that 20 minutes completely overdo it. Also, some of the eggs exploded in the water, indicating that perhaps they should have heated up along with the water rather than being tossed in and shocked.

I found this video about boiling the perfect egg and posted it to StreamingGourmet. Next time, I’ll follow the instructions in the video, which include bringing the eggs and the water to boil together and boiling the eggs for only 7 minutes!

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