Hello Readers! I have exciting news to share. Eater’s Digest has now joined forces with Smart magazine and will now be part of the Smart blog. Follow me to www.yorkblog.com/smart, where you will find blogs from myself and the rest of the Smart blogging team.
See you there!
-Andrea
Braeburn, Smokehouse, Nittany, Winter Banana. Can you guess what I’m talking about? Maybe this will help… Cortland, McIntosh, Granny Smith, Red Delicious. It’s apple season and that makes for a busy time of year for Pennsylvania orchards. Did you know Pennsylvania is the 4th largest apple producer in the country? And did you know that Adams, York and Lancaster counties are among the top apple-producing counties in the state? I didn’t know that until I checked out www.pennsylvaniaapples.org, the super informative website for the Pennsylvania Apple Marketing Program.
Apples at Brown's Orchards
If you’re like me and you love this time of year for many reasons, chief among them the fall harvest at farmer’s markets, I have a feeling you’ll love this post. The Pennsylvania Apple website is filled with tips like the best way to store apples (in the fridge to slow ripening and maintain flavor) and the best way to slow browning (coat slices in a mixture of one part lemon juice and three parts water or in Vitamin C-fortified 100% apple juice). There’s also a whole section devoted to the seemingly endless amount of apple varieties found and grown in Pennsylvania, from Golden Delicious to Cameo.
It’s official. I am my father’s daughter. The man loves a good food sample. It’s like Christmas morning for him and a little part of that giddiness has rubbed off on me. So when I was driving through the mean streets of Hanover yesterday and passed the Utz snack factory, I couldn’t help noticing the sign out front that read something like this: “Stop in for warm potato chips!”
I didn’t have time to stop, but it prompted this post. Everyone knows York County is known for its factory tours, from motorcycles to glassware to snacks. Today I’m switching my factory tour focus to the snack food mecca that is the Hanover area.
How is everyone doing? These past couple of days have been crazy, haven’t they? Glancing out my window, I think I almost see a little bit of blue sky. Shocking, I know.
With weather like we’ve had the past couple of days, I thought it might be time for a comfy, cozy food post. When stressed, I long for a cup of hot tea. I drank a lot of calming and peppermint tea this week, which prompted this post.
A few weeks back, I attended my first high tea with my friend Katie. She lives in the Lancaster area so we went to a little tea shoppe near her, but there are plenty of options around here as you’ll learn more about later. We went to Ye Olde English Shoppe & Tearoom in Intercourse. Such a cute little place, filled with plenty of English goodies in their gift shop, not just tea.
Check out this gift shoppe…
I love a quick recipe that makes life easy in general. I don’t know about you but there are work weeks when the lunch hour does not go as smoothly as planned. I have the best intentions to pack a healthy meal and avoid the high processed stuff, but some times that just doesn’t happen.
Today’s recipe featured in the Sept./Oct. issue of Sierra Magazine might just help me fill in those lunchtime gaps from time to time. Cheri Sicard is the person behind The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Easy Freezer Meals. She has put together a recipe for Bean and Cheese Burritos that you make fresh, 20 at a time, and freeze for later consumption.
Easy Recipe Alert! Yesterday my co-worker Liz was telling me about a super easy jalapeno-popper-like recipe she made over the weekend using store-bought wonton wrappers.
Wonton wrappers make for some seriously versatile appetizers. For Liz’s recipe, she simply folded the refrigerated wrappers into a muffin tin and baked them for 5 minutes before scooping in her jalapeno mixture and baking them a little longer to make them warm and bubbly.
So… this got me thinking of all the other ways you can use wonton wrappers. A quick Google search yielded lots of varying results… all of which sounded fabulous. In the end, I decided to go with a healthier option. Check out this super easy recipe I found at www.eatbetteramerica.com for Wonton Fruit Cups! Don’t they just look so elegant yet simple?
Wonton Fruit Cups
It’s recipe time! This recipe came to us at the perfect time. Last Saturday, just before we jetted off to Hanover for our friends’ going away party, our neighbor stopped by with a bag full of excess produce from his garden. Nestled among the zucchini and tomatoes were lots of little green jalapeno peppers.
Fast forward to the party. Homemade jalapeno poppers were part of the spread and, my goodness, were they delicious! The guest who brought these delectable, little bites was kind enough to share the super easy recipe with us. So as he rattled off the steps, I made a mental note to remember it all.
Mark your calendars! The Gettysburg Wine & Music Festival is coming to the Gateway Gettysburg Complex on September 10th and 11th. It promises to be a fun community event with lots of wine tasting and good food, plus a few vendors/artisan crafters.
The festival is presented by the Gettysburg Adams Chamber of Commerce. It has a jam-packed schedule of bands covering many genres, from rock/pop to blues. So far, 21 wineries have signed on, including a few local notables like Allegro, Hauser Estate, Moon Dancer, Naylor, Reid’s Orchard & Winery and West Hanover Winery. General admission ($20) gets you a souvenir wine glass, unlimited samplings and access to live performances/cooking demonstrations. DD tickets are only $12, which comes with all the live performances and demos. There’s also a special group rate of $15 per person for groups of 15 or more.
Thanks to Netflix, I’ve been catching up on all those movies I’ve been meaning to see. As a blogger who happens to write about food, it’s only natural that people should ask me if I’ve seen the movie Julie & Julia. Well, rest assured dear readers, I watched the movie last weekend and I really liked it.
Julie & Julia tells the real-life story of Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) as she follows her love of food and becomes a culinary force to be reckoned with and that of Julie Powell (played Amy Adams), who tackled every single recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year and documented it on her food blog. It was a cute, feel-good movie.
This prompted me then watch Eat Pray Love, another movie I’ve been told I just have to watch…and I wish I would have skipped it. I’ll never get those 2 hours of my life back, hours where I watched a whiny woman (played by Julia Roberts) take off a year to eat good food in Italy, learn about prayer in India and learn how to love again in Bali. Yes, I’m sure my boss would love it if I asked for a one-year leave of absence to eat pasta and gelato, meditate and, well, you get the idea. I’ll get right on that.
There are days when a co-worker’s lunch smells particularly yummy and you peek around the office to find the delectable source. Upon finding it, you immediately regret throwing that sandwich and yogurt into your lunch bag. (In my case, anyway.)
That happened to me this week. And the lunchtime culprit? My co-worker Darlene and her Ravioli Lasagna. That’s right, it’s lasagna made with layers of ravioli. Talk about carb-heavy but you have to admit the idea of so much pasta in one dish is tempting.
Lucky for you, I was able to snag the recipe from her and I snapped this quick photo with my phone. You can’t see the layers of ravioli, but trust me, it’s there.
Anyone who knows me knows I have a healthy appetite for life...and food. Come along with me on my everyday adventures--as I whip up some culinary magic of my own, when I dine out and let someone else do the cooking for me, and all those juicy bites in between. 