Remember the Catalina pork roast?
Well, I got the greatest compliment yesterday! My sister Carol called from New Jersey and told me she was making it for dinner!
So of course, you know what I asked her... if she could send me a picture for the blog! And she did. Yum!
Now I'm excited to cook this again. And I think I want to find some more recipes that use Catalina dressing, because I like the taste a lot.
Starting today, the York County Heritage Trust Auxiliary is selling Schermer Pecans.
From now till Dec. 31, the trust said in a news release, you can buy 16 oz. bags of mammoth pecan halves and holiday-wrapped 12 oz. bags of chocolate-covered pecans, pecan-caramel clusters and cinnamon-glazed pecans for $8 each.
Pecans can be purchased from auxiliary members or at the Historical Society Museum, 250 E. Market St. in York, or by calling 848-1587, ext. 210.
If you're a marketgoer, there will be a sales table at Central Market from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursdays from Nov. 5 to Dec. 17 and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays from Nov. 7 to Dec. 19. Want to know more? Call 764-8782, 854-4209 or 757-1051.
Proceeds from the sale benefit the auxiliary's youth programs - the Junior Docents and the Junior Curators.
And, um, YUM! Eat up. Why is it that everything tasty is soooo fattening? I could eat a whole bag of these at once.
So, while eating lunch the other day with Hubby at the Lyndon Diner, I was reading their placemat full of advertising.
And I came upon an event that sounds kind of fun: A "Pennsylvania Game Dinner."
It's 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 12, and it says it is "a dinner of pheasant, trout, venison, and other indigenous treats" served at 6330 South River Drive in Hellam Township, on the banks of the Susquehanna.
It says to call 252-1521 for reservations, but the placemat didn't list the venue itself. Of course, since I live online, I just had to look it up. It's at the Accomac Inn - so you know it'll be nice. This Web site has more details.
As I was on the Accomac's Web site, I found out that they're having a Ghost Dinner tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday. Not sure if you can still get in on that or not, but it definitely sounds fun!
What do you think? Yay or nay on eating "indigenous treats" like venison and pheasant?
Check out The Savvy Shopper on our food Web site, LetsEatPA.com. Each week, one of our former staffers (who left us to become a teacher!) rounds up the best food deals from the weekly circulars.
Her tips hit all the best stuff in food-related items. But nothing will beat my great razor savings (though my sister tried to go to Target and buy them, only to find them sold out - boo, hiss!)
Faithful readers of this blog know that I split my grocery shopping between Weis, Giant and Walmart depending on what's on sale. (In fact, I'm pretty fanatical about it.)
One thing I noticed while at Weis recently is worth mentioning: their campaign to help the local food banks, as the weather turns colder and the holidays approach.
They have an option where you can buy a bag of prepackaged "most-needed" food, which they will deliver to a local food bank.
There is also an option at the checkout to easily add a donation of $3, $5 or $10 to your order, which netted me the nice sticker pictured here. You can read more about the program on Weis' Web site, here.
I'll be excited to receive a news release at the end of the campaign, telling how much was raised. I'm hoping that even in the tough economy, it'll be pretty significant.
In this photo from July 2005, Swamp Fox farm owner Steve Klesse throws a few ears of sweet corn into a bin while picking some of his early season corn.
Many of you, like my faithful reader and tipster Jo, have told me nothing is better than fresh York County sweet corn. I'm not a corn fan myself, but it's my daughter's favorite vegetable, and so the news that Jo shared with me tonight really is a bit sad.
The Palm Beach Post reports that the "father of sweet corn" has died.
Emil Wolf was 89, and his life's work included, the Post story says, "developing the SH2 gene for the crisp, sweet Florida Staysweet corn hybrids that are the genetic foundation for the super sweet hybrids that dominate the marketplace."
Basically, Professor Wolf was why your corn tastes so darn good. You can read his obit here, and hopefully you're willing to have another ear or two in his memory sometime soon.
I go back to work tomorrow, so you won't have to hear nearly so much about my attempts at housewife-ness. But until then...
Here's another recipe! This one's super-zesty, which is what I love about it. It's honey spice-rubbed pork tenderloin, and it's from Kraft's Food & Family magazine, the spring 2008 edition.
Here's the final product:
And here's the recipe:
- 1 pork roast
- 1/4 cup Catalina salad dressing
- 1 tsp. red pepper
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tsp. dry mustard
- 1/2 tsp. Season Salt
- 1 Tbsp. honey
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place meat in a baking pan and brush meat with 2 Tbsp. of the dressing. Mix dry ingredients and rub onto the roast. Mix remaining 2 Tbsp. dressing and the honey; set aside.
Bake 15 minutes; brush with the dressing mixture. Bake an additional 10 minutes or until the pork is cooked through. Remove the roast from the oven; cover it with foil and let it stand about 5 minutes before slicing.
Once you slice it, it'll look like this:
And it will be yummy!! I especially like the ends, which have lots of the spicy rub on them.
My week off has really given me a chance to explore my domestic side. Not only is my house as clean and organized as it's been in a long time, but I've been cooking regularly.
Saturday night's dinner was a favorite of mine, bacon cheeseburger pasta, and I thought some of you might like the recipe.
Here's the finished product:
The recipe is from what used to be called "Quick Cooking" magazine, back in 2000. Here it is, with a few subsitutions of mine:
- 8 ounces uncooked pasta (tubes or spirals are best)
- 1 pound ground beef
- 6 bacon strips, diced
- 1 can (10 3/4 ounces) condensed tomato soup, undiluted
- 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
Cook the pasta according to its package directions. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook your ground beef over medium heat until it's no longer pink; drain. Then, cook your bacon until it's crisp in the same skillet and drain again. Drain your pasta, then add it to the skillet, along with the soup. Mix it well and heat it through; then, add the shredded cheddar cheese. Cook (the original recipe says covered, but I do it uncovered) until the cheese is melted, then serve from your skillet.
The recipe says it makes 4 to 6 servings; usually, I make mine with a whole box of pasta, which is 12 to 16 ounces instead of 8, so it makes MANY more servings for pretty much the same cost. It's just a little less juicy, and that's fine with me!
Anyone have any other one-dish recipes to share? Casseroles and skillet meals are my favorites because I'm basically lazy - the fewer steps and dishes, the better! But I get tired of just pasta as the base, so if you have one that uses potatoes of any kind, my mother - who hinted today that I need to branch out - would really appreciate it!
I had a cavity-free visit to the dentist at noon today, and of course, I hadn't eaten beforehand, so I was starving by the time I finished!
My dentist is in the South York area of York Township, so I headed almost across the street to a favorite lunch spot of mine, The Festive Board deli in Queensgate.
The sky was just starting to get super-gray, so I knew I'd be eating my lunch in a storm. But once I went in, browsed for a while and ordered, I realized that their indoor tables didn't really give a great outside view, so I went and sat at a small table outside, underneath the shopping center's overhang, just as it began to rain. By the time I was halfway through lunch, it was a total downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. I wasn't at all afraid - in fact, I loved it, though I admit one particularly ominous clap of thunder with a straight-down lightning bolt just in front of me had me wondering if I should reconsider.
But I stuck it out, and all in all, it was a really interesting way to spend lunch. They're doing a lot of work on the Queensgate center, so there were a lot of crews trying to work despite the rain; the lightning chased the sign company men on their metal ladder down too, thankfully, and they headed into The Festive Board as well.
Here's what I had:
A ham-and-provolone sandwich on a kaiser roll with mustard, plus the largest dill pickle I've seen in a long time. Altogether, it cost $6.63 with the soda (diet, of course), so I thought it was a good deal.
While I was wandering around inside, debating what to order, I just had to take a picture of the deli case for you guys:
Besides thinking that many of the foods in there looked good - especially the ham salad at the bottom right - I had to snap the photo because there were "purple eggs" - which the deli labeled as red-beet eggs. Guess we know how they'd vote in the pickled vs. red beet poll!
Remember when I posted about the cake disaster that only an editor could love?
Well, my friend Megan then told me about CakeWrecks.com, a site dedicated to showcases cakes, well, gone wrong.
It cracked me up! Do yourself a favor today and check it out. And, just because I like to talk about food, post me a comment and tell me what your favorite kind of cake/icing combo is (and where you buy it, if you don't feel that buying a cake is some kind of sin against humanity.)
Important note: The cake pictured here is decidedly NOT a wreck - it was decorated in 2007 by Mary Jo Sturgill at her home in Dover Township, and I picked it for the blog because my daughter loves cake AND ladybugs! So, this one's for Sarah. :)
So after making you think so much in yesterday's post, here's a fun and easy one that I thought I should get to before summer picnic season winds down... what do you call these eggs?
(Image from RecipeZaar)
Faithful reader Joe tipped me off to this coming event, in which you can get yummy food and help a local organization, too.
From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday, Aug. 1, at the corner of Parkway Boulevard and Pacific Avenue in York - RAIN OR SHINE - the Bring On Play group is having a chicken barbecue to raise funds for the recently renovated Lincoln Park. (Read a guest column here by Mayor John Brenner on the group's efforts; that's his wife, Adrienne, and son Sam, then 4, at the park in 2008, before renovations in the picture at top.)
For $7, you get half a chicken, a baked potato, applesauce, a roll and butter. Joe says there's also plenty of room to run and play at the pickup site, if you want to either work up an appetite or work off the chicken!!
You don't have to pre-purchase your tickets, though Joe does recommend it. You can do so by calling him at 495-3878.
Sounds YUMMY. I know this is "barbecue season" and there are many such events to support; if you have one, feel free to let me know, because I'd love to publicize it.
This one is easy and fun, brought to you by my friend and former coworker Megan. Bonus points: Comment and tell me either (a) why you voted the way you did or (b) if you think the are both valid but describe two different things - and if so, why?
You know how I said I was spending Saturday in the Hanover area?
I used my weekend plans as an excuse to try a Hanover-area specialty that I hadn't had before - the downtown Famous Hot Weiner!
Despite being pretty familiar with the Hanover area, I'd never eaten at the original location at York Street and Broadway, just the newer one over at Dart Drive and Eichelberger Street.
So when Hubby suggested that we stop in with Sarah for our Saturday night dinner, I was totally up for it.
I went with a twist on my favorite - hot dog with ketchup and mustard - the twist being the last-minute addition of bacon after I heard another diner order it.
Sarah went with plain dog. Nothing on it.
We all shared some really, really good fries..
And Chris went for it, ordering two "famous" weiners with their "everything" - onions, mustard and the special Famous Hot Weiner chili sauce.
I have never seen so many onions in one place before!!
All in all, it was a good meal. I like my dogs basically burnt, so mine was a little light for my taste, but still yummy. Chris polished almost all of his two off, and Sarah did a great job on hers. And the fries... wow! I really liked those. (Yes, I'm a big kid at heart.)
The whole weekend was great, and I have some more pictures to share of letterbox hiking, the Summer Blast and more, but those will have to wait. Back to work for now!
First, if you're visiting for the first time today to vote in the "what do you call that veggie" poll that appeared on the front page of the York Daily Record's Living section, you can do that by clicking here. Heck, even if you are a longtime reader, if you haven't voted yet - please do!
So far, "string beans" are beating out "green beans" as the name for the veggie in question. But I've had some interesting conversations about this that I'd like to share.
First, I asked my brother-in-law Mike, who reads faithfully but never comments, what he voted for. He said string beans, which is fine. But we started talking about, IF you were to pick green beans, what do you do when confronted with the yellow version of said beans? He says those are called wax beans, which I admit I have heard of but didn't realize what they were. (There are some pictured here. I think all the pictures make them look like very yellow french fries, but that's beside the point.)
Cubby, my virtual friend and a columnist for the Hanover Evening Sun, said she was raised calling them string beans and had kind of gotten away from that.
Melanie also votes for string beans; "snap them in two and you immediately see why," she wrote.
Jim Fahringer, a new commenter, said he also calls them string beans, but adds, "perhaps the real name is green beans or pole beans depending on whether they were grown on vines that grew up poles or grew on bushes."
He's also got a point that I think Jo (who hasn't weighed in yet - where are you, Jo?) would appreciate. He says: "By the way, if they are the kind that grow on bushes and hang down close to the ground, picking them is one of the most difficult back breaking jobs I ever had and are tied with picking strawberries as a back breaking job!" Jo, if you'll remember, said the strawberries she picked at Dover's Barefoot Farm really did her back in!
Anyway, there's still time to vote. For all the commenting seems to suggest "string beans" is far and away the name winner, it seems close. Those of you who picked green beans - leave some comments! :)
One place our family likes to eat is the Cracker Barrel in York Township, near York County Tech.
In our opinion, the best day to eat there is Sunday, because of their great specials. That's where we went last Sunday after church, because Mom and I wanted to get the Sunday special of "Homestyle Chicken."
From Cracker Barrel's Web site:
"Starting at 11:00 a.m. every Sunday, enjoy two boneless chicken breasts hand-dipped in fresh buttermilk, breaded and deep fried to a golden brown in our kitchen. Served with choice of two vegetables."
While we waited, Chris and Sarah made an alien out of paper napkin rings, and we played the peg-jumping game (which Sarah is better out than I am.)
Once dinner came, we were glad to dig in.
My dinner: Homestyle chicken with fries and dumplins
(Read on for the rest of the family's choices.)
Well, despite not feeling 100 percent in the tummy after last week's stomach bug, I am not keeping my promise not to blog about food.
Today, a bunch of us ladies took a nice lunch break and went to Spataro's on Roosevelt Avenue in York. It was my first time there, and any time I try new local food, you know I have to write about it!
Lunch was:
Sam: Lasagna special with salad and garlic bread
Me: Small (hahaha!) Italian hoagie
Kara: Pizzaiola burger
Ellen: Cheese pizza
Carryout for Amy: Chicken parmigiana with capellini
And we all split an order of fries. More on those - and local fries in general - in a future post.
Suffice it to say we got a LOT of food, and for the most part we liked it a lot. Ellen wasn't crazy about the type of sauce they used on the pizza, but she really dug the fries, and Sam loved her lasagna. Kara - after learning how to pronounce pizzaiola - seemed to enjoy hers, and if you know me, you know a good Italian hoagie is one of my favorite things. It came with what I'm almost positive by the taste were Martin's chips, too.
The thing I liked best was our waitress, who was super-friendly, didn't mind splitting a check four ways, kept our drinks full, and made good conversation. She was great.
The other great part? It was cheap! My hoagie and Kara's were less than $4 apiece. Amy's chicken parm was only $6.50, it came with a salad, and had a good-sized portion of meat and pasta.
All in all, I think you should pay them a visit! It's great to eat somewhere locally owned, and it's much better than some Italian chains I won't mention.
Don't forget, you can still vote for your favorite local fresh fruit!
As of my writing this entry, there were 18 votes, and strawberries were way in the lead with 72 percent. Peaches were doing OK, at 22 percent, and cherries took 5 percent. Nobody voted for any of the other choices yet!
There's still time to vote; I'm not going to "close" the poll for a while, though I'll probably declare a winner early next week and share some of the feedback I've gotten from readers on what to buy where.
Meanwhile, you might as well know what got my vote - STRAWBERRIES! They are the other thing I bought during my lunchtime trip to Brown's North yesterday.
My mom was kind enough to slice them up and sprinkle Equal/Stevia over them (that's what the picture with this post is of). We ate about half the bowl! It's a great snack.
For those of you who already voted - how do you like to eat your strawberries (or peaches, or cherries)? Since I'm sure I'll be getting more fresh berries soon, I'm interested in any suggestions.
Today for lunch, I went with my mom to the new Brown's North, at Shiloh Nurseries in Emigsville, Manchester Township.
All I can say is, WOW. We love Brown's, as I've mentioned before, but it really is a bit of drive to go from West Manchester to Springfield Township.
Brown's North, though, was less than a 10-minute drive from the office. YAY!
In addition to some fresh fruit, which I'll write about later this week, once I've tasted it, we got good sandwiches for lunch, plus a sweet treat for each family member.
(From left, it's chocolate-chip sugar cakes for my daughter; a raspberry pie for my mom and I to share; and chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing for Hubby.)
The lunchtime sandwiches definitely met the high standards the original Brown's location has set. We sat at some really great patio tables and enjoyed the wonderful weather. My mom's tuna salad was SO full of tuna, she had to take some off. I added bacon to my ham-and-cheese-on-Kaiser delight, and it was super-crispy and they put a lot on.
Neither Mom nor I finished our whole sandwich, because we had to save room...
We each at a quarter of the small pie. HOLY COW, it was good. Definitely worth the trip!
Thanks to the good example set by Pat over at The Southpaw, I've figured out how to use polls on the ol' blog.
If you don't vote, though, I'll feel silly. So please vote!
Today's poll is in honor of this week's Weekly Record feature on the best recipes for local fruits.
So, pick your favorite, and also feel free to leave me a comment telling me where you buy your local fruit. We often get ours at the Farmers Market, or at either Brown's in Springfield Township or Whitceomb's in West Manchester Township, but I am always open to new places!
