Serving up veggies in all of our products!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Quick Guide to the New USDA Guidelines

We've been working closely with the USDA on a brand new product of ours that we'll be revealing soon (!). In doing so, we learned about the new version of the Food Guide Pyramid, called the Food Intake Patterns that was released a couple weeks ago. Here are a few changed we noticed compared to the last version of the guidelines, released in 2005. The new Food Patterns...
  • use cups, ounces, and teaspoons to measure specific recommendations rather than "servings."
  • increase the recommended number of cups of "starchy vegetables" and "other vegetables" per week, but kept the same recommended amounts for "dark leafy greens," "orange vegetables," and "legumes."
  • provide "estimated daily caloric needs" for "sedentary" and "active" people only, instead of providing "sedentary," "moderately active," and "active" categories as they have in the past. [Maybe their research showed that many people who self-identified as "moderately active" were rounding themselves up from sedentary, so they eliminated the 'moderate' category?]  (click on image to enlarge)

View a summary of the new Food Patterns here or below (click on image to enlarge):

Friday, February 11, 2011

DIY English Muffins

Make our English muffins on Sunday and enjoy them all week long. They are a great breakfast treat, lunch box sandwich, or a quick and easy mini-pizza dinner! Making your own English muffins avoids using preservatives, and other industrial ingredients, found in most store bought varieties. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to make a special Valentine's Day breakfast.
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 Tbl sugar + 1 pinch
  • 1 packet yeast
  • 1 cup water, about 110 degrees
  • 2 Tbl melted butter (substitute with vegetable oil)
  • 4 to 6 cups bread flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • corn meal for dusting, about 1/4 cup
  • cooking spray
Warm milk in saucepan and remove from heat when milk just starts to bubble. Stir in 1 tablespoon sugar and set aside. In a large bowl, add the 110 degree water and stir a pinch of sugar. Then add yeast, stir gently, and let start for at least 10 minutes. Mix in the milk, butter (or oil), 1 teaspoon salt and 2-3 cups of flour. The mixture should be the consistency of pancake batter. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 4 hours at room temperature or let rest in the fridge overnight for flavor development (optional).
Add remaining 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon sugar and mix well. Add flour until a moderately sticky dough is formed. Knead dough at least 5 minutes, using minimal flour so that it doesn't stick too badly, but is still tacky to the touch. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in volume, about 1 to 1.5 hours.
Dust two baking sheets lightly with cornmeal and set aside. Roll dough out to about 1-1.5" thick lightly and cut into peices for muffins, about 2 inch squares (makes about 24 muffins). Place on dusted baking sheets and top muffins with a sprinkle of cornmeal. Let rise for 30 minutes.
Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat. One batch at a time, spray hot pan lightly with cooking spray and add muffins. Flip when golden brown, about 3 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining muffins. Enjoy! Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 405 days or freeze for up to a month.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Brown Paper Bag It This Superbowl Sunday

When you just can't watch another fumble, touchdown, or "hut hut hut" bring the kids into the kitchen and make this half time treat, microwave popcorn in a brown paper bag.

Most store bought microwave popcorn brands contain hydrogenated oils, artificial flavors  (some even contain fish!), and added colors. Why not make your own and skip the bad stuff!



Homemade Microwave Popcorn
(makes 1 serving)
1/4 cup popcorn kernels
1 teaspoon oil, canola or olive
1/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste), preferably popcorn salt
brown paper lunch bag
stapler

Toss the corn kernels, oil and salt together in the brown paper bag. Fold the top of the bag over twice and staple once to close.

Microwave on high for 2-3 minutes, until popping sounds are about 5 seconds apart. Open carefully; there's hot steam in there just like store-bought microwave popcorn!

Additions:

  • add a teaspoon of sugar to the popped corn for a sweet/savory Kettle Corn.
  • add a sprinkle of onion powder, or any finely ground spice blend you have in the house at the shake step. 
  • use our ranch-inspired seasoning blend! Prepare the popcorn without the salt called for above, pop, open the bag, add 1/2 a recipe of Peas Signature Spice Blend (including parmesan cheese) fold the bag closed and shake to distribute.