Local Food Connections

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago our oldest daughter, who is the undisputed Sauce Queen, gave me a bottle of Bar-B-Que sauce she purchased at a Farmer’s Market. She said it is the best and knew we would love it. Well, she was right.

About a week later, I was at the Excelsior Farmer’s Market and right between Mackenthun’s and Ridgeroll Farms, was the M&B Homemade Seasonings and Sauce stand. I was so surprised and pleased. It also gave me an opportunity to meet Brenda Snell, one of the owners. It is always great to see a successful family business and they show their pride in their product.

M&B Homemade Seasonings and Sauces offers a complete line of products. Their sauces

M&B Homemade Sauce

include Maple, Original, Sweet Garlic, Northwoods Hickory, Zesty, Fireworks and the Grand Finale. They also offer spices with a 14 All-U-Need Seasoning and a Cowboy’s Seasoning.

All of their sauces and seasonings are made with the highest quality ingredients, with no added chemicals, but a lot of love in their product. I am pretty picky about this stuff because I don’t like buying sauces with high fructose corn syrup as their first ingredient. Most ketchup already has that as an ingredient, so why add even more!

I know they are at the Excelsior, Minnetonka, Delano and Maple Grove Farmer’s Markets, but you can contact them if you want to know of other locations or they might offer a mail purchase.

Contact information: M&B Snell, Corcoran, MN – MBSnell2@comcast.net or call them at 763-221-6295.

I know they would love to hear from  you!

Take care,

Judy

Hi everyone,

We have a wonderful new market near our home… Fresh Seasons Market. Their philosophy is one of being a special place to shop, but providing quality and value. They have a superior produce department, their meat and seafood department carries only the best available. The deli and bakery sections are the same. Quality and value are the mandates of the store and when you throw in a caring, friendly staff – that is what it is about these days for us.

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Hi everyone,

Last week, my husband and I took another class at the Kitchen Window. We are pizza snobs and proud of it. Whenever possible, our pizza of choice is made at home with our own dough. The class was “Better-than-Pizzeria Pizza” and making the perfect dough was the premise for the class.

The dough was ready for us so we could start cooking. We were paired in groups and off to work. We assembled two types of pizza and then spent a rotation at the dough station. Our group was so much fun and we worked well together. Our Bacon-Cheeseburger and Chicken Taco pizzas were delicious. Never thought I would eat a pizza with dill pickles on it! The Pear and Gorgonzola just melted in my mouth. My least favorite was a Roasted Vegetable (which I normally love) and I think it was because of the potatoes. I would have preferred peppers, artichokes, zucchini, and onions, which is the great thing about pizza – you can make it your way

John Michael Lerma (the instructor), of Food Network fame, was ill so a local chef, Scott Hurlbut, taught the class for him. He walked in at the very last minute and taught an amazing class.

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Hi everyone,

Many of you are familiar with Lynn Rossetto Kasper, her excellent cookbooks, her newspaper column, and her show on Public Radio, The Splendid Table. 

Chefs are coming more and more to the forefront with the Eat Local movement and Chef Kasper is no exception.  
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Happy New Year!

We are almost halfway through January of the New Year and I am wondering how many of you are already losing that resolve to make major changes in your life?

This past summer I was involved in a writing intensive with an wonderful supportive and talented group of women and a great coach, Suzanne Lieurance (The Working Writer’s Coach). Last week, she had a reunion call with our group to discuss our writing goals for 2009. After the call, I reviewed my goals based on the discussion, but also thought about them in a different light. Now I am applying that philosophy to my life, not just my writing.
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Hi everyone,

December 2 already – where did the year go?

Now we turn to the holidays and gift giving. This year everyone is feeling the pinch and so it is a good time to think about giving the gift for the meaning rather than just because it is a gift.

Gift cards have become the norm and can be a well thought out gift if the card fits the person. Here are some ideas for gift cards for the favorite foodie on your list.
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Hi everyone,

After a wonderful adventure in tasting the Columbus Salames, olive oils, cheeses, vinegars, and, of course, the chocolate, back on the bus to the Kitchen Window.

While Chef Royal prepared a superb lunch, he talked about each of the dishes and the subtleties in bringing them up one more notch on the flavor level. Our luncheon menu included several of the items we saw or tasted at Great Ciao.

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Hi everyone,

One can never have too many cookbooks or at least I don’t think so. To me a good cookbook is like a story. The author had a premise based on a personal liking or experience and wants to share with others. This is especially true with this cookbook. It is authored by the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition. 

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Hello everyone,

I read several cooking publications and have some real favorites – one of them is Food and Wine magazine. I like their magazine for several reasons.   

Food and Wine magazine always inspires me to bring my cooking up to a new level just with their presentation. The old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is so true, but it is also worth a thousand new cooking ideas and flavor experiences for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi everyone,

I am sure many of you have heard of or tasted the wonderful dip treat – Cowboy Caviar. It is a combination of black beans, black-eyed peas (in the south), onions, seasonings, tomatoes (maybe), peppers, olives (maybe), corn (maybe) and cilantro. You get the idea – lots of wonderful ingredients. It should have just a little kick to it, but it doesn’t need a burn your mouth hot (unless that is your choice). That little extra kick in the taste is part of Cowboy Caviar’s personality and makes the ingredients sing out with flavor.  The other requirement is that it must sit to let the flavors blend before it is served. Read the rest of this entry »