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By Times staff © St. Petersburg Times, published March 14, 2001 Irish soda bread
Even those of us with no Irish heritage will be celebrating the foods of the Emerald Isle on St. Patrick's Day, including Irish soda bread. The dense bread is most often seen in American bakeries and grocery stores with raisins, currants or caraway seeds. However, the original soda bread had no dried fruit bits in it. Soda bread with raisins is call spotted dog in some parts of Ireland; with currants it's called currant soda bread or fruited soda bread. The taste is a cross between a heavy biscuit and a muffin. Early forms of soda bread, which was often made daily to accompany a family's breakfast and dinner, contained only flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk. The baking soda reacted well with the soft wheats grown in Ireland and was all that was needed to make the bread rise. (The high gluten content of hard wheats responds better to the leavening power of yeast.) Before baking, a deep "X" is scored into the top of the loaf. One Irish legend says that the cross frightens the devil away. We don't know about that but it does help heat escape as the dough expands. Because it's made with buttermilk, which is naturally low-fat, Irish soda bread, depending on how much butter, if any, is in the recipe, has about 2 gram of fat and 130 calories per 1-ounce slice. the web site cooks:Recipes, contest information, free advice and truly useless trivia are the hallmark of this site. There are plenty of recipe sites out there but Yumyum.com scores points for its folksy approach. The recipes are extensive and doable for the home cook. Some smart person called Dashing Donna answers questions from visitors, treating them all nicely despite the misspellings (a young students wants "midievil" recipes) and the suspected put-ons (what is a zucchini?). Click on Fun and memorize tidbits to know and tell your friends (Coca-Cola cans were originally green). cooking classEnhance the flavor of vegetables such as tomatoes and eggplant by roasting them in the oven, cut up and uncovered, at 200 to 250 degrees for approximately one hour, depending on their thickness. constant comment"There are 6-million germs on the hand. It only takes one to make you sick." -- From an advertisement for Sparkle paper towels. cooking with candy
Store-bought candy gets elevated into home-baked treats in The Candy Bar Cookbook (Longstreet Press, $17.95). The recipe names tell the story of this cookbook: Snickers Cheesecake, Heath Bar Ice Cream Sandwiches and Whoppers Chocolate Pie. Historical information about candy is also included. contest tipsSuggested strategies from Pillsbury for Bake-Off hopefuls -- the next one is in 2002 -- can also be used in other cooking competitions. They include: -- Make an appetizer recipe into a main dish. -- Create a new shape or presentation for a familiar food. -- Ask a friend to prepare the dish from your written recipe to make sure it works. frozen cookies
For a limited time you can get your Girl Scout cookies frozen and surrounded by Edy's ice cream. Crunched up Tagalongs, Thin Mints and Samoas are featured, separately of course, in luscious caramel, vanilla and chocolate ice creams. They'll be in the freezer section until the end of May. Price is $4.59 a half gallon. shaken and shakyJeers to Kathy Casey Food Studios in Seattle, which, a day after a strong earthquake devastated parts of the Pacific Northwest, faxed a press release to tout a cocktail recipe to "remember the day and calm the nerves." We're all in favor of humor -- and a good drink -- but "Seattle's 6.8 Cocktail -- Shaken, not Stirred" is the tackiest spin we've seen lately.
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