Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
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This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

How to Get the Benefits of Organic Foods Without Paying Through the Nose (May 2010)
Yes, you can capture practically all of the benefits of going organic without paying inflated organic prices. All you have to do is make a few minor changes in how you purchase and handle the produce you already buy. PS: Be sure to look over the debate that promptly sprang up in the comments.

Brand Disloyalty (May 2009)
I know it's often easier and more comfortable to stay loyal to the brands and products we buy. But in this post you'll learn how to make timely brand switching decisions to get far more value for your money. One of my most popular and influential posts of 2009.

The Limping Dinner: Spicy Brown Rice (May 2008)
There are days when the idea of cooking is just a little bit too much to bear. Here's a "limping dinner" that's won't win any culinary awards, yet it's a simple, surprisingly healthy meal that will fuel you up with an absolute minimum of effort.

How to Make Pickled Eggs (May 2007)
With the minor caveat that you need to make pickled beets first before you can make this dish, this is by far the easiest and most amazing recipe here at Casual Kitchen.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday May 13, 2011

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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"We are all of us, right now, living in the golden age of drive-thru." (Accidental Hedonist)

Thanks to practically free energy, we've lost our appreciation for food. (Backyard Farming)

Why your efforts to be more healthy will always pay off. (The Claytons Blog)

A cheap, healthy and brief guide to safe and environmentally sound canned tuna. (Cheap Healthy Good)

Recipe Links:
Easy, and utterly decadent: Garlic Butter Roasted Mushrooms. (A Thought For Food)

A laughably easy pasta dish from Spitler and Yoakam's 1,001 Best Low-Fat Recipes: Chicken Penne Pasta. (Apicius' Apprentice)

Simple Garlic Roasted Potatoes and two brilliant kitchen tricks. (Eating Rules)

Off-Topic Links:
Avoid these three tell-tale signs of a self-published book. (Self Publishing Advisor)

A few cautionary words about leaving blog comments. (Quick Writing Tips)

On completing big projects. (Steve Pavlina)





Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


Help support Casual Kitchen by buying Jules Clancy's exceptional new e-cookbook 5 Ingredients, 10 Minutes (see my rabidly positive review here). Or, support CK by buying Everett Bogue's revolutionary book The Art of Being Minimalist. (These are both affiliate links, so if you decide to make a purchase, you'll help fund all of the free content here at CK!)


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

What's Wrong With the Government Limiting Food Marketing to Kids?

I thought I would weigh in on the recent proposed Federal Trade Commission's rules for limiting food marketing to children.

To me this is a fascinating debate. One one side you've got food writers like Marion Nestle arguing (somewhat predictably) that the new rules don't go far enough. Other bloggers are a bit more circumspect and are willing to consider abstract but important aspects of the debate, like unintended consequences, free speech issues and so on. And, sadly (uh, and also somewhat predictably), over at the Huffington Post we have a totally information-free post in which the author jokes about playing games on the Lucky Charms website.

Okay. As usual with any political issue, you ain't gonna find much nuance out there. Most people have agendas that they're pushing, and those agendas typically come from one of two extremes: YAY! More regulation! Corporations are evil! or BOO! get the government out of my life and get off my lawn!

For my part, sure, I would love to see less advertising in general. And long-time CK readers especially know about my particularly insane hatred of overpriced, hyper-sweetened cereals--a food marketed to children like no other, coincidentally. So, yes, I have a bit of a personal axe to grind in this debate too.

And heck, making the contra-argument on this subject is a little like being against puppies. It is not an easy position to take. (Wait, don't you care about kids? You're in favor of evil corporations taking advantage of our children, you bad, bad person you?)

To be honest, I don't really know where I stand on this issue. So instead of advocating a position, I'm going to ask you, readers, a few open-ended questions, in the hopes that we can collectively foster an open-minded and nuanced debate of our own.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, the readers here at Casual Kitchen are as articulate and thoughtful as anybody can find anywhere (did I mention for the millionth time how grateful I am for this?). With that in mind, what are your thoughts on the following questions?

1) Is it children who actually buy these foods? (PS: This is a bit of a trick question.)

2) Will rules like these actually change peoples' behavior?

3) What are the possible unintended consequences that might result from enforcing guidelines like this? (Keeping in mind that it's notoriously difficult to perceive a law's unintended consequences when those consequences are unlikely for you.)

4) What are the free speech issues involved here?

5) Is it appropriate to hand responsibility for our food choices over to our government? And to what extent is it appropriate that we give away our power to make choices in the face of advertising--or in the face of our children's demands for certain foods?

6) Are we creating rules to make ourselves feel like we've solved a problem?

Readers, here's your chance to sound off--on any or all of these questions. What do you think?

Related Posts:
What's Your Favorite Consumer Empowerment Tip?
Companies vs. Consumers: A Manifesto
A Tale of Two Breakfasts
Food Militancy, and Food Moderation


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
******************************
This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Trusting Your Own Taste in Wine and Food (May 2010)
When you follow advice and recommendations from seemingly objective food and wine "experts," you might think it helps you make better choices. In reality, however, you're building a habit of letting others do your thinking for you.

What's Your Take on Going Vegetarian? A Poll of Meat-Eating Bloggers (May 2009)
I asked a roundtable of my favorite bloggers to share their reasons for NOT going vegetarian. Read this post for some surprisingly blunt and honest talk about why going veggie isn't right for everyone.

Hawaii and its Love Affair with SPAM (May 2009)
Citizens of Hawaii consume more SPAM per capita than any other state in the US. They love it so much that in Waikiki they hold an annual street festival dedicated to SPAM. No lie.

A Simple Way to Beat Rising Food Prices (May 2008)
How would you like a simple idea that will cut your weekly food bill by 20-30% and increase the health and nutritional content of your diet? Oddly enough, lots of people push back against this hilariously easy to implement tip.

How to Make Pickled Beets (May 2007)
Visually stunning, easy to make and pretty darn cheap too. Oh, and delicious. One warning though: do not wear white while making this dish.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday May 6, 2011

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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If you don't cook for yourself, you give your personal food sovereignty away to strangers. (Addicted to Canning)

Why eating meat is not immoral. (Real Food Dudes)

More fascinating work from Diana on the how-tos of keeping urban chickens. (A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa)

You can't just eat by the numbers alone, but here are a few reliable ways to quickly determine which food choices are healthiest. (Eating Rules)

Recipe Links:
A full family meal for under $5! Baked Rosemary Garlic Chicken. ($5 Dinners)

The perfect recipe to teach yourself the particulars of baking: Bourbon Pound Cake. (The Way the Cookie Crumbles, via Cara's Cravings)

Hilariously easy and exotic: Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce. (The Claytons Blog)

Off-Topic Links:
This week's unsolicited book recommendation: Find More Time by Laura Stack. I'm two-thirds of the way through this book, and it is simply jam-packed with great ideas on how to make your life more efficient and effective. Particularly useful if you have kids and a busy family life.

Three uncluttering projects you can easily do right now. (Unclutterer, via María Machón)

Being popular is almost never a measure of genius, of impact, or of art. (Seth's Blog)



Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


Help support Casual Kitchen by buying Jules Clancy's exceptional new e-cookbook 5 Ingredients, 10 Minutes (see my rabidly positive review here). Or, support CK by buying Everett Bogue's revolutionary book The Art of Being Minimalist. (These are both affiliate links, so if you decide to make a purchase, you'll help fund all of the free content here at CK!)


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

The 80-Second Latte

Great news! You no longer need to blow $4.00 at Starbucks or at your local trendy coffee shop to enjoy a latte.

In this post, I'll explain how to make a delicious latte-style coffee in the comfort of your own home, without any expensive coffee-making equipment, milk-frothing attachments or other gadgets. Here's how:

1) Fill a microwave-safe coffee mug half full with milk (skim, whole, 2%, it doesn't matter).

2) Microwave on high for 60 seconds.

3) If you want to add sugar, stir it in immediately after microwaving.

4) Let the heated (and sweetened) milk stand for 10-15 seconds. You'll see a layer of foam rise to the top of the milk. Then, very gently, fill the mug the rest of the way with strong coffee.

5) Drink and enjoy.

A quick final note: Obviously, some microwaves are more powerful than others. If you heat the milk to a point where it begins bubbling, not only will it not form the desired foamy texture, it may explode all over the inside of your microwave. Tears and suffering will ensue. Keep an eye on things the first couple of times you do this and you'll quickly figure out your optimal microwave time.

Needless to say, this isn't identical to a latte, but it's a surprisingly close--and laughably cheap--approximation. Enjoy!

Related Posts:
The Macchinetta: Stovetop Espresso Coffee
The French Press
How to Use an Ibrik to Make Easy Turkish Coffee
Calling All Coffee Addicts: 100% Kona Coffee

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen. As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
******************************
This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Meat Versus Miles: Why Less Meat is Better Than Going Local (May 2010)
Yeah, sure, eating locally is a wonderful idea, and we should all be mindful of the transport costs implicit in the foods we buy. But there's one tweak you can make to your diet that will have a far greater impact--on both the environment and your pocketbook. I guarantee you'll be surprised by the data in this post, which comes from the exceptional book Cooking Green.

Seven Ways to Jazz Up Your Morning Eggs (May 2008)
Seven quick-and-easy suggestions of interesting and unusual ways to prepare eggs. Now you'll never get bored with nature's most efficient food! One my most popular posts from 2008.

Easy Recipe Ideas for Cinco de Mayo (May 2009)
A great list of 10 recipes (and three drink recipes!) for the Cinco de Mayo holiday, which celebrates Mexico's victory at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. And if you're wondering why the French don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo... well... you'll learn why in this post.

Chocoholics Anonymous (May 2007)
I first featured this post in a roundup of the Least Popular Posts of Casual Kitchen. Why am I sharing it here? I share it in the hopes that it will encourage those of you who are new to blogging to keep at it. Look: this post was typical of the mediocre quality of my material from my first year of blogging. And yet I stuck around, kept trying--and I got better. You will too.





Help support Casual Kitchen by buying Jules Clancy's exceptional new e-cookbook 5 Ingredients, 10 Minutes (see my rabidly positive review here). Or, support CK by buying Everett Bogue's revolutionary book Minimalist Business. (These are both affiliate links, so if you decide to make a purchase, you'll help fund all of the free content here at CK!)

How can I support Casual Kitchen? If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!