Tag Archives: food

“Preparing” your Recipes

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“Preparing” your recipes involves not only putting the ingredients together in a palatable manner; more importantly, the ingredients must be grown and harvested in a manner conducive to uploading the maximum healthy ingredients from the soil – and -  a growing/harvesting method that guards against poisonous  pesticides, fertilizers and other top-dressing of unhealthy chemicals and additives.  Sustainable, organic gardening methods allow  the “ingredients” that become our food/recipes to also become the best foundation for our nutritional health.

I vowed when beginning this site to be fairly narrow-focused on food alone; there are endless other blogs covering every imaginable subject.  But… there was a recent USDA agreement that now allows genetically modified alfalfa seed.  We may not eat alfalfa, but the meats we eat and the bees that pollinate our veggies…ARE involved.  I believe that information is directly related to the recipes you and Jan and I create here.  Some of that information can be found through some of the blogs in our blog roll to the right.

There is a grassroots push nationwide over the past few ears to allow poultry raising; even cities such as New York, Seattle, etc are giving in to the growing need for us to feed ourselves home-grown, healthy food. The economics behind this push certainly aid the cause!

Jan and I hope for an interactive site here; if you have other websites that fit into these categories mentioned above, please, comment or send us an e-mail:

daniellesimone0@gmail.com.

Paprika Peppers…coming up.

As always, Nature prevails.

Recipe Reviews; Revving up

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‘Thought a run through some recipe sites, before I got serious here, might get my creativity blooming.  Oh my, yes.

Found a yummy bread site, the author is obviously totally steeped in food and all its myriad of joys. My best cooking hours involve flour – of some kind (noodles, bread, etc), so I drooled as I surfed ; enjoy.   http://betterwithbutter.com/bread-week-day-4-challah/

Curiosity took me to this next site.  Being…over 30, I was taught to knead bread doughs till they howled.  So this new method intrigues me.  Any one used this no-knead method?  Would Love to hear your results.
http://steamykitchen.com/168-no-knead-bread-revisited.html

Okay, you’re in a hurry, kids coming through the back door, hubby just called – traffic’s not too bad – he’ll be waltzing in within the hour.  The soup in the crock pot is way ready and your quickest bread recipe takes 2 hours!  Time to try a ‘quick bread’ recipe. Here’s a site that makes this food route look quick and easy.  Confession time; I have never created a quick bread! Been down the muffin road, maybe it’s not too different? Any food fans out there with some experience in this area, please let us know your results.
http://muffinandbreadrecipes.com/QuickBread.html

A flour recipe trip must include at least a quick peek at pies.  The chef on this video below is easy to understand.  I may spend a few minutes there myself ( my first pie crust , many moons ago, could have doubled as a blunt-trauma weapon, I’m embarrassed to admit).
http://www.howdini.com/howdini-video-6637927.html”

Life is simply not life – without a perfect Pasta recipe! (notice the capital P..). Did I mention I’m Italian.  Anyway, here’s a site that uses a Pasta cutter.  As our blog progresses, I’ll post a completely from-scratch pasta recipe that shows how to use just your hands and a knife; nothing expensive to buy or difficult to operate.  But, my old pasta maker did grind out many yummy plates of varying noodle shapes and thicknesses before its sad demise. If noodles are your passion, let’s hear from you – your favorite pasta recipe could premier here and fill many a tummy.
http://forkableblog.com/?p=1059

That’s our trip down flour-lane for today.  What’s your best kept flour recipe secret?  Did your grandma/granddad have a special pie or bread recipe they passed down with Love?  Let us know.

As always, Nature prevails.

Southeast Colorado Recipes

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Do you enjoy following new recipes as well as your tried-and-true ones ?  Or maybe, as an ‘out-of-the-box’ cook, you thrive on creating new tastes and pretty table presentations as your creativity leads you. Does your daily routine grind to a screeching halt as Lydia or Emeril or Rachael come to life on the tele?

Some of us derive simple and sometimes deep pleasure from good food!   A rare steak, or a heaping plate of home-made chicken and noodles.  On a hot summer evening, after a hard day in the garden chasing  too many stubborn weeds, a recipe for a cool, tasty combination of fresh-picked tomatoes, crispy cucumbers and maybe a sweet onion, all topped with your favorite salad dressing, makes way more sense than a bathtub filled with Calgon.

No matter how we play with recipes, or enjoy our food, it graces our existence, satisfies our taste buds, brings us amongst friends and generally takes up a fair amount of our time on planet Earth.

Jan Verhoeff , owner of this website, and myself, Danielle Simone, will endeavor to build this recipe website with southeast Coloradans in mind. In addition to posting our own recipes – sometimes complete with pretty, step by step pictures, we encourage your recipe submissions.  Maybe your Granddad had a killer chili recipe that taught you the value of a quick, cool glass of milk at a moment’s notice!  Or maybe your 9 year old has mastered a mouth-watering cookie recipe. Does your husband show his creative hand at your summer barbecues with a barbecue sauce recipe that entices every neighbor with a nose, to your garden gate around dinner time?  Just maybe, you have a tried and true recipe of your own, passed down 3 or 4 generations that already holds its place in your family scrapbook?

Whatever your food fancy, stay-tuned as Jan & I begin to build a list of recipes that are free for the taking – and your enjoyment; or maybe not! Your job is to keep us on track, try what we post, let us know if your family asked for seconds…or maybe only picked out the raisins. We promise to respond to every e-mail and will endeavor to try the suggested recipes we receive.

As the site grows and expands, we hope to create recipe contests with coupon prizes for local restaurants and grocers in the Arkansas valley. Maybe we’ll gather enough southeast Colorado recipes to produce an e-book; maybe even a hard-bound jewel for sale.  Time will tell – as will the participation of our audience.

If food is your fancy, start rooting through your cookbooks; surf the cooking websites; talk to your grandparents, parents, neighbors and friends in the valley; help us create a fun and tasty website specially geared to the high-prairie tastes of southeastern Colorado – home of Nature‘s strongest winds, brightest sunshine and most glorious sunrises and sunsets in the country!

SECO Sunset, Hasty, CO, Fall 2010 By Danielle Simone

Grab your frying pans, your napkins and your taste buds; SECO Recipes is born.

As always, Nature prevails.

Contact e-mail: daniellesimone0@gmail.net