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what is xanthan gum?

September 11, 2015 by anne Leave a Comment

Xanthan gum is one of those strange ingredients you see on all kinds of packaged food and you just have no idea what it is. I know I have picked up a variety of products and wondered what is xanthan gum? That’s not just me is it? If you are with me on what the heck is that stuff, I did the research for you.

Before we get to what it is let’s start with why it is used.

Why is it used
It is called a gum for a reason, it acts as a thickening agent in food but also to help keep emulsions stabilized. An emulsion, is the combining of two ingredients that don’t like to combine. Picture your vinaigrette. The oil and vinegar never seem to want to stay together. When you shake them they stay together long enough to pour the dress and then back to being separate again.

Now when you shop at the store and the salad dressings always seem to be mixed together well that is in thanks to xanthan gum.

Xanthan gum also makes dressings thicker. If you made a buttermilk ranch dressing from scratch it might seem runny compared to that Hidden Valley bottled stuff. I haven’t checked but it would be a good guess that Hidden Valley has xanthan gum to thank for that.

A big use for xanthan gum is gluten-free baking. With the absence of gluten something is needed to keep the dough together and produce a product that is desirable or similar to traditional baked goods.

Other places you may see xanthan gum: toothpaste and ice cream

What is it
Xanthan gum is a by-product of fermented corn. More accurately it is the fermentation of the sugars; glucose, sucrose, or lactose. In the United States this typically comes from corn. After fermentation this is dried and ground into a powder that we call xanthan gum.

Pros: your salad dressing looks pretty in the bowl, your toothpaste looks the same everyday and your ice cream is nice and thick and creamy.

Cons: It is made from corn. The corn in the United States is largely GMO so if that is important to you xanthan gum might be something to avoid unless the product is stated to be GMO Free, or comes from a store that doesn’t sell GMO products.

Processed level: 1

Natural, Chemical, or Other: Natural

Processed levels:
1-it is a long shot, but you could technically make it at home
2-it comes from something you know but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away
3-you need a masters or a PhD and a lot of lab equipment to make this.

Natural-comes from something grown or once living that has been cooked or processed to create a different product. This doesn’t neccesarily mean it is good for you just that it started its life as something you are familiar with.

Chemical-It was made in a lab mixing chemicals or a combination of natural products. This does not necessarily mean it is bad for you just that it doesn’t resemble any animal, plant or mineral.

Other-I don’t know where this come from and personally wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.

It was the best of times #behind the blogger

September 9, 2015 by anne 1 Comment

I am a strong believer that shared meals are the key to happy and functional relationships. Friends, families, boyfriends & girlfriends, it doesn’t matter. The importance of sitting down to a distraction free (no tv, no phones, etc.) meal and just connecting is the most important thing you can do to connect with the people you love. Holidays are a prime opportunity to make this happen. For me all holidays are centered around a meal.

Labor Day is no exception and this last one, it was the best of times.

I lived away from my parents for 16 years and missed the opportunity to connect with them over dinners, especially holiday dinners. Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day always mean ribs at my parents house. Coming home last fall my dad’s ribs was one of the meals I was most looking forward to eating. After eating them last September, Memorial Day, and 4th of July I threw out the idea of changing it up for Labor Day and switching to a boiled dinner with lobster.

Years ago my parents used to have a summer party with two other families that they called the clam bake. Surprisingly, I don’t think we ever had clams at any of those. There were plenty of other shellfish and lots of fun. Lobster races on the kitchen floor before they hit the pot. Lots of loud music and swimming in the pool. It makes for a perfect summer evening.

At our own smaller clam bake, we had no clams and unfortunately no mussels. Instead we stuffed our faces with shrimp, lobster, corn, sausage and potatoes. It was perfect in every way.

This week in school we made a Key Lime Pie. Knowing my parents love them I figured I would see if I could make one that would suit their discerning palettes. I nailed it. It set up perfectly after being baked and everyone loved it. Would have been a real win if tin transit he plastic wrap hadn’t touched the top of the pie, making it not look as pretty as when it came out of the oven.

If you want to try Key Lime Pie grab a bottle of Nellie & Joe’s famous Key West Key Lime juice. Recipe on the bottle is exactly the same as the one I made in class. To test if it is done tap the edge of the pan, it should wiggle a little like jello but not look liquid.

Family meals are the best meals and being able to share the holidays and celebrations with them makes all them better. This past year of being back in Indiana it is the dinners and connections over food that has made it so much fun to be back. I hope everyone finds a reason to sit down to a family meal and connect this week. If you don’t have family near by sit down with friends and share a meal. It might be the most fulfilling thing you do all week.

Thank you for reading a story from #BehindTheBlogger Hop. Every 2 weeks a group of bloggers is given a writing prompt. These prompts are very open-ended, so our bloggers can write about whatever they desire. The main rule is that their blog post directly relates to the topic of that week. The point of this hop is for our readers to get to know us on a personal level.

Please hop along and read all of the blog posts in this weeks hop. Just click the links below. If you want real and raw emotion, then you will find it here. After you read each post, please comment and share. We want to get to know you too!

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life update september

September 3, 2015 by anne 2 Comments

The last time I gave you an update was the end of May. That doesn’t seem like a long time on a calendar, but it feels so much longer to me. This is likely because I have crammed so much into those three months.

When I last left you I was just about to start culinary school. I finished the first two classes, with straight A’s. That has to be the first time I have ever said that. I wasn’t a horrible student I just only did as much work as needed to get a B. I was always okay with that until culinary school. The new semester of classes has started and I have one class, Intro to baking. It is kicking my butt. The schedule is very demanding, Mon-Thurs 7:30-12:20 for 4 weeks. Which means my 20+ chapter textbook must be covered in that time. You wouldn’t think it but culinary school provides as much homework as any class I have ever taken.

Home

After buying our first lawn mower we realized more flower beds would be the perfect solution to spending less time mowing. We have started a large shade garden in the front yard which will look great when it grows in. We are putting in a fire pit area in the back plus another shade garden. There are lots of planned gardens. In a few years it will all look great, but right now it looks like that awkward stage when you grow out a short haircut.

We did get a new deck. The old deck was built off the ground and had a railing and it blocked of the view of the yard when we were sitting at the kitchen table. That was our big remodel this year and will be great when we get it stained and sealed in a few weeks. Fingers crossed we can do a bathroom next year.

We will be finishing up a bunch of indoor painting projects over the cooler winter months. I am really excited to see my own design and color palette on the walls.

School

As I mentioned I got straight A’s. So far I am on pace to get an A in my third class as well. The first class was basic foods and covered different cooking methods for meat, soups, stocks and other similar culinary techniques. It was a great foundation and a confidence boost. I know more than I think I do. This semester is intro to baking and I am loving it. We just finished pies and I can already tell there will be more pie recipes coming soon. I loved working with the dough, it was so relaxing. The four weeks of class goes by really quickly. Which is good and bad. I am looking forward to having more blog time as I have all kinds of ideas.

Blog

While I haven’t had a lot of posts up lately and probably won’t for the next few weeks I feel so good about where the blog is headed. I have been working a lot behind the scenes to make this blog a place where people can learn and connect with others over food. There are new graphics coming and a couple new series that will compliment the how to store and eat posts. I also have some great information coming on grocery shopping, how to get your first Thanksgiving dinner on the table. That last one came to me just the other day and I can’t wait to get started on it. We are going to have a lot of pre-thanksgiving meals around here.

One thing I am really excited about is the Cookbook Club. We are a small group on facebook right now but I look forward to getting more people in there to talk about cookbooks and connect with other people who love cooking. It is going to be a lot of fun as we find new cookbooks to feature and discuss. Please come join us!

I am working on some other projects that I hope will be live in the coming months, but I am trying to not bite off more than I can chew as well so I will keep you posted as those develop.

What would you like to see more of on the blog? Recipes? Tips? Something completely different?

mise en place for the home cook

August 14, 2015 by anne 9 Comments

Mise en place /miz ɑ̃ plas/
noun
proper planning of equipment and ingredients for food service

If you read cookbooks or watch cooking shows you have heard the term Mise en place. It seem like a fancy french word that is only important to professional chefs, but I assure you it is not. Understanding and putting the practice of Mise en place to work for you in the kitchen will make every meal and party 10x’s easier for you.

When restaurant chefs talk about Mise en place they mean that each person in the kitchen should have all the ingredients they will use for the night cut, prepped and within arms reach. They will also have all of their tool (pots, pans, knives, etc.) in place and ready for use. This keeps everyone at their spot working efficiently through the night. Instead of the alternative, chefs running through the kitchen trying to cut onions for the dish that was supposed to be in the oven 5 minutes ago. The service to your table would not be as smooth if dishes were coming out at different times and there was chaos in the kitchen. This is no different in your kitchen

How do you start cooking a recipe? Do you read the recipe and as the steps mention ingredients you cut them only to find out that in step 3 you were suppose to save some of the onion you used in step 1? Now you are at step 3 and all your onion is already sautéed in a pan! This could be easily avoided.

clean your kitchen & clear your mind
Preparing to cook is as important as cooking. Starting with a clean kitchen allows you to have more room to move and fewer obstacles in your way. If you are constantly moving dirty dishes to make room for what you are working on it is going to slow you down. So much so the prep time for the recipe could take you twice as long. Instead take the 10 minutes to tidy up the kitchen and mentally prepare to cook. If you are busy running through your to do list you are so much more likely to misread the recipe or forget an ingredient. Forget everything for a moment and and prepare to enjoy creating something in the kitchen. Before you start, focus on what you are doing and the steps that need to be done.

read the entire recipe & gather your ingredients and tools
Read the entire recipe and give some thought to how long each step takes. Get a plan together so you know what time you need to have something in the oven or on the stove to ensure dinner will be on the table at your planned time. Now gather all the ingredients you are going to need and any tools. I try to gather my ingredients and set my pots or pans out on the stove before I start chopping anything. The rest of the tools are within arms reach so I don’t worry about dragging everything out during this step. This is also where I preheat the oven if needed.

preps all your ingredients
Chop, dice, mince, wash, whatever it is the recipe calls for get it done now. Put each ingredient in a small bowl so it is easy to grab when you are ready for it. It may seem like overkill but I promise you it will make the actual cooking time that much smoother. They don’t do this on the cooking shows for no reason. They do it because it is more efficient. If dishes aren’t your thing you can use paper towel, or paper plates. Just get it all prepped and ready before you even heat the oil in the pan.

read the recipe again
Now that you are all prepped, read through the recipe and make sure all the steps make sense. You might catch a step here that you missed earlier that will save you frustration down the road.

cook
With everything in front of you start cooking. After a couple of times through the recipe and all your ingredients ready to go you will find even the most complicated recipes will seem easy.

What other kitchen terms would you like explained? Something keep coming up in a cookbook or on a show that you wish made more sense? Leave it in the comments and I will get to it in future kitchen vocab pieces.

why I use yummly and hope you will too

August 5, 2015 by anne Leave a Comment

Let’s say for a moment you find yourself on Wit Wisdom and Food, that up and coming food blog you love, and you want to save the delicious recipe for blueberry peach cobbler. You could certainly put it on Pinterest and you might remember to go to it again.

I have a better idea you could put it in your Yummly recipe box. A box you can organize by category and can access with an app at the grocery store. An app that allows you to access all the ingredients you need with fewer steps and less bandwidth than Pinterest? Would you be interested?

As an added bonus this little button that is so easily provided for you, as the image below shows, helps out that up and coming food blogger that you love so much. Do you think just maybe you could give it a try?

While this really would help me out I believe it is one of the better websites and apps out there for recipe storing and searching. I still love Pinterest who doesn’t, but it isn’t convenient when I quickly run into the store for tonight’s dinner to search through and scroll my multiple boards. Then once I find the photo I have to wait for the site to load and scroll through the likely blog post.

Yummly cuts all that out for you.

Just click on your recipe box find the recipe and the ingredient list for the recipe will pop up. When you get home you can click-through to the recipe and get the full recipe and instructions.

It is the only recipe app I have on my phone right now because I can save recipes from any site to that recipe box and have them quickly at my disposal.

Are you on yummly?

If you already have a recipe box you can find my recipes at the Wit Wisdom & Food page. I would love it if you stop by and yum a few of your favorite recipes.

cookbook club starting this month

July 6, 2015 by anne 8 Comments

I have a had a serious love for cookbooks for a while now. I realized that during our recent move I actually gave away too many of my cookbooks. Since moving is done by weight I thought I needed to pare down my collection. I sold some in a garage sale and the rest went to a charity thrift store. I now miss them on a regular basis, like when you go to the closet to find that cute shirt only to realize you gave it to Goodwill because you thought you wouldn’t wear it again. I find myself heading to the bookcase and reaching for them because I want to look up a recipe only to be surprised they aren’t there any longer. Don’t know what I was thinking. These are cookbooks not last years fashion statement. They don’t go out of style they just get better with age.

Now that we are in a permanent spot and I have a wall of bookshelves filling them up with quality cookbooks seems like the only natural thing to do. I won’t have to move them for years so aside from my budget there is nothing stopping me from filling them up again. To help with (and justify) my goal of creating a quality cookbook library I am starting a cookbook club. If you have been around the blog for a while you might remember my attempt to create a book and movie club on Facebook. I have turned that group into the Wit Wisdom & Food Cookbook Club. If you were/are part of that group you are automatically a part of the cookbook club. I hope you enjoy the new focus.

So a cookbook club on Facebook, exactly how will that work?

My main goal is to create a lively discussion about cookbooks and books about food. I will be adding questions to the group regularly as well as highlighting a cookbook from my collection each month. I will cook at least a few recipes from each cookbook so you can get an idea of the recipes in the cookbook and decide if you want to buy it.

My hope is that some of you will want to join in the cooking and will buy some of the books and cook along with me each month. This is NOT a requirement to be part of the cookbook club. If you want to participate you can add photos of the recipes, your reviews and thoughts on the cookbook to the group. At the end of each month I will feature some (or any) of the photos that were posted. If you are a fellow food blogger this could be a great opportunity for some increased traffic.

How the Wit Wisdom & Food Cookbook Club works

What I will do:

Pick a featured cookbook monthly
Cook a few recipes from the feature cookbook, post pictures and thoughts to the Facebook group
Add discussion questions about cookbooks and books on food
Share about any books I am currently reading that relate to food and cooking (non-fiction and fiction)
Answer cooking questions and provide resources to help you cook something specific
Share stories and recipes from some of my favorite cookbooks

How you can participate in the cookbook club via the Facebook group:

Post pictures and thoughts from the monthly featured cookbook
Share stories and recipes from any of your favorite cookbooks
Ask questions and advice about a good cookbook
Ask questions about cooking techniques
Share reviews and information about books on food (non-fiction or fiction)
Share current events that relate to cookbooks and books on food
Help others that have questions about cooking or food

What we shouldn’t use this space for:

Sharing blog posts that aren’t directly related to the feature cookbook or a book on food
Being mean to someone else or making fun of others that don’t know as much about cooking and food

If you have any questions or need clarification on anything please get in touch. I hope to see you all in the group I think it is going to be a lot of fun.

This month, July, the feature cookbook will be The Picnic: Recipes and Inspiration from Basket to Blanket.

photo from The Portland Picnic Society

Picnics are something I always daydream about but rarely take the time to make or plan. Maybe this summer will be different and even if it isn’t The Picnic is filled with recipe that look delicious for a lunch or dinner served on my back porch.

Written by the ladies behind The Portland Picnic Society; Marnie Hanel, Andrea Slonecker & Jen Stevenson and boy did they think of everything when they made this book. 99 ways to use a Mason jar, rules for lawn games, and ways to avoid common picnic disasters. It is recipes like rainbow carrots with smoky paprika vinaigrette, smoky tea-brined fried chicken, and candy-striped beet, fennel, and apple coleslaw that have my mouth watering and ready to drive to the grocery store.

I must hunt down a smoky tea stat so I can make that chicken!

The cute little gingham ribbon bookmark that is part of the book and the adorable illustrations by Emily Isabella just send me over-the-top with giddy excitement. Can you feel the excitement?

You can purchase the book at Amazon through this affiliate link*: The Picnic: Recipes and Inspiration from Basket to Blanket

Are you a picnic person? What is your favorite picnic food to pack?

I received a copy of this book from Artisan Books. I was not otherwise compensated or obligated to write about this book and the ideas and thoughts here are my own.

*This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small compensation at no cost to you.

locally grown gardens

June 30, 2015 by anne Leave a Comment

Along the Monon Trail and stocked full of fresh local and semi-local food, a great selection of quality food pantry items and dish wares sits Locally Grown Gardens.

Rustic tables sit out front making a perfect spot to soak in the sun while eating a picnic food lunch that feels indulgent on the large serving dishes that they use (and sell). Taking a buddy for good conversation is a good idea because the portions are large. Without a buddy it will go past indulgent and into gluttonous.

I was unaware so it was a gloriously indulgent day. I sat at a community table with my feet propped on a second chair soaking in as much sun as possible holding my enormous arnold palmer. From the taste the lemonade is fresh squeezed and just the right amount of tart. The pulled pork was delicious and the side of ginger coleslaw, which was not a normal side portion, was a perfect accompaniment. I wanted to have a piece of pie, but they were already sold out of the sugar cream pie. I am told it is delicious and I am holding out for a piece of that next time. The apple pie did look delicious when I saw it coming out of the oven when I was ordering my food. As a Hoosier that has never had a slice of the state pie, Sugar Cream I really want my first slice to be a quality slice. From that chatter I heard around the tables and my brother’s recommendation it is worth a return visit.

I was enamored with the dishes, glasses and other cooking plates and food accouterments. As mentioned they sell many of the dishes they use for serving. I most want to go back for some glasses and some steak knives. They also stock some pantry items like olive oil, vinegar and the like.

As the summer continues more and more of the produce will be truly local. When I was there the peaches were from the South Carolina, which is better than having them shipped in from California, and they were a better price than the grocery store at the time. If you need firewood for camping or your backyard fire pit they have that covered too. They will even deliver it.

Such a quaint spot, I am going to find it hard to resist this summer. Next time I will be sure to take company and get there early for a slice of pie.

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