Cooking Schooled

Ever been scared away from a recipe calling for roasted chiles or a roux? Not quite sure how to properly sear meat or cut a mango?

And what the heck does julienne mean??

Well, aspiring home chefs, we're here to help. Over the winter, we teamed up with Raley's Grocery on 20 new videos which focus on the most tried and true kitchen techniques-you'll use them everyday and no longer have to fear the unknown. Find them here, under Tips.

Mysteries solved, crises averted, dinner served.

*We'll take a bow here*

Cutting a Mango

Fall BBQ'ing and Bison...tasty!

It has officially begun.

That seasonal shift from summer to fall that we all know so well. The air around here has started to feel a bit cooler at night and we've spotted the fleets of big yellow buses out on the road again-back to picking up their charges for another year of academia.

In the kitchen, we have been busily preparing, tasting, and testing all sorts of new recipes. Just recently, we had the pleasure of partnering up with High Plains Bison and creating some great, new, very healthy dishes. Bison meat is exceptionally low in fat content and cholesterol, but still really great tasting. After we put the videos together, the entire office was hooked, and most of us tried them out all over again in our own kitchens. Check out the videos on our Summer Kitchen site, if you're looking for an easy and delicious new recipe that's a little different...hmmmm, maybe to serve at that Labor Day bbq coming up in, oh, 3 days...?

Try the kabobs-trust us, they're amazing. Not to mention simple. Served over a tasty cous-cous salad, these kabobs take no time at all to prepare. You can make enough cous cous to feed an army in a matter of minutes! And the marinade for the kabobs is one of the best we've come up with-collaborating with the High Plains chef was a great learning experience for us! In case you need any more friendly nudges, we decided to go a step further and simply post the video for you below:


Enjoy and happy grilling from the foodies at Handmade Kitchens!


ps-enjoy this last glimpse of summer:

The Handmade Van, arriving soon to a beach near you!

An Update from the Kitchen

Our apologies, dear readers, for neglecting you this long.

Time slips away so fast and before we knew it, Valentine's Day had come and gone without a post. Well, we've been busy as usual, and although it's no excuse, we've been working very hard to bring you more quality content. As you are well aware, we have a parent company, HandmadeTV, which will be producing close to 1,000 more video recipes in 2008. Our hopes are, that very soon, the Holiday Kitchen will be part of a larger family of ever-expanding video libraries.

For now though, we're finding that our initial 67 recipes were really a great starting point. Along with almost 3 million views across the internet, we've received tons of great feedback! People seem to like the fact that we take the home cook seriously, and have produced this fantastic resource especially for them. And, as we've pointed out (almost to death), at least half of our holiday fare can be repurposed into fabulous dinners and snacks and enjoyed all year long-not just for November and December, thankyouverymuch! So what are we waiting for? Let's get cooking!!!

Again!

Of note, we happened to be up in Lake Placid, NY recently, visiting a good friend. This cozy, little Adirondack metropolis is well-known for hosting not one, but two, Olympic games-1932 and 1980. Just in case you don't believe this after seeing the olympic museum, skating arena, and toboggan run, the impossibly high ski jump remains to prove it. Currently buried under about 3 feet of snow, the town pretty much revolves around winter sports and...winter sports.

Our friend tends to be the opposite of us in most regards-especially on the subject of food. Where we're more adventurous, he is meat and potatoes. But, he definitely knows his meat and potatoes-the same way a good sommelier knows their wine-and, after a long day on the slopes, decided to take us out for his idea of the best shepherd's pie in town. We have to say, it was absolutely the perfect, simple comfort food for the end of a long winter day.

So what could possibly top it? How about a healthy take on the classic? The next day, we tested the Holiday Kitchen's vegetarian version of shepherd's pie on our dubious friend. Not only did he love it (and not even miss the meat), he insisted on downloading the video recipe so that he could make it himself, on a regular basis.

Success!

If you haven't tried it yet, make this favorite of ours-which will give you a healthy dose of vegetables without keeping you in the kitchen for too long.

Perfect for the inner olympian in you.

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie



Ingredients

4 medium potatoes
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 cup of the grated cheese of your choice
1 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 stick of celery, chopped
1 leek, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 cup of cauliflower florets
1 tsp of Italian seasoning

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Peel and cut potatoes. Cook in boiling water for 15 minutes or until tender and drain.
3. Pour milk over the potatoes and mash until smooth.
4. Stir in the grated cheese of your choice and season to taste.
5. Heat Bertolli Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a pan and add the onion, garlic, celery, leeks, carrots and cauliflower florets.
6. Saute all these veggies gently for 10 minutes if the pan dries out too much, add a little water from the boiling potatoes rather than more oil.
7. Next add a can of beans that you've drained and rinsed andd add Italian seasoning.
8. Spoon the beans and vegetable mixture into an ovenproof dish top with the cheesy potato mash.
9. Sprinkle over with the top with another quarter cup of cheese.
10. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes until the topping is golden brown.

Visit the website to download the video for yourself!

*Also, coming soon to this blog:

A weekly, seasonal guide to vegetables and herbs, which we think will help you greatly in all of your future cooking endeavors!

Celebrate with Some Noodles!

Just a quick hello from the Holiday Kitchen and HandmadeTV. Hope your holiday has been as great as ours has been so far. Now we're all looking ahead to 2008, and that New Year's Eve party! What are you serving this year? Well, we have a great idea for you-try our recipe for New Year's Noodles. It is a Chinese tradition to eat them at midnight on New Year's, ensuring a long, happy life. This dish is so easy to create and so delicious, you'll find it becomes a fast favorite and will make an appearance on the dinner table many times over the new year.


Sesame Noodles

A Little More About Us...

Hello!! Here's an update on how we're doing and where we're going...

You can now find our videos on all of the fabulous websites located on the right side of the blog. The list is growing every day, as we find more social networking and food-related video sharing sites. And, check out the press we're getting (also located on the right side of the blog)!

We were recently featured on a live video cast which can be seen by clicking Here
*fast forward to 16:23 to "the picks of the Interlitter" section.

We were also featured in StamfordPlus and NorwalkPlus Magazines.
Pick up an issue on newsstands now to read the article!



We're now working not only with KitchenAid, but with Hellmann's Mayonnaise and Bertolli Olive Oil, which we're SUPER excited about!
I'm going to leave you all with a few of our favorite appetizer recipes. They're classic-easy, delicious, and are sure to please all of your houseguests...even the littlest ones! Plus, they can all be made a day ahead of time to further help you beat the stress this weekend. Sit back, enjoy a glass of eggnog, and relax.
Happy Holidays!!
(and more to come in '08...)


Stuffed Mushrooms



Artichoke Dip



Deviled Eggs



Classic Eggnog

Foodies, meet The Holiday Kitchen

So this is where the introductions are made. We are a small production company, hailing from Stamford, CT, with a passion for food. The Holiday Kitchen was born out of necessity-you can't work in a technologically advanced world with the same old, boring ideas. We love to shoot food, so we figured we should set out to offer the most innovative product we could think of...and here it is. High definition video, styled and lit to look like it just came off the pages of a magazine, without a host. That's right, no host-food, and food alone, is the focus here (give or take some gratuitous shots of brandname tools and appliances-we needed to get funding from somewhere!). We think you'll love our approach to food-simplistic and complex all at the same time. If you're a seasoned foodie, you'll love how the recipes look on screen and be able to appreciate the classics. If you're a novice, our recipes will be a great help to you-being able to watch food being prepared, step by step, is so much easier than trying to decipher a written recipe on your own! Our launch has centered around the 67 holiday segments included in the Holiday Kitchen, some of which will be posted here. Next spring, we will be shooting close to 1,000 more recipes that will be centered around several diverse areas of cooking. Check out our website-www.holidaykitchen.tv and let us know what you think. Since we are new to the blogosphere and trying to learn the internet as fast as possible, we would love suggestions and help wherever it may be offered. We want to get the word out about our videos. We've already posted them to countless websites online and are looking for more on a daily basis.
We are a little company with big, foodie dreams.