Salad Dressing Roundup: Make Your Own!

Often, when I peek into peoples' refrigerators, I see upon the shelves a multitude of bottled salad dressings.  Everyone loves salad but many don't know how easy it is to make a delicious homemade vinaigrette.  The basic proportion of a vinaigrette are 3 parts oil, 1 part tangy (vinegar, citrus). Add some salt and pepper, find yourself a left over jam jar with a good lid, and you are ready to start dressing. Note: I can not stress the importance of having a tightly fitted lid, as I’ve spilled more dressings when I’ve gone to shake it.

Here are a few tried and true recipes I make in my house. You'll never buy bottled again!

Try these simple recipes for Classic French Dijon Vinaigrette, Asian Balsamic Vinaigrette, Latin Vinaigrette, Creamy Blue Cheese Vinaigrette and Caesar Salad Dressing. 

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A Taste Of Charleston: Southern Cuisine In Norwalk

Frankly my dear, you SHOULD give a damn! OK, so Tara was in Atlanta, and Rhett Butler is no where to be found. But for a flavorful and thoroughly authentic southern meal, harness up the horses and giddy-up  to A Taste of Charleston at 195 Liberty Square in Norwalk. This charming and relatively new restaurant located just over SONO’s “Stroffolino” Bridge is serving up some amazing southern cuisine, South Carolina’s finest, complete with fried chicken, collard greens and catfish po-boys. 

A Taste of Charleston Southern Cuisine is a labor of love, co-owned by Chris and Catherine Reed and their partner Chris La Rose; the Reeds had a dream of re-creating culinary memories of their childhood trips down south, and La Rose was immediately on board.  Mr. Reed, “…grew up on my grandmother’s cooking” and the magical smell of Grandma Daisy’s kitchen is just what the team at A Taste of Charleston is attempting to recreate. They are succeeding.

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Chef Talk: Passover Planning w/ Tabouli Grill's Chef Judy

When contemplating my Passover planning this year, I once again pulled out the old tried and true recipes from my family's ancestral Jewish bubbie playbook. But somehow this year I felt I needed a break from the past, or at least an update. I knew just whom to ask for help; Chef Judy Roll of Tabouli Grilll in Stamford. I had gotten wind of her Passover menu (seen below) and had been keeping it in the back of my mind as a solid contingency plan if things went awry in the kitchen. 

Chef Judy was happy to help out with a few suggestions that were both kid and adult friendly. Armed with her Passover Fattoush Salad with Pomegranate Vinaigrette, Matzah chips, and Scallion, Cottage Cheese, and Matzoh Meal Latkes I was ready for action...and now you are too. 

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CTBites Foodies Unite To Fight Hunger

CTBites invites you to join your fellow CTBites readers and contributors to fight hunger in Connecticut and walk with us at the Connecticut Food Bank’s Walk Against Hunger on Sunday, April 18th.  For most of us, the biggest decision we face when we’re hungry or need groceries is where to shop. But for many of the 390,000 people in Connecticut who do not have enough food to eat, their decisions involve whether to buy groceries or pay the rent or the utility bills.  For others, soup kitchens and shelters provide the only meals they will eat. 

Each spring, the Connecticut Food Bank sponsors a Walk Against Hunger to raise money and consciousness about hunger in our state. This year the Food Bank has added a walk in Fairfield County: a 2 mile loop through Beardsley Park in Bridgeport, and CTBites will be there! We’ve started a team to walk together and help the Food Bank reach its fundraising goal.

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CTbites Lunch Recap: The Dressing Room

Our 4th CTbites lunch event at The Dressing Room was a huge success. CTbites readers filled the elegantly rustic dining room of this classic Westport eatery. With this beautiful backdrop, people met up for a quiet lunch or connected with large groups of girlfriends (those parties were considerably more boisterous). The CTbites masthead was well represented with almost everyone in attendance, and there was a nice steady buzz as people settled down to the business of eating. 

The lunch began on a festive note with specially selected organic wines and a sweet, but not cloying, signature Proseco cocktail. This "Sweetheart" drink featuring Wild Alpine strawberries is the brain child of John Cronin whom you will often see behind the bar, and it has achieved beverage fame. 

Jon Vaast, the new Executive Chef at DR, created a Spring menu with great local ingredients and refined flavors.

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Honor the Earth: "Retake Our Plates" Film Series

Whole Foods Market and Avon Theater have teamed up for a special Earth Month celebration and screening of two very important award winning films. This “Retake Our Plates” film event is a great opportunity to view Food, Inc. if you haven't already seen it, as well as Tapped, an unflinching examination into the business of bottled water.

Proceeds will benefit Wholesome Wave Foundation .

When: Food, Inc. will be screened on Saturday, April 17.^th  Tapped on the 24.^th Movie is @ 12:00pm followed by an after theater sampling @ 1:30pm.

Where: Avon Theater Film Center 272 Bedford Street, Stamford, CT.

Tickets: Members - $6 / Students & Seniors - $7 / Nonmembers - $10

What Makes Great Chili? Where to Sample in FC?

Stacy Maxwell is the author of the upcoming book, El Cheapo Gourmet—Thinking Outside the Restaurant Box:  The Best Homemade Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner in Connecticut.

Chili with…corn? Absolutely….That’s what some of the evening’s guests at this past winter’s Connecticut Audubon Society Center’s Adirondack Night felt about the three corn-laden crock pots full of chili while others at the event felt: absolutely not!  Without doubt, the bright, sunny specks of color added aesthetic appeal to the Adirondack, Sweet and Vegetarian-style dishes that provided the main fare for one of three major annual fundraisers. Of course, when the palate is involved, beauty amounts to beans. 

As I sampled a cup full of chili while chilling next to a guest who was also hankering down on his eats, I commented, “Perhaps the corn in the chili is a Yankee tradition.” While chewing intently on the kernels, he shrugged off my assumption, saying, “This belongs somewhere in northern New York—far north.”

Chidings in the chili world are not new.  Back in the 1980s, I was part of a television crew

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El Charrito Taco Truck in Stamford: Paradise on Wheels

I have a reputation among my friends and family as being a bit taco obsessed. I do not deny this. So when El Charrito, Stamford's infamous taco truck re-opened for business on March 1st after closing for the long cold Connecticut winter, to say I was looking forward to my first taco of the year is a bit of an understatement. Ecstatic is more like it. I was literally counting down the days.  Some look for the first crocus popping through the earth as a sign of spring, but for me it may be the arrival of the El Charrito taco truck.

What makes El Charrito such a sought-after foodie destination? It has to be a combination of their traditional and hearty Mexican tacos and the hard-working duo, Carols and Alex who have put it on the Connecticut culinary map. You can count on traditional Mexican style tacos ranging from carnitas, a slow-cooked pork, to Lengua, an even more tender offering of cow tongue. A double tortilla shell envelops each taco topped off with chopped raw onion, fresh cilantro and a few lime wedges. Although they craft some seriously delicious tacos, El Charrito also offers diversity in the form of a daily menu and specials ranging from tamales, moles and huaraches should one ever tire of the taco.

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The Filling Station: Grass-Fed Fast Food Burgers For All

Walking up to The new Filling Station Co. in New Canaan last weekend, you would have thought they were giving away free food. Lines of families snaked through the tight burger joint, all eager to sample the long awaited kid and price-friendly fare. But the huddled masses were not just here for a bargain priced burger. The Filling Station, with it's retro-modern street appeal, has a value proposition that is hard to beat for consumers who care about the food they eat. Everything served at The Filling Station is organic, grass-fed, antibiotic and hormone free. Let me tell you, devouring hamburgers, dogs, and shakes has never felt so right. For some parents (myself included), this is the holy-grail and reason enough to travel for a fun for the whole family meal, but I needed to sample the goods before I was sold. With the prospect of comparing these grass-fed burgers to those of the competition, we entered en masse with a party of 6. 

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"Outstanding In The Field" Comes to Wilton August 25th

CTbites has long touted our local Dinners At The Farm, but the Nationwide "Outstanding in the Field" will also be making its way to CT this Summer. Tickets go on sale March 27th (not March 20th as they had previously advertised) for the one night event. The dinner will take place on August 25th on Millstone Farm, with The Dressing Room's renown chef Michel Nischan at the helm. 

Outstanding in the Field's mission is to re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.

"Outstanding in the Field is a roving culinary adventure – literally a restaurant without walls." - Outstanding In The Field

Millstone Farm in Wilton will please with its iconic, red-barn chicken coops and sweet honey and maple syrup. There's also more than meets the eye, or the tongue, than just that. The makers of Millstone raise heirloom turkeys as well as specialty sheep, lambs, cattle, and pigs. 

When: Wednesday August 25, 2010

Where: Millstone Farm, Wilton, CT

Price: $225.00 per person

Host Farmers: Betsy & Jesse Fink, Millstone Farm

Guest Chef: Michel Nischan, The Dressing Room, Westport

Time: 3:00PM

A portion of the proceeds from this event will benefit the Wholesome Wave Foundation.