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CT Taste Organic Festival 2010

Ingredients Kids Bites Events Organic kids activity Kid Friendly

Stephanie Webster

Save the Date. Join CT National Organic Farming Organization to celebrate the 10th annual TASTE! ORGANIC CT 2010 on September 19th at Manchester Community College from 10 am to 4pm.

Experience the only LOCAL & ORGANIC festival in Connecticut offering a farmer's market, fresh prepared food, live music, sustainable vendors, artisans, free workshops and free kids activities!

Head Chef, John Turenne is busily sourcing the finest and freshest ingredients from Connecticut Farms to be on the event's menu. Three local celebrity chefs are designing recipes that will showcase our local and organic food. Chef John Turenne, fresh from his recent TV stint with “The Naked Chef” Jamie Oliver, will be cooking and running the NOFA Food Booth show.


A Moveable Feast: Skinny Pines Brick Oven Pizza Truck

Features Catering Local Artisan Pizza kids activity kids cooking party

Liz Rueven

The green Dodge pick-up truck slowly backed into my narrow, curved driveway with the 6 x 13 foot trailer leading.  A dome shaped, brick pizza oven was mounted on the open trailer by some ingenious contraption that prevents it from being jostled and toppling off in a crumbled mess of mortar.  Jeff Borofsky, chef/owner of SKINNY PINES, a portable wood fired oven catering company,  was bringing the party to my home. A group of lucky CTbites contributors and other Fairfield County food producers were due to arrive in 90 minutes.  I was beginning to wonder if the party would be ready for these friends with their discerning palates and voracious appetites. 

Cows Not Cars at the Creamery: Wells Hollow Farm

Restaurant ice cream kids activity Kid Friendly Dessert

Deanna Foster

These days, going out for a cone often means visiting a scoop shop situated along a well-traveled roadway and eating your favorite flavor in a parking lot - think Carvel at 7 pm any summer evening. Small, mom and pop type ice cream stands are a rare and serendipitous find that usually require a lengthy drive into the country.  But we’ve found an exception to this rule: Wells Hollow Farm in Shelton is a quick trip up Route 8 (to exit 12) and provides a surprisingly bucolic backdrop to your ice cream experience.  

A working farm since the late 1800’s, Wells Hollow Creamery is located in a large red barn shared with 6 cows (although I was corrected when I asked for verification: 4 cows and 2 calves) and a whole bunch of chickens and roosters – I didn’t ask how many.  With 30 hard-packed flavors to choose from,


How To Make Grilled Pizza

Features Ask Chef Nicole Chef Talk Pizza Recipe Video kids activity Recipe Kid Friendly

Nicole Straight

With warmer weather on its way, it's time to clean up that grill and bring on the 2010 grilling season. And really...doesn't everything taste just a little bit better on the grill? Even pizza....

If you've never made grilled pizza, you'll be amazed by how simple it is. Chef Nicole throws down some serious pie in her step-by-step video, and she's got tons of great tips. We've gone with Prosciutto, smoked Gouda, and arugula for our toppings, but feel free to dream up any accompaniment you wish. 

If you decide to make you own pizza dough vs. picking one up in the store, Chef Nicole has a great recipe for homemade dough. Happy cooking!


Kids Cooking Party With "Cindy's Sous Chefs"

Kids Bites kids activity kids cooking party Kid Friendly

Stephanie Webster

It's not easy finding a unique kids birthday party activity in Fairfield County. Sure, there is My Three Sons and Pump It Up but what if your kid doesn't want to jump around or collect coins? What if you just want something with more food science and less bouncy castle? With the emergence of the Food Network's 24/7 culinary programming, kids have been acquiring valuable cooking tips during their sick days and developing an interest in all things related to food. In fact, so many of our readers are looking for "cooking themed birthday parties" we decided we had best do some research.  What better way to acquire data than to host a cooking party for my five year old daughter chez moi. Read on for Cooking Parties for Kids, Part 1.

Passover Dessert Solution: Matzoh Toffee Brittle

Features Holiday kids activity Recipe Dessert

Stephanie Webster

Passover can be tough times for the young who need to give up their baked goods, or at least modify their ingredients. Here is a dessert recipe that is both satisfying and simple, and it makes for a great gift.

Kids will enjoy decorating the brittle once it is prepped, and the topping options are limitless. Think marshmallows, sprinkles, candied nuts...you name it!

Our tester felt she could have used half the quantity of butter in this recipe, but taste it yourself and see what you think. 

Matzoh Toffee Brittle


Kid-friendly Cooking Project for Stir-Crazy Adults

Kids Bites Features Holiday kids activity Recipe Kid Friendly

Jennifer Spaide

For those of you with functioning ovens and kids home from school, here is a tasty time consumer.  For creative great tasting "homemade" cookies in a pinch, try this shortcut from Jennifer Spaide of Greenchic.com.

As a chef it’s important to know your weaknesses in the kitchen.  And I am fully willing to admit that mine is baking.  If it’s more complicated than emptying a mix into a bowl, cracking a few eggs, and whisking, don’t expect me to do it well.  So you can imagine the panic that pulsed through me when I was asked to bake cookies for some gift baskets. 

What, me?  Really?!  But I was up for the challenge… or the cheat.  Don’t tell, but I decided to pull a Sandra Lee and take some “semi-homemade” help from the grocery store by purchasing premade sugar cookie dough.  I chose an all-natural brand because it’s a little healthier (no trans fats or high fructose corn syrup).   

With the basic batter under control, and a little stress off my shoulders, I was free to get creative with the flavors & fillings.  I decided to make three different kinds of cookie:  Chocolate Cherry Almond, Ginger Sesame Coconut, and Orange Fig Thumb Drops.  These recipes are so simple it's genius (not to toot my own horn, but “Toot toot”).


Ask Chef Nicole: Asian Turkey Vegetable Potstickers

Features Asian Ask Chef Nicole Chef Talk kids activity Recipe Kid Friendly

Nicole Straight

Chef Nicole has mastered the art of the kid-friendly recipe that works just as well the adults in the crowd. These Asian Turkey Vegetable Potstickers are a perfect hands-on activity for all ages. Personally, all that folding took me right back to those origami craft projects from my younger days. These little GBD packages are deceptively simple to make and very tasty. We also have a vegetarian version below. Try 'em in your house and let us know what you think. 

 

Asian Turkey Vegetable Potstickers


Visions of Gingerbread @ The Stamford Museum

Kids Bites Education Events Openings Stamford kids activity Kid Friendly

Sarah Green

Every year, I buy one of those boxed gingerbread house kits and my kids and I go at it. We glop it together with that glue-like petroleum by-product substance that they call icing, we decorate with the stale jelly beans and mini gum balls they provide, and we call it a day. It’s fun and the kids enjoy it. Do yours? If so, head to the Stamford Museum and Nature Center (SM and NC) this month and next to see how the pros do it. “Visions of Gingerbread: The Sweetest Architects” is the name of the exhibition that the museum is presenting as both a showcase for local bakers and as a fundraiser for the SM and NC.

What's in Your Lunchbox? Do-it-Yourself Pizza Dippers

Kids Bites Ask Chef Nicole What's in your Lunchbox? kids activity Recipe Kid Friendly

Nicole Straight

What snack food is more universal and beloved than pizza? As a play on this perennial favorite we thought we would create a deconstructed pizza that kids could have fun assembling at their desks. Instead of standard pizza crust, we are using tortillas for their flexibility and wrap-ability. Sure, you could cut up some handmade triangled pizza crust, or even pita bread for this one. Build them any way you want.

You will need a few small containers for proper travel, but your children will be the envy of the classroom. 

Turkey pepperoni, shredded cheese and tortilla “pizza dippers”


Jones Family Farms: Pumpkin Picking at its Best

Kids Bites kids activity Farm Fresh Kid Friendly

Stephanie Webster

Did Fairfield County seem unusually quiet last weekend as if everybody had gone somewhere? Were you wondering where the party was? I can tell you with absolute certainty that Fairfield County residents were indeed out, but there were no cocktails involved (although now that I think of it....) This was a family friendly affair...Everybody was out picking pumpkins at Jones Family Farms in Shelton CT. 

We drove up to Jones on a beautiful Sunday afternoon (of course the weather has taken a turn for the worse since then) and as we pulled into the parking lot, my heart sank. I couldn’t believe there could be this many people on a single farm. It looked like Silverman’s (and not in a good way). But all was not lost. As we left the cars in their neat rows and strolled towards the actual farm, something beautiful was revealed. The vista opened to picturesque rolling hills in the distance and what seemed like acres of pumpkin fields. And these were no half-rate pumpkins. We are talking perfect pumpkins..thousands of them. We were on Pumkinseed Hill, the Fall outpost of the Jones Family Farms.


Halloween Party Recipes Part 2: Caramel Popcorn Balls

Kids Bites Features Ask Chef Nicole Holiday kids activity Kid Friendly Dessert

Nicole Straight

What's a party without the popcorn? These sweet and salty treats are always a favorite (remove spiders before eating). This recipe lends itself nicely to child participation...as long as they don't mind getting a little sticky.

To amp up the gruesomeness, melt some white chocolate in the microwave or over a double broiler and add 2-3 drops of red food coloring. Then drip the "blood" over the finished popcorn balls

For a more savory snack, try adding a pinch of cayenne pepper to the caramel.  

 

Caramel Popcorn Balls


Easy Fall Fruit Picking @ Bishops Orchards Farm

Ingredients Guilford Local Farm Shoreline East kids activity Farm Fresh Kid Friendly

Deanna Foster

When I reluctantly moved to Los Angeles at the beginning of this decade, I missed our annual fall apple and berry picking trip so much that I dragged a posse of ex-East Coasters and their small children to the closest orchard (two hours into the desert) to pick apples one hot October Sunday.  To put it mildly, apple picking in California is a sad facsimile of the real deal here in New England.  The air was heavy, we were sweaty and the only ones enjoying the adventure were the children– they didn’t know any better.

Being back in New England, where there really is a fall season and apples taste like, well apples, we recently took advantage of the pick your own trifecta: September peaches, apples and raspberries and visited Bishops Orchards in Guilford, CT.