Evelyn's Blog - Taste of Gourmet

Taste of Mississippi in Jackson!

Next Monday night, March 31st, I'll be in Jackson participating in the Taste of Mississippi fundraiser event at Highland Village.  I was so pleased that Eric Fare invited The Crown and Taste of Gourmet to serve one of our special dishes for such a great cause!  The money raised is in support of Stewpot Community Services and the slogan is wonderful - Homegrown Hunger Relief!  You'll have a fun evening with live and silent auctions and taste food from over 35 restaurants across the state!  Jennifer, Tony and I will be dishing up Gumbo and I hope you'll come by to see us!

Eric Fare, who invited us, is one of my very favorite regular guests at The Crown - he even gathered a group of friends back in December for a "Blues and Food" tour of the Delta  - including Indianola and lunch with us!  His favorite meal is our Catfish Allison, but he was happy with my decision to serve my signature Creole File' Gumbo with Chicken and Sausage - a Taste of Gourmet best seller and a favorite at The Crown!  Ya'll come have a Taste!

Sunday Dinner is special this week!

It's almost Easter and the family is coming to eat after church!  I love all our holiday get togethers - especially Easter!  Sage and Prescott love helping me decorate the dining room, the egg hunts, coloring the Easter eggs and helping me make the stuffed (or deviled) eggs!

Prescott is great at peeling the eggs (sometimes there is actually white left to stuff) and Sage does the mixing and stuffing!  Our stuffing always used to be just mashing up the yolks with a little mayonnaise, salt, pepper and sweet pickle relish - very simple - my grandmother's way! 

NOW thanks to April Savell (she's a TOG Consultant) we add a little Jezebel Sauce instead of pickle relish and our stuffed eggs are even better!  That little bit of horseradish and the sweet peaches and apricots - the flavor is sooo good!  Emeril would say, "We've kicked it up a notch!" and the sweet, hot, devilish Jezebel has done just that!  Try it!  We make stuffed eggs really often, not just at Easter - the kids love helping and we all love eating them!

I hope your Easter weekend is peaceful, blessed and happy!  My four year old Izabela in Maine (whose egg hunt will be in snow boots) told her Mom yesterday that "Easter isn't about bunnies - It's about Jesus!"  And she is so right!  God bless all the children!
Happy Easter from the Roughton and Schaumburg families!

Keep your pantry stocked.....

Two ladies were in for lunch on Thursday and I loved their comments!  They had finished lunch (with dessert of course) but I was suggesting (very strongly) that they try just a bite of my Lemon Almond Cheese Cake Ball to finish their dinner off perfectly!  I love the fresh lemon taste!

They loved the taste too and each bought a box of Lemon Almond!  Then they told me that they keep some of my products in their pantry - always!  When someone drops in, they can pull out the Peach Pecan Pepper Preserves or Jezebel and entertain their guests nicely!  One lady said she always spreads cream cheese on Ritz crackers, then dollops on the PPPP or Jezebel and pours a glass of wine!  So easy to do and she's always ready for company!

I told them about sneaking around and eating my Royal Fudge Sauce with a spoon!  It sure is nice to have Taste of Gourmet in my kitchen too!  We always want to eat WELL! 

BB King Museum Coming!

Indianola's new B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center, will be opening in September and we are all so excited about it!  We see "Blues Tourists" at The Crown on a daily basis already - so when the Museum actually opens, we'll all be in high gear (or at a rolling boil in my food terms!)

Welcoming guests to Indianola is part of our "job description," in addition to serving a yummy lunch at The Crown!  We really want to make sure that visitors see everything that Indianola has to offer - the Museum of course, walks around downtown to see where B.B. King first played the Blues, the mural, Club Ebony and historic Church Street, walks along Indian Bayou and through our beautiful historic business and residential district, several blues clubs that "Dish up the Blues" on weekends and special events, wonderful shopping, great places to eat and even two Bed and Breakfasts!

Indianola is the "center" of the Delta and a great place to put down "temporary roots" and make day trips circling out into Greenwood, Clarksdale, Greenville, Yazoo City...the Delta has a lot to offer including HUGE helpings of hospitality!  Of course, we want you to visit The Crown for lunch or pop in for Dessert and Coffee any time you are "hungry!"  (We even have WiFi if you need to get your emails!  Ya'll just come see us soon!      

Dessert for a Crowd or the Family

Need a quick yummy dessert?  Serve what I did at Garden Club today!  We were expecting about 20 ladies, so I made three Southern Praline Pies and cut them in 8 slices. (That way I could have a few extra servings for the girls at the bank where we had our meeting.)

I topped the Pie with whipped cream, sliced fresh strawberries and then a couple of spoons of our new Royal Fudge Sauce!  I had warmed the Sauce just a little (the jar in a bowl of hot water) and I got 18 servings from the one jar - with some left in the bottom (All the better to eat with a spoon later!) 

Dessert was a hit - so easy to do - and took no time at all!  Sounds good for our Easter Dinner too!

Our Simple Supper..

I don't just create the products we sell at Taste of Gourmet - I use them every single day at least once!  My fridge always has a bottle of Chimmi Sauce, Chipotle, Cranberry Chutney, RazzMaTazz... you get the picture!

No matter what I'm cooking, the flavors are enhanced when I use our Sauces!  Last night, we had a very simple supper, but it was very healthy - a pork chop with Cranberry Chutney and a fresh spinach salad with Tangy Tomato Dressing.

I love butter but I do a lot of cooking with just a "wipe" of olive oil!

This is my healthy method!  I wipe the bottom of my cast iron skillet with just a drop of olive oil, just to wet the bottom.  I let the skillet get really hot before I put the lean pork chops in the hot skillet to sear - nice and browned (that seals all the juices inside.) Sprinkle the chops with black pepper before you turn them over for extra flavor.  I leave the heat up high (you get a little smoke so turn on the vent fan) and the chops cook quickly and stay juicy!  Then put a teaspoon or so of Cranberry Chutney on top of the chop to create a "sauce" and enjoy every bite!   

Use the same method with a boneless chicken breast and Jezebel Sauce or a steak with Chimmi Sauce.  You'll love the flavor of the meat without the hassle of firing up the outside grill! 

Advice from Julia Child...

Years and years ago, Tony and I went to a seminar at the Fancy Food Show to hear and see and meet Julia Child - my very favorite "cook" in the entire world!  I saw her a few other times later, (and I did get her autograph that hangs in my dining room at home) but that first time in San Francisco was such a highlight and a "cooking revelation! Can you tell that I love the way Julia Child wrote and taught - that my original 1964 copy of The Art of French Cooking is tattered, splattered, written on, and loved?

The Joy of Cooking and The Art of French Cooking were the first two cookbooks that we bought after we got married in 1964. And I've always said that anything I needed to find to "recreate" in my kitchen could be found in one of those two great cookbooks!  I loved reading Julia Child's comment after a recipe for Quenelles, "If the mixture is too soft to poach, just pop it into a ramekin and call it a mousse!"  It's a "never give up on a recipe" attitude - just turn it into something else and enjoy the adventure!  I learned to cook from her books and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to meet her. When our Smoked Catfish Pate won the award at Fancy Food in 1990, Julia Child introduced it and sampled it on the Today Show!  I just loved Julia Child!

Anyway - what I started to write about was this seminar!  It was when Low Fat and No Fat and No Sugar products were just starting to be the "hot" topics at Food Shows!  When it was Julia's "turn to talk," Julia spoke up for eating the "real thing in moderation!"  Portion control!  And I'll never forget - she said, "If you want chocolate cake - eat chocolate cake and enjoy it - then tomorrow eat an apple!" 

Good advice from Julia!  I wish I always followed it instead of eating my Mud Cake until it's gone!  But I'm learning to control my portions and my fat and sugar intake!  Control is important to everyone's health!  And apples are good too!

Heart Healthy is Possible!

When I create products for Taste of Gourmet one of my primary concerns is the health of my customers and my own family!  I've always said that I wouldn't produce ANYTHING that I wouldn't let my own grandchildren eat and enjoy!  We call our products "speed scratch" because we have measured and chopped and combined REAL ingredients to produce all our mixes and sauces.  You KNOW what the words mean on our labels!

Yes - I do use real butter at home and I suggest butter in many of my mix directions.  I believe in butter because it is natural and pure.  But I also know that many of our customers NEED the substitutes and Smart Balance and low-fat products that are available because those products are necessary for their own health problems.  This is where Taste of Gourmet's products can really be of help.

One of our Consultants, Cheri Bruner, MS, emailed me recently.  Cheri, whose husband has had a heart attack wrote, "We try to eat "heart healthy" meals and snacks now.  Most Taste of Gourmet products are very adaptable and still delicious."  Cheri included a number of ways she adapts our mixes and I want to share those with you and also ask for your suggestions as well.

"My husband's favorite is Creamy Delta Bisque.  I make it with 4 cups of skim milk, 1/2 cup 2% milk and 1/2 cup half and half.  I cut back on the butter and use Smart Balance.  I cook my chicken in the Bisque and serve it over whole grain fettucini.  Of course, it goes without saying that I use reduced fat broth AND low sodium (if I can find it) in all of the soups that call for broth. Our products are so flavorful, you don't need all that added sodium.

I make all the dips with non-fat or reduced fat cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise or cheese.  We love all the dips with veggies. 

We love mashed potatoes, but that's not something we're really supposed to have.  So...I cooked some cauliflower with a little Smart Balance, added some nonfat milk and mashed it all up with some of the dry Garlic Herb Dip mix. Yum!"

The other day I marinated chicken breast in Berry Bar-B-Que Sauce and threw them on my George Foreman grill.  Oh, my goodness...we ummmmed all the way through the meal.  Honestly, I could go on and on about how to make TOG heart healthy AND delicious!"

These are a few of Cheri's ideas - I'd love to hear from you too!  Have a look at our website - we have the Nutrition and Ingredients information for all of our products, and Weight Watcher Points, and a sheet called Slimpossible that has some great information.  We do care about the foods that we offer you and we are proud of our product line! 

They are blooming......

I love seeing the daffodills at the end of our road.  My grandmother planted them over 60 years ago in the curve turning toward town.  I don't know how many she planted that first time, but over the years the number multiplied till the entire corner was covered in golden flowers in the early Spring.  Beautiful - like my grandmother's smiles and hugs!

In the last few years, the road has been widened, then paved!  The water lines and telephone lines were put in!  Every intrusion into the corner moved the bulbs around (or chopped them up.) But every Spring, the daffodills bloom!  Some bulbs have ended up way out in the cotton field, but they bloom!  Friends and strangers have "helped themselves" to the bulbs, thinking I guess that they were free for the taking - no house nearby!  My grandmother would have said, "Sure, get you a few and enjoy them." And I'd say the same thing - We're sharing something beautiful!

Taste of Gourmet is a lot like those daffodills!  Our Consultants share the fun they have and the "beauty" (or yumminess) of the food with everyone they meet!  And there's always more to share!  A Consultant may move (not into the cotton field) to another town, but they can carry that beauty and their business with them!  Each of their customers is another "bloom" in their lives. And those "blooms" multiply, like my Momo's daffodills. 
I do love those daffodills and I love my Taste of Gourmet Family!