Monthly Archives: August 2013

Cooking Planit Giveaway

Happy weekend, my friends! Just back from foggy London town (where the weather was goooorgeous, I might add) and so happy to tell you that today through September 2 you can enter here to win an incredible set of T-Fal Cookware courtesy of Cooking Planit. Remember Cooking Planit? The coolest cooking app out there right now? Here’s a refresher.

Cooking Planit does everything except stand at your stove and stir the sauce for you. On the app you can choose the dish or dishes you want to cook, make a grocery list, sync all your devices so that you can use your phone or iPad to shop with, then return home to your kitchen and get to cooking with the help of voice instructions and perfectly timed cooking prompts. You literally can’t mess it up.

Picture 2

Here are a couple other features you will surely want to know about.

Ability to choose meal plans based on dietary restrictions.

Dietary restrictions

Provides a list of things you’ll need to cook the meal, from food prep ingredients to kitchen staples and equipment. Have you ever been halfway through a recipe and realize it calls for a Kitchenaid and you don’t have one? Guilty.

Ingredients

Predicted time finished. Expecting guests at 6:30? Not starting to cook until 5:55? Then wait. Cooking Planit tells you down to the minute, based on what time it is now, your dish will be done. Better than an egg timer any day of the week.

Ready by

Warnings when you’ve skipped ahead. You’re like, “I’ll just get the next step going before I finish this one” and Cooking Planit is like, “Hey girl. Slow down. Take it easy. Have a sip of wine. And don’t ruin this meal.”

Warning

Provides notice of ingredients you’ll need in the current step. Sometimes I scan the list of ingredients and they’re out of order or I just plum skip over one. Cooking Planit takes you step by step, ingredient by ingredient, so nothing is left out.

Ingredients ready

And yes, that’s a built in timer. I don’t know about you but sometimes I forget to set my oven timer. Cut to 30 minutes later when my entire kitchen smells like burnt cookies and I’m trudging sadly to a bodega for Oreos. Not with Cooking Planit. They’ll countdown for you.

Timer

The best part: you can try it for free. So go forth! And don’t forget to enter the giveaway by following me @LaurenFoodE on Twitter and clicking here! Because what’s better motivation to get cooking than fancy new pots and pans from T-Fal?

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Filed under Cooking, Tips

A Brief Hiatus plus Giant Chicken Parm

pizza parm
Happy Friday, friends! My day job has been so chaotic lately that I’ve been running home every night to my beloved DVR boyfriend and eating myself to happy until 9pm when I slink off to bed. And to top it all off I’m going to London next week! I’ve never been, but I do know I love British Special K (trust me, it’s different) and British candy so I’ll be leaving some room in my suitcase for treats.

In the meantime, a quick recommendation for a midtown (yes, midtown) Manhattan restaurant. I know. You’re speechless.

Quality Italian (57th Street and 6th Avenue) is a steakhouse that serves an incredible special: chicken parmesan for two (it fed us three girls with some leftover), served like a pizza. I know, you thought that photo was a pizza. It’s not. It’s a GIANT portion of chicken parmesan, perfectly crisped up with a little arugula salad with parmesan beneath it. Let’s just call it: magical.

The spot looks so swanky, you might be intimidated to enter – don’t be. It’s only been open 3 weeks so you might not be able to score a reservation but my friends and I sat upstairs in the lounge and were treated impeccably. We ordered one glass of wine each and the manager gifted us with a second round on him. Everyone on the staff was attentive and congenial and the food was fresh and delicious. What more can you ask for in midtown? Not a whole lot.

The only note I can give you on the negative side is that it is a bit pricey. The chicken parmesan claims to feed 2, at $26 per person. It fed 3 of us but $52 still seems a bit steep to me. Just know before you go.

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Filed under New York Restaurants

Dive!

Dive-Jeremy-Seifert Happy Monday, friends! Just a quick post to let you know about a fantastic documentary I watched on Netflix over the weekend called Dive! about dumpster divers and the staggering amount of food that Americans throw out every single day. The whole film is based on the fact that Americans throw out HALF of all the food the country produces in a year. Unreal, isn’t it?

My only criticism of the film is that it left me wondering what I could do to help and the ending feels a little bit hopeless. If anyone reading this has recommendations on what to do to help curb the food crisis, let me know!

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Filed under Miscellaneous

California Summer Spice Shrimp Salad

I mentioned I’m working with Spice to Meet You, a monthly home delivery spice service, and I was super fortunate to shoot some cooking demos for them! The first installment (do you recognize that kitchen??) is on California Summer Spice Shrimp Salad. Head on over to Spice to Meet You for the full recipe!

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Filed under Cooking, Recipes