If you have any Polish ancestry, you're probably more than familiar with Pierogies. These are scrumptious little dumplings made from unleavened dough and typically stuffed with a potato and cheese based filling.

Pierogi are traditional peasant food and a staple part of Polish family cooking culture. You'll also find Pierogi are popular in other Eastern European countries including Slovakia, Russia, Romania, Czech Republic and the Ukraine.

The traditional Polish handmade dumpling is made with unleavened dough shaped into a semi-circle. The filling is made from cooked potatoes, a white curd-like cheese and stir-fried onion, similar in consistency to mashed potatoes.

Many regard Pierogi as the national Polish dish. In Poland each year, they hold the annual Pierogi festival in Krakow where eager Pierogi fans consume more than 30,000 Pierogies each day.

The kitchen, with all of its hot surfaces and pleasing aromas, can be both a highly fascinating as well as a highly dangerous place to be, particularly for small children. This certainly does not mean the kitchen should be off limits. Preschool children have growing minds making it easy for them to learn new concepts. Time spent in the kitchen as a family is a great bonding activity that can be appreciated by both adults and children alike. Dr. Mary Zurn, vice president of education for Primrose Schools, says kitchen time can be a great way for families to regain some lost, but valuable, family time.

There is no doubt that the kitchen is often the main gathering place of the home. Along with being a great place for learning, families are able to come together and spend some essential quality time. “Children can also develop a sense of responsibility by sharing in daily tasks,” said Dr. Zurn.Take advantage of this time to include your children in daily cooking tasks all the while ensuring a safe environment for them to learn and grow. 

Engaging children, even preschool aged children, can be beneficial in many ways. Simple tasks like mixing batter, or rolling dough will help a child’s hand eye coordination develop. However, skills such as following directions, taking responsibility and learning time management can also be taught to children. Other than basic and complex skills, children can also be taught nutritional concepts. Cooking or baking is an easy way for youngsters to learn the importance of eating healthy.

Parents can make the kitchen both a fun and safe environment by keeping the using the following tips shared by Primrose Schools in mind:

Establish Safety Rules

Children of all ages should always be supervised when working in the kitchen and giving them a set of rules to follow should never be overlooked. Make sure that they are washing their hands thoroughly both before as well as after handling food so that no germs are spread. Ensure that they know what they are allowed to touch and what they are not. This will depend both upon their age and skill-set in the kitchen. When working with your children, always make sure that all pans and pots have their handles facing inward while on the stove as you don't want to run the risk of them being bumped and spilling hot contents. 

 

The following article was submitted by Linda Miller who writes for Diabetic Cookbook ...

School of Montreal researchers recommend us one good way cashew extract may treat type 2 diabetes.

New research published in the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research advises cashew seed extract may play an important role in preventing and treating diabetic issues.

The cashew is a tree in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The plant is indigenous to northeastern Brazil.

Scientists at the College of Montreal and the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon analyzed how cashew products affected the responses of rat liver cells to insulin.

In Canada, over three million Canadians have diabetes and this number is expected to reach 3.7 million by 2020, according to the Canadian Diabetes Association.

In U.S.A, according to the American Diabetes Association, from the 2007 National Diabetes Fact Sheet, there are total 23.6 million children and adults in the United States - 7.8% of the population - have diabetes. 1.6 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older each year.

Scientists looked at cashew tree leaves, bark, seeds and apples. They found that only the cashew seed extract increased the absorption of blood sugar by the cells.

We've been having loads of food fun recently with Spanish Paella. After experimenting a little on our own, we've thrown a couple of Spanish Paella parties to the delight of friends and family.

It all started a while back when my wife and I were browsing through a charming specialty Spanish food and kitchen store (The Spanish Table - Santa Fe, NM location). We marveled at the rows of tantalizing spanish food products on the shelves, probably over 30 different kinds of Spanish olive oil.

And the impressive display of paella pans. From the smallest 7 inch pans all the way up to the giant paella pans, over 200 inches in diameter for preparing an outdoor paella feast over a propane fired burner.

Note: apparently, there seems to be a contest for the world's largest paella pan. This group in Spain looks like they hold the record for the "Biggest Paella in the World" (with a 32 ton paella pan, 24,000 pounds of chicken, and enough paella for 110,000 people).

We thought it would be fun to try our hand at making Spanish Paella. And or course, a great excuse to buy one of these beautiful paella pans and add to our kitchen collection.

We didn't buy a paella pan that afternoon. But the seed was planted.

Well, just recently (now many years later), we finally got around to it. We started with this Spanish Paella kit that we found at La Tienda, a wonderful specialty Spanish food and kitchen supplier located in Virginia. The paella kit comes with a quality 15 inch stainless steel paella pan and the essential (non-perishable) ingredients for making paella for 6 (more like 8 or 10 people).

Are you surprised? Didn't know today (April 30th) is National Oatmeal Cookie Day? That's OK, you're probably not alone. Unless you're really tuned into oatmeal cookies.

It turns out, almost every day of the year is a food holiday of one type or another. Interestingly enough, many food holidays are actually proclaimed by the President of the United States.

For example, our US Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 193, designated March 6th (in 1984) as "Frozen Food Day", and requested the President, then Ronald Reagan, to issue a proclamation for this occasion.

In Proclamation #5157, President Ronald Reagan declared: "Now, therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim March 6, 1984, as Frozen Food Day, and I call upon the American people to observe such day with appropriate ceremonies and activies". And so it goes ...

Now, you probably won't track down an official proclamation for "National Oatmeal Cookie Day" by a US president. However, this food holiday has been celebrated for many years, and there is plenty of documentation to support that National Oatmeal Cookie Day does really exisit.

It's that time of year again. The spring harvest in our garden is just around the corner. We've planted the spring vegetable garden and it's still too early for the spring vegetable harvest, but the loquat tree in the backyard is brimming with fruit. It's going to be a bountiful year for loquats.

It's a beautiful tree. And not only is the fruit bright and colorful, it's delicious too! Juicy, sweet and tangy all at once.

The yield this year is terrific. We're experiencing an El Niño this season, so the loquat abundance might have to with the extra rain we've been receiving.

At any rate, we're going to be busy picking fruit this weekend. Besides, if we don't get the fruit off the tree, the birds and the squirrels will have a feast.

In fact, we have a resident squirrel that loves to gorge himself on the loquats every year. He stuffs himself and can barely hold himself up in the tree. And mister squirrel also likes to tell a few other squirrels in the area. Apparently, he doesn't mind sharing his loquat find with the neighborhood.

I must admit, we take the cooking and food vocabulary that we use and hear every day for granted. At least, that's the case for me. And so it is for Parmesan as in Parmesan Cheese.

I was playing around with a recipe the other day that called for Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. And I had to pause with a brief pondering question "what's the difference between Parmesan and Parmigiano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese"?

It occured to me that I've been buying and using these cheeses for years and I've never stopped to understand the difference. In fact, I've probably been mistaken in my assumption that these are just different names for the same cheese.

Well, to some extent, that may be true, but it's a bit more complicated than that as I've come to learn.

OK, some of you (maybe many of you) are probably saying at this point, this one's pretty obvious. Of course, Parmesan is simply the French version of Parmigiano which is Italian. So are these just the French and Italian language equivalents for the same cheese? Not so fast.

More continous improvements at Family Recipe Central

While some of the adjustments, fixes and enhancements that we make at Family Recipe Central might seem small and insignificant, sometimes these minor improvements make a big difference for our users.

One of the frequent questions submitted to our support team is "how to have duplicate ingredient items" in the ingredients section of a recipe. Seems reasonable enough, but this has been a limitation in our system up until now.

For example, let's say you have a recipe that has two sections, a fish preparation, and a sauce that is served over the fish. You might want your ingredients list to look something like this ...

Ingredients

Fish

• 2 halibut filets
• 1/2 med onion, diced
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 leek, diced

Sauce

• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
• 2 tbsp rice wine vingegar
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Previously, the problem that you would bump into has been our limitation on duplicate ingredients. In this case, the sea salt in the Sauce section is flagged as an error because it's a duplicate ingredient entry of the sea salt in the Fish section.