Looking for a little fall flavor? Well, now that it's the season for pumpkin-y goodness, you may as well enjoy the season while it's available. If you need some new ideas of what to do with your pumpkins, you should check out Closet Cooking's list of 31 pumpkin recipes.
While I've seen a lot of pumpkin recipe round ups, this one is particularly great in that it doesn't just feature desserts. This way, you can enjoy pumpkin appetizers, snacks, entrees, side dishes and desserts for a totally fall feast.
Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower ... in meat
Who needs clay to sculpt when you've got meat? Seattle's Uwajimaya grocery store meat manager Kieran Gormley is the food artist behind the Tumblr Epic Grinds. He uses ground beef and pork to create sculptures of iconic characters from video games and science-fiction movies.
'Tis nourishment for the belly and the mind!
It's dangerous to go alone. Take this ... meat, Link. Or is it Link meat? Perhaps Link is saying to Gannondorf: "So ... we meat again!"
"Meat"roid?
Samus has never looked this delicious!
Here's a fun food craft. If you've ever seen a wiener dog and thought to yourself, "I could eat that," then here's your chance. The company that makes Rhodes Dinner Rolls created this hot dog dish. As you can see from the instructional video below, you can make one by wrapping unbaked dinner roll dough around a hot dog. Bake it for 15-20 minutes, then add facial features with a bean, cheese and tiny pieces of olive.
In ancient times, the origins of cinnamon were a mystery to the Western world, and Arab merchants wanted to keep it that way. To hike up the price, they spun an elaborate tale, claiming that giant birds collected cinnamon sticks from far-off lands and used them to build nests on cliffs. To get the precious sticks, traders laid out massive chunks of ox meat, which the birds grabbed and carried to their nests. But because the slabs were so large, the nests would collapse, allowing the clever merchants to collect their prize.
Europeans bought this story until the late 1400s when the Portuguese found the real source of cinnamon—lush groves in Sri Lanka. Once they’d figured it out, the Portuguese struck a deal with the Sri Lankans to monopolize the trade and built a fort there to protect their assets. They were displaced by the Dutch in 1658, who were subsequently displaced by the Brits in 1796. But by then, the trees had been exported worldwide, so there was little need to fight for a cinnamon fix.
THE POWER OF CUBEB COMPELS YOU
With notes of allspice and clove, cubeb comes from a plant that’s a close relative to black pepper, and it tastes somewhat similar. So it’s no surprise that cubeb was used as a cheap stand-in for its far more expensive cousin during the Middle Ages in Europe and through the 1800s in the U.S. Today, cubeb is rarely found outside Indonesian cuisine, but it’s a key ingredient in a ritual far more interesting than dinner: exorcisms.
In his 17th-century book Demoniality, Italian priest Ludovico Maria Sinistrari recalls that cubeb did wonders for a “young maiden of noble family, who was tempted by an Incubus that appeared to her both by day and by night.” He tossed a few kernels of cubeb into her bedroom, and “the Incubus came, but never dared enter.”
Either way, these tasty sweets are super easy to make. Just a can of Grand's Biscuits, vanilla pudding, cinnamon sugar and oil. The basic concept involves just frying the dough, rolling them in the cinnamon sugar and then injected with tasty pudding. Impressively, one can of biscuits makes 32 bite-size treats. You can find the rest of the instructions over at Oh, Bite It!
Nacho Cheese Doritos are the powerhouse of chips, known for being particularly addictive. Once you start eating them, there's a tendency to continue until they are gone. Then you can lick your fingers. What's the secret to this behavior? It's not just one ingredient, but a whole kitchen laboratory of flavors and flavor-enhancing substances.
Oh, you know they have cheese, and salt, and artificial coloring, but did you know that the flavoring powder is ground into the finest powder possible to aid its adherence to the chip (and to your fingers)? The amount of fat is carefully balanced to sooth your brain, and lactic acid is in there just to get your mouth watering.
Popcorn and movie theaters seem to go together naturally. Popcorn is easy to make, easy to eat with your hands, can be made without a huge kitchen, and the smell makes people want to buy it. Back in the mid-1800s, the popping itself was considered entertainment.
But it wasn't theater owners who made popcorn a part of the movie-watching experience. Early movie theaters did not want to sell snacks, and they would not allow food in their fancy cultural establishments. However, street vendors sold popcorn to the crowds waiting to get into the theaters. Patrons had to sneak their popcorn into the movies!
For some people, pumpkin lattes are enough to satisfy that need for fall flavors, but for the rest of us, we need some actual pumpkin to make the most of the season. And, of course, it's a great option for your Halloween pumpkins if you don't carve them.
While there are hundreds of recipes out there for pumpkin sweets, this pumpkin lasagna is a totally unique and totally tasty option for a delicious main course with everyone's favorite fall flavor. You can find the recipe over at Cake Dutchess.
In order to promote its barely edible French fries, the American fast food chain Burger King distributed giant and thankfully fake French fries in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Burger King has a new recipe for what it's calling Satisfries--crinkle-cut fries that are healthier to eat. The ad campaign designed by the ad agency Mother consisted of free wifi nodes that offered passersby internet access and giant foam French fries that probably taste a lot like the real ones. Promoters successfully photobombed the Today show by walking a giant fry into the background of a live broadcast.
Love Cinnabon? Who doesn't? This 5 Yummy Facts about Cinnabon post is the perfect article to read while you munch on the cinnamon-y goodness of a freshly baked cinnamon roll. Hmm, BRB. Going to the mall to get me some!
1. From Hooters Waitress to CEO
Kat Cole (@KAtColeATL), Cinnabon's current President, has an interesting career path. Cole got her start at a Hooters restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida. She told Jenna Goudreau of Forbes:
I had a single parent—a mother who worked three jobs and fed us on $10 a week—so I started working as early as the law would permit. I sold clothes at The Avenues mall after school before I was recruited to be a Hooters hostess. By 18, I was a Hooters girl and loved it. When the cook quit, I learned how to run the kitchen, and when the manager quit, I learned how to run a shift.
I went to college at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, planning to get an engineering degree and then go to law school. When I was 19, I got the opportunity to go open the first Hooters restaurant in Australia. I’d never been on a plane. I didn’t even have a passport. I realized that in Miami you could get a passport in one day, so I flew to Miami, got a passport and flew to Australia the next day.
I was in Sydney for 40 days, came back and within 10 days was asked to open the first restaurant in Central America. Then ones in South America, Asia, Africa and Canada. By the time I was 20, I’d opened up the first Hooters on most continents outside the US and was failing school. So I quit to become the head of Hooters corporate training. I’m a college dropout.
She moved up the management chain and became the vice president of Hooters at the tender age of 29. She went back to school to get her MBA, got a job at Cinnabon, and soon after became the president of Cinnabon at 32. (Image: CBS News)
2. The "Gut Bomb"
Cinnabon's most popular item is the Classic roll. It has 880 calories (that's 330 more than the Big Mac), with a whopping 36 grams of fat and 59 grams of sugar. That's more than 14 teaspoonful of sugar. No wonder that the Cinnabon Classic has been called the "Gut Bomb."
But wait, that's not the most calorific item on the menu. That honor belongs to the Caramel Pecanbon, which comes in at 1080 calories and 76 grams of sugar (18 teaspoonful of sugar, if you're counting). [Source]
No apologies from Cole, however. She said "It's almost pornographic. It's just so over-the-top, it's a sensory experience" when asked about Cinnabon's indulgences. She went on to explain to Bloomberg Businessweek that she thinks people are allowed to have "discretionary calories" to treat themselves every now and then to Cinnabon rolls.
3. Cinnabon Has $1 Billion in Annual Sales
That's a whole lot of cinnamon rolls!
Actually, only half of that revenue comes from the sale of 100 million cinnamon rolls each year from Cinnabon's 1,100 franchised stores. The other half comes from licensing deals that brought us Cinnabon-flavored everything:
Forty two years after Libya's dictator Muammar Qaddafi came into power, the Libyan people got their first taste of American cinnamon decadence. In July 2012, Cinnabon became the first US franchise to open in Libya after the fall of Qaddafi.
After all this time, you'd be surprised that the cinnamon in Cinnabon rolls is actually not "true" cinnamon, rather a related "cousin".
True cinnamon or Ceylon cinnamon is a spice made from the inner bark of the Cinnamomumverum tree. It has a citrusy fragrance and complex yet mild taste without the "bite" we associate with the spice.
The "cinnamon" found in Cinnabon (and in kitchens everywhere) is actually cassia, derived from Cinnamomum burmannii, a tree native to Indonesia. Of all the Cinnamomum species, this form of cassia (known as Indonesian cassia or Korintje cassia) has the lowest oil content and is therefore the cheapest. In the United States, there's no labeling requirement to distinguish cinnamon and cassia, so we know them all as just cinnamon*. Cinnabon trademarked their supply of Korintje cassia as "Makara Cinnamon."
What does a Jackson Pollock painting taste like? You'll never have to get kicked out of a museum again to find out. Sarah Anne Ward, a food photographer, created delicious desserts that look like famous works of modern art. Pictured above are jello servings that look like paintings from Piet Mondrian's Composition series. Below that you can find, well, just about every painting Jackson Pollock made.
Click here to view more works in the series, including pinwheel cookies inspired by Picasso and a cake that looks like a Mark Rothko painting.
Yesterday, I brought you guys the Breakfast of Dali and today, it's time for his Mae West Room dessert, as created by Le Belle Aurora Sugar Art. But that's not the only cake based on the work of famous artists. In fact, that's the entire theme of this great Sunday Sweets list on Cake Wrecks. Whether you prefer the works of Grant Wood, René Magritte, Van Gogh or Picasso, this article has you covered from these angles and more. Best of all, unlike priceless works of art, you can not only touch these, but eat them!
Nicola Shipley of Tattoo-cakes makes these awesome art cupcakes with lips! The bottom right cupcake in the group picture looks as if it has just eaten a cupcake itself, don't you think? She can give them any expression you want, as well as different colors. But Shipley also makes cupcakes with other body orifices on them, so check out the entire collection of artful and offbeat baked goods at Facebook. -via Everlasting Blort
Jill and John love s'mores so much that I almost call a s'more intervention. Almost.
Instead, I decided to join in on the fun, now that I found this bacon weave s'mores over at Nick Chipman of Dude Foods. He made the s'more square the same size as half of a Hersey's Chocolate bar. That ended up being three pieces by two pieces of bacon.
Why bacon? Nick said, "I'm a huge fan of salty and sweet combinations, so combining little squares of bacon along with Hershey's Chocolate and marshmallows was really a no-brainer to me."
Now that's a piece of s'more I'd try in a heartbeat!
Sure, Salvador's Breakfast might be a little hard to eat, but if you live in the surreal universe of Dali, melting crepes are hardly your biggest problem. DeviantArt user WildOrchidRain made this delightful creation for breakfast one morning and it looks like it would be fairly easy to replicate as long as you have a nice knife and a good table to dangle your crepe off of.
