Thai Chicken Wraps

This was quick and yummy! It's from a Back Packing site Manny goes to: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?61693-Thai-Chicken-Wraps&s=ec5e1b8aa83a921921ea6b59ebafd783

This recipe was designated a lunch/snack recipe due to it's simpleness but of course can be used for a dinner as well.

Ingredients

•1/2 C. Creamy Peanut Butter

•1/2 C. of Prepared Pad Thai sauce (easily found in most grocery stores)

•1 Bunch of Green Onion

•4 Large Tortillas, Wraps, or Flatbreads

•1 Pkg - 7 Ounces of Tyson Chicken (or two 5 ounce cans)

•Leaf or Romaine Lettuce (We suggest Romaine. It's much stiffer and will hold up well in a pack for a day or two as long as it does not get overheated)

Package the above ingredients using whatever method suits you

Trail Preparation

In your cookpot (we suggest using hard anodized aluminum for its non stick properties) stir together the peanut butter, chopped green onions and pad thai sauce. Cook over medium heat stirring until sauce is mixed completely and warm. Do not overcook!

Layout a Tortilla or Wrap, top with lettuce, chicken and onions. Sauce over the top and then wrap burrito style.

Notes

You may also consider saucing the wrap first, then other ingredients but we find personally that having the sauce on the chicken imparts a better flavor.

Picnic Food

My kids' school always does a back to school picnic, where you bring your own food. I have tried different things with varying success, including feeding them before we go, making something to bring, or grabbing a pizza on the way. Anyone have a great picnic dinner item that the kids can't resist or can eat on the run?

This year I don't think I'll be able to feed them before because of other activities, and my husband and I are going out to dinner after the picnic, so I am looking for something just for the kids.

Tailgating Recipes

I know it's real last minute, but we just found out that we have baseball games at 5pm and 8 pm tomorrow night. What are your favorite Tailgating recipes? Thanks for sharing!

By request

It’s a great compliment when someone requests one of your recipes, but, if you’ve been to three cookouts this month, and been asked for your signature dish every time, you and your family have probably had enough of it. Each summer I like to add a new favorite to my classics so we don’t get bored.

These next couple of days, I’ll post recipes I’ve been asked for recently. If there’s one you’d like me to post, just let me know.

My Classic Potato Salad has a lot of ingredients (my friend Lynne would be very disappointed in me, the list of ingredients should never be longer than the list of directions), but it’s easy—dice, shake, and toss. The Warm Potato and Green Bean Salad (Lynne requests this one all the time!) has several selling points: It’s served warm (great for last-minute plans), it includes a vegetable (almost every gathering these days includes someone avoiding carbs, they can just pick out the potatoes), and it has no mayonnaise (no spoiling in the hot sun).

Classic Potato Salad

1 bag small red potatoes, boiled and diced
1 t onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2-3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
2 pickles, chopped
1½ T oil
1 T vinegar
1 T pickle juice
½ c Miracle Whip salad dressing
salt and pepper, to taste
1/8 c Dijon mustard
½ c sour cream
dill and parsley to taste (fresh, if you have it)
basil or tarragon to taste (fresh, if you have it)

Place potatoes, onion, celery, eggs, and pickles into large bowl. Shake condiments in a jar for dressing. Pour over potatoes. Toss salad—shaking in a covered plastic bowl works best. Chill. Top with fresh herbs before serving.

Warm Potato and Green Bean Salad
from The North End Italian Cookbook

2 pounds fresh green beans, tips removed, snapped in half
1 pound new potatoes, unpeeled
2/3 cup olive oil
6 tablespoons white wine vinegar
6 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons oregano, dried
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
2 pinches red pepper flakes
salt and pepper, to taste

Steam green beans 8-10 minutes, until tender. Drain and place on serving platter. Boil potatoes until just tender. Drain, do not rinse, let cool, then cube, leaving skin on. Add to green beans. Using a large spoon, gently toss beans and potatoes with remaining ingredients. Serve salad at warm or at room temperature.

Summer food safety tips

Memorial Day is Monday, May 26th, and with it comes Barbecue Season. But while you’re hanging out in the yard, loitering over the grill, sipping a cocktail, watching the kids run around, bacteria could be contaminating your meal. A watchful eye on a few key areas will go a long way to keeping your family and friend free from food-borne illness all summer long.

Thaw safely. It’s great to have food in the freezer — a spur-of-the-moment party always at the ready! But be careful how you bring it from the freezer to the table. Food safety experts recommend thawing foods in the refrigerator or the microwave oven or putting the package in a water-tight plastic bag submerged in cold water and changing the water every 30 minutes. Changing the water ensures that the food is kept cold, an important factor for slowing bacterial growth that may occur on the outer thawed portions while the inner areas are still thawing. It is not advisable to thaw meat, poultry, or fish on the counter or in the sink without cold water; bacteria multiply much more rapidly at room temperature.

Avoid cross-contamination. Grilling adds great flavor to meals, and makes summertime entertaining both fun and easy. However, once you’ve placed your raw meat on the grill, wash the plate thoroughly with hot soapy water, or get a clean plate for the cooked, ready-to-eat foods. Cooked foods should never be placed on a plate that held raw meat. Thoroughly cook all meat, poultry and seafood, especially shellfish.

Keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot. Once ready to serve, you don’t want your food’s temperature in The Danger Zone (40°F–140°F) for any longer than necessary. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration recommends that you keep hot foods hot (use a warming tray or Sterno or votive candle under your serving dish) and cold foods cold (use a bed of ice under your food) while you serve them. Do not leave food out for more than 2 hours (this includes preparation time and the time it was in the car after you left the grocery store).

The foods that are most likely to cause illness if left unrefrigerated are:

• meat, poultry, and fish (both raw and cooked;
• salads made from starchy ingredients such as pasta, potatoes, rices, and other grains;
• anything containing raw or cooked eggs such as mayonnaise and potato salad, cream pies; and
• anything else containing dairy products.

If serving sour cream– or mayonnaise-based dips, be sure to keep the bowl on ice and avoid direct sunlight if at all possible. If holding your party at the beach, a park, on a boat, or at some other remote location, bring a cooler full of ice and keep all foods that may spoil cold until they are ready to be cooked or eaten. If possible, use two separate coolers—one for drinks and snacks, which people will be dipping into frequently, and a second one for meat and other dishes that stay closed, and therefore colder, until it’s time for the meal. Also, if possible, keep raw meats separate from cooked meats.

If you’re serving snacks and appetizers that will likely be sitting out for a while, stick to foods that don’t need refrigeration, such as fresh veggies, fresh fruit, breads with oil-based dips, nuts, and chips (tortilla chips with salsa provide a healthful addition to your menu as well).

Prepare your foods well. Thoroughly wash raw fruits and vegetables with tap water. Even those fruits and vegetables that do not have pesticides grow very close to the soil—another key bacteria-causing agent.

Cover and store leftover cooked food in the refrigerator as soon as possible. Cooked foods can also breed bacteria. Make sure you refrigerate, or place in a cooler with ice, any unused portion of cooked food (again, keep cooked meats separate from raw meats). If this is not possible, discard the leftovers.

Hot foods should be refrigerated as soon as possible within two hours after cooking. Don’t keep the food if it’s been standing out for more than two hours. Don’t taste-test it, either. Even a small amount of contaminated food can cause illness. Date leftovers so they can be used within a safe time—generally, they remain safe when refrigerated for three to five days.

If in doubt, throw it out; it’s not worth a food-borne illness for the small amount of food usually involved. Eat Well, Live Well, Be Well!

Day-after deviled eggs

OK, we went to my sister's in Poughkeepsie, NY, for Easter weekend, and I left the Easter eggs (for 10 kids!) in our fridge in Newburyport. Now I have 2½ dozen hard-boiled eggs.

What do I do with all those hard-boiled eggs? Deviled eggs! When I make deviled eggs, I don’t follow a recipe, and they’re probably never exactly the same twice, I just throw in mayo (Miracle Whip, usually), mustard (Dijon, usually), horseradish sauce, hot pepper sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and relish, and whatever else I'm in the mood for (curry, dill, parsley, or cilantro?). But, a couple of years ago, I stumbled across a recipe for deviled eggs on epicurious.com. There were pages and pages of feedback from people who had tried the recipe. Who knew deviled eggs could inspire such prose – and opinions? If you can use a laugh, you might want to check it out – it was hysterical!