Suzi’s Blog
Caramelized Onion Dip — Real Onions and No Box
When I die, and if I get to the pearly gates with Heaven just on the other side, it’s going to be difficult should they start asking me questions. Supposedly there is a complete record of everything you do in your life, so telling another lie at that point is probably a mistake. A step on the path to the big escalator, the one marked “DOWN.”
Have you ever made onion dip with packaged onion soup mix? Well, I have. I would admit that I seem to recall that I have. More than once? Yes, I would slowly answer. But if they probe and ask how many times, I would have to tradeoff between being humiliated in front of angels and risking that escalator ride to the place that has no air conditioning.
This dip is “green” using fresh onions, not the boxed stuff. You’ll get your onion flavor here but it’s now the just the honest flavor of fresh onions. No preservative chemicals here. There is some tang from balsamic vinegar plus cream cheese in addition to the usual sour cream. Feel free to adjust the amount of vinegar, salt or pepper. You could add lemon or lime juice, too.
This is the classic dip for potato chips, of course. But pita chips and vegetables spears benefit from the glory of its richness.
Caramelized Onion Dip
Yield: 2 cups, enough for 8 [but I wouldn’t count on it]
Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 large onions, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup sour cream
- 4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperatures
Preparation:
ln a large heavy skillet, warm the olive oil over medium-low heat. Stir in the onions, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Cover the skillet and cook for 5 minutes. Uncover, raise the heat to medium, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool.
In a medium bowl, combine the sour cream and cream cheese. Beat until smooth and well blended. Stir in the browned onions with all their oil and juices.
Transfer to a serving bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 2 days. Before serving, stir again and let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.
Source: Great Party Dips by Peggy Fallon
Why the Super Bowl Matters for Foodies — and Important News on the Chicken Wings Front
The Super Bowl has been a side topic here for the past week, and I hope you understand. Suzen and I are true football fans, New York Giant fans, and it all comes together for us this exceptional weekend. For Americans as a society, the Super Bowl has become the dominant sporting event. [I know, there’s this thing called the World Cup and I would care about it, too, if you could just tackle and use your hands!].While the Super Bowl is on, nationally the crime rate plummets, traffic throttles to trickle, and the nation is focused as perhaps in no other four hour period.
If you not a football fan but you are a foodie, the Super Bowl is still a major day for you. Many people watch, not for the game, but for the commercials. Ever since that iconic rollout “1984” ad for the original Macintosh computer — shown on television only once during the 3rd quarter of Super Bowl XVIII in the actual year 1984 — the advertising stakes have gone exponential.
You’ll hear the hype about how much a 30-second slice of airtime costs. This year it is $4 million but the audience is there to support that price point. And, marketing studies conducted after previous Super Bowls have concluded those ad dollars do pay off. At the website businessinsider.com, there is this quote:
According to Nielsen, ads that aired during 2011’s Super Bowl XLV were, on average, 58 percent more memorable than commercials airing during regular programming in the first quarter of 2011. In addition, brand awareness for commercials airing during the Super Bowl was up to 275 percent higher than awareness for the same creative during regular programming.
Super Bowl ads have been dominated by cars in recent years, but food advertising runs almost as strong. For example, those Dorito commercials, and the Coke versus Pepsi battles, have had strong buying consequences. The Monday after the Super Bowl, you’ll find major web and newsprint articles on the “good” and the “bad” in those ads. What we see the rest of the year in commercials, even what we see on our grocery store shelves, is affected by the reactions and buying trends demonstrated during the Super Bowl aftermath.
Of course, because so many of us love to watch those commercials, we really don’t have time to cook during the game [or visit the rest room except during the extra long halftime show which is why so many people did NOT see the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.]
This year, the estimate is that $11 billion will be spent on snack foods for the game. That’s the easy solution to ensuring that no score, penalty, or errant piece of clothing is missed.
Here at this blog, we’ve suggest recipes ideas that are really better than “snack food” and will delight you and the others gathered around that extra big television set.
One item we blogged this week was Santa Fe Chicken Wings using the famous Frank’s Hotsauce. Perhaps, not surprisingly, this past week the Tabasco sauce folks, the McIlhenny Company from Louisiana, have rolled out a new product, surprisingly called Tabasco Buffalo. The two companies are engaged in ad war now that is costing tens of millions. Suzen and I will be searching for a bottle of the new Tabasco product, we’ll give it a try, and we’ll let you know.
Oh, I adamantly said this week that fried wings outdo baked ones. But the new Tabasco Buffalo product offers this recipe where you bake at high temperature for a long time. This week will see a lot of wing testing across America. If I were a chicken, I’d be in hiding.
Buffalo Chicken Wings from Scratch
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
Ingredients:
• 3 pounds wings and/or drumettes
• 1 (5-ounce) bottle of Tabasco brand Buffalo Style Hot Sauce
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
• Chunky blue cheese dressing (optional)
• Celery sticks (optional)
Preparation:
Bake chicken pieces on foil-lined pan in 425°F oven for one hour or until fully cooked, turning once halfway. In a large bowl, combine TABASCO® Buffalo Style Sauce and melted butter. Toss cooked wings in sauce to coat completely. If desired, serve with blue cheese dressing and celery sticks.
Source: www.tabasco.com
