Turn Veggies into “Cream” Soups

By Sandy Hu

With the bounty of fresh vegetables now coming to market, it’s easy to overbuy. When I find my enthusiasm has overtaken my cooking capacity, I turn the extra vegetables into “cream” soups. There’s no actual cream in these soups but the soup turns wonderfully thick and satiny when the veggies and potato are pureed.

This recipe is a formula: You can use 3 cups of any vegetable you’d normally cook, such as broccoli, carrots, asparagus or cauliflower. Just don’t combine vegetables in one soup because you could end up with an unattractive, muddy-looking broth. And don’t skip the potato. It provides the body and creamy quality to the soup.

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Potatoes on the side, please

By David Hu

Often when I’m cooking, I get so caught up in the main dish that I run out of time or forget to make a side. There’s no excuse for skipping a side dish with these Parmesan Potato Wedges. The dish is extremely simple so you can work on it in between tasks for the main course. The other great thing is that this dish is cooked in the oven so I don’t have to watch it constantly and it frees up precious space on the stovetop.

Red bell peppers add color and a bit of sweetness and the Parmesan adds a nice cheesy tang.

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I Heart Carbs

By Katie Barreira

Like the allure of meat on meat (think bacon burger), one carbohydrate can only improve with the addition of another. Strangely enough, it was during a starch-starved year in San Francisco, where no excess of sushi or burritos could curb my hankering for a decent slice of pie and a boiled bagel, that I discovered the ultimate carb combo: potato pizza. The tough-crusted wedge may not have scratched my East Coast itch, but it securely rooted the idea of tubers on toast.

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Childhood Ambition

By Andrew Hunter

When I was a child, I loved to scramble eggs. My family said my eggs were the best they ever had. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always a high-pitched, “Chef!” And while I rebelled against that certainty for a short stint in my 20’s, my destiny was set early in life.

So it was no surprise to anyone when my cousin Chipper and I, at the ripe old age of 10, decided to open a restaurant called “Andrewshka’s.” We would only serve potatoes… in all their glorious fried forms. I still remember standing together in the backyard by my dad’s grill shaking hands on our business venture.

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Too Expensive to Eat Out? Try These Super-Simple Homemade Meals

By Sandy Hu

According to NPD’s Crest research as reported in Nation’s Restaurant News , young people between the ages of 18 and 34 are cutting back significantly on restaurant dining. And no wonder. The unemployment rate for adults under 30 is 19.5 percent, compared with 9.5 percent for the total workforce.

So if they’re not dining out, these young people must be in the grocery store. But they’re probably not shopping for potatoes and other food ingredients. They are buying frozen entrees or ready-to-eat meals from the deli or the prepared foods case.

At Special Fork, we believe it’s not hard to cook something simple, tasty and interesting. You save money by doing it yourself, you know your meal is fresh, and you know what you are consuming without having to check an ingredient label.

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