Asian Chicken Lettuce Cups

By Zoe McLaughlin
A new video for Video Friday

This Asian restaurant favorite couldn't be easier to make! The combination of the crunchy iceberg lettuce, fragrance of ginger and garlic, and sweetness from the hoisin sauce makes these wraps a perfect bite. This recipe can be turned into wonderful appetizers by simply spooning the chicken into smaller lettuce cups – they’re sure to be a crowd pleaser.

The simplicity of this dish is what makes it memorable and something you will make again and again. To streamline the recipe even further, instead of diced chicken you could use ground chicken; even ground pork would work nicely in this recipe.

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Make your own Mayo

By Jennifer Knapp
A new video for Video Friday

Mayonnaise is the condiment that most of us have at any given time in the fridge. What would that tuna salad sandwich be without it?

But what many people don't know, is that if you have a food processor (or even if you don't!), it’s easy to make own creamy homemade mayonnaise. While you may want to reach for the commercial jar for everyday use, homemade mayonnaise does taste different and there’s nothing like it for a sauce or dip.

By adding a little minced garlic to your mayonnaise, you can turn it into a flavorful aioli. You can also add just about any kind of chopped herb, such as parsley, chives, tarragon or basil, to customize the flavor.

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A King Cake for Mardi Gras

By Joanne Lamb Hayes
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

At my house, Mardi Gras always caused a big debate. Are we going to have pancakes, doughnuts or King Cake? Now that everyone is grown up and my grandchildren get a vote, this King Cake easily wins but I suspect some members of the family might pick up a doughnut on their way to work or home from school.

The egg-free dough is easily prepared in a food processor or mixer and even very young children like to roll out, roll up, shape and taste a bite of the dough.

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A Quick Dinner for One

By Lori Powell
For One or Two Bites, a blog for singles and couples

Frozen ravioli is a great shortcut to putting dinner on the table. The key is to find the brand that you like.

Fresh Market in my neighborhood makes some exceptional flavors such as pumpkin, roasted vegetable and a cheese one that is not all about the fillers or preservatives. The dough is thin and tender, and cooks up in no time.

So I have dinner on the table in minutes without any guilt that I’m eating something that’s not healthful. The other great thing is that frozen ravioli are easy to portion out since they are individual pouches of deliciousness.

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Six-second Videos and Other Newsy Tidbits

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

Twitter introduced Vine just over a week ago and at Special Fork, we couldn’t wait to try this truncated video format – limited to just six seconds long! The video is ephemeral; once you post it to Twitter, it’s not readily findable again.

In order to share our Vine videos with you, I’ve captured the original links from Twitter. Since Special Fork is about solving the dinnertime dilemma, we didn’t want to just video six random seconds of cooking or eating. We wanted our Vine posts to be a teachable moment.

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