Inside Special Fork: Taking a Look at our Free Cookbook

By Sandy Hu

If you follow Special Fork, you know that we blog from Monday through Friday to bring fresh stories and recipe ideas to you every weekday.

I post every Monday, with a general blog directed at the entire Special Fork community. On Tuesdays, Katie focuses on cooking newbies; on Wednesdays, Lori advises singles and couples; on Thursdays, Marilyn and Andrew reach out to busy parents; and on Fridays, we do a video blog, demonstrating a recipe from the Special Fork database.

When you type www.specialfork.com in your Internet browser, the website will recognize whether you are coming from a smartphone, such as an iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone; or a computer and will serve up the right website (mobile or conventional) to you.

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My Favorite Go-To Meal

By Joy Liao

Now that school is back in session, I’m reminded of one of my favorite go-to meals from my college days. While I, like most students, survived on microwave dinners, fast food burgers and instant ramen, I was always on the hunt for simple meals that required few ingredients and little prep time. My solution: Stir-fry Noodles.

Hearty and flavorful, this versatile, one-pan meal can satisfy the biggest of appetites. The recipe calls for few kitchen tools and no advanced cooking know-how, making it the perfect dish for the cooking newbie.

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Indian Summer Paletas

By Marilyn Hunter

I love Indian summer in California. Just when everyone is getting ready for sweaters and football season, Californians are enjoying the remains of those warm summer days. These are heat wave days in L.A. with temperatures into the 100s. For those of us who don’t have a pool, we often turn to popsicles for relief. And keepin’ it real in L.A. means not just any popsicle, but a Mexican paleta.

If you’ve never visited a paletería, it’s time you did. Paletas are ice pops made from fresh fruit. They come in a wide variety of flavors from mango, pineapple and tamarind to arroz con leche and cucumber with chile y limón. I once read that if summer in L.A. had a flavor, it would be mango con chile.

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In Love with Cranberry Beans

By Lori Powell

This past weekend, I went upstate to visit with friends and neighbors that I hadn’t seen in a while. But truly, the other real draw was to visit the farmers’ market two miles up the road from my house in uptown Kingston, New York.

Much devastation was brought upon the farmers in that area. All the flooding and high winds destroyed crops to the point that they were completely washed out and their wares were found tumbling over the falls in High Falls, New York.

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Don’t be Foiled

By Katie Barreira

I remember a drawer in my nana’s kitchen that was dedicated entirely to neatly folded squares of used tinfoil. Although we find ourselves in the midst of a recession, I won’t push this sort of Depression era scrapping. Instead, here are three great ways to use aluminum foil that will save you loads of time and frustration.

Don’t be…
Foiled by Parchment Paper
Cooking en papillote refers to food that is baked in a neat envelope of parchment paper, which puffs full of steam for gentle cooking and a dramatic presentation when the paper is slit open at the table and the eater is enveloped by the aromatic steam.

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