Corduroy Orange

I was talking to my mom about making sausage the other day and I mentioned how I like to add ginger into my pork sausage.  “Is there anything you don’t put ginger in?” she asked.

Well, yes, but the reason I put it into so many things is that it is really a versatile spice.  Matching equally well with the sweet and the spicy, it just works well in lots of settings.  One of my favorite places for using ginger is definitely sauteed mushrooms.

Pictured here with a slice of Southwestern Sweet Potato Bake, a recipe I developed for Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, mushrooms sauteed with ginger are a quick and easy side for just about any meal of the day.

I always start with crimini mushrooms.  In Pittsburgh, at least, these mushrooms are available in bulk from just about every grocery store at a lower cost and with more flavor than your typical white button mushroom, which makes them the better choice from both budgetary and culinary perspectives.  Today, I also had some beautiful maitake mushrooms from Wild Purveyors and the mushroom share that they offer via Kretschmann Farms CSA.

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So, I recently paid the annual bill that keeps this page on the ‘net, and I noticed that it’s been a while since I actually did anything in this space except check my own recipes.  I do, after all, have my favorites that I go back to on an occasional basis to get some advice from myself.

But, just because I haven’t been putting stuff up here, doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on some cool stuff.  I’m linking below to some of the cool materials that I’ve been putting together for Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank over the past couple of years.  These are resources that we publish mainly for our clients, but they are available online for anyone to use at pittsburghfoodbank.org/resources/nutrition/

Rolling Oats

This was a really fun project to work on, and really useful, too.  Most people know that it is important to eat more whole grains, but the advice we see can sometimes be confusing.  Case in point, Reese’s Puffs cereal, which proclaims across the front of its box that whole grain is the first ingredient (yes, but how many of the next several are some form of sugar?)

Oats are about the most economical source of whole grain nutrition around, and are always on Food Bank inventory.  This 16-page magazine gives several ways to make oats a more frequent part of your diet, whether by turning them into a savory pilaf, a fruit crisp, a granola bar, bread dough, or a no-roll pie crust.  Click on the picture above to download the whole magazine.

Special thanks to Kevin Watson of Savoy Restaurant for providing a great interview to make this volume complete!

Spuds Illustrated

Potatoes are one of my favorite flavor vehicles.  They’re such a versatile canvas to paint upon!  This 12-page magazine gives tips to make them more interesting at the table by combining them with other vegetables, and using each type of potato according to its own strengths.  Get tips including how to store, how to cut, best ever home fries, and the best vegan mashed potatoes you’ll ever taste.  Click on the photo above to download the whole issue.

CAN Newsletter

Every month, the CAN Newsletter goes out to everyone who gets food from one of the food pantries in the Food Bank’s network.  Each issue focuses on ideas and recipes related to an ingredient or theme.  Click the photo above to get this month’s issue, with 2 great winter squash recipes and some jack o’ lantern carving tips, or visit pittsburghfoodbank.org/resources/nutrition/ to see back issues and the Food Bank’s full lineup of photo-illustrated recipe resources.

If you need help with food, visit www.pittsburghfoodbank.org/gethelp to get connected with a food pantry, soup kitchen, SNAP benefits, and more.

If you’re in a position to help the food bank, visit www.pittsburghfoodbank.org/givehelp to volunteer, donate, or advocate for public policy that helps everyone have enough to eat.