Fast Food

I think I’ve had Arby’s no more than twice in my life. Part of the reason is because I have never lived near one. Also I’ve just never thought, ‘Wow, that [insert Arby's menu item] sounds fantastic and I need to drive out of my way to have it.’ The only time I ever hear [...]

Torimi Cafe, a peculiar spot in Japan that serves homemade treats while guests enjoy their meals surrounded by birds, recently rolled out a new feather-friendly flavor: Pet Bird-Flavored Ice Cream.  Because you know, pizza-flavored and ramen-flavored ice cream are so banal by now. The cafe’s new flavors include Cockatiel, Java Sparrow and Parakeet, all which debuted last week at a small bird expo in Osaka. According to the business, the ice cream is made with all-natural ingredients and  “once in your mouth, the aroma of a parakeet would spread intensely.” Oh, but it gets better. According to Torimi Cafe, the Java Sparrow flavor evokes “the feeling of pressing the breast of a java sparrow into your mouth,” while the Cockatiel ice cream emulates that moment  “when you’re sleeping with your mouth open and your cockatiel runs over your face and gets its leg in your mouth.” Happens all the time. And to think I was so naive as to think that this “Pet-Bird” flavored ice cream would taste like chicken. Silly me. H/T + PicThx RocketNews24 The post ‘Pet-Bird’ Flavored Ice Cream is A Real, Edible Thing appeared first on Foodbeast.

From the World of Uber-Expensive, Ultimately Useless, But Really Convenient Gadgets (Williams-Sonoma for short) comes the Press Art lemon and lime squeezer. Imagine this: You’re hosting your annual $4500 a plate dinner for Socially Challenged Purebred Poodles. The food is hot and pricey and fancy. You can tell because it’s the type of stuff that has at least three names and always tastes better with fresh squeezed lemon. Like, really fresh squeezed. Of course, you want your guests to feel involved, so you give everyone their own lemon slices and let them at it. Unfortunately  your men have diamond cufflinks, and your ladies are wearing Bedazzled silk gloves, so juicing a lemon the standard way is a no go. Enter Press Art and their admittedly gorgeous citrus squeezers. Made of acid-impervious, BPA-free, “almost unbreakable” Copolyester, the little plastic doohickey is dishwasher safe, and comes with a built-in spout for easy juice distribution. Plus, it makes your lemons 50 percent more efficient, so you’re saving money in the (really) long run. The spout also makes it easy to pour lime juice directly into your Corona, meaning it’s an all-around winner in my book. Other features include the potential for personalized engravings and the fact that it’s made in France. France. Press Art Lemon & Lime Squeezer $8.95 – $12.95 for one or a set of 2 for $15.99 @Amazon The post This is Admittedly the Most Gorgeous Way to Squeeze a Lemon appeared first on Foodbeast.

As you know, Foodbeast was able to get an exclusive with MasterChef season 3 winner, Christine Ha. We were also lucky enough to feature an exquisite recipe from her new book, Recipes From My Home Kitchen: Asian and American Comfort Food. These egg rolls were something Christine’s mother used to make for her and something Christine has spent years trying to recreate. And now, thanks to her cookbook deal for winning MasterChef, all you Foodbeasts out there can enjoy her recipe from home. Chow down, folks! And then hug your moms for me! ___________ MY MAMA’S EGG ROLLS Cha Gio cua Me MAKES 50 LARGE OR 100 SMALL EGG ROLLS Vietnamese egg rolls are one of my absolute favorite things to eat — I could easily eat them every day. Nobody made them better than my own mama, who would set aside a whole day to make them. Because prepping and cooking them was so time consuming, egg rolls were a rare treat in my home. I liked to help my mama mix the filling, breathing in the pungent aromas of garlic and fish sauce. I loved peeling the egg roll skins apart, and eventually, when I proved to be pretty good at it, she let me try my own hand at wrapping. I’ve relied on my olfactory and tactile memories to re-create those rolls here. Serve these with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette (page 178), for dipping, or do as I do and eat them straight. Ingredients  4 ounces dried wood ear mushrooms 8 ounces dried bean thread noodles 1 pound ground pork 1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and minced 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped 1 large carrot, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 shallots, finely chopped 1/3 cup fish sauce 2 large eggs Freshly ground black pepper 100 (5 x 5-inch) Filipino egg roll wrappers* 1 egg, beaten Peanut or canola oil *Filipino egg roll wrappers are not easy to find. If you can’t find them, use rice paper wrappers instead. See “Skin Deep.” Directions Soak the mushrooms and noodles in hot water for 5 to 10 minutes or until tender, then finely chop. In a large bowl, combine the pork, shrimp, onion, carrot, mushrooms, noodles, garlic, shallots, fish sauce, and eggs and season with pepper to taste. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Place a wrapper in front of you with 1 point facing you. Place 1 tablespoon of the filling on the center bottom third of the wrapper, depending on its size. Fold the bottom corner up over the filling, pinching the skin tightly around the filling to get rid of air pockets. Fold the left corner over the filling, followed by the right. Dab a little beaten egg on the top and roll the egg roll away from you and seal it. Pour 2 inches of oil into a heavy-bottom saucepan. Heat the oil to 350°F and deep-fry the egg rolls in batches until golden brown and crisp, turning occasionally, making sure not to overcrowd the pan so that they don’t stick together. SKIN DEEP When shopping for the egg roll skins, try to buy the Filipino wrappers and not the Chinese ones, which are too thick and will produce a bubbly skin after frying. My grandma made even more traditional egg rolls by using Vietnamese rice paper instead of the Filipino skins; if using rice paper, soak the dehydrated rice paper in very hot water to make it pliable before wrapping. Since the rice paper is already sticky, you won’t need any egg to seal it. CREDIT: Reprinted from “Recipes from my Home Kitchen” by Christine Ha. Copyright (c) 2013 by Reveille Independent LLC. By permission of Rodale Books. Available wherever books are sold. The post My Mama’s Egg Rolls – A Recipe by MasterChef Christine Ha [RECIPE] appeared first on Foodbeast.

Darth Vader is one of the coolest characters in cinematic history, and his mysteriously dark nature always has us wondering –  what the heck is underneath that black cape?! Well, thanks to artist Tom Sachs, we now know. Ol’ Darth is hoarding loads of beer and vodka. Sachs, an awesome sculptor in our books, created this one-of-a-kind Darth Vader fridge that can hold your favorite brew and even has a built-in vodka fountain. While we’re not entirely sure how the mechanism works, we do know this is something all Star Wars superfans should have. Why? It’d be like partying with the big DV and nothing is more BA than that. H/T + PicThx Geekologie The post Darth Vader Fridge Chills Beer & Has Built-In Vodka Fountain appeared first on Foodbeast.

The burrito filled with Flamin’ Hot Fritos known as the Beefy Crunch Burrito is back in Taco Bell stores nationwide today through early August.  Priced at 99-cents, this is a steal. Additionally, the NBA has teamed up with Taco Bell to create a variety of NBA Big Boxes such as the Beefy Crunch Burrito Box and Doritos Locos Tacos (DLT) Box, as well as using their existing Variety Taco 12 packs, to share a QR code for exclusive NBA related content. The suggested retail price for all boxes is $5.00.  Beefy Crunch Burrito, Crunchwrap Supreme, Crunchy Taco and Medium drink for $5?  How can the Wendy’s Moonlight Meal Deal compete with that?

Let’s get real.  Everyone remembers waking up on a Sunday morning as a kid to the smell of your dad’s homemade pancakes.  No restaurant-made breakfast can top that. So whip up these Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes with Strawberry Maple Syrup from The Saturday Evening Post. We’re sure the fam/boo/roomies will adore you for it. ____________________________ Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes with Strawberry Maple Syrup Yields: 6 servings — 12 pancakes Ingredients Syrup: ¾ cup pure maple syrup 2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel (from 1 orange) ½ vanilla bean, halved lengthwise 2 cups fresh strawberries, cored and quartered Pancakes: ¾ cup all-purpose flour ¾ cup whole-wheat flour ½ cup instant oats 3 tablespoons caster sugar 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 1 ½ cups 1 percent low-fat buttermilk 2 large eggs 1 tablespoon canola oil Nonstick cooking spray 3 tablespoons unsalted butter ½ cup sliced almonds, toasted Directions To make syrup: 1) In heavy medium saucepan, combine maple syrup and orange zest. 2) Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into syrup then add bean. 3) Bring syrup to boil over high heat. 4) Remove saucepan from heat and stir in strawberries. 5) Cover and set aside off heat for 15 minutes. 6) Before serving, rewarm syrup over medium-low heat just until hot but not simmering, if necessary. Discard vanilla bean. To make pancakes: 1) In large bowl, whisk all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to blend. 2) In medium bowl, whisk buttermilk, eggs, and oil to blend. 3) Pour buttermilk mixture into flour mixture and stir with wooden spoon just until moist but still lumpy. 4) Heat large nonstick griddle pan or heavy large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Spray pan with nonstick spray. 5) Using about ? cup of batter for each pancake, spoon batter onto griddle and cook until pancakes are golden brown and puffed, 2 to 3 minutes per side. 6) Wipe griddle or skillet with paper towels and spray with nonstick spray before cooking each batch of pancakes. 7) Transfer pancakes to plates. 8) Top with butter and spoon strawberries and syrup over pancakes. Sprinkle with almonds and serve immediately. Photo Courtesy Saturday Evening Post The post Make These Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes + Strawberry Maple Syrup appeared first on Foodbeast.

It would seem the art world has a knack for showing off literal food-photography. First this “tying the knot” business and now a “balanced diet” from stylist Elena Mora and photographer Karsten Wegener. Impressively, being literal means not only are the photographed meals fairly inclusive in terms of food groups, but they’re also balanced, as in a poorly-timed sneeze could send your dinner over the edge. The series is called “The Ricettario: A Balanced Diet“ (ricettario means “cookbook” in Italian) and is meant to examine the ingredients in salmon, minestrone, apple pie, and pizza margherita. Although, we think it looks more like a physics experiment of the tastiest variety. H/T + PicThx Design Taxi The post Literally Balanced Meals are Pretty, Precarious appeared first on Foodbeast.

College student Christine Ha went on quite a journey last year on FOX’s MasterChef. The blind contestant was the biggest underdog in the show’s history, overcoming challenge after challenge on the competitive-cooking reality show. Standing in front of judges Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Joe Bastianich, Christine blew through the auditions, making it to the top final contestants and eventually won the competition. She took home the title of MasterChef and walked away with a cookbook deal. FoodBeast got the pleasure of speaking to her and about some of those struggles and what’s she been up to since she was announced the winner in the season 3 finale. — What were some of your biggest challenges during the competition? The biggest challenge is just not really knowing what to expect on the show, what the challenge would be, who would be going home. I think the highest level of stress is not knowing. By nature, I’m a person that would rather know bad news than not know. After you lost your vision, what was it like for you to get back in the kitchen and relearn to cook? It took a while to get back in the kitchen. It was just something I thought maybe I had to give up. I didn’t think that I would be able to cook again. I thought I could only make very simple things like sandwiches or things that don’t really require too much heat or too many knives. I think that just over time, because I love food so much and I love cooking, I wanted to find to get back into that kitchen no matter what. It was just slowly but surely just getting back into it and getting the right tools that would help me adapt to cooking without vision. Those sorts of things helped and a lot of practice honestly. [I] just started off cutting slowly again and eventually you just learn to do everything by feel. Do you remember the first thing you made after you lost your vision? My first attempt at making anything was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was actually very unsuccessful, so that’s why I thought I would never be able to cook again. I couldn’t even make a PB&J sandwich let alone cook anything. That’s what I attempted when I first lost my vision. Can you talk a bit about how you lost your sight? I have an autoimmune condition called Neuromyelitis optica, or NMO for short. It’s similar to MS where it’s the immune system attacking the neurological system thinking it’s a foreign object. With my condition, it tends to attack the optic nerves, which is how I lost my vision, and my spinal cord, which sometimes affects my motor and sensory skills as well. I was diagnosed with [NMO] in 2004 but I started losing a little bit of vision in one of my eyes before that in 1999. In 2004, it worsened and in 2007, it decreased to the level that it is now. What’s it been like for you since winning the MasterChef competition? It’s been a whirlwind. My life just got turned upside-down. There’s been some amazing opportunities, my favorite, obviously, being able to write this book and having it published. I’m also a creative writer and so this naturally marries two different things that I enjoy: food and words. It was a great opportunity and good fortune that I was able to write this cookbook after I won and I think that’s the best prize that I got out of the whole competition. Speaking of your cookbook, how does it feel to have yours hit the shelves? It’s like a long-awaited thing that finally has arrived. There’s been a lot of anticipation, not only for me, but for everyone that has been waiting on the cookbook since I was announced as the winner. I probably every day get a question on one of my different means of social media about when my cookbook’s coming out. It’s been a while, so it’s exciting and I’m glad that people are finally going to read it and cook from it and I’m looking forward to see what people think of it. Was Vietnamese food something you loved growing up? I think it was something I loved but I didn’t know I loved. It was someth

Turns out, that kid sipping PBR while waxing poetic about Nietzsche and existential nihilism is to blame for driving up prices of cheap beer. According to a study by food research group Restaurant Sciences, the popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon may be the reason low-cost beers such as Budweiser, Miller Lite and Coors Light have seen up to a 6.8 percent price spike over the past seven months.  “I believe the single biggest driver in sub-premium beer price increases is indeed specifically PBR,” Chuck Ellis, head of Restaurant Sciences, told the NY Daily News. Researchers reason that since PBR has “become quite fashionable,” restaurants and bars feel justified charging more for it and other standard non-craft brews. The study further states: While all the attention has been on Craft (Ultra-Premium) beers, the price of mainstay brands in the mid-price (Premium) tier have risen more dramatically. And traditionally lower-priced beers such as Pabst Blue Ribbon have seen sizeable double-digit price increases in both restaurants and bars & nightclubs. Still, the study found no concrete cause and effect relationship between PBR’s popularity and rising prices of premium to sub-premium beer. So, take it with a grain of hops. (Slick, I know.) H/T Gothamist + PicThx The L Magazine, Restaurant Sciences The post Study Says Hipster’s PBR Obsession is Driving Up Cheap Beer Prices appeared first on Foodbeast.