A Moving Letter from Rachel in Pennsylvania

Dear Isabella and Liv,

Hi!  My name's Rachel and I'm a 12 year old girl from Pennsylvania. I checked your
cookbook out from the library and loved it!!! It saved my life!! (Literally!) I'll
tell you why. Yesterday at 5:00 in the morning my dad woke me up and told me that he
needed to rush my mom to the emergency room. She was in a lot of pain. So I needed
to stay home with my 1 brother and 2 sisters. (I'm the oldest.) Well, my parents
didn't come back home 'til 12:35 p.m. Our grandparents were with us for some of the
time though . It was really scary. I used your cookbook to keep the kid's minds off
my mom. I just told them we were going to make something out of your book and they
were so excited!! (They love your book too!) We made something easy, the eggs with
spinach and cheese. (We didn't have any ham...) So I just wanted to thank you guys!
Thank you so much and keep it up!!!

Luv,
Rachel
P.S. Reply would cause many happy screams from younger brothers and sisters!!! LOL! =)

Spatulatta's Reply:

Rachel, what a wonderful big sister you are!  We're glad that the Spatulatta Cookbook brought
cheer to your family :)

We hope your Mom had a speedy recovery!  Please keep us updated.  

Yours,
Team Spatulatta

Chicago Event: Spatulatta at Millenium Park

If you're in the Chicago area, come out this Sunday, September 28. Belle and Liv will give a live Spatulatta cooking demo at Chicago Gourmet in Millenium Park. Belle and Liv, along with other nationally known Chicago chefs will stir up delicious creations for the event, which features seminars, cooking demos, and of course yummy tastings! The Spatulatta demo takes place at 2:30 PM in the Whole Foods Market Family Village, located just East of Great Lawn. Kids, wear your Spatulatta apron and receive a FREE gift! Autographed Spatulatta Cookbooks will be sold. To learn more, click on Chicago Gourmet. To purchase tickets, click here. *Whole Foods Market Family Village tickets can be purchased separately from other events.

Dining in Style!

Above are two adorable photos of Liv posing with Spatulatta's co-creator, Gaylon. These were taken a few months ago at the 2008 James Beard Awards in New York City.

Props from Balboa Elemtary School

Dear Olivia and Belle,

Your are great cooks! We really enjoy watching your cooking
videos. Our favorite recipes are the bunny cupcake and the worms in dirt.
Thank you so much for sharing your talent with us. We will continue to
watch your video throughout our school year.

Love,
2nd grade students
Balboa Elementary
San Diego, Californica

Blue Corn Muffins

Blue corn muffins are a perfect addition to breakfast. Try this recipe from the Jalapeno Cafe.

(makes 1 dozen)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup blue corn meal for tortillas or for atole
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Generously grease a twelve cup muffin pan and place in oven to heat while preparing batter.

In a bowl, stir together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl beat eggs, milk and melted butter, until blended. Pour liquid into dry mixture, stir just to moisten.

Remove muffin pan from oven and spoon in batter.

*Make sure muffin pan is very hot when spooning in batter, this will keep the muffins from sticking to pan when you remove them.

Bake 18 to 20 minutes until tops browned.

Remove from oven and turn out muffins to plate. Serve with butter and honey.

Visit the Jalapeno Cafe for more recipes!

Jessica's Garlic Chicken & Pasta

Our buddy Jessica created a great recipe below.
Keep cookin Jessica!
-Team Spatulatta

Hi Liv and Belle! 

I was just writing to tell you that I love your show. It's awesome! I always go on
to see if you added any new recipes.  Anyway, here's my recipe for Garlic Chicken and Pasta.  
I sort of just made it up one night! 

• Saute 4 chicken breasts in a pan.

• While the chicken is cooking, make the pasta.

• To make the garlic sauce, put a stick of butter into a saucepan and melt it. When the butter has melted, add about 2 tablespoons of chopped garlic. (It can be from a jar)
  

• Then, add a little bit of oregano. Put the pasta on a plate, then the chicken, and pour some garlic sauce on each plate.

It's really good!

Makes about 4 servings.

From, 
Jessica 

Top Notch Recipe on a Low Budget

Jean from Illinois sent us her beef recipe with an interesting story :)

Jean wrote:

I've got to tell you and the girls about my new
recipe.

Recently I bought a small covered oval roaster made by
Graniteware, at my local Ace Hardware store. I had to
buy the rack (with handles) for it directly from the
manufacturer.  Before I bought the rack, I cooked a
chicken in it and was very happy.

Today, I used the rack for the first time.
I like to buy food at Dominick's in Lincolnwood. When
meat gets close to its sell-or-freeze-by date, they
stick on coupons adding lots off, e.g. an additional
30% off. It's a great way for this food-stamp
recipient to get great food cheaper. If I had enough
money & freezer space, I'd buy all the beef so
discounted, just to make sure it wasn't thrown out.
Jewel doesn't do this.

This is what I bought for my project, a true impulse
recipe idea:

1. beef chuck/top blade steak/boneless/.86 lb.
2. beef chuck/cross rib steak/boneless/.60 lb.
3. beef loin/top sirloin steak/boneless/1.12 lb.
1 onion

The beef pieces were all fairly thin, not the classic
chunky roast. Didn't matter.

Procedure:

0. slice the onion
1. spray bottom of roaster with some non-stick cooking
spray.
2. add 1/2 cup of water
3. put rack in
4. place biggest piece of meat on rack
5. sprinkle seasonings on top of meat
6. place onion slice(s) on top of meat
7. place another piece or pieces of meat on top of
onion slices
8. add seasonings and another set of onion slices as
before
9. place another piece of meat on top of onions
10. add seasonings as before

Pre-heat oven to 325F.

When oven is pre-heated, cover the roaster and put it
in oven carefully.

Check it later to make sure the top piece of meat
hasn't slid off onion - reposition if needed.
Cook for 2 hours.

Use handles to lift food out of roaster.
Pour off juice into separate container.
Etc.

I was super-pleased that the meat was more tender than
I expected. I just ate the top piece, because it's
obviously a 3-serving dish I made. This roaster is
made in several bigger sizes, so you can cook more at
once.

Although I surely made some correct choices in time
and temperature; the Graniteware covered roasters are
"the poor man's Dutch oven" without the thermal mass
of cast iron. It isn't just the speckled enamel that
makes Americans so fond of them!

I'm not telling which seasonings I used - a different
group for each layer of meat - because that's part of
the beauty of this recipe: you can choose your
seasonings, and also the vegetables to put in between
the layers of meat.

Normally I wouldn't offer Spatulatta a recipe, because
I'm a grownup and it's supposed to be the girls'
project. But, the opportunity to make all these
choices gives them plenty of room to be creative.
I've been buying meat nearing the sell-by date for a
long time, but never got this creative. Maybe in these
times when most people are trying to save money, it's
an opportunity to encourage cooks to venture
"off-label" in preparing meat. Cooked is cooked. If I
braised a steak and it came out tender, it's correctly
cooked!

As for the added expense of driving to Dominick's in
Lincolnwood (or Howard L station?) versus walking to
the Jewel, I can't fix that.