Recent excerpts from our Lunch with Lauren Facebook Group by Lauren Townsend for The Aha! Connection
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I don’t remember the last time I bought salad dressing. Once you start making your own, you will never go back. It’s easy, limited or no chemical emulsifiers, healthy and you can adjust based on your taste and what you put in your salad.
Gu’s Dumplings is open for takeout only. Call ahead for their amazing pork dumplings or this smoked pork belly fried rice.
Raise your hand if you can get on board for some Tastee Spoon Jamaican food? Coming soon to the former burger IM space. 🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️
Can we just make a pact now to support this business? I hate seeing this space behind village burger turn over again.
I could probably eat this everyday. Sashimi grade yellowtail with watermelon, balsamic and basil. It has lots of good nutritional benefits, but mostly it’s so dang delicious. 🍉
Thankfully, some new friends told me about Best Bread Baking in Chamblee. The falafel is the BEST! It’s actually made right in front of you. Best Bread is a wholesale bakery that supplies baked good to many of Atlanta’s restaurants, but on Tuesdays and Fridays, they open they front door to sell some retail items like babka and bagels and well as this insane falafel platter with everything including fresh pita. They serve until they run out and it’s carry out only, although I did see a number of people eating in their cars and now I know why; they couldn’t wait to get home.
I don’t know if this happens in other homes, but my kids will be all about something, like cherries, so I buy them, and then boom, no one eats cherries. I’ve found that with enough sugar and cornstarch, I can turn just about anything into a pie. This was a bag of cherries that was about to die in my fridge. Pitted, it was about 5 cups. Then 3/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup cornstarch, a tablespoon of vanilla and at least a cup of lemon juice. I cooked it to get out excess moisture and cooled to make sure it was a good, thick consistency.
I really like Ina Garten’s dough recipe, since my husband won’t give me his 🙄.
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter.
3 cups all-purpose flour.
1 tablespoon sugar.
1 teaspoon kosher salt.
1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening, such as Crisco.
1/2 cup ice water.
Dice butter and out back in fridge. Then soft dry ingredients into a food processor and pulse a few times. Add shortening and butter and pulse a few more times. Add water from the top and pulse until just mixed. You don’t want it to completely stick together, think a little crumbly. Press it all together in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30/45 minutes, but not any longer. This is enough to make a double crust, so cut in half. I like to egg wash the inside before I fill and then the top. Also, a preheated baking sheet also helps keep the bottom crusty. Bake at 400.
Are you adding Lunch Lady to your job description this fall? Or maybe your kids are just tired of bagel bites? Here are few ideas to help mix things up for those kids eating lunch at home. every. single. day.
