Monthly Archives: December 2020

My Forking Thoughts on Universal Yums – Italy

I’ve subscribed to Universal Yums at www.UniversalYums.com . It’s a subscription service where you can subscribe or gift international boxes of snacks in a number of ways. Some of the basic offerings are a Yum Box. The Yum Box is six snacks, comes with a small booklet with, fun facts, trivia, a recipe and more and runs around $15.00 that includes shipping.

Fun facts and Recipe
Trivia

The larger offerings are the Yum Yum Box. All that above plus more and double the snacks for around $25.00.

The biggest offering is called The Super Yum Box. You get the above plus more and 20 snacks for around $40.00.

I let my husband pick out the first snack. He picked crisp almond cookies called Amarettini.

The cookies are very tiny and very crispy and are extremely almond forward. I think they are very good and the little bag is filled with more cookies than I imagined. This one is very good. I hope we didn’t eat the best one first again.

My husband picks the next one. It’s some sort of carrot/orange snack cake. Now this one I expected to hate because I’m not a big fan of carrot cake or most packaged snack cakes.

This is a first…….It’s surprisingly good and seems fresh. I don’t get the carrot. The cake is just moist. The cream is laced with orange and isn’t too sweet. I can eat this…It’s good.

Next we went to the Yum Bag and tried the Lemon Fizzy Soda Candy at the top of the picture.

OMG this isn’t sweet. It’s so tangy it is painful to my mouth. My husband just munched his down and said, not very fizzy or good. I painfully let mine dissolve thinking that it might get better. Mine didn’t get fizzy either and stayed painful till the last few moments. I would not try this one again.

Artificially ketchup potato chips….???????

I open the bag and they smell like ketchup….They do have the taste of ketchup but a little sweeter and also too tangy….my mouth is very sensitive and the chemicals in the chips burn my mouth…..Doesn’t bother my husband though.

I wanted to save this for last but we didn’t.

Novi chocolate hazelnut bar. This chocolate bar just melts in your mouth. It’s creamy milk chocolate that is full of flavor and even the hazelnuts are full of hazelnut flavor. I wish I had another one of these bars in my box. This one was really good.

Truffle potato chips.

I open the bag and get a slight truffle aroma. The chips are very small and are light and crisp. They do have a pleasant truffle kind of taste to them that lingers in the mouth a bit. Another very good.

Here are tarallini. They are little tasty lemon and black pepper laced micro mini bagel shaped crackers. These are very tasty. I could use another bag of these too.

Now I’m trying my last treat.

It’s a round chocolate ball that is called Tiramisu. I usually don’t like that dessert made with ladies fingers, espresso, cream and rum…..Well I will give this a try.

Ummm I get the espresso right away but it’s not too strong and quickly turns to a rich milk chocolate taste that explodes into my mouth. It’s seems very rich but also is very satisfying….Wow I like it!

Those were my Forking Thoughts on Universal Yums – Italy

www.UniversalYums.com

I note that your experience may indeed differ.

The Forking Truth

Balsamic Cipollini Onions and Cranberry Gravy Sauce Recipe

The gravy or sauce is cold in my photo and does look better warm. Just before Thanksgiving I got this beautiful bag of cipolini onions. In case you don’t know cipolini onions are small flat onions that you have to boil to peel. They are very special and are usually served with balsamic vinegar…..So I got the idea in my head that they would be great with cranberries and they are. My husband usually hates cranberry sauce but when he tasted this he said it was very good. This might be my usual cranberry sauce now. My idea of serving size might differ from your idea of serving size. Leftovers can be frozen.

Ingredients for around 12 servings

1 cup sugar

2 Tablespoons water

4 Tablespoons turkey or chicken fat (or butter)

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

2 lbs cipollini onions (boiled 2 minutes, cool, peel. Small ones I leave whole and bigger ones I chop)

1 orange (just the grated zest)

18 oz cranberries

4 bay leaves

3 cups turkey stock – preferably home made (or vegetable stock)

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

sea salt – to taste

ground black peppers – to taste

balsamic vinegar – to taste

Directions

The sugar and water go in a pot on medium heat. Do not stir. You take its off the heat in about 5 minutes when it starts to turn brown. Then stir in the fat till melted and then the vinegar.

Add onions, cranberries, bay leaves and stock and bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer.

Reduce to desired consistency and add thyme. (I reduced to around half…this took a long time)

Add salt, pepper, balsamic to taste.

Balsamic Cipollini Onion and Cranberry Gravy Sauce

Enjoy!

The Forking Truth

Forking Great Stewed Turkey Legs Recipe

Turkey legs always come out crazy great when you stew them. This is a two for one because you also get a great stew too. You need to make my home made stock for this stew. My home made stock is also used for many of my stuffing recipes and my gravy recipe. Two large leg quarters made me 25 ounces of meat and two large bowls of stew.

Ingredients for around 6 servings

2 turkey leg quarters

1 lb parsnips – peeled, diced

1/2 large sweet onion – peeled diced

2 carrots – peeled diced

2 celery ribs – diced

13 cloves garlic – fine chopped

1 cup turkey stock

1 heaping teaspoon bomba (Italian hot pepper paste) ( I used Coluccio Brand Stuzzichino Hot Pepper Paste this has really great flavors to it)

2 bay leaves

3 good branches of parsley (hard ends cut off)

12 small sprigs thyme

6 sprigs rosemary

3 branches of sage

kosher salt – sprinkle legs well

granulated garlic – sprinkle legs well

ground black pepper – sprinkle legs well

paprika – sprinkle legs well

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and have a rack in the middle of the oven for the pan.

Fill the pan with the stock, onions, garlic, celery, carrots, bay leaves, parsley, rosemary, sage and thyme.

Add the leg quarters and season the tops well with kosher salt, granulated garlic, black pepper and paprika. (I used to season all over and found that the stew got too salty…but it comes out just right if I only do the top)

This gets wrapped tight with foil and goes on the middle rack of a preheated 350 degree F oven. Ovens do differ…..so timing will differ some……In my oven this was perfect in 2 1/2 hours.

Turkey Leg Stew

You need to remove the legs and let them cool an hour. Remove the skin and clean the meat off the bones. The stock cools on the counter till room temperature and then can go in the refrigerator to chill over night. The next day you came scrap off the fat that floats to the top. Use this flavorful fat to make your gravy.

ENJOY!

The Forking Truth

Belle’s Nashville Kitchen (Scottsdale), La Piazza Al Forno (Glendale) Sala Thai (Peoria) – Take Out Food during the CoronaVirus Pandemic in Metro Phoenix AZ Week 37

A brand new restaurant called Belle’s Nashville Kitchen just opened up in Old Town Scottsdale and I wanted to try their Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich. I saw that they didn’t have a patio so we did take out.

We both got Nashville Style Hot Chicken Sandwiches. My side was a very large side salad and my husband got fries as his side.

Look at the fries they are very unusual.

They are sort of in-between a chip and a fry.

He’s a better look at the sandwich.

The chicken is crisp and has a medium hot spicy coating. Cayenne and paprika are the dominate flavors and the chicken breast is moist. I can tell you that the bun is eggy and soft. There is some creamy sauce on the upper bun with pickle chips. Under the chicken is a creamy slaw. When I tasted it at first I could taste blue cheese in it but after a bite of the chicken I didn’t taste the blue cheese anymore????????? (kitchen accident? had blue cheese dressing with my salad……maybe some dressing splashed on my sandwich….look at my take out package…..looks like someone wiped something out of it?)………Overall it was unique and tasty.

www.BellesNashvilleKitchen.com

We also did take out from La Piazza Al Forno in Old Town Glendale.

They are well known for their Neapolitan Certified Pizzas and have been featured on Diners Drives and Dives a number of times on Food Network TV.

La Piazza Al Forno serves a variety of pizzas these days. Besides Neapolitan Certified Pizzas with hand pulled mozzerella they also offer Roman Style Pizzas and the New York Style weekend special pizzas. I heard that they also plan to offer Detroit Style pizzas in the near future. Besides pizza they offer some Italian foods and house made desserts.

Today we got the Italian Stallion Pizza and the Bianco Pizza with added Calabrian Chilies.

I’ve had many wonderful and delicious Neapolitan and Neapolitan style pizzas in metro phoenix but the crust here has a special tenderness and taste that is different. The hand pulled mozzarella (made in house) is also more flavorful. They also use a special higher quality milky ricotta that is special….It taste like fresh made almost like rich mascarpone. My favorite pizza here its usually the Bianco pizza on the right. It’s made with fresh hand pulled mozzarella, a high quality ricotta, Sicilian oregano, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil and garlic. I always add on the nicely flavored not too spicy Calabrian chilies…that just makes it POP!…….. I’ll be honest like I always am….that is why this is The Forking Truth……….. The pizzas here are not consistent but still are always delicious. I strongly prefer when they make the Bianco like the one below. See they look different!

It taste better when they spread the ricotta cheese with the hand pulled mozzarella and it all melts together and taste great. The solution is to spread the ricotta yourself.

My husband usually prefers a meaty pizza. But in a few days gets to share my Bianco leftovers and always says that he really likes that pizza too!

www.LaPiazzaFamiglia.com

Our last take out of the week was from Sala Thai in Peoria /#UpperWestSide

Obviously Sala Thai serves Thai Food.

We enjoy the spicy basil dishes here because they hand chop the proteins and these dishes are infused with more basil flavor, have more heat and run less sweet than from other near by Thai restaurants near us.

Below was our take out. Spicy basil fried pork rice and spicy pumpkin basil with chicken.

Below is a saucier version of what I had.

That was week 37 of take out during the coronavirus pandemic in metro Phoenix AZ.

www.SalaThaiAZ.com

Every THING is subject to change.

The Forking Truth