Today is the first day of Lent – the somber Christian season of prayer, observance and repentance in preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – and I have a confession to make: I associate Lent with food. Here’s why: during Lent, you’re supposed to abstain from enjoying little luxuries and pleasures. Thus, many people of faith vow to fast on different foods like sweets, potato chips, etc. during the entire six week season (even though I swear I was taught that Sunday was an exception ….). Another touchstone of the Lenten season is the practice of fasting from animal products. Though different faiths take this rule to different levels, the general rule that you cannot consume meat on Ash Wednesday, or any Friday.  
As a little girl, meatless Fridays were an excuse for eating some of my favorite foods: tuna fish salad, fried shrimp, grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, and pizza. Born and raised in a predominantly Catholic area, Lent in Northeastern Pennsylvania goes hand in hand with Church pizza bakes, fish fries, and homemade Polish pierogies in butter and caramelized onions. There’s really nothing like it.
There’s nothing like a Gramercy pizza on a Friday night during Lent (and all year long).
Even on Holy Thursday, my family would take me to visit the seven churches of Pittston in honor of Jesus’s walk up to Mount Calvary, I couldn’t get food off of my mind. Though it was supposed to be a somber event, I was still secretly excited about visiting those churches that passed out freshly baked bread to mark the feast of the Last Supper. I could barely contain the smile on my face when I felt that fresh roll from the National Bakery in my hands at St. Mary’s Assumption Church (R.I.P. St. Mary’s!). So naturally, I’ve grown to associate Lent with food – but my heart was always in the right place, with God, to whom I am sincerely thankful for blessing me and my family with food to eat. 
In honor of Lent, I thought I’d post this easy and healthy recipe for boneless “bites.” I just love boneless chicken bites, my favorite are from the Tipsy Turtle in Jenkins Township. A great alternative to boneless chicken bites and chicken wings for Lent is this meatless recipe that I saw Rachel Ray Show.  It’s SUPER easy and tasty AND healthy! This is def something I will be making again and again. You can eat these on their own or in a salad, as shown below. Just eat them right after roasting, since they’re better hot. 
Hot Honey Garlic Turtle Bites from the Tipsy Turtle.
Roasted cauliflower bites with blue cheese dipping sauce. 
Fairytale Cauliflower Bites and Blue Cheese Ranch Dipper

Adopted from Rachel Ray.
(Serves 2-4)
Ingredients:

  • 1 head of cauliflower, cut into 1 inch florets
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
  • Salt
  • 1/2 cup hot sauce

  • For the ranch dipper:
  • 1 cup Greek-style yogurt
  • Juice of 1/2 small lemon
  • 3 tablespoons fresh herbs (such as dill, chives and parsley), chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, finely grated
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles (optional)
Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 450ºF. Place the cauliflower florets onto a nonstick baking sheet, dress with some EVOO and season with salt. Bake for 25 minutes, or until crispy and caramelized at edges. Remove from the oven, place into a large bowl and toss with the hot sauce. Serve IMMEDIATELY with Ranch Dipper alongside. (They’re not as good when they’re cold and soggy.)

For the Ranch Dipper:
In a small serving bowl, combine the yogurt, lemon juice, herbs and garlic; season with salt and pepper.
Fold in the blue cheese, if using. Serve alongside the for dipping, or use as dressing in a salad like the Tipsy Turtle does in the photo below.

This is one of many “Yum-o!” recipes – it’s good and good for you. To find out more about Yum-o!, Rachael’s nonprofit organization, visit www.yum-o.org.

Hot Honey Garlic Turtle Bite Salad from the Tipsy Turtle. 
Enjoy!

Tomorrow is the BIG day! (Pun intended.) Fat Tuesday marks the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season. Lent is a period of religious observance and fasting, usually lasting six weeks until Easter. Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras in French, is like the last hurrah before Lent, and is famously known as a holiday for eating rich, heavy foods. 

There are so many foods that I love to splurge on, but there’s nothing I love more than a gluttonous, bubbly, gooey, spicy cheese dip. It’s not hard to see why this dip is so splurge worthy when you look at the ingredients, but it’s just SOOOO good! This recipe is also great for a party because it makes a huge batch and can be made ahead of time.

(For Mardi Gras fans looking for NOLA style recipes, I’ve made gumbo before, you can see the recipe here.) 

Fairytale Cheesy Jalapeno Crab Dip
(Serves 8-10)

Ingredients:
1 lb jumbo lump crab meat
1 cup aged white cheddar, grated
1 cup oz cream cheese
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1/2 cup American cheese
1 pint heavy cream
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 orange bell pepper, diced
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup chopped jalapeños
3 cloves garlic, minced

Dippers:
Fairytale Pita Chips (see recipe below)
Dipping Pretzels

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Add a half stick of butter to a large heavy bottom sauce pan and let melt on medium high heat. Add the peppers and jalapenos and sauté until soft for a few minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute. 

Reduce heat to medium and add heavy cream and cream cheese. Stir the mixture until for about 6-8 minutes, or until the cheese is melted. The dip will start to thicken. 

Add the other cheeses in slowly. Once thickened, gently fold in lump crab meat so as not to disturb the chunks. Add the dip to the casserole dish. Keep a few chunks to place on top so you can see them. Sprinkle some reserved cheddar cheese on top. 


Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until bubbling on top. Let sit for about ten minutes so it settles. Enjoy with pita chips and dipping pretzels. 

Fairytale Pita Chips

Ingredients:
1 package of large pita breads
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley
Kosher salt
Cracked black pepper

Directions:
Preheat the oven 350 degrees. Cut the pitas in wedges. It the pitas have a pocket in the center, then you could separate them but it’s not necessary. I like to keep them together. 
Lightly brush the pitas with olive oil. 

Bake in the oven for about ten minutes, or until lightly crispy and browned. When ready, toss in a bowl  with Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and parsley.

Enjoy!

Remember that feeling that you used to get when the ice cream man came around? Well, there’s something to celebrate again. The food truck trend has hit Scranton – finally! The “What the Fork” truck was born last year and resided mostly in locations around Dunmore. It now regularly makes appearances in downtown Scranton on the corner of Spruce and North Washington and sometimes Penn Avenue and Spruce. 

It’s not hard to figure out why truck was cleverly named What the Fork. The menu, described as American Fusion, changes daily and seasonally. Some of the items that have appeared on the What the Fork Truck menu include these creative takes on classic lunch items: Reuben spring rolls with Russian dressing, lobster fried rice, sushi “bowl” with Yuengling battered shrimp, a fried turkey cutlet and waffle sandwich, lobster rolls, surf and turf cheesesteaks … you get the idea. This isn’t your typical hot dog and hamburger kinda stand.


Mainstays on this ##wtf menu are the beef sliders ($7) and pulled pork tacos ($6.5). The pulled pork tacos are absolutely delicious and right up there with some of the best tacos I’ve ever had – and I’ve had a lot of tacos. These soft, flour tacos are generously filled with smoked pulled pork, Sriracha slaw, sweet potato straws and candysauce (an apricot ginger barbecue sauce). I mean, I would get these every time if I wasn’t so tempted to try their other items. 

Pulled pork tacos with sriracha slaw and candysauce.

The beef sliders are made with pepperjack cheese and topped with “bacon jam” a bacon and onion relish. Mine were a little bit on the overdone side for my liking and I missed the slice of cheese on top, but they tasted a lot juicier and more flavorful than they looked and were VERY fresh. 

Beef sliders with the What the Fork’s famous #baconjam.

What the Fork makes their own french fries ($3) – Russet Burbank potatoes that are twice fried and sprinkled with pink Himalayan salt. These fries are the perfect example of what french fries SHOULD be – hand cut and fresh! Try dipping them in the spicy ketchup. If even these sound boring to you, there’s typically a menu item offering gourmet take on the fries, some with truffle oil and Parmesan, crab fries, or poutine (fries with gravy and mozzarella cheese). Sweet potato chips and waffle fries have also made appearances..

Huge greasy brown bag of hand cut french fries  – perfect guilty pleasure for a Friday at work!

Also on the menu – a daily soup like broccoli cheddar, sweet potato chili, andouille rice. I had the pumpkin chorizo, which was very memorable – I’ve never had anything like that before and I will be looking forward to having it again next fall. I also tried and loved the buffalo chicken soup. I was a little bit scared of it at first, but was pleasantly surprised – it wasn’t too thick or thin, it was just right and it was SPICY! They soups are served with a cute little “spork” – a combination of a plastic spoon/fork so that you can eat up your “soup” with ease. 

Pumpkin chorizo soup.

Buffalo Chicken Soup. 
This is just a small sampling of the offerings at the What the Fork food truck. I really look forward to trying the chocolate chicken chili (hopefully it makes an appearance again!) crab cake sliders, and queso sticks with ranch dressing the next time I feel like I want to be extra gluttonous. What the Fork has offered a salad before, and hopefully they will offer some kind of salad in the future or at least some greens to go with my sliders to trick my brain into thinking I’m eating a balanced meal. After all, summer is coming … 

The offerings at What the Fork range from about $3-$12. While critics can argue that this “street” food does not come cheap, one needs to remember that this isn’t frozen, processed fast food. You get what you pay for here – upscale, refined, fresh street eats. No worries if you haven’t got the cash to support your fine taste, this food truck takes credit cards!

Please visit find the daily location schedule and menu on facebook, twitter (@wtforktruck) or their website. Call ahead to place your order – or order at the truck, the food is worth the wait – even in this frigid winter!

Enjoy!

Hello everyone! 

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted but I am back and so excited to be posting again. I took a little break because I’ve been super busy with a lot of exciting things in the works. I was writing and interning for love and  relationship website YourTango.com. You can my article articles here

I’ve been slowly but surely learning some new tricks and techniques about blogging and HTML. I have a new mini laptop and iPad to help me take more photos and upload!  I’m working on building my own personal website from scratch which will launch in the near future. I also plan on giving Fairytale Feasts a new look pretty soon, so stay tuned. Now, back to the important stuff … the food.

Since its Super Bowl weekend AND the birthday weekend of my one and only sister Christina, I thought I’d share one of her recipes for tailgating and entertaining – her famous WING DIP! If you like wing sauce and heat, you’re sure to love this dip. 


Christina’s Fairytale Wing Dip
(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
1 package of light cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 cup of blue cheese dressing
1 cup Franks Hot Sauce
1 13 oz can Member’s Mark chicken breast
1/2 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese 


Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Shred the chicken and place in a large mixing bowl. Fold the cream cheese into the chicken.Pour in the hot sauce and blue cheese dressing. Mix everything together well taking out the clumps. Spread the dip into a baking dish. Sprinkle shredded cheese on top and drizzle with some additional Frank’s hot sauce. Bake in oven until the dip bubbles and browns on top, about 20-30 minutes.


This dip can be prepared the ahead of your event. Just keep in the fridge overnight and bake when ready.







Enjoy!