Outclass the Competition
by Harold Almon
baesoe.com
Be at Ease School of Etiquette Austin
Grains as a snack or as cocktail food can include.
Jalapeño bagels: bagels with jalapenos atop them: buy them by the bag. Separate each can cost .85 cents and up. A bag of six of the same in a bag can be had for $2.89; thank you Jeff. A bagel may be served cut in halves or quarters. You could get and serve bagel minis. You may have bagels sent through the slicer for the middle and two sides to be cut. You can eat the slices like this or make bagel crisps. When making only one half of a bagel, (one waffle,) or one slice of toast at a time, each is to be placed in the side of the toaster designed to only do one slice. Look for the picture on the toaster now, or always make toast at least two pieces at a time. (Why, the single slice of misplaced toast will smoke and chase you out of your house.)
Baguettes can be used as crusted bread for snacks and trays. I have baguettes sliced, first into fourths, then have two fourths sliced lengthwise and two fourths sliced widthwise. For this, you may use a Rustic baguette. Baguettes have a GI of 95, until you put butter, oil, or fat on it.
Informal breads can be used at the dinner table. It is not etiquette. Informal buns are made for burgers and franks and sliced bread is for breakfast and sandwiches. White bread has a GI of 73, until you put fat on it. Oil your grains. Still to make someone remember this as a treat you have got to do something awesome with the sauce or the meat. Seasoned croutons can be served as a snack or as a cocktail food.
Informal breads may include Gata, Lakshee, Lavash,
Manaesh, Mardoc, Naan, and Tandoori. Each can be served with cocktail foods, as can others you already know.
Pita may be used as bread or chips for dips and spreads. Each can be sliced or quartered. You can serve pretzels, rye, and sesame flatbread, or sticks of bread. Learn the wonders of hard bread: French, Tuscan toast, Black bread, and toast cut outs, etc. Let each person tear off a piece of bread from a loaf, or if you would like, at the bakery have it sliced. Breads can be cooked or topped with Bruschetta Sauce or Salsa.
A breakfast bread, corn muffin, oat bran muffin 5.2gfc or popovers can be served with coffee.
Note: baked grains can contain transfat. How would know? If you bake or buy a grain product today and tomorrow you do not have to throw it away, it probably contains transfat.
“Breads can stay fresh longer in a frozen state. A slice of frozen Bread will thaw in about five minutes.” Thanks Robin. Stale bread is how Croutons and bread pudding were born.
You could serve whole wheat crackers, or some kind of grain of choice as a signature cracker for cocktails, cheese and crackers, or cheese and egg canapés. And yes everything can fit better on a round cracker.
You can mix crackers to be Sociable. Saltines crackers are for soups or for when you are at home alone. You may elect to up the fiber with a Trisk. Do everything to avoid serving cracked crackers, when you can. You could snack on seasoned croutons.
Air popped popcorn can be made as cocktail food served warm, and lightly salted with nutritional yeast and or buttered with coconut oil. Popcorn can be made by micro-wave and served; it just needs to be popped outside of that bag 3.5gfc. Popcorn can be made with cranberries, nuts and seeds, and or jalapenos.
Corn can come cooked in cans, and served with a bean can make a complete protein.
Cous Cous is cooked by steaming and takes five minutes to make. Then you can eat it as a plain side or mix it with veggies and nuts and beans and stuff.
You can make and eat rice or wheat noodles. You may get each from most any Asian restaurant as a side “To go.” There is a place that for two fingers up you can get a portion or rice free.
“Cooked white rice has 0.2% fat and a GI of 64; a meal of white boiled rice, grilled hamburger, cheese, and butter has a GI of 24.” You can top any grain off with a good fat, and reduce the glycemic index of it. Try it. Oil your grain.
Where there is a grain there you can add a legume such as green beans, hummus, peanut butter, refried bean dip, or refried bean dip hummus, and get a complete protein.
You may add either of these to a nut or seed and get the same thing. Each can be topped with vegetables and steamed for the last four minutes of cooking.
For each complete protein where there is no green, you can serve something fermented. Here it can be a form Olives, peppers, or Greek yogurt. With each base the fermented something can be a fish sauce. A fermented item here may be fish. It may be topped with a salsa.
Again, why would one eat (a grain) without a legume, or nuts and seeds, and miss getting a whole protein?
Grains can be cooked or topped with Bruschetta Sauce or Salsa. You can omit doing any of this if you really do have a heavy plant based diet. When is the last time you ate one and a half – three cups per day of greens.
Pizza is not a snack. It is an incomplete part of a meal plan. Pizza is to be served from a platter to a plate with sides. Informally Pizza is to be served from a Pizza pie stand, on a platter (albeit cardboard) or one taken out of a box, every boxed pizza box used to come with one. And it is to be served to a plate placed center each place setting. It can cost more than a traditional main course. You can get a pizza stone, no rise dough, no cook sauce, hummus or tomato, some toppings of choice, and every eight to ten minutes make a thin crust one of your own. A pre-made one can be made crisp by being baked while placed on a stone or tortilla frying pan. It may be reheated in a microwave. Pizza is a grain and still needs sides, preferably one that is a legume. It can be made with hummus as its sauce or served with hummus as a side. Pizza can be topped with salad: fresh or sautéed arugula, cherry tomatoes, cut in half, and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. It can be topped with seeds, seasoned croutons, garbanzo beans, vegetables, and or with protein bits. You may serve a Fruit salad of melons and other cut up fresh fruits with pizza. You could serve a great soup (casually in a mug,) with or without being topped with oyster cocktail crackers. Pasta with a healthy sauce might be served with it 6gf. It may be angle hair spaghetti. Pizza served alone can be a snack or a cocktail food. It may be cut into small squares or 3” round sliders cut in half and plated as such. Pizza squares, (crust) or bread sticks may be served with hummus as a side or dip. Get a pizza slicer. Get a picnic basket; keep in it an Italian Love Me Kit. Share the contents and a complete protein or meal with friends.
Tortillas can be served as snack or a cocktail food.
A tortilla is essentially a food wrapper. A wrapper when seated is to be used as a plate. Tortillas are essentially bread that is made of fat cut into stripped wheat flour that is served half done. When hot items are placed inside it, it starts to return to goo. Mexican flour tortillas have a GI of 30. Still Wheat is to be fully cooked. Yes, they know, that is why it is cooked when you order a Burrito bowl. You could open up your Grande Burrito. Use a knife and fork and enjoy the inside. Get out the good stuff, and then decide if I want to eat that gooey flour, that is left on your plate. You can leave it there and stay thin enough to enjoy your date. You can use your Tortilla as bread. You may order a corn tortilla instead. Tortillas were traditionally made of corn. Engine search this. Love cooked corn tortillas, chips, and corn chips with or without dips. A Burrito is a meal wrapped in a tortilla. Burritos are foods for a working man on the run. Each used to contain only one item and was a whole lot smaller. This may not be frugal; now, for the cost of a meal with one, you can buy a whole cooked rotisserie chicken, and some sides. The same can be said for any burger. Still there is that place for a tortilla as a grilled quesadilla. Each can be stuffed with turkey and brie, shrimp & pesto and mushroom and goat cheese, or chicken and cheese, sliced in wedges and served with salsa. This is frugal – kinda.
Waffles can be served as snack or a cocktail food.
Waffles might be warmed up with an in place toaster. Waffles are for toasting but are also fun eating. And waffles can be stored frozen. Breads thaw within three minutes. Each can be cut in squares, toasted, topped and served with cocktails.
Waffles for a breakfast party, a holiday event, or for a romantic date can be made with a box mix for Red Devil Cake. On celebration days waffles may be made with pasty flour.
You can serve each whole on a plate topped with
peanut butter, peanut butter and bananas, strawberries and white powder sugar, and later, you may serve waffles topped ice cream and some seeds or nuts. Friends can bring the toppings and be asked to Bring Your On Brown Bag: BYOBB: for the drinks.
