Texas Cooking Online * July, 2004 Newsletter *

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At Last, Scarlet Fiestaware At last, decorate your table with colorful scarlet. Pre-order place-settings now in our Fiestaware Store It's July and the corn is as high as an elephant's eye -- words from a song in the musical Oklahoma!, Texas' good neighbor to the north. Everyone is dealing with the heat the best they can. Still, we have to eat and, we can't eat ice cream all the time. Sidney Carlisle's article, Cornbread and Cornbread Salad, illustrates our fondness for cornbread, which is so great that we have figured out a way to make salad out of it. Our John Raven, Ph.B., barbecue and chili guru, takes advantage of his chili-circuit connections to scoop an interview with a chili cook-off champion in Chat with a Chili Champ: Ed "Chill Lee" Paetzel, and manages to get a prize-winning chili recipe, too. And in Mint Julep - The Southern Drink of Choice Trish Bales offers us some cooling refreshment. Our featured recipe this month is a savory mixture of hot and cold that you're sure to enjoy, Jalapeño Cheesecake. And don't miss our classic article, back by popular demand, Jerky: Quick Snacks & Cool Summertime Meals by Larry Burrier. Introducing Our Weekly Recipe Email Sign up for our latest feature, the Texas Cooking Weekly Recipe Email. Nothing fancy, just a carefully selected recipe that's sure to please with maybe a link or two to some compatible dishes. Recipes will range from savory to sweet -- the entire spectrum. At Texas Cooking, we have always focused on quality over quantity, and we carry that tradition to our Recipe of the Week email. Sign up here.

Instantly reduce your debt and high interest! Free No Obligation Information! Special Features Cornbread and Cornbread Salad by Sidney Carlisle One subject that gets some Texans worked up is the proper method of making cornbread. Sidney Carlisle treads carefully through such prickly issues as what color cornmeal? Should it be stone-ground? Is the cornbread thick or thin? Baked in an iron skillet? After showing us how to make a great pan of cornbread, she unveils an old-style, tasty recipe, Cornbread Salad. Chat With a Chili Champ: Ed "Chill Lee" Paetzel by John Raven, Ph.B. Ed Paetzel, one of the heavy hitters in the chili cook-off world, is taking it easy down around Houston these days. Dr. John Raven recounts their conversation about the competition chili circuit and what it takes to make a tournament-winning pot of chili. And, yes, a championship recipe is included. Mint Julep - The Southern Drink of Choice by Trish Bales As we all know, it's hot in Texas in the summertime -- very hot. It can be hard to get motivated to do anything outside other than walking (very quickly) from the house to the car. This heat is something we southerners are accustomed to, however, and many years ago, a refreshing drink, supposedly of Arabian origin, was adopted as "the quintessential southern drink" in the United States -- the Mint Julep. Retired Fiestaware Now Available on Texas Cooking Homer Laughlin's colorful dinnerware, Fiestaware, brightens up kitchen and dining room tables everywhere with its classic and distinctive lines. Every year the manufacturer adds new colors, while retiring others. Texas Cooking's Fiestaware Store now has special pages on the recently retired colors juniper, pearl gray and yellow. Many of these products are available in our online store. Test your knowledge of Texas trivia Our July question concerns itself with early radio days in Texas. See if this one stumps you. Have you read John Raven's latest Q&A column, Ask Dr. John? A new online form has been added that makes "asking Dr. John" easier than ever. Not only does he field questions about barbecue, chili and outdoor cooking in general, but his downhome culinary knowledge extends to all parts of the menu. Sports Tickets | Concert Tickets | Theater Tickets Texana News: New Texas Quarters Make Change In formal Texas style, the state's official quarter was released in June with to great fanfare. The winning design was chosen from over 2,700 entries. Read more original book reviews in the Lone Star Bookstore Discount Cigarettes Inexpensive shopping by the carton. Click on our link to find out more. Looking for free stuff? Participate in contests, get product samples, trial offers and information Jerky: Quick Snacks & Cool Summertime Meals by Larry Burrier In Texas, as soon as you say the word springtime, the 'ol "Dog Days" of summer start pawing their way in just to heat things up - as if our summers aren't long enough! Well, Jerky is here to save the day not only as a quick, re-energizing snack, but also as a cool, easy way to cook up an evening meal. Classic Recipe: Jalapeño Cheesecake This is an outstanding appetizer. Cut it into thin wedges, put it on your buffet table, and watch it disappear. 1-1/2 cups crushed tortilla chips 6 tablespoons melted butter 2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature 3 eggs 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 1-1/2 cups sour cream, divided (1 cup and 1/2 cup) 1 clove garlic, minced or put through a garlic press 4.5-ounce can chopped green chiles 1 fresh jalapeño, stemmed, seeded and minced 2 cups grated Colby/Monterrey Jack-blend or cheddar cheese chopped plum tomatoes chopped green onions diced black olives chopped cilantro Preheat oven to 300°F. Lightly grease the sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Pour the melted butter over the crushed tortilla chips and toss to combine. Press on bottom and one-half inch up the sides of the pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside. With an electric mixer at high speed, beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat to incorporate. Reduce mixer speed to low, and blend in the flour, 1 cup of the sour cream. Beat until smooth. Add the garlic, green chiles and minced jalapeño. Turn off the mixer, and stir in the cheese. Pour filling into crust, and bake for 1 hour. Turn oven off, and leave cheesecake in the oven for 1 hour with the door closed. Remove from oven and cool. When cool, loosen the cheesecake from the sides of the pan by running a knife around the inside edge. Do not remove cheesecake from pan. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. When ready to serve, spring the pan and remove the cheesecake. Spread the remaining ½ cup sour cream evenly over the top and sprinkle with chopped tomatoes, green onions, olives and cilantro. You can find this and over 400 more recipes in Grandma's Cookbook. Walker Diet Cooking Products More Great E-Mail Newsletters Texas Cooking's Recipe of the Week email is great for people who enjoy our new and classic recipes from our cookbook. Cooks, recipe collectors and fans of Texas will enjoy this brief, weekly email that contains a carefully selected recipe with maybe a link or two to some compatible dishes. Sign up here. Stop Spyware! Kazaa, Gator and other similar programs have been sneaking onto people's computers wreaking havoc to their systems. These malicious programs are difficult to remove. They flood the screen with their own pop-up ads and open up the computer to a host of viruses. If you have programs like Kazaa, TopText, Gator, WhenU and others on your system, take a moment to learn about the problems these programs cause. We have written a useful and quick tutorial that will inform you about these programs and how to uninstall them from your computer. Free Catalogs Enjoy Great Savings from Free Catalogs Clothing Bridal / Wedding Invitations Wine & Brew Sporting Goods Hobbies / Crafts Pets _________ Cosmetics, samples, DVDs, promotions Gratis! July T-Shirt Contest Winners Peter B. of Pompano Beach, Florida Melinda G. of Anaheim, California Gayle H. of Tyler, Texas Jason J. of Houston, Texas Carlotta J. of New York City, New York Chris L. of Peoria, Illinois Ian P. of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Eileen S. of Independence, Missouri Craig T. of Fort Worth, Texas Jimmy T. of Norfolk, Virginia Congratulations winners! We are frequently asked if we award T-Shirts to non-US residents, and the answer is Yes. We have had quite a few Canadian winners, and have also sent T-Shirts to winners in England, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland and Germany. The Rules Since we began our T-Shirt giveaway seven years ago, our contest rules remained unchanged. Readers have been able to enter as many times as they like, and their entries were retained in our database. As you can imagine, our contest database has become very large (which is good), BUT much of it consists of old email addresses that are no longer valid. Therefore, we are making the following change in our contest rules: Readers can still enter as often as they like; however, each contest entry will expire three months following the date it was entered and will disappear from the database. This will greatly reduce the number of "names in the hat" and improve the odds of winning. We think this change will result in an even better contest. We are frequently asked how one goes about entering the T-shirt contest. Sign up here. Subscription / Unsubscribe Help This newsletter is sent to you because you, or someone on your behalf, indicated you would like to receive it when you signed our Guest Book or entered our T-Shirt Contest. If you wish to stop receiving the Newsletter, click here or point your browser to http://www.texascooking.com/unsub1.ihtml If you would like to change your email address, please send an email to txmailbox@texascooking.com. ©2004 Texas Cooking Online. All rights reserved.