Super Bowl Food Made Easy

Stumpy's House of Bar-B-Que can help you create a satisfying Super Bowl supper.

Ask the Patch Pro: Experts Answer Your Cooking Questions

Our panel of experts are waiting in the comments to answer your culinary questions in the latest installment of Ask the Patch Pro.

It's time for another edition of Ask the Patch Pro, where each week we tackle a different topic and open up the comments section for questions. Our team of experts stop in to help you out and answer your questions. This week we're talking all about food and cooking. Patch wants to help you get your questions answered, but we needed some help. We've compiled a team of experts to help us out. Meet the experts: If you have a food/cooking related question, ask below in our comment section and one of our experts will answer!  If you consider yourself a local expert and would like to be added to the list, let us know! jordan.lanham@patch.com

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Ask the Patch Pro: Seeking Cooking Experts

Patch is looking for experts who can share their cooking expertise this week.

We want to find the answers to all your culinary questions this week, but we need a little help. In the latest edition of "Ask the Patch Pro" we need local experts who can answer readers' food and cooking questions and offer advice. If you consider yourself an expert and can answer these questions and more, let us know two ways. One: You can leave a comment on this post. Two: You can send an email to jordan.lanham@patch.com. We need experts to answer questions on Thursday, Oct. 18.  Curious as to what we are looking for? Take a look at some of our previous Patch Pro posts: So what do you say, who wants to be our expert?

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Great Eats With Patti

Red Beans and Rice: Frugal, Healthy and Very Simple

Dried beans are versatile and a great addition to frugal, healthy meals. Double this recipe for leftovers during your hectic week.

Over the past year writing Great Eats, I have had numerous email requests for frugal recipes, meatless recipes, healthy recipes and regional recipes.   This year, I will tailor my recipes to your requests, starting with “frugal,” to kick off 2012. As the mother of teenagers, I am a self-proclaimed queen of frugal dinners. Feeding teenagers, and their many friends, often requires creativity. Breakfast for dinner is a great option, as are soups and stews. Beans, however, are my favorite way to stretch the food dollar. Combined with great spices, beans are anything but ordinary. Nutrition Stop in St. Peters is a good source for dried beans, plus dozens of other items for your healthy, frugal lifestyle. Beans are versatile and show up in many …

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Great Eats With Patti

Cake Pops: The Trendy New Dessert Treat

Found in coffee shops and bakeries everywhere, cake pops are also simple to make at home.

It seems as though cake pops are making their appearance everywhere. With a soft and chewy inside and a frosting-like coating on the outside, they are hard to resist. Local coffee shops sell cake pops or basic cake pops sell for as much as $24 a dozen online. Amazon has a half dozen recipe books featuring cake pop recipes. Cake pop “kits” are also available from Amazon. These little confections, however, are easy to make and all the materials are available in the O’Fallon/St. Peter’s area. With a little practice and imagination, you can elevate the basic cake pop into a work of art. Purchasing an already baked chocolate loaf cake at the Dierbergs or Wal-Mart bakery cuts prep time by several hours. If you choose to make your own cake, make …

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Great Eats With Patti

Fresh, Local Strawberries in St. Peters

Fresh, local strawberries are showing up early in local produce stands. While not quite as sweet as our June strawberries, they are welcomed after a long winter of produced flown into the area.

This time of year, I start yearning for fresh, local produce. I was surprised to find locally-grown strawberries already at Orlando’s Produce on Mexico Road. The berries just started arriving a few days ago from southern Illinois, I was told. While not as sweet as June strawberries from Lakeview Farms in St. Peters, my family still declared them the best they have had in months. They are juicy, soft and red throughout—not hard like the berries trucked in from California that we have had all winter long. We ate an entire pound at dinner time. They were that good. Strawberry salsa is a great way to showcase fresh berries. The salsa is great with tortilla chips, but it also turns grilled chicken breast or fish into something special. Grill or…

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Patti Baratta

11:12 am on Monday, May 16, 2011

I make all types of fruit salsas. Pineapple and peach salsas are also favorites. I may just have to run a month of fruit salsa recipes!   more ›

How to Make the Most Out of All that Leftover Ham

Leftover Easter ham can turn into a variety of menu items instead of the basic ham and cheese sandwich.

In many homes, ham is an Easter staple. Ham is top dog, it is the main event. But typically, there are leftovers and frugal people everywhere will be eating ham sandwiches for lunch for the next week. My family looked at me as if I were nuts when, on Tuesday night, our Costco-purchased Easter ham came out of the oven for dinner. Because I write this column, I had to have ham leftovers before today. My understanding family sighed then dug right in. They love ham. While we did have ham sandwiches on Wednesday, we also had ham in a myriad of other dishes. And just for the record, there is no ham for the Baratta family today—we are grilling filets for Easter dinner. I purchased a spiral sliced ham from Costco, so removing the meat from the …

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Great Eats With Patti

A Simple Italian Inspired Al Fresco Evening

C. Rallo in O'Fallon has all of the items needed for a simple meal on the deck to usher in spring!

A light, quick dinner on the patio is one of my favorite ways to usher in the spring weather: Simple food, a glass of wine and great friends makes a perfect evening. A mix of appetizers can often be a great stand-in for a full meal. Like a somewhat famous Food Network personality, I love to use a mix of prepared food with my own touch. This gives me an easy way to get out of the kitchen fast to enjoy my friends. One place I look to for inspiration is C.Rallo Meat Co. on Bryan Road in O’Fallon. C. Rallo is more than just a meat market. In addition to a full service meat counter, C. Rallo stocks their freezer case with easy to prepare weeknight meals, frozen pasta and fun appetizers. Their deli case is filled with Boar’s Head meats and …

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Patti Baratta

4:00 pm on Monday, April 11, 2011

Tera, I do! I make pestos of all kinds (traditional basil/pine nut or basil/walnut are my favorite, but cilantro comes in third place). As soon as basil comes into season, I intend to write about it ~ probably more than once. Sadly, it is so expensive right now, that I rely on pesto that I froze last fall. My favorite proportions came from a vendor at a farmers market in Washington state. They …   more ›

Great Eats With Patti

Take Me Out to the Ballgame and Bring Some of that Caramel Corn

Homemade caramel corn studded with salty peanuts is a ballgame favorite.

Baseball’s Opening Day means that spring is upon us. Spring and caramel corn are not a typical association, but I could not help myself this week. “Take me out to the ballgame” ran through my head over and over as the week progressed. And I kept sticking on the line about peanuts and Cracker Jack. My husband’s office assistant loves any reason for a themed potluck. The St. Louis Cardinals' Opening Day was no exception. Typically, his coworkers request caramel corn for all fall and winter potlucks. This time, I decided to adapt the typical autumn treat to the start of baseball season. There are hundreds of caramel corn recipes on the internet. Most have the same basic ingredients and are prepared in a similar way. Butter, sugar, corn syrup …

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Great Escape

Cooking Up A Good Time

Dierbergs School of Cooking serves up a good time.

I spend most of my time at home in the kitchen. Making breakfast, packing lunches, fixing dinner, fetching snacks, hiding with a box of Thin Mints in the pantry … so you may think I’m a little off my rocker when I suggest an escape that involves, ahem, cooking in a kitchen. But that’s just what I’m going to do. Dierbergs has a wide variety of cooking classes that anyone will enjoy. There are theme nights such as Couples Cook, Girl’s Night Out, Mushroom Mania, and Seafood Sensations. The Couples Cook class coming up in April at the Bogey Hills Dierbergs is the Paris Bistro dinner. French cuisine is the epitome of the romantic date—ooh la la! Also in April, the Just 5 Ingredients class will show you how to create four meals with chicken, …

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