@chitribfood
Explore variety of Indian vegetarian recipes from authentic South Indian recipes to North Indian dishes, global cuisine and eggless baking. Enjoy healthy, restaurant style recipes with easy step-by-step pictures, videos to make cooking fun and effortless.
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In a whirlwind 24 hours last week, Jenni Trilik and Marcus Contaldo went from being $216,000 in debt and the owners of nearly 30,000 bags of unsold coffee to utterly overwhelmed with support. It was an unexpectedly happy ending to a drawn-out small business nightmare that began in April, after a deal fell through that was supposed to get their Modest Coffee product (@modestcoffee) onto Walmart’s virtual store shelves in a long-planned expansion of their 9-year-old West Chicago company. With 9,300 pounds of coffee and debts piling up, the Aurora couple wrote about the experience on their store’s blog Thursday morning, then offered caffeine lovers one heck of a deal: An entire case of coffee for half off, or $7-$8 a bag. Those who didn’t drink coffee but still wanted to help could donate the bags to charity instead. By Friday afternoon, they’d sold out. “There has been this huge weight that has been lifted — financial, of course, but also an emotional one, (seeing) that people do care about the little guy,” Contaldo said. Tap the link in our bio to read the full story. ? Tatyana Turner / Chicago Tribune ? Mark Black / for the Chicago Tribune
Although not as bad as getting a lump of coal in your stocking, fruitcake may be considered one of the more undesirable items people receive during the holiday season. The notoriously dry dessert made with dried or candied fruits such as pineapple, cranberries and apricot is usually the butt of Christmas jokes of doorstop repurposing or future regifting. But for Dan McCauley, owner of A Taste of Heaven bakery and devoted fruitcake evangelist, the holiday delicacy gets way more ridicule than it deserves. For nearly three decades, he’s been spreading the gospel of good fruitcake, offering his own “actually edible” version at his Andersonville bakery. And it seems to be working. McCauley’s version is light in color, similar to a pound cake, and the fruit is cut in distinguishable chunks, rather than minced. It’s moist enough to not require soaking in rum or brandy, and popular enough to have customers place their order as early as Halloween. “We sell probably 50 a week,” McCauley said. Tap the link in our bio to learn how fruitcake became a traditional holiday gift in the United States and more. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune / @mandophotos)
There’s nothing more festive than that pop of Champagne and a resounding clink of glasses to ring in the holiday season. But with Christmas just days ahead and the New Year’s festivities looming, choosing wines for the holidays can be a bit stressful. While it’s comforting to have reliable favorites on hand, the holidays are an opportune time to experiment and introduce unusual, soulful and delicious wines to friends and family. Tap the link in our bio for help from Chicago sommeliers, offering their expertise for the season, with best bottles for each holiday. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune)
Chicago goes all out when it comes to celebrating the holiday season, with spectacular light displays, parades and theatrical productions. The area’s restaurants get just as festive, with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day feasts available to either dine-in or take out if you prefer to celebrate at home. The dining scene’s diversity is on full display with meals featuring Southern, Peruvian, Italian and Indian fare and a mix of family-friendly outings and formal luxurious dinners. Give yourself the gift of some great food by booking one of these Christmas meals. Tap the link in our bio for 33 Christmas specials from Chicago-area restaurants, like tamales from La Josie and Solazo, shown here. (Photo by @lajosiechicago )
Omar Cadena didn’t want to make ropa vieja, much less quesa’ropa, at Omarcito’s, his debut restaurant in Chicago (@omarcitos_chicago). “My sous chef and I were watching all these kids everywhere doing all these quesabirria things,” Cadena said. The chef and owner opened his restaurant over the summer in the Logan Square neighborhood. “And he had actually worked at a birria place over by Belmont Cragin. So one day, he said, ’Man, why don’t we use your ropa vieja to make these quesadillas like everybody else is doing.’” The chef is Cuban on his mother’s side, Ecuadorian on his father’s side. Now, the ropa vieja, the Cuban-style shredded beef stew from a revered family recipe, and the Mexican-inspired quesa’ropa, have kind of overtaken everything at the restaurant. And then there’s the green mayo garlic sauce. “I had no idea it was going to take off the way that it did,” Cadena said. “I actually first made it for a homeboy of mine like a year and a half back when I took a COVID care package to him. He was like, ‘Bro, this thing right here is fire.’ ” What’s truly fiery is the creamy green hot sauce that looks nearly exactly the same as the garlic sauce. You will mix them up if you’re not careful, when it feels like you can’t get enough of the wonderfully delicious mess that’s a smothered cousin to the quesabirria (A tacos dorados special just replaced the quesa’ropa on the menu, but you can still order it if you ask.). “It’s a beautiful mess of family, fighting, loving and like another level of flavor,” the chef said. “What I wanted to do is punch you and hug you at the same time.” Tap the link in our bio to read the full review by the Tribune’s Louisa Chu. ? Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune / @briancassella
Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, runs from Dec. 18-26 this year, chasing away the winter chill with nightly candle lighting and hearty meals with an emphasis on fried food. Restaurants and bakeries throughout the Chicago area are making celebrating easier by serving up traditional holiday fare such as potato latkes and sufganiyot (fried jelly doughnuts) for dine-in or as part of to-go packages for gatherings at home. Tap the link in our bio for Hanukkah specials and events in Chicagoland, or kick off the party early with a wild pop-up named for a line in Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song.” Photo by @abarestaurant showing latkes.
As a wintry chill descends on Chicagoland, those looking to warm up with a tasty tipple have three new high-profile options in the center of the city. Whether it’s the sleek next-door extension to one of Chicago’s top restaurants Ever — aptly named After — or an urban winery with an Alinea alum in the kitchen creating shareable plates meant to enhance each sip, or a whiskey-focused bar that pumps out fresh buttermilk biscuits every 20 minutes, these three spots offer guests an array of options from expertly fried chicken to an intriguing quartet of Old-Fashioneds. Tap the link in our bio to learn more about @afterloungechicago, shown here, @chicagowinery and @yardbirdchicago. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune / @mandophotos)
Candy canes are fun. Gift cards are useful. But nothing festively stuffs a stocking — or brightens a Hanukkah or Kwanzaa for that matter — quite like a beer tasting of the season. Holiday beers come in an array of styles: light and dark; elaborate and blessedly simple; sweet, tart and savory. What they tend to have in common, though, is packing a punch. Holiday beers often match the season, and the weather, by landing bigger, boozier and fuller-flavors than what breweries release the rest of the year. In other words, they’re perfect for a snowy, 12-degree December afternoon. Tap the link in our bio for our 10 favorite festive finds, guaranteed to help create the happiest of holidays. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune / @briancassella)
Though Nisos Mediterranean intentionally avoids being called a Greek restaurant, the menu bulges with dishes from that country, from tiropita and taramasalata to moussaka and rizogalo. Chicago has seen a surge of ambitious new Greek restaurants, but none has food that looks like Nisos’. Take the tzatziki, which is as thick and creamy as hummus, thanks to the use of Chef Avgeria Stapaki’s imported yogurt of choice. “The yogurt I want is very thick and rich,” Stapaki said. “That’s why it has this structure and body.” Instead of raw garlic, she uses fermented black garlic along with fermented cucumber juice. The result is luxuriously smooth, making for a fantastic start to the meal. Like nearly everything at Nisos, the moussaka is gorgeous, expensive and perplexing. Stapaki takes the homey layered dish and transforms it into a visually stunning showstopper. When the server brings it out, a fog of dry ice wafts from the edges. The dish is also $28, and while the fog apparently has a cinnamon tea aroma, the server removes the plate from your table immediately after serving you an individual portion, suggesting it was there mostly for show, rather than sensory enhancement. This sort of scene plays out again and again at Nisos, a restaurant with genuine ambition and fascinating creative twists, but one where the substance doesn’t quite live up to the premium you pay for the presentation. Tap the link in our bio to read the full review by the Tribune’s Nick Kindelsperger @nkindelsperger. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
OK, for the last time: It’s almost certainly not the 30th anniversary of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout. (@gooseisland) As we first reported in 2016, the groundbreaking beer aged in bourbon barrels was likely first released in 1995 — not 1992, as the brewery continues to insist. But Goose Island should have more questionable anniversaries, because its Bourbon County 30th Anniversary Reserve Stout, to be released the day after Thanksgiving among its family of seven barrel-aged Bourbon County beers, is elegance defined. “'Smooth' is a word people often use to describe beer when it’s easy to drink,” says the Tribune’s Josh Noel (@hopnotes). “It’s far from an ideal descriptor, though; sanded wood is smooth. Beer is not. But my instinctive thought upon first sipping 30th Anniversary Reserve Stout? Smooth! “What that really means is that despite its 14.4% alcohol, it is an exceptionally approachable beer. It is not flashy. It is not trying to bowl over the drinker with muscularity. It is simply a lovely, nuanced and, yes, smooth stout rife with creamy notes of dark chocolate, oak, vanilla and caramel.” Click the link in our bio for Noel’s thoughts on the rest of the lineup. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Amy Morton (@amythemort), who also owns The Barn Steakhouse in Evanston and Stolp Island Social in Aurora, opened LeTour today (@letourevanston), a new French restaurant with her longtime collaborator, chef Debbie Gold (@deb_gold). “It’s great to work with someone who can complement what I can do with their strengths,” Gold said. “We’ve got all this French influence with Midwestern ideas." LeTour, which means circle in French, will have a ring-shaped dining space to represent the full-circle partnership between Morton and Gold, who began working together in 1990 at Morton’s first restaurant, Mirador. “We really did always want to find a way to work together again,” Morton said. “We’re going big, bold and new.” From classic brasserie dishes such as steak frites and ratatouille, to a cozy dining area with muted tones and floor-to-ceiling windows, the North Shore natives aspire to bring customers an experience that is “unconventionally French,” Morton said. Tap the link in our bio to read more on how Gold will be bringing classic French techniques she honed while working in Nice and the Rhone Valley to the menu. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune / @malarchy)
When Chicago Tribune food critics Louisa Chu (@louisachu1) and Nick Kindelsperger (@nkindelsperger) began sketching out plans for a new list of the best restaurants in Chicago and the suburbs, it became clear just how many questions the process would pose. While their predecessor, Phil Vettel, could build off his existing Phil’s 50 list and decades of dining, our critics recognized how extensively the pandemic has reshaped experiences at nearly every restaurant, not just in Chicago, but globally. It wouldn’t be fair to judge based on pre-2020 experiences, before social distancing rules, smaller staffs and soaring food costs affected everyone, from humble hot dog stands to fine-dining institutions. So, they said, we’ll start from scratch. If it makes the list, we will have visited it in the After Times. Everybody gets a clean slate. But Chicago alone has hundreds of restaurants, and a wealth of great ones. New concepts are consistently bursting onto the scene, and there are vibrant options in the suburbs deserving recognition. While our critics will keep whittling away at the list of best restaurants, both old and new, click the link in our bio for the 25 best new restaurants, with a fairly generous “new” defined as opening in 2020 or later. Expect a larger list in early 2023. --------- The caviar at Kasama (@kasamachicago) by Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune.
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