Phood and Filanthropy!

As an advocate of good food and philanthropy, I love this!

For the month of August, several food trucks and distinguished restaurants are donating a dollar to the Food 4 Kids Backpack program if you order one of their ‘Food 4 Kids’ dishes!

Notable selections are:
– Any lunch pizza from Cucina Urbana
– Cap’n Crunch Crab Cakes from the Two For the Road food truck
– Chocolate Pot Du Creme from Whisk n’ladle

Personally, I will participate by getting a 6-pack from Corner Cupcakes! Their food truck once had a stop outside of my apartment. The past tense of that last sentence makes me sad and I’ve been craving their delicious (and practically life-changing) cupcakes ever since they drove away. It was like having my very own college version of an ice cream truck come to the neighborhood every week!  Sprinkles (also participating with their Cinnamon Sugar flavor) moving in nearby was merely a band-aid solution for my loss, but I’ve seriously been thinking about Corner Cupcakes for months. So, I will finally venture out to find their truck in San Diego — for the children (Greek reference, anyone?)!

Speaking of the children, here is an excerpt from the SD Food Bank website:

“Of the 3.1 million residents in San Diego County over 483,000 people live at or near the federal poverty level and face the threat of hunger. 273,000 are children. Hunger or “food insecurity” means households face times when they do not know if they will have enough food, or do not know how they will get their next meal.”

Whenever we think of hunger and poverty, there is a tendency to conjure images of poor, developing countries in Africa, Latin America, or Asia. But the reality is that there are people in our local communities that suffer from hunger everyday, sometimes having to choose between paying for bills over food for their families. Some children in districts around San Diego come to school on Monday having eaten little to nothing since their school-subsidized lunch on Friday.

The Food 4 Kids Backpack program works with schools around the district to provide children suffering from hunger issues with a bag of food to discretely tuck into their backpacks for the weekend, with enough to last until they return to school.

In a country of supposed abundance, I think it’s such an injustice for anyone to go hungry, so I fully support this cause!

So, help yourself to some delicious food in San Diego to help feed hungry children in your community.
For more info and a list of participating food vendors, visit:  http://sandiegofoodbank.org/events/DollarADish/.
Let me know if you participate!

With love,
Tiffany
Tidbits at Tiffany’s

Salvaging Tomatoes

Stop!! Don’t you dare throw out those shriveling tomatoes! Sure they’re not quite fresh enough to make a respectable tomato sauce or be the star of your salad, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a little love.

So here’s a little culinary tidbit from my evening.. A recipe for a simple side or vegetarian dish to give your tomatoes their last hurrah.

Tomato Egg Saute 

Ingredients (1 serving):

+ 1 tsp light oil 

+ 1 clove of garlic (or 1 tsp garlic powder) crushed and roughly chopped

+ 3/4 to 1 cup cherry tomatoes sliced in half (or into 1 inch chunks if you’re using larger tomatoes)

+ 1 egg 

+ salt & pepper to taste 

Directions:

1. Turn on stove to medium heat and add oil. Saute the garlic until light brown. (Or in my case, add the garlic powder into the oil as it heats.)

2. Add tomatoes and a pinch of salt to draw out the water. Saute until very soft and dissolved. 

3. (Forgot to take a photo) Crack egg directly into pan and stir until completely cooked. Add salt & pepper as needed. 

*Tidbit: Contrary to popular belief, it’s much neater to crack an egg on a flat surface as opposed to an edge, like the side of a bowl. A paper towel on your counter, or a plate works perfectly. This reduces runny raw egg everywhere and salmonella risk (eek.)!

4. Serve as a side dish for a simple meat or fish entree, or simply over rice for a delicious vegetarian meal! 

Enjoy and let me know how it goes! 

Do you have any tomato-salvaging ideas? Share below!

With love, 

Tiffany

Tidbits at Tiffany’s