Roasted Broccoli, Goat Cheese, Smoked Salmon and Dill Savory Tart

Follow up recipe #2  from my Food Costing PAII webinar

-Makes 3 quiche/tarts

Filling  Base:
1 qt Heavy Cream
9 egg yolks
3 whole eggs
2 Tb. Fresh Dill chopped
-whisk together with
fresh ground pepper and 2 tea kosher salt

Filling Content:

• 12 oz. + (6 oz. reserved for garnish) Smoked Salmon, slice the slices in 1 inch strips (recommend either home smoked salmon or Ducktrap Farms, inexpensive smoked salmon loses more flavor when cooked. This is also a good recipe to use with hot smoked salmon or smoked trout or mackerel.

• 18 oz. Goat Cheese (other cheeses can be substituted, cheddar, blue cheese etc., particularly good with smoked gouda)

• 2 lbs. broccoli florets

Roast broccoli at 400 degrees, toss with pure olive and roast for 20-25 minutes  or until the edges turn dark, if the edges start to get crispy remove immediately. Crispy over roasted broccoli is a little bitter

Let cool and distribute evenly in par baked pie shells, crumble goat cheese evenly over the broccoli, pour egg filling over the top of the vegetable and cheese (make sure to whisk filling first as the dill has a tendency to settle)

Bake at 325 for approx an hour or until a knife comes out clean an inch in from the edge and the middle is firm but not solid.

Let cool on a wire rack.  Tart stores well up to 5 days in the refrigerator and can be portioned or left whole and frozen. If freezing wrap as air tight as possible as it can pick up freezer oders. Keeps well frozen up to 3 months.

3 Pre-made quiche shells parbaked
or homemade:

 

Pie Crust (Pâte Brisée)

• 5 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling out the crusts
• 1 lb. unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into very small cubes
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 6 to 8 Tbsp ice water
• 1 tea dried dill
• 1 tea dried thyme
• 1 tea dried basil

In a food processor, pulse the flour, dried herbs, salt and butter until small pebbles/crumbs form.
The next step can be done by hand or by mixer with a paddle attachment. Add the water and knead dough until cohesive, do not over mix! Refrigerate until ready to roll out and then parbake  and cool before adding the savory tart mixture.

For those who need a bit more information about mixing a good dough, a good explanation can be found here: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_pie_crust/

Garnish with smoked salmon, fresh dill and Creme Fraishe or Honey Dill sour cream (1 cup sour cream + 1 tea honey + 1 tea fresh chopped dill, S+P to taste)

 

Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar

Follow up recipe #1 from yesterday’s PAII webinar, first post here: http://chefforfeng.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/follow-up-to-food-costing-paii-webinar-for-bed-and-breakfasts/

Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar

The Balsamic

-4 cups good quality Balsamic Vinegar (if you use cheap vinegar you still get cheap reduced vinegar)

-Reduce the balsamic to 2 cups on a simmer (do not boil) let cool. (I recommend if you are going to cook this and especially if your going to cook larger batches of it, do it after guests are done and gone after breakfast, it does smell up the kitchen quite a bit, not in a bad way, it’s just quite strong.

The Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients:

• 2 cups water
• 1 cup sugar or for a more earthy taste 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 1.5 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, good quality is preferable.
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoon pure vanilla

-Bring the sugar, salt and water to a boil, add the cocoa powder and stir until slightly thickened, remove from heat and add the vanilla. Result 2 cups of syrup

-Mix the 2 cups reduced vinegar and 2 cups syrup together.

Cheater Maple Balsamic:

Suggested Chocolate Syrups:

• Torani Chocolate Syrup
• Ghirardelli Barista Chocolate Syrup
• Da Vinci Chocolate Syrup

-mix with

Suggested Balsamic Glazes:

• Roland Vinegar Balsamic Glaze
• Modenaceti-Glaze, Balsamic Glaze
• Blaze Balsamic Glaze

Each glaze and syrup has a different amount of sweetness and acidity, so a general ratio would be one cup to one cup, but vary the amounts depending on what tastes good to you.

Follow up to Food Costing PAII Webinar for Bed and Breakfasts

This is a follow-up to this afternoons PAII webinar, the recipes for Salmon in Puff Pastry Shells and Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar to follow first thing tomorrow morning.

Gluten free cookbooks (suggested)

• Cooking Free, Carol Fenster, Ph.D.
• Easy Gluten Free Baking, Elizabeth Barbone
• Gluten-Free Baking Classics 2nd Edition, Annalise G. Roberts
• The Ultimate Gluten-Free Cookie Book, Roben Ryberg
• Simply . . . Gluten-free Desserts: 150 Delicious Recipes for Cupcakes, Cookies, Pies, and More Old and New Favorites, Carol Kicinski

Gluten Free Online Recipes and Resources

• http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/
• http://glutenfreefoodideas.com/category/gluten-free-recipes/
• http://www.celiac.com/categories/Gluten%252dFree-Recipes/
• http://simplygluten-free.com/
• http://glutenfreegirl.com/

Calorie and Nutrition Calculators

1. http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp
2. http://www.fitwatch.com/database/analyzer.php
3. http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php

Paii Webinar

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Page 20 of Slides (image of bag and green cubes in a metal bowl).

Fresh Herbs (parsley, basil, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, , garlic and ginger can be chopped and blended with pure olive oil (not XV) and then put in sheet pans or flat containers and then frozen for up to 6 months, 3 months or less is optimal for flavor retention. The olive oil keeps the herbs and ginger/garlic in an emulsion. When defrosted there is no added water. Make sure to wrap well in baggies or seran wrap as they can pick up freezer odors. The only herb I have found that does not freeze quite as well as the others is tarragon.

Page 23 of Slides:

Many people that are gluten free or have other allergies actually may prefer a store brand as opposed to home made, those with allergies don’t know what your kitchen is like or if the glutenfree bread you made was made in the same mixing bowl (even cleaned) as a wheat bread. Any bit of wheat contaminant can be an issue, it’s even worse with nut allergies.

Page 26 of Slides:

Innkeepers Choice

-Pros: Gives the Innkeepers the serve the guests what the innkeepers feel like

-Cons: The Guest may not like some or all of the offerings.

Individual Table Buffet Style

-Pros: Gives Guests what they want, in the amounts they want them in

-Cons: May have a large amount of leftovers that from a food safety standpoint (sitting out at room temperature and may be contaminated) becomes un reusable.

Give menu options prior to service in the morning

Pros: Gives the inn more flexibility in what they are offering to guests right before hand,

Cons: you don’t know what the guests are going to order, so prepare time may be longer as well as the option if everyone decides to order the vegetable tart and not the stuffed French toast you may be short of product.

Or None of the options may appeal to a guest and you may have to scramble to come up with an alternative

Offering options the night before, as well as have guests fill out cards prior to check in, favorite foods, don’t likes, allergies and intolerances.

(option seems to be working well for many inns)

Pros: Gives innkeepers a better idea of what guests will like and more importantly what they will eat.

Cons: Guests may forget what they picked or change their mind.

Chart of Fruit and Vegetable Yields:

Apples Cored	82%
Apples Peeled & Cored	76%
Asparagus	56%
Avocado	72%
Avocado	72%
Banana	67%
Basil	87%
Beans, Green or Wax	88%
Beets	76%
Blueberries	96%
Broccoli 14 ct.	61%
Broccoli Crowns	95%
Brussels sprouts	74%
Cabbage Green/Red	79%
Cantaloupe de-peeled	50%
Carrots – peeled	87%
Cauliflower 12 ct	55%
Celery	75%
Chard Swiss/Red	77%
Cherries, pitted	89%
Cilantro	75%
Cranberries	97%
Cucumbers Peeled/Seeded	73%
Cucumbers Unpeeled sliced	95%
Eggplant	81%
Fennel	60%
Garlic Peeled	95%
Ginger Root	80%
Grapefruit section/no peel	47%
Grapes – red – seedless	92%
Grapes – white – seedless	92%
Honeydew de-peeled	57%
Kale	74%
Kiwi	76%
Leeks	75%
Lettuce Boston	75%
Lettuce butter	85%
Lettuce Green leaf	67%
Lettuce Red Leaf	67%
Lettuce Romaine	67%
Lettuce, prepacked portioned	99%
Lime, Fresh, Juice	30%
Mint	75%
Mushroom Button	97%
Mushroom Portabello	90%
Mushroom Shitake	97%
Onion Jumbo Yellow 50#	89%
Onion Jumbo-Red 25#	89%
Onion Med-Red 25#	89%
Onion Whole Peeled 25#	99%
Orange Fresh for Juice	30%
Oranges Sectioned	56%
Parsley	75%
Peaches	76%
Pears	78%
Peas, green	38%
Peas-Snap	85%
Peas-Snow	85%
Peppers Orange Holland	83%
Peppers Red Holland	83%
Peppers Yellow Holland	83%
Peppers, Bell Green and Red	65%
Pineapple	52%
Plums	94%
Potato Idaho	81%
Potato Red Bliss	81%
Potato Russet	81%
Potato Yukon Gold	81%
Rhubarb,tops trimmed	86%
Rosemary	45%
Scallion	70%
Spinach Baby	97%
Spinach Cello Untrimmed	74%
Spinach Trimmed/portion	92%
Squash Acorn	66%
Squash Butternut	66%
Squash Hubbard	66%
Strawberries	89%
Summer Squash	95%
Sweet Potato	80%
Tarragon	75%
Thyme	50%
Tomatoes 5×6	91%
Tomatoes plum	95%
Tomatoes Sundried	99%
Tomatoes Sundried rehydrated	110%
Tomatoes vine	95%
Turnips	81%
Watermelon	47%
Yams	81%
Zucchini	95%

Is Fangating a good option for Bed and Breakfast Facebook Pages?

Fangating: where a Facebook user must click the like button before gaining access to the rest of the businesses Facebook Fan page or having Facebook Fan visible only text.

Is Fangating a good option for B&Bs? That’s a tough one to give an answer to, so I’ll give you a couple of pros and cons.

Facebook landing pages are great for first time Fan Page viewers and encouraging them to “like” the page on the landing tab page is always helpful, especially because Facebook made a little known change several months back and gave people the ability to post on a business fan page without actually becoming a fan.

Fangating is a little different in that Fans must “like” the page to see other specials or offers.

There are dozens of blogs and articles out there about why Fangating is the cat’s meow of getting more fans, as well as the ones saying that Fangating is the biggest mistake a business can make.

Pros:

-It’s an incentive to get more people to “like” your page. As a B&B you may want to offer incentives to guests and potential guests (please see the note in bold at the end about this though) as “private” content.

Cons:

-They have done studies on bounce rates (i.e. click through to the actual page) of Facebook users that have been to Likegated or Fangated pages and they have a much higher click-away rate then a simple landing page tab. This is primarily on small business pages as opposed to big brand pages, so you could be driving away people from checking out the rest of your fan page by Fangating it, as opposed to having a regular welcome/landing tab or having people land on your main wall.

-Search engines can’t see the content. Custom tabs hide text content from search engines, so it’s not being spidered by them. If you have content hidden by a custom tab Fangate, Google can’t see it and can not index the content.

A great article on Fangating with some takeaways http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/does-facebook-fan-gating-hurt-facebook-engagement/ “However, this begs the question of the value of a required Like. Should this individual be considered a true fan? Is he or she likely to remain engaged with your brand after accessing whatever content you have gated?”

The article also has some great points about pros and cons of fangating, as well I suggest reading through some of the comments which have some interesting takes from what could be “potential” guests in the context that anyone is a potential guest.

Something to keep in mind when running fan only options, once a person “likes” the page, this is the one and ONLY time they will see your specials and offers, if you really want to keep that content front and center in front of your Facebook fans eyes, minds and personal timelines, you need to keep posting it on your fan page wall, so whether its been Fangated or not, the content is always fresh.

A couple of useful articles if you are going to think about developing a landing page or Fangated page for your Bed and Breakfast Facebook page.

Top 10 Facebook Apps for Building Custom Pages & Tabs

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-10-facebook-apps-for-building-custom-pages-tabs/

And since many of the incentives to “like” a page involve promotions of some sort, it’s a good idea to stay up on what the rules and regulations regarding FB fan pages and promotions.

Facebook Promotions: What You Need to Know

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-promotions-what-you-need-to-know/

Pinterest and Bed and Breakfasts

I’ve been getting a lot of questions this past week about the value (and what is) Pinterest. There seems to be an incredible amount of media hype about as it as the “new” social network and how it will compete with the top social media sites.

From a couple of hours to digging around in the site (all in the name of research of course) I can’t really say the site is “social”, you can connect with other people who have pinned items by pinning things yourself but even comments don’t seem to have much interaction.

I CAN say that the site is highly addictive, so be warned!! Best investigated at night when the dishes are washed and the guests retired for the night, I understand it makes a good place to poke around if you have insomnia as well.

From a Bed and Breakfasts standpoint here are some notes that might be helpful on seeing whether you want to dive in and spend time online on yet another site.

I think that the ideas that can be garnered for breakfast ideas alone are worth visiting the site. If you check out http://pinterest.com/all/?category=food_drink and http://pinterest.com/search/?q=breakfast you can see that even if you don’t want to check out the recipes, the visual ideas alone are enough to make you go, “hmmm that looks interesting to try to recreate.”

Of note is the amount of ideas for redecorating bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as exterior landscaping, I am hard put to think of any innkeeper I know, that is at some point during the year is not renovating, revamping and redoing some portion of their inn.

Of note as well are the amount of B&B photos from websites and blogs that have been pinned by users. Even BedandBreakfast.com  http://pinterest.com/bnblovers/ has jumped on the bandwagon.

While it’s too soon to tell whether you have one pinboard or many on Pinterest and if it will affect search engine rankings or not. Pinboards are showing up in Google search. Each time a user pins a B&B photo it also pins the link it originated at.

Some notes on using Pinterest:

Your profile on your Pinterest account offers you a link to your twitter account, a link to your Facebook account (personal only) and a separate area where you can add a hotlink of your choice to where ever you might want it to go, a website, a Facebook fan page, a G+ page or a blog. Links put within your profile/bio do not become hotlinks.

You can’t pin photos from Facebook that includes Facebook Fan Pages

You CAN pin photos from Google+ personal pages and business pages

Comments can contain links and they are hot/clickable.

There is a 387 letter count for your profile/bio

When you pin something you can also send it to your twitter and facebook (personal accounts)

Pinterest does have a app https://www.facebook.com/pinterest that you can add to your FB business page but apparently it doesn’t do anything (as of yet)

You can add a pin button to your browser tool bar at https://pinterest.com/about/goodies/ as well as a “Pin It” and “Follow” button you can add to your website or blog in multiple locations.

There is an option in your settings to “Hide your Pinterest profile from search engines” although I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do this.

I would suggest reading the help pages at http://pinterest.com/about/help/ as well as the Pin Etiquette page at https://pinterest.com/about/etiquette/  They do make it clear that self promotion is fine so to speak as long as it’s not ALL of what you do.

Here are a few examples of innkeepers that I have found using Pinterest so far.

Thomas Shepherd Inn

http://pinterest.com/jeannemuir/

Claiborne House B&B

http://pinterest.com/innkeeperva/b-b/

Butterfly Gap Retreat

https://pinterest.com/crescentmoon56/

Royalton Bed and Breakfast

https://pinterest.com/evelynsaenz/royalton-bed-and-breakfast/

Red Bud ValleyResort

http://pinterest.com/tandybelt/

The Old Hen

http://pinterest.com/deannamorauski/

The Flying Frog B&B (not yet open for business

https://pinterest.com/sisselhardt/

I would recommend checking out Mankin Mansion http://pinterest.com/mankinmansion/ which is doing some very nice focusing on weddings. I actually found their pin boards by Googling “Pinterest bed and breakfasts” and came up with their blog: http://historicmankinmansion.com/mankin-blog/2011/12/12/were-in-it-to-pin-it/

An examples of what is clearly a Bed and Breakfast lover:

https://pinterest.com/marklipinski/bed-and-breakfast-love/

I also came across this pin, which I’m not quite sure what to make of: https://pinterest.com/pin/160370436700422013/ but does make one wonder if B&Bs should start monitoring their brand on Pinterest as usership grows.

Some recent articles to note.

Pinterest: A Beginner’s Guide to the Hot New Social Network

http://mashable.com/2011/12/26/pinterest-beginners-guide/

Pinterest: A Hotel’s Quick Guide to the Hot New Photo Sharing Site

http://www.reviewpro.com/pinterest-hotels-6442

From the blog post: Hotel Indigo does a great job of “guestsourcing” – using photos that guests have tweeted or uploaded as a Pinterest board: http://pinterest.com/hotelindigo/hotel-indigo-through-the-eyes-of-our-guests/

Pinterest How and Why

http://blog.mannixmarketing.com/2011/12/pinterest-how-and-why-19/

From the blog post:  Pinterest has jumped from only 40,000 users in October 2010, to more than 3.2 million in October 2011! This is pretty surprising, considering you still need an invitation to join the network. You can request an invitation from Pinterest, or if you know anybody that is already active on the site, they can hook you up with one. Once you get your invitation, you can sign in through Facebook or Twitter. (Pinterest does not post status updates or tweets automatically, unless you ask them to). I think that the most striking thing about Pinterest’s popularity is the amount of time that people are spending on the site. The site is relatively addicting, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if most users spend upwards of an hour there, each time they visit.

Pinterest is also quite useful as far as SEO goes. Each Pin contains a few links, that will certainly help SEO rankings. ‘Pin It’ buttons can be positioned right next to an image on your site, which is what I see a few retailers doing. If you are browsing the Internet, and see something that you want, pin it up for everybody to see! This is a fun and useful way to share what you think about the products you have, or wish you had. This also promotes the product itself, and depending on the popularity of the subject, could be repinned or shared over and over again.

If anyone would like an invite to Pinterest please put in the comments (I won’t publish the email address) It seems to take about a week otherwise if you apply to it.

A Cup of Christmas Tea

I was told this story many years ago by an old family friend. I have no idea if it’s true, but I’d like to think it was. I thought of it this morning while putting together gift baskets for relatives (with tea) and I thought I’d share because it was such a sweet story.

Many years ago a young lady studying overseas was called by the family solicitor and informed that her grandfather has passed away, leaving her as his sole heir.

The young lady’s parents and grandmother has passed on many years before, leaving her with a comfortable trust. The young lady returned to the states and after meeting with the solicitor, the young lady was a bit puzzled as her grandfather’s wishes were that she do whatever she would like with his fortune, (which no one seemed to know where it was) but that he hoped she would do something to benefit people and his last request in the will was to have a cup of tea and think of him.

She was also informed by the police that her grandfather’s house had been broken into and his house ransacked, but it appeared that not much has been taken aside from the family’s old silver, and from the amount of damage done it had appeared the burglars had been looking for something and gotten very frustrated and trashed the place.

The police were of the opinion that her grandfather’s obituary was the cause, as it had been mentioned that he made a fortune during the war in the fur industry, and it was well known around the neighborhood that the old gentleman distrusted banks, so the general theory being that he kept his fortune stashed in his house.

As the young lady tried to restore order to the mess that had been made of her grandfather’s house, she found a huge pantry filled with canned goods and hundreds of boxes of Twining’s Earl Grey Tea. Thinking it was the least she could do, she called the local food pantry and they came and picked up all the food….and the tea.

The young lady kept several boxes, as she remembered Earl Grey was her grandfather’s favorite and in honor of his final request started to make herself a cup of tea. She also asked the police officers that were there if they would like some as well. As the water started to come to a boil in the tea pot, she slowly started to unwrap the tea bags (now the tea bags were the older packaging of Twining’s Tea and the wrappers were similar to little mailing envelopes).

As she opened the first bag, she gasped and dropped the bag to the floor. One of the police ran over and asked if she was ok and all she could do was point at the tea bag wrapper.

While the thieves opened almost all of the boxes of tea to check to see whether anything was hidden in them, they didn’t open the tea bags.

In each tea bag wrapper was folded neatly a hundred dollar bill. Apparently her grandfather kept the wrappers after his cups of daily tea and carefully glued the envelopes back together. The young lady quickly opened up all the tea bags in the other boxes and all of them had hundred dollar bills in them. The police officers asked if she wanted to try to retrieve the tea sent to the food pantry and without a second thought she said no, it’s exactly where her grandfather would have wanted them to be.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Tips for Google+ for Business Pages and Multiple Administrators

Google+ as promised finally rolled out multiple administrator functions for Google+ Business Pages

To enable and access this new feature, Google has a short video that best explains it: http://youtu.be/20UXgGxssAo

What this means for Bed and Breakfasts.

You can finally give access to your significant other or manager (s) to post to the business page without having to go through your own account.

Some notes on the Business Page admins:

Unlike Facebook, If you delete an admin for the business page, they get an email notifying them of the event.

Unlike Facebook, If you assign someone as a manager they will get an email saying you are invited to become one.

Managers must have or must create a Google+ personal account to be able to access the business page.

Unlike Facebook, an admin cannot delete the business page.

Unlike Facebook, an admin can not take control of the page away from the original creator.

Admins posting posts, similar to Facebook, posts will look like they are coming “from” the business and not an individual.

Business pages are now ownership transferable.

From the Google+  Help Page

Transfer ownership of your page: Only the owner of a page can transfer their ownership rights. The person you transfer ownership to must be an existing manager of the page. If you don’t have any managers, you must first invite the person to become a manager, then wait for them to accept their invitation.

To change who owns your page: Use the menu on the side of the page to switch over to the page for which you’d like to transfer ownership.

Click Settings at the top corner of the stream.

On the side of the page, select Managers.

On the opposite side, click Transfer ownership.

Identify the manager whom you want to designate as the new owner and click Transfer.

Confirm you want to transfer ownership to this person.

When an owner transfers ownership to someone else, the old owner automatically becomes a manager of the page. The transfer of ownership happens immediately — no confirmation is necessary from the new owner.