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Well, we’re back! I thought we’d do something different this week, and post the recipes that our friends and family like the most and always request. I have two that I’ve routinely taken to potlucks and parties that are always asked for again. The first is Olive Cheese Balls – a pimento-stuffed green olive wrapped in cheesy pastry. This is a very old recipe that has always remained popular, and is very easy to do. It’s one pastry that I do make in the food processor rather than manually cutting the fat and cheese into the flour , and I...

The US and China have reached a 10-point trade deal that opens the Chinese market to US credit rating agencies and credit card companies. Under the deal, China will also lift its ban on US beef imports and accept US shipments of liquefied natural gas. In return, Chinese cooked chicken will be allowed into the US market and Chinese banks can enter the US market.

Sometimes we use Peapod, a grocery delivery service, so that we have a weekend now and then where we don’t have to do anything but stay home, read books, putter around the house. It’s very convenient, and when you factor-in the value of time - and in my area, the frustration of traffic - it isn’t very expensive. I wouldn’t do it every week – I like going into the store and looking around; but it’s very useful and efficient for our occasional use. We discovered recently that Peapod is offering ‘meal kits’; and since some of you have had...

To meet increasing demand for meat raised without certain antibiotics, top U.S. chicken company Tyson Foods Inc and rival producers are turning to sanitizing wipes, bacteria-reducing fog and even oregano to keep birds healthy. Some have spent years of trial and error on new techniques to figure out replacements for human drugs, part of a fight against the rise of dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria in people. Yum Brands Inc's KFC on Friday became the last of the big three U.S. chicken restaurants to move away from antibiotics important to human medicine. McDonald's Corp and privately held Chick-fil-A had already made similar...

One of the best dishes that my husband makes is a ‘Chicken Primavera’ pasta dish, with asparagus. This recipe calls for Vermouth, which I don’t like very much; so we use a dry white wine instead; and you don’t have to use Fettuccine - it’s also nice with little shells or any other whimsical pasta. I think I originally found this in one of those little recipe books that they place at the supermarket checkout to lure you into an impulse purchase. I’ve been ‘impulsed’ many times, and have found some very nice recipes in those pamphlets ;-) Chicken Primavera...

‘Clean meat’ developers say it avoids towering costs of feeding, caring for livestock; Tyson Foods takes note A Bay Area food-technology startup says it has created the world’s first chicken strips grown from self-reproducing cells without so much as ruffling a feather. And the product pretty much tastes like chicken, according to people who were offered samples Tuesday in San Francisco, before Memphis Meats Inc.’s formal unveiling on Wednesday. Scientists, startups and animal-welfare activists believe the new product could help to revolutionize the roughly $200 billion U.S. meat industry. Their goal: Replace billions of cattle, hogs and chickens with animal...

Fried chicken will never be guilt-free. But you may soon be able to remove at least part of the remorse the next time you chow down—because it might not have required a single bird to be harmed. Memphis Meats is one of a cadre of startups racing to create meat that doesn’t involve killing any animals. The firm's approach to what it calls “clean meat” is to culture animal cells in the lab, feed them nutrients until they grow into pieces large enough to cook and eat. The company has already grown beef (as have others). Last year, it made...

And it pretty much tastes like chicken, according to people who were offered samples Tuesday in San Francisco, before a planned big reveal on Wednesday by Memphis Meats Inc. Scientists, startups and animal-welfare activists believe the new product could help to revolutionize the roughly $200 billion U.S. meat industry. Their goal: Replace billions of cattle, hogs and chickens with animal meat they say can be grown more efficiently and humanely in stainless steel bioreactor tanks. Startups including Memphis Meats and Mosa Meat, based in the Netherlands, have been pursuing the concept. They call it “clean meat,” a spin on “clean...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — If you think that chicken sandwich you ordered at Subway did not fully taste like fowl, you may have been right. According to a Canadian study, a DNA test showed only half of Subway’s oven-roasted patty is made with real chicken. Subway was among five fast-food restaurants, whose chicken the Canadian Broadcast Corporation had tested. The results showed the Oven Roasted Chicken patties averaged 53.6 percent chicken DNA while the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki strips came in at 42.8 percent. The sandwich chain refuted the results of the DNA test in a released statement: “SUBWAY Canada...

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had researchers at Trent University’s Wildlife Forensic DNA Laboratory test the chicken from several fast food chains, including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, A&W, Tim Hortons and Subway. Most of the scores were between 85 and 90 percent chicken DNA. Except at Subway. The oven roasted chicken scored 53.6 percent chicken DNA and the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki (chicken strips) had just 42.8 percent chicken DNA, according to the CBC Marketplace investigation. ... So what else is in the meat? According to the DNA testing, it’s soy.

Love that Chicken from... Ontario? Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE: QSR) will buy Atlanta-based Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Inc. (NASDAQ: PLKI) for $1.8 billion. Popeyes shareholders will get $79 in cash a share at closing -- a premium of 27 percent based on Popeyes’ 30-trading day Volume Weighted Average Price as of Feb. 10. The deal, expected to close by early April 2017, brings the New Orleans spicy chicken brand to the Ontario, Canada-based company that owns Burger King and Tim Hortons. Popeyes will continue to be managed independently in the United States. RBI plans to continue developing the brand at...

Karen Goode, of San Antonio, is suing for $1,000,000 after she said rice and beans she ate at Popeyes in spring 2015 were infested with flesh-eating worms, according to KDAF. In the lawsuit filed in Bexar County, Goode's attorney, Patrick Stolmeier, argues the franchisee, Z&H Foods, should have known about the screwworms and never served the tainted food to customers. He also described what Goode allegedly endured after consuming the screwworms: "Plaintiff purchased rice and beans from Defendants' restaurant that contained flesh eating New World Screwworms, and Plaintiff unknowingly ingested the flesh eating screwworms. The flesh eating screwworms entered Plaintiff's...

American families are getting smaller and yet chickens are getting larger. As we begin 2017, Americans can look back at 2016 as yet another year with record-high chicken consumption—an average of 89.6 pounds per person. That’s more than three times as much as our grandparents ate. Chickens we eat today are twice as big as they were 60 years ago. In 1955, the average weight of chickens sold on market was 3.07 pounds, while the number for the first half of 2016 was 6.18 pounds, according to National Chicken Council, a nonprofit trade organization based in Washington, D.C.

Often dismissed as bird-brains, chickens are showing they’ve got some smartsAs we get ready to launch ourselves into the Year of the Rooster, here’s news that could give you new respect for the humble chicken. Researchers have determined that chickens are smarter than we think, have a good measure of self-control, and might even have Machiavellian tendencies. A study published this week in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Animal Cognition, revealed that those bird-brained chickens are actually pretty smart, as most backyard chicken farmers have long maintained. Neuroscientist Lori Marino authored the paper, which compiled the conclusions of several studies showing...

Around Christmas, many KFC restaurants in Japan see 10 times their average daily sales. Customers order their KFC special Christmas dinner weeks in advance or wait in line for hours to score a Kentucky Christmas dinner package including chicken, side dishes, cake, and even wine. WTF??! Marketing, that's what. From the BBC: According to KFC Japan spokeswoman Motoichi Nakatani, it started thanks to Takeshi Okawara, the manager of the first KFC in the country. Shortly after it opened in 1970, Okawara woke up at midnight and jotted down an idea that came to him in a dream: a “party barrel”...

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Thursday his family's pet chicken named Hillary died right before the election. McAuliffe, a Democrat and a top Clinton ally, was asked about his four chickens in an interview with the Atlantic. "I hate to say this, one chicken died," he said. "About a month before the election, Hillary died." "We've got Hillary, Jr. now," he added. "She is bright and fluffy and making a lot of noise and healthy as an ox."

The chef behind one of America's most popular Chinese food dishes has died. Chef Peng Chang-kuei was 98 when he died on Nov. 30 from pneumonia, according to the Epoch Times. Peng first made General Tso's chicken in the 1950s, when he was working as a chef for the Taiwanese government, according to Taiwan Business Topics. When U.S. Navy Admiral Arthur W. Radford visited Taiwan in 1954 to lead a summit of high-ranking government officials, Peng decided to expand on the usual banquet menu. One of his innovations, a breaded and stir-fried chicken dish in a sweet and spicy sauce,...

A chicken was arrested after it attempted to cross a busy road. The feathery bird was desperate to get to the other side of the tarmac in East Marketgait, Dundee, during rush hour but was stopped in its tracks after a motorist reported it to the police. Officers rushed to the scene as they believed the chicken was "giving passing motorists cause for concern" and captured it. They then took it back to the station in Tayside, Scotland, and appealed for its owner before contacting the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA). Taking to Facebook, the police...

They dot the landscape in this working-class New Jersey city, popping up every few blocks with names like US Fried Chicken, Royal Fried Chicken and New York Fried Chicken and Burger and giving immigrants a foothold in a new country. One of these fried chicken restaurants, First American Fried Chicken, was thrust into the international spotlight on Monday when authorities arrested the owner’s son, Ahmad Rahami, after a shootout with police. Rahami is suspected of planting several explosives in New York City and New Jersey, including one that blew up on Saturday night in Manhattan and injured 29 people and...