ChefDawn

Scented Play Dough Recipe

My kids LOVE this stuff.  Its so easy to make!!!

4 cups flour

2 cups salt

2 tbs cream of tartar

1 small package jello

Mix the above and add

4 cups water

1/4 cup oil

Food coloring

Cook on low fire until you see it get thick.  Do not over cook!  Pour out onto a silpat mat and knead after it has cooled.  It will come together.  If it still sticky after you kneed for a few minutes, just add more flour.

We made strawberry, blueberry, peach and apple.  Apple was the best smelling dough!

Cooking Class In My Home

Here are a few pictures from cooking classes I have taught in my home.  I have so much fun teaching these classes.  My students report that they love them too.  Stay tuned for the first teleseminar on cooking coming soon!  If you are one of my students, please leave a post!!

California Festivals for 2008

My husband and I love to take our kids camping. 
When we are planning our trips, many times we
will plan around the festival in a certain area.
We have gone to the Avocado Festival for three
years in a row and plan to go again this year. 
Meet me there!

Here is a comprehensive list of festivals in
California from now until the end of 2008. 
If you find more that are not on this list,
let me know the date, name and location and I will
add it.

April 11-12, 2008 California Wine Festival
San Diego, California

April 12, 2008 Palm Springs Food and Wine Festival
Country Palm Springs, California

April 15-16, 2008 World Beer Cup
San Diego, California

April 18-19, 2008 California Poppy Festival
Lancaster, CA

April 19, 2008 Taste of Uptown / Hillcrest
San Diego, California

April 19, 2008 Santa Barbara County Vintners' Festival
Lompoc, California

April 20, 2008 Avocado Festival
Fallbrook, CA

April 19-20, 2008 CAntique Farm Equipment Show
Tulare, California

April 19-20, 2008 California Poppy Festival
Lancaster, California

April 25-27, 2008 Stockton Asparagus Festival
Stockton, California

April 26-27, 2008 Apple Blossom Festival
Sebastopol, CA

April 26, 2008 25th International Beer Festival
San Francisco, California

April 3- - May 5 Raisin Festival
Selma, CA

May 16-18, 2008 26th Paso Robles Wine Festival
Paso Robles, California

May 17-18, 2008 Hughson Fruit and Nut Festival
Hughson, CA

May 17-18, 2008 Artichoke Festival
Castroville, CA

May 17, 2008 Uncorked!San Francisco Wine Festival
San Francisco, California

May 17-18, 2008 Strawberry Festival
Oxnard, CA

June, 2008 (Sat & Sundays)Lavender Festival
Cherry Valley, California

June 8, 2008 Ojai Wine Festival
Lake Casitas, CA

June 9. 2008 Cherry Festival
San Leoandro, CA

June 14, 2008 Sushi and Sake Festival
Long Beach, California

June 15-20, 2008 Palm Springs Restaurant Week
Palm Springs, California

July 12-13, 2008 French Festival
Santa Barbara, CA

July 17-19, 2008 Robert Mondavi Winery's Taste3
Napa Valley, California

July 18-19, 2008 California Wine Festival
Santa Barbara, California

July 18-19, 2008 Peach Festival
Marysville, CA

July 26-28, 2008 Gilroy Garlic Festival
Gilroy, California

July 26-27, 2008 15th Oxnard Salsa Festival
Oxnard, California

August 16, 2008 San Rafael Food & Wine Festival
San Rafael, California

August 16-17, 2008 Tomato Festival
Fairfield, CA

August 30, 2008 Long Beach Crab Festival
Long Beach, California

September 6, 2008 Kendall-Jackson Winery Heirloom
Tomato Festival
Santa Rosa, California

September 6-7, 2008 Pittsburg Seafood Festival
Pittsburg, California

September 6-7, 2008 Ghirardelli Square Chocolate Festival
San Francisco, California

September 6-7, 2008 Lemon Festival
Oxnard, CA

September 13-14, 2008 Art Bark Fest - Animal Art & Wine Festival
The Village at Squaw Valley, California

September 14, 2008 17th NatureSweet Carmel TomatoFest
Carmel, California

September 13-14, 2008 Dry Bean Festival
Tracy, CA

September 19-21, 2008 Almond Festival
Oakley, CA

September 26-28, 2008 Lobster Festival
Redondo Beach, CA

October 5, 2008 Cajun Food and Music Festival
Napa, CA

October 4, 2008 Eggplant Festival
Loomis Basin, CA

October 3-5,2008 Avocado Festival
Carpenteria, CA

October 11, 2008 Candy Festival
Fairfield, CA

October 11-12, 2008 Chocolate Festival
Oakhurst, CA

October 18-19, 2008 Apple Festival
Springville, CA

October 28-29, 2008 Cultural Food Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California

Oct 31-Nov 2 Los Angeles International Tamale Festival
Los Angeles, California

November 22-23, 2008 Mountain Mandarin Festival
Auburn, CA

November 28-30, 2008 Apple Butter Festival
Yucaipa, CA

December 6-7, 2008 Tamale Festival
Indio, CA

There are many websites that you visit for festivals
in your state.  If you go on the various search engines
and look up your state plus the word festivals, you
will find lots!  Try festivals.com, or
festivalsandevents.com,

Pick Your Own Fruit and Veggies

I found a great website for information on places you can go with your family or organization to pick your own fruit and vegetables.  Go to www.pickyourown.org and enter your state.  The site directs you to different regions in your state to find growers who allow you to pick your own.  This site even connects you with locations in other countries to pick your own! 

During the summer, we usually take the kids to Underwood Family Farms in Ventura County, CA.  They have two locations but my favorite is their Somis location that has hundeds and hundreds of blueberry bushes.  We take home 20 pounds or more of blueberries which the kids eat or I freeze or I bake!  We also visit Leona Valley once a year to pick cherries.  Ranier, or the white variety are my favorite.

If you have been picking in Southern California, and the location is not on the list at www.pickyourown.org, let me know.  I am always looking for new places to take the kids.

Festivals Family Fun

One way to spend time together as a family is to go to festivals. There are several types of festivals but my favorite are ones centered around food. Every year, we go to the avocado festival in Carpenteria, CA. We take our travel trailer and stay on the beach for the weekend. We have gone to the Gilroy Garlic Festival too. Yes, I have tried garlic ice cream and avocado ice cream. To find out about festivals in your area, simple Google your state name plus the word festivals. You should find several websites that list all the festivals in your area. You can also go to festivals.com or festivalsandevents.com.

Referrals

Good Easter Morning!  I have spent the last few days putting together the neatest list of kitchen tools and toys that you can find.  Everything on this list I either own or own something very similar.  I have tested all these products and only recommend them to you because I like them.  Many of the items are cheap!  Some are very expensive.  I do not recommend you go and replace everything you own for things that I recommend.  However, if you do me the favor of referring two people you know to www.chefdawn.com, I will email you this  11 page list of awesome kitchen gadgets and where to get them.  Not only that, but you will also see on the list that I have made arrangements for some of my vendors to give you a discount for mentioning my website.  Many students and friends of mine come into my kitchen and want to know what tools I love.  It is so hard to pick out just the right spatula or a good pot.  This list makes it easier for you to purchase tools for you kitchen.  This project has taken me a long time.  It has pictures of many of the items, along with descriptions and helpful hints.  You will LOVE it!!!!  Email me at dawn@chefdawn.com

Hummingbird Time

Southern California is starting to heat up.  With the warmth comes the hummingbirds.  These little territory hogs compete for the two hummingbird feeders that we have at our house.  In case you didn't know, to make hummingbird food for your feeder, dissolve 1/4 cup of granulated sugar in one cup of warm water.  Add a drop of red food coloring and you are good to go.  Keep the extra mixture in the fridge to  keep it fresh.  Also, make sure to rinse your feeder with a little bleach and water to kill any bacteria that might have grown.  Here are a couple of pictures of our feeders and some of the birds.

There is a hummingbird in the left picture feeding on the right side of the feeder.

Pizza Time

The teacher at my daughter's preschool class has a meeting
and asked if I would come and teach for a few hours.  You
know me....  what can I teach them to cook???  The best
thing to teach three and four year olds is pizza. 
Pizza dough is fun to teach preschoolers because they can
play with the dough!  When you make cookies and many types
of bread dough, you do not want to knead the dough too much
or else it makes the final product tough.  With pizza dough,
I knead for 15 minutes.  Well, actually my KitchenAid mixer
kneads for 15 minutes while I start making another batch or
the sauce and toppings.  For the best pizza dough recipe,
simply sign up for my newsletter and I'll email it to you
immediately.  I have two batches of pizza dough in the
refrigerator for tomorrow.  I can't wait!

Free Ebook From Barilla

If you follow this link to the Barilla website, you will have an
opportunity to download a free e-cookbook.

http://www.celebrityitaliantable.com/Pages/Index.aspx

You will be asked for some basic information and then taken
to the cookbook which you can download and print.

Barilla asked five celebrities including Stanley Tucci,
Marisa Tomei, Debra Messing, Natalie Portman and Chris
Daughtry to share their favorite pasta recipes.  Mario Batali
reworked the recipes and developed special recipes for each
party and David Tutera helped in the table layouts and designs.

Barilla is donating $1 for each copy of the cookbook downloaded,
spending up to $100,000 and given to America's Second Harvast,
a national charity that donates billions and billions of pounds
of food products to less fortunate citizens of the United States.

Go get your free cookbook today!

Chef Dawn
Your Personal E-Chef Live:  Everything about Cooking, Food, and Family. 
Bring back dinner parties!

Free Ebook

I have started making money promoting a product that I use myself.  It makes me residual money (money every month that people I refer pay for the service).  If you email me at dawn@chefdawn.com I will be happy to send you the free ebook on this amazing product.  Kickstartcart.com offers a full range of stuff at extremely reasonable prices for you to set up a store on line and have your own shopping cart.  It allows you to communicated with your clients through auto responders.  It helps you manage your "list", making it easy to keep your clients up to date on what you are doing.  After you use the product and love it, you can promote it, you make money... money... money.  Again, email me for a free ebook on kickstartcart.