Learn fool-proof techniques for chopping fresh herbs

Cup of Content

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Fresh herbs enliven any dish, whether freshly prepared or leftovers from last night’s dinner. The latter is how Roni Proter likes to use them, and in this installment of Cup of Content, she shows you how to properly clean and chop them.

She starts by rinsing them gently and patting them dry with a towel. (Wet herbs are much harder to chop.) Then she demonstrates two techniques.

The first works for dill, parsley, rosemary, and thyme — essentially anything with small or stiff leaves. Gather them in a pile, then rock the knife back and forth while keeping the tip on the cutting board.

For herbs such as basil and mint, Proter likes to stack the leaves on top of each other, roll them up like a cigar, and slice thinly across.

Want more videos like these? Then watch previous episodes of Cup of Content or Proter’s other series, Dinner Reinvented.

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A little chicken prep goes a long way in the kitchen at mealtime

Cup of Content

Cooking meat can be the most time-consuming part of preparing dinner. But it doesn’t have to be. In this episode of Cup of Content, host Roni Proter explains how she trims valuable time off meal prep with a few slices of a knife and a little plastic wrap.

By cutting and pounding chicken breasts in advance, the smaller, thinner cutlets are ready to use any time she needs them — and for any recipe that calls for them.

First she removes the fat, then slices the breast in half diagonally. After covering the chicken with plastic wrap while still on the cutting board, she pounds it thin.

She recommends dredging the chicken pieces in a favorite coating, or just wrapping them up tight in plastic and freezing as is. Then there is meat at the ready for the next time you need to cook a meal for the family. The smaller, thinner pieces thaw more quickly than the whole chicken breast, saving you precious time in the kitchen.

To see all of the steps, watch the video.

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Oft-ignored vegetable part becomes nutritious snack in this cooking trick

Cup of Content

A mom's job gets harder around dinnertime, especially when she's cooking. Not only does she want to make healthy choices, but she also needs to keep the kids' stomachs from grumbling while she's making a meal.

Roni Proter, who created Dinner Reinvented after she discovered the challenges of preparing dinner as a busy working mother, is full of good advice. In this episode of Cup of Content, she shares a dinnertime trick she learned from her own mother.

When the meal includes broccoli — perhaps in the form of steamed florets side dish — she turns the oft-overlooked broccoli stalk into a nutritious pre-dinner snack for her kids.

The stalk has a milder flavor than the crown, and cutting up the stalk for snacking means you don't waste any bit of the vegetable. Just remove the tough exterior with a peeler, cut it into sticks, and serve.

Want more videos like these? Learn how to make a 60-second breakfast sandwich, easy roasted vegetables, or a faster-than-pasta side dish.

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Whip up this side dish instead of pasta for easy weekday dinners

Cup of Content

In this episode of Cup of Content, host Roni Proter shares her go-to side dish: couscous. When a busy mom has to keep an eye on the kids while cooking, pasta may take too long to prepare.

Quick-cooking couscous works wonders for weekday dinners when you want another kind of "starchy" side. Proter likes to boil two cups of water in her electric kettle, then pour it over one cup of couscous she has waiting in a bowl.

Stir in the water with a pinch of salt, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit for five minutes before forking and serving. What could be simpler? And it's only 10 minutes from start to finish.

If only raising kids were that easy.

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Okla. favorite Hideaway Pizza tiptoes into Texas with first shop in Plano

Pizza News

A new pizza purveyor is coming to Texas where it will bravely enter the Dallas-Fort Worth market: Hideaway Pizza an Oklahoma-based chain serving pizza, craft beer, and cocktails, is making its DFW debut with a location in Plano, at 5410 SH-121.

According to a spokesperson, the restaurant will open in mid-October.

Based in Tulsa, Hideaway was founded in 1957 by Richard "The Big Kahuna" Dermer and his wife Marti in 1957 near the Oklahoma State University campus in Stillwater. They became known for making deliveries via a fleet of Volkswagen Beetles.

In 2006, the company was purchased by Brett Murphy and Darren Lister who've successfully retained the anti-chain irreverent spirit and laid-back atmosphere, with employees wearing tie-dye shirts. Their help-wanted ad, for example, says, "We're looking for Weirdoughs and Fungi's to join our team!"

There are now 23 locations across Oklahoma and Arkansas, and they recently made a list of the "10 Established Casual-Dining Restaurant Chains Consumers Love" by Nation's Restaurant News.

Expanding to North Texas made sense because the area has many OSU alumni as well as Oklahoma transpants. The owners also observed that many pizza concepts have moved to to-go only.

"The pizza casual dining space has been vacated by competitors chasing delivery and quick dining," Murphy said in a December 2022 interview. "Hideaway offers premium pizza and a fantastic dine-in experience you can’t find anywhere else."

For pizza, they have two crust options: thin and hand-tossed, slightly thicker and puffier. There are also two alternative crusts: GF and cauliflower.

Signature pies include 17 options, from chicken Florentine with alfredo sauce to the Capone, with sausage, pepperoni, Genoa salami, bacon, red onion, black olives, garlic, and their "Parmesan-herb shake."

There are sandwiches, pastas, salads, meatballs, and garlic cheese bread. Their fried mushrooms are a big customer favorite, and beer is served in frosty cold mugs. Their Sweetza cookies dessert are big boys baked in a six-inch pizza pan and topped with vanilla ice cream. They also have a full bar.

Following Plano, they'll open a location in McKinney at 2101 N. Hardin Blvd. in early 2024, and have Fort Worth penciled in next.

Famed Seattle piroshky bakery makes stop in Dallas on Texas-wide tour

Meat Pie News

A Seattle bakery is coming to Dallas for a special pop-up: Piroshky Piroshky Bakery, which specializes in handmade piroshki, AKA Russian hand pies, will stop in Dallas on a national tour.

The bakery will be at Outfit Brewing, 135 John W. Carpenter Fwy, on October 5 from 5-7 pm, with luscious offerings, both savory and sweet.

Piroshkis are small pies of Russian origin, made from an enriched yeast dough, with savory fillings like meat, vegetables, or cheese, the most traditional being meat and rice or potato and onion.

Piroshky Piroshky Bakery was founded in Seattle in 1992, and offer their pastries in all sorts of delectable fillings: from beef & cheese to cabbage & onion to vegan-friendly mushroom & potato. They make authentic pastries, as well.

Their piroshky are individually made from scratch and hand-formed into unique shapes that help differentiate the flavors and fillings inside.

The company has five locations across Seattle, and also sells their products online. Their original location at Seattle's Pike Place Market serves more than 20 varieties.

But they also make annual tours, just like a rock band, to bring their goods to towns across the U.S. They last came through Dallas in November 2022.

The tour features options such as:

Smoked salmon pate piroshky
Beef & onion piroshy
Impossible beef & onion piroshky
Ham, spinach, & cheese piroshky
Potato & cheese piroshky
Veggie chipotle piroshky
Chocolate cream hazelnut roll
Cinnamon cardamom braid
Pumpkin toffee braid
Caraway cheddar cheese stick
Poppyseed cinnamon roll

The full menu is online, and pre-ordering is required. The cutoff order date for Dallas is October 3 at 4 pm. There's a minimum of $50; individual items run between $5.25 to $7.25.

In addition to Dallas, they're also making three other stops in Texas:

Fort Worth at Martin House Brewing, 220 S Sylvania Ave. on October 4, from 5-7 pm. You must order by October 2; pre-order here.
Austin at Twin Creeks Park, 2303 Dervingham Drive, Cedar Park, on October 6, from 5-7 pm; pre-order here.
Houston at Elks Lodge, 10150 W Airport Blvd, Stafford, on October 7, from 5-7 pm; pre-order here.

Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas initiates action to save birds from dying

Bird News

Reunion Tower, the little ball on the Western edge of downtown Dallas, is famous for its sassy light shows illuminating the Dallas skyline. But in recent years, the building has followed a bird-friendly policy of dimming its lights, and that dimming is about to get underway.

From October 1 through October 21, Reunion Tower will observe the following lighting schedule:

Sundown to 11 pm: lower its lights
11 pm-6 am: go completely dark
6 am-sunrise back to dim

The building enacts these changes to protect birds that are migrating through Texas.

Dallas is on the path of the Central Migratory Flyway, which extends from the Northwest and heads diagonally southeast through Mexico.

Every fall and spring, nearly two billion birds travel through Texas. The bird migration is one of the largest on the planet, and takes place at night. Light attracts migrating birds, making them vulnerable to collisions with buildings and causing them to become disoriented and distracted.

Birds get pulled into urban areas, collide into buildings, and die. Volunteer surveys - in which people go out and count actual dead bodies - in cities such as Dallas, Austin, Houston, and Fort Worth, finds hundreds of dead birds every night. It adds up to nearly a billion birds killed in the U.S. each year.

Dallas-Fort Worth is the third most dangerous area in the U.S. for migratory birds to travel through; Chicago is No. 1, followed by Houston which is No. 2.

As this map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows, Dallas and Houston are both massively lit, representing major obstacles to the success and survival of the birds' migration.

Lights Out Texas was initiated as a statewide effort in Spring 2020 to protect birds from light pollution by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and BirdCast, with the essential support of founding Texas partners Houston Audubon, the Dallas Zoo, and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

According to Audubon, the actual critical migration period through Dallas is September 6 through October 29. A glittery skyline is surely pretty, but downtown should just shut it down during those times.

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