Posts Tagged ‘Food’

Curious Product: Marmite Rice Cakes

Friday, October 30th, 2009

My friend M. found her perfect golden-hued dried maple leaf this morning.

She laid it on her desk and smiled with a glint in her eye.

There’s just something splendid about life’s little pleasures.

Oven Baked Marmite Cashews Marmite

Sort of like the little glee in my heart when I found the new Marmite snacks.

I’ve told a Marmite story before, I haven’t always liked Marmite – it somewhat grew on me.

It was at the Clapham Junction Asda; whiling away time and waiting to go to dinner.

I saw a lady with a pack of rice cakes; the packaging was black with the visible yellow and red Marmite label.

I had a brief ‘is that…. ?’ moment.

Not sure where she got it from, I started following her.

I find that I’m braver when I’m alone, especially in a place where no one knows me.

I followed the lady for a few seconds, gave in and asked where she got them from.

She very excitedly tells me three aisles down, and asks if I’ve tried them.

I say no and that I’ve never seen them before.

Marmite Rice Cakes

Apparently it’s new, they (Unilever) put out a variety of Marmite snacks, and the rice cakes are her favourite.

She asks me where I’m from; she says I’m lucky when I tell her.

She offers to walk me to where she got them, she may have taken the last one – there’s none left when we get there.

We ask one of the store clerks, the kind man offers to check the back; I’m hopeful and excited again.

He has no luck, they’re sold out.

(more…)

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Curious Product: Knorr Minestrone con Pasta

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

It’s been a very busy week for me; I’m trying to cram a month’s worth of work into two weeks.

I‘ve been going to work at 8AM everyday this week; my co-worker looked at me suspiciously yesterday and asked; “Seriously, what’s going on with you?”

Preparing to go on vacation is such a bitch sometimes.

I’m working more and doing less of everything else. Surprisingly, I’m enjoying this pace, the day goes by briskly and there’s little distraction. It’s a nice change.

I wish I could say I’m too busy to cook so I’ve been eating Knorr soups instead, that would have been a nice segue, but I’m trying to cut back on lies, I haven’t cooked in years (I do bake though).

Knorr Minestrone Soup

I’m not big on soups; I used to really hate soups when I was a kid. It goes to reason that I mostly avoid soups now, but last winter I started incorporating soups into my diet.

It just seemed silly to hate soup.

Knorr Minestrone con Pasta

I figured it’s been too hot to try to make soup and it so happened that these little packets of Knorr Minestrone soup were on sale.

The ones I tried are from Knorr Italy, but with Unilever (Knorr’s parent company) being in every part of the world, I’m sure Knorr soups are every where.

I hadn’t tried any of the Knorr soups before – but I figured I could just throw it out if it turned out not so great, besides everything tastes better in Italian.

Knorr Minestrone con Pasta

Each packet serves about three and cooks in five minutes. The packet says it’s ‘senza conservanti’, Italian for ‘no preservatives’. The soup turned out ok, it wasn’t sensational but ok for a soup from dried ingredients. The dried veggies were a little on the shrunken-up side. It smelled good, had to add a bit of pepper, chives and a dash of balsamic vinegar (seriously, I put balsamic vinegar in everything!).

I had it for dinner one evening and it was nice, not too heavy but filling.

Next time I’m going to try to make my own minestrone soup, I’ve had way better homemade soups, plus I prefer the taste of fresh veggies.

I probably won’t buy this again.

Knorr Minestrone Soup

Knorr Minestrone con Pasta Knorr Minestrone con Pasta

Soup

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Growing Food

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

In keeping with the last post’s theme, I’m talking about the weather again today.

The crazy record heat wave is killing my poor plants. Those little babies don’t stand a chance and I’m beginning to feel like I failed.

Tomato

This year I’m growing tomatoes, cauliflower, bell peppers and cucumbers – yes all on my small balcony; it does make for a pretty and calming atmosphere.

I guess I’m inherently predisposed to grow things, I come from a long line of farmers and I technically spent a fair bit of my childhood on a farm.

My mom said they tried to grow grapes on the ‘farm’ one year, they were very hopeful until it grew into an overgrown bush that hardly bore any fruit and then it dried up and died a few years later. Her excuse is that they didn’t have Google back then, they may have gotten the soil’s PH wrong, the climate didn’t help and there may have been some over pruning issues.

I sometimes feel like my parents when I try my hand at gardening, it’s as if I’m supposed to do it but I may not be necessarily good at it. The good thing is I know my limitations enough not to want to quit my day job to become a farmer.

Grow

I have a beautiful coleus plant that thrives in spite of everything, and a cypress plant that would probably outlive me.

Last year, I had a got a few tomatoes for my troubles. This year I’m hoping the heat would let up and I get a few more exciting crops.

I’d hate to have to give up.

The Nelson Park community garden is awesome and I’ve been thinking about putting my name on a waitlist for a plot.

Here are a few pictures from the lovely garden – enjoy!

Garten House

Poppy Bulb

Sunflower Wilting

Bulb

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Curious Product: Terra Nostra Ricemilk Chocolate Bar

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Terra Nostra Ricemilk ChocoI was quite pleased when I found Terra Nostra Ricemilk Choco Bars; they appeared out of nowhere and it seemed they would solve my chocolate (dairy) milk dilemma.

I was so determined to like them I bought two bars outright. I’d never seen a dairy-free alternative to a milk chocolate bar before, yet seeing these, it all made sense. Of course, if we have soy, almond, rice and all those other substitutes to dairy, it only makes sense that you could make chocolate “milk” bars from these. I wonder why more companies aren’t producing this.

I first tried the Ricemilk Choco with Almonds bar; a 100g bar with 57% cocoa , ingredients include raw sugar cane, cocoa butter, rice powder, roasted almonds and hazelnuts – all organic ingredients. Even though all the ingredients are vegan, I wouldn’t necessarily call the bars vegan since it’s manufactured in a plant that produces dairy products.

The bars overall has a nice rich creamy taste, I couldn’t tell it was rice milk, it tasted rather like dairy milk. It doesn’t have one overpowering flavour, it’s mellow and not too sweet, the cocoa taste really comes through. It’s rich, velvety and nutty.

It reminds me of those tiny semi-sweet chocolate chips. The texture is smooth. The almond bar is my favourite, the crunchiness of the almonds balances well with the creamy texture of the chocolate, a rich nutty flavour with hints of vanilla.

Terra Nostra (a fifth generation chocolatier) is a Vancouver based company, (a plus for me!). The company is also part of Equitable Trade, an association which goes “beyond fair trade”.

I discovered these bars at Urban Fare, they retail a little higher above regular chocolate bars at about $4.50CAD.

I wanted to like these bars and I’m glad I wasn’t disappointed.

Equi-Trade Rick Milk Choco Terra Nostra
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Coconut Milk Ice Cream – A first try

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

I held off my decision to go diary-free for several months because I love ice-cream so much!

I couldn’t imagine life without that luscious delicious treat. When I was younger, my ‘aunt J.’ used to say that ice-cream was the only reason to get out of bed in the morning, and of course, sex was the only reason to go to bed at night. I thought she was so glamorous then and wanted to be just like her when I grew up.

Coconut Milk Ice Cream

Even though I’ve discovered a few other reasons more to get out of bed in the morning, my passion for ice-cream somewhat parallels aunt J’s. This is why I reconsidered my decision to go dairy-free several times.

I eventually went diary-free and gave up ice-cream momentarily while I searched for alternatives. Soy was out of the question because I don’t do soy. I discovered coconut milk ice-cream a few months ago when the Purely Decadent put out a Coconut Milk Ice-Cream, everything I’d seen before then had some sort of soy product in it, this was the first dairy free, soy free ice cream product I’d seen.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t available in Canada, so I tried it on one of my trips down south and I loved it!

Then there’s Luna & Larry’s Coconut Bliss which I’ve heard tastes even better, but then again it’s not available in Canada.

My local Whole Foods soon started carrying Purely Decadent Coconut Milk Ice Cream and I was elated, I bought them regularly for a few weeks but that quickly weaned – it costs $6.99CAD a pint; not exactly cheap.

Ingredients for coconut milk ice cream

This was when I started looking into making my own coconut milk ice cream; I searched around the internet and found a perfect and simple recipe and modified it as thus:

  • 2 cans of coconut milk
  • 1 medium sized banana
  • 3 – 4 tablespoons of honey
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • A pinch of salt

I mixed and blended all ingredients in a blender, transferred the mixture into my Cusinart ice cream maker and churned it for about 40mins and then froze it. It came out delicious, rich and creamy.

Coconut Milk Ice Cream Coconut Milk ice cream with crushed nuts

The only hitch was that I have to leave it out of the freezer for a few minutes to thaw otherwise it’s a little hard. It was actually pretty good for a first try; it has the consistency of soft serve ice cream and it’s delicious.

I’m going to try some adding in different things – this weekend I’m going to do a beet, ginger ice cream but I’ll add in a little bit of arrowroot powder to help with the hardening issue.

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