I 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eat! Vancouver, the food festival, took place this past weekend at BC Place. I went with my mom and sister on Friday night.

Eat!Vancouver is an annual event that I’ve been attending for the past four years, and even though I didn’t particularly enjoy last year’s, my mom insisted we go because she had fun at last year’s. Friday was the opening day and we got there with about only three hours to spare.

Chef Anthony Sedlak from Food Network Canada’s The Main was on the cooking stage.

There were some new and interesting vendors this year.

Rabbit River Farms in Richmond, BC produces organic, free range and free run eggs and chickens. They also raise special breed chickens that lay naturally colourful eggs, I learnt about the Araucana Chicken that lays the bluish/green eggs.

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These women managed to turn their passion for olive oil into an aptly named business called Olea Europaea. The company sells ten premium olive oils sourced from all over the Mediterranean.

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I actually discovered Bosa Foods at the very first Eat!Vancouver I attended, and it’s become one of my main places to shop, I go to the Kootney Street store at least twice a month to stock up on pantry items like pasta, beans, Italian sodas etc.

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These beautiful ladies gracefully posed for this picture after asking if it was going “somewhere on the internet” That’s the food Chef Anthony prepared and they both agreed it was very good.

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More pictures from Flickr below:

I went dairy-free about a year and the half ago, except I haven’t been completely diary-free. I’ve given up everything except milk chocolate bars. I don’t eat them often but every once in a while I’ll have a bar. I’ve tried a few dark (dairy-free) chocolate bars and I’m slowly weaning myself off those milky delicious bars.

This was an impulse check-out item purchase; I was in line at Bosa Foods waiting to be checked out when the bright red packaging beckoned. I was a little hungry and for $1.99 I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it.

Kras is a Croatian chocolate manufacturer that’s been in business since 1911 and Dorina is the brand name. Kras has a popular Choco Bar (or Bonbonnière, as it’s also fancily called) that every chocolate lover who happens to be in Zagreb, (Croatia’s capital) should visit.

The bar I got was the 3.5oz milk hazelnut bar, it turned out I wasn’t as hungry and didn’t eat it until days later.

My mom took one look at it and asked “what is that?”

“Chocolate” I responded

“Why can’t I read what’s on here?” she asked turning it over

“It’s Croatian chocolate” I said

She says in a dumbfounded tone “Why would you buy Croatian chocolate?”

I have nothing, and she walks away shaking her head mumbling “Croatian Chocolate…”

It’s pretty basic rectangular bar with sectioned squares, comes wrapped in the standard foil and has bright red packaging on the outside.

The taste is rich, creamy and sweet, reminiscent of a Ritter bar. What surprised me was that the hazelnuts weren’t whole or in chunks. Instead there were tiny pieces of hazelnut speckled heavily throughout. I didn’t enjoy that aspect of the bar, maybe it’s because I’m used to huge chunks of nuts in chocolate bars. I felt there was something lacking with the tiny pieces and it had an annoying way of getting stuck in my teeth.

For $1.99 I probably would have bought it again if I weren’t giving up milk chocolate bars for good. It’s slightly better stuff than your average bar of chocolate and the taste isn’t bad.

Occasionally when I’m grocery shopping; I’ll throw a new product in the cart, hoping to find that one food item that’ll… change my life. Mostly, it’s been more misses than hits; but I remain forever resilient and hopeful. This is how I ended up with a box of Ines Rosales Sweet Olive Tortas.

I was at the Italian shop the other day stocking up on my pantry staples when I came upon them. It was the packaging that called to me; it had a certain simple wholesome Mediterranean-ess to it. I gave it a once over and decided to give them a try because I liked the ingredient list.

Each cracker/flatbread is wrapped in its own wax paper; it’s flaky, light, crispy and sprinkled sparingly with sugar. It tastes light and flavourful, it’s amazing! It has just the right sweetness and crunch and it’s very delicate. There’s a subtle hint of anise/liquorice that in my opinion binds the flavours.

I was so impressed and awed by my find that I scuttled online to find out more about this wonderful discovery. It turns out it has an equally wonderful back-story. The company has been making these tortas since 1910 in Seville, Spain. The tortas are made with extra virgin olive oil, flour, sugar, sesame seeds and anise seeds and essence. It’s made in small batches; hand flattened and contains no additives or colorants. I like the fact that it has no diary or eggs (it’s technically vegan!).

There are six individually wrapped torta in a box for around $6.00CAD – it’s totally worth it.

I brought some along on a recent trip to Seattle two weekends ago and after a long day of running around, I sat in a park, took a nice long break and had a torta with my coffee, it felt incredible and everything just seemed perfect in that moment.

I’ve even had it with water and it was amazing. My dream is to visit Seville one day and go to the Ines Rosales Factory to personally thank them for making a product that could very well… change my life.