Still my favourite new drink.
This kombucha is spicier than the Himilayan one, certainly from the ginger juice. It also uses oolong tea, and adds Chinese pear flavouring (which I didn't really differentiate).
I would say that I liked this second best, but it is still a wonderful drink, and today I find that it gives me a little energy after drinking it (which I need, with a young and very active lady).
Since 1959 they've been making ice cream from a Sicilian recipe in "Little Italy" in Toronto, on College Street, you might have seen Sicilian Ice Cream's Tartufo (a inner flavoured ball coated by ice cream and covered with nuts or cookies); they're available for sale in most supermarkets, usually at one end of the ice cream section.
This is their Hazelnut or Nociola ice cream, which also has coffee and cocoa powder. There are a few hazelnut pieces here and there, not in every bite, but enough to have the impression of hazelnut. Overall, not the best hazelnut ice cream or, as they call it in Sicily, gelato, I've eaten, but pretty good.
This is more like Manner's Haselnuss-Mignon, but tastes better. Still not as good as the version that is not coated with chocolate, Salzburg Sweet's Haselnuss-Schnitten. The ingredients are pretty typical of store-bought wafer cookies, ie. this ain't your health cookie. So, don't be eating half a bag of these, like my friend did once (and I know lots of people who could eat the whole bag if they wanted). You can find these in most supermarkets. I don't know the relationship between Salzburg Sweets and Salzburg Schokolade, but I believe they are related, the packaging is very similar.
Having spent an afternoon with a representative of the Italian chocolatier Amedei, and sampled some of their offerings, and later had the opportunity to revel in the experience that is the Venezuelan chocolate bar Chuao, I must say that I found this particular bar to be more sublime, making me raise my head to the ceiling as it melted on my mouth; I had to excuse myself for a few moments as I sampled this wonderful chocolate. Cecelia Tessieri has outdone herself. I am sure that Margot Silver-Dumas, said Amedei representative, has seen that before. Many times, perhaps. And, certainly, with the purchase of the large version of that sample, I could enjoy it even more. The cacao content is 70%. Its ingredient listing is short, cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, lecithin as an emulsifier and vanilla. Certainly very similar listing to a lot of bars, whole different experience of chocolate.
How does it taste? Wonderful, sublime, deep and dark, intense, smooth chocolate (not for lovers of milk chocolate, certainly, so be warned). Despite its $9 price tag, I would definitely buy this bar again given the chance. And hope too for another chance to sample some of their offerings.
These are very much like little biscotti, quite crispy with large almond pieces. Certainly, they are crunchy too, though the almond-lover in my family doesn't like them much, they are too 'eggy'. I see they have a little bit of honey in them. They come from Abruzzo, Italy (which I don't know is a good thing or not, just a fact). We found them at Highland Farms in Mississauga.
This is my new favourite drink.
Kombucha is a mysterious drink. It is a sweetened fermented tea or tisane, using a Mother of mushroom, or mushroom, or SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast). Make it with black or green or white tea, add some flavour, like rosehip or ginger or lemon, brew it for a while, make it in the right way, and you get this carbonated different than anything you've tasted before wonder health drink. They first made it in old Russia, or perhaps in China, even Japan. Or, in the Himalayas.
The health part of it may come from various acids that are created; glucaronic or glucaric acid, a detoxifier; lactic acid, good for digestion and the blood; acetic acid, inhibit harmful bacteria; usnic acid, natural antibiotic; oxalic acid, for intercellular production of energy; malic acid, to help detoxify the liver; gluconic acid, effective against yeast infections; and butyric acid, protection against yeast infections.
Wonder Drink, from Portland, Oregon, makes a commercial version of kombucha, however, so I don't know the effects of the pasteurization of it, perhaps there are essential enzymes that are deactivated. Certainly, this drink must be made in the right way, even if not commercial; cleanliness is important, so they are being safe by pasteurizing.
The taste of Wonder Drink is, well, wonderful to me. I found myself trying to capture the last few drops in the glass, and again after a moment, when some of the carbonation coalesced into more liquid. If I were to describe the flavour and taste sensation of this drink, the best I can come up with is an elderberry champagne, Holundersekt, which I also find very delicious, and is a fermented drink, in the sun.
This one is their Himalayan Blend, a mix of oolong tea and lemon flavour, with cane sugar.
Other flavours in this line that I'm interested in, are Asian Pear Ginger, Jasmine Niagara Grape and Rooibos Red Peach.
Quite good.
Quite different.
A wonder.
The best advice I can give in making this dish, is focus on the preparation before starting; there are a lot, I mean a lot, of spices to be scooping out while the onions are caramelizing, and eventually burning. This is the main meal to which the Chana Masala would go well with (we made this again, with Chana Masala spice mixture this time instead of Garam Masala). The asafoetida in this dish is a spice that I've seen only in Indian dishes (until more recently, as a tincture to be put on the stomach of babies to reduce gas - a benefit from Thailand), and is very pungent and somewhat unpleasant when raw (and will likely stink up your place for a short while), but is used to reduce gassiness when eating lentils or cruciferous vegetables. This dish tasted quite good, an interesting spicy chicken paired with papaya, though I think I should have taken my beautiful Bride's suggestion, to cook the papaya a little with the chicken (on the other hand, cooking too long will deactivate the beneficial enzymes that papaya contains).
Papaya ChickenMix together the cumin seeds, ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, paprika and salt.
Place the oil, fenugreek seeds and asafoetida in a non-stick skillet over medium heat and cook for 10 seconds. Add the garlic, ginger and green chili, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the onion and sauté for four minutes, until caramelized. Add the cumin spice mixture, and cook for 10 seconds.
Add the chicken and cook for 2 minutes, until it is almost done. Stir in the yogurt and cook for another 2 minutes, until the chicken is fully done. Add the papaya chunks, and cook for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat, stir in the papaya chunks, and serve with brown rice or whole wheat naan.
This recipe is by Padma Lakshmi, of Top Chef fame, she has a cookbook of her own (despite looking like she's the 'Top Chef booth bunny', she has some cooking credentials). And this indeed tasted good, sweet and spicy and creamy. A thick soup. You can alter the heat by adding more or less of the red pepper flakes. It does take a while to cook, about 45 minutes plus prep time, but worth it.
Curried Butternut Squash SoupHeat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic, and continue to stir; add ginger. Continue cooking until shallots are soft and translucent, about 3 minutes. Add bay leaves and red pepper; continue cooking for 1 minute more. Stir in squash, salt, and curry powder; cook for 10 minutes.
Raise the heat to medium-high, and add vegetable stock. Cover, and bring to a boil. Immediately lower the heat, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring and mashing every 5 minutes. Add the palm sugar and cook for 5 minutes. Add the coconut milk and continue cooking for 10 minutes.
Remove bay leaves from soup. If desired, use an immersion blender to purée until smooth.
Garnish with chives and/or curry leaves, and serve immediately.
Another new and interesting apple variety I found at Loblaws, for $1.99/lb, essentially $1 for each apple, is the Jazz, which comes from New Zealand (but also grown in France and Washington, USA). It is a cross between a Braeburn and a Gala apple. You can see the red/maroon colouring broken up by smaller areas of yellow or green or orange. This is a good-tasting apple, crisp, juicy and dense, but be careful, as it is a solid apple, and sensitive teeth may have an issue biting into it. I would say that I would buy this apple again, if it were comparable in price to the more ubiquitous supermarket apples.
Certainly I was allured by the scent coming from this large cardboard box from Le Palais des Thés at Winners, a spicy, floral heady aroma. Looking at the literature attached, it talks about the romantic notion of a Tibetan mystery, a community of monks who soak a combination of tea and flowers in utmost secrecy for several days, then plucked out and dried.
This fragrant tea was then sealed in sand, brown or black little clay pots (the tea comes in an authentic version), which preserves its flavour and scent,
and tied with the string that a monk would use to tie their habit (again, which this tea does).
This tea is a combination of green and black teas, with flowers.
The tea, when steeped, becomes a sort of reddy brown colour. Each pot contains 125 g of the tea combination; use 10 g per steeping.
Certainly, it has an intriguing scent, which remains after several days of being open. The taste is interesting, sort of a mellower black tea, with hints of flowers. I don't know how I could ever find this again, but I will enjoy it as I still have some, another different tea in my varied collection.
The idea of getting your daily requirement of antioxidants in a drink is intriguing, this drink takes the theme of Purple to do so. This contains a mixture of seven purple fruits which are good sources of antioxidants (what they call Super-Food Fruit Juices); acai, black cherry, pomegranate, black currant, purple plum, cranberry and blueberry (though, pomegranate and cranberry are more red). We found this in a Chinese supermarket for $1, though I have seen it on sale for $2 in health food stores. I find this drink to have one overwhelming flavour, and I think it is the black cherry, though I have as of yet to try acai (which I've now seen in many places, including other fruit juice blends); I find that I don't really like the flavour while drinking it, but I do like that it has lots of antioxidants, and I might try this again.
This is another offering from Lindt at Easter, the colour packaging hides a large vanilla hazelnut filled egg. The egg is coated with milk chocolate, inside is a mixture of hazelnuts and sugar.
How did it taste? Quite sweet, hazelnut-y too. Not bad, though I don't think I could eat this more than once a year.
If you've seen this fiery Asian chili sauce in Asian supermarkets, and likely in North America the brand you've seen is the Huy Fong "Rooster" Sriracha sauce, the bottle in the picture shows the Golden Mountain version of the widely-regarded original version of Sriracha. Sriracha Panich (panich means "commercial" in Thai), now called Golden Mountain Sriracha Panich (I have mentioned Golden Mountain Seasoning Sauce as an ingredient in various recipes), was the first mass-marketed Thai-produced Sriricha. Sriracha is quite a hot sauce, and this particular bottle is labelled Strong (there are milder versions available, and some of the other companies which make sriricha sauce have expanded the flavour profile to include garlic, onion, lemon grass, sour, galanga and ginger versions). This particular bottle has 54% chili content (looking at the "Rooster" brand, it appears to have only 30% chili content). The other ingredients are sugar (20%), salt (8%), vinegar (7%), oil (8%) and water (3%). With those percentages, you could almost make your own! My beautiful Bride puts this on almost anything, to spice it up. I've heard that you can mix it with ketchup, to mellow out the sriracha and spice up the ketchup. It's likely, that if you feel intrigued to trying it, that you will find and try the "Rooster" brand first, but feel privileged if you try this, the original.
They were handing these out at the Mississauga Rotary Ribfest. Kraft Dinner is a well-loved version of macaroni and cheese. If it is their intent to duplicate the look and taste of KD, then they have succeeded, at least to a certain extent. Down in the States, KD is made with dried fake orange cheddar cheese (but still loved). Here in Canada, we make it with real white cheddar cheese (and is still loved, but is superior to the American version). I found these crackers to have the good taste of white cheddar cheese, though a little salty. The crackers themselves were kind of shaped like macaroni and were crispy. Interesting, but I don't know that I would have even sampled these, except that they were giving them away.
The Mississauga Rotary Ribfest is on this weekend, with lots of different Ribbers, and with more non-meat selections (other than Bob's Blooming Onions). There was grilled corn; one stand selling churros (Spanish fried sweets); another selling Indian vegetarian; and another selling juices.
For me, ribfests are all about the pulled pork. This year, I decided to try Gator BBQ, from Michigan, their pulled pork looked how I like it, tender (some places seem to make them crispy). I bought the 1 pound pulled pork for $10, which doesn't come with a bun (that'd be a heck of a sandwich!); it's probably good for 3 to 4 meals (as opposed to the regular pulled pork sandwich; $7 and good for one meal). Tasty. We also got half a chicken, which was tender and juicy.
One interesting and tasty thing we found and bought, was crinkly-cut sweet potato fries, $6. Excellent!
Natrel was there, handing out free small 2% milk cartons. And Kraft was there, handing out samples of their new crackers.
The third of the Fine Artisan 85 g bars that the US chocolatier Scharffen Berger produces, this one has 62% cacao content. I noticed today their logo, interesting, which appears in the middle of their bar, and is surrounded by triangle "squares" of chocolate. The ingredient listing, like the other bars in this line, is short, unsweetened chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin and natural vanilla flavour.
How does it taste? According to the wrapper, it is supposed to have citrus flavours with honey overtones. Certainly, I get that it is fruity, and given the hint, I can taste the "honey" flavour. Unlike the other two bars that I have tasted in this series, and given that this has lower cacao content is a surprise, I like the flavour of this one, and could eat this bar again. For some reason, I found these bars on sale at a Dollar store for $1 (normally $4 - $5). I wasn't complaining, just found it intriguing, as they were not past their expiry date.
A couple of years ago, I tried Nestle's Kit Kat Dark, I found this better version in Walmart, better in the sense of the cacao content, at a minimum of 70%. It seems that Nestle is aiming for the "Dark Chocolate is good for you" market, there are a couple of sections on the wrapper: "Good to Know - KIT KAT Dark is made with 70% cocoa, making it a good source of magnesium and naturally occurring polyphenol antioxidants (365 mg per 45 g bar)"; and "Good to Remember - Your good health comes from a balanced diet, proper nutrition and physical activity". Well, that second one is maybe obvious, but it's similar to saying sugared cereals are a part of a good breakfast; what they fail to mention, is that eating the sugared cereal, or this 19 g sugar content per chocolate bar Kit Kat, does not automatically lead to the good benefits inherent in that statement.
How did it taste? I must confess, in my childhood, I liked Kit Kat bars, all we had back then was the milk chocolate variety. This one is fairly good, a decent for a candy bar chocolate. Now, if we can only get them to improve the inside...
I know I said that the taste of Polish chocolatier Terravita's other bars would not intrigue me enough to try some of their other offerings, well, I'm going back on my word with this particular bar. It is unusual because it has three nuts: cashews, hazelnuts and pistachios (the latter two which I am most fond of). This is likely just a dark chocolate in terms of its cacao content (at 45%); sugar is its first ingredient, followed by cocoa mass, cashew (6%), hazelnuts (5%), vegetable fat (instead of cocoa butter), pistachios (1%), soya lecithin (as an emulsifier) and flavour.
How does it taste? Well, really I tasted the sweet dark chocolate more than the nuts, and more than the individual nuts (though, I would say that the flavour of the hazelnuts was more predominant). I don't like that this uses vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter, I think it reflects on the taste. This bar has, though, not intrigued me enough to try their more sugar-oriented filled chocolate bars.
We came across this Punjabi recipe in this health magazine, this recipe is from the author's mother (and was called My Mother's Chickpeas), and decided to try it. Chana Masala is a blend of spices which you can find prepared in most supermarkets, which pairs well with chana, or chickpeas; alternatively, as we did, and sometimes more commonly in recipes, you can use garam masala spice blend. The Chana Masala recipes I've eaten, usually have somewhat of a sauce to them; this one is dryer. Still good-tasting. Have this is a side dish, alongside one with meat.
Chana Masala ChickpeasPlace the oil, onion, garlic and ginger in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat and cook for 3 minutes. Add the cumin seeds and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the tomatoes, green chili, chana masala and salt. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
Add the chickpeas to the skillet and cook for 1 minute. Turn the heat off, cover the pan with a lid, and let sit for a few minutes before serving. Garnish with cilantro or chopped green chili, if desired. Serve with brown rice.
Another offering from Terra Chips is a medly of unusual or exotic chips, in that you don't find such in North America. The first of these comes from white and purple Taro root, popular in South-East Asia, and a root vegetable I've written about before. Next is the pale yellow-white Yuca or Cassava root, which I've enjoyed before in Venezuela, but not as a chip; I've have seen cassava chips in ethnic stores before, however. Last is the Batata or Cuban Sweet Potato, light brown in colour; I've seen this for sale in Chinese supermarkets. Alongside these exotics, is the more familiar Sweet Potato, which is a popular seller for Terra, and Parsnips, which are familar items for sale in supermarkets, but not so familiar as chips. Each of these chips is interesting on its own, and this offering allows you to taste a number of Terra's offerings. I like the sweet potato and the taro best, but the other ones were interesting as well.
For most holidays, Lindt brings out collectable items, boxes, this is one of the ones that I've seen the past few weekends, a Gold Bunny Egg Cup. I don't know how much egg cups are used these days, they are used when one eats a boiled egg for breakfast; it's a convenient way to hold the egg steady while you crack the top open to eat it. Really, I would say it's more a European thing. With this Egg Cup collectable (I'm not quite sure whether they change the pattern year to year), comes a large Nougat-Vanilla filled milk chocolate egg (suitable for cracking open, I guess).
How does it taste, cracked open? OK, quite sweet, but definitely hazelnut-y. If it wasn't for the egg cup, though, I don't think I would buy this again, save if I were to travel back in time to my childhood.
Black Spanish Radish, or Black Radish, is a quite interesting variety of winter-growing radish, like the Chinese daikon. Similar in size to a white turnip, black radishes are dull black or dark brown on the outside; inside they have a firm crisp white flesh that has a sharp taste.
The black radish has several health properties, not only is it a good source of minerals and vitamins, especially Vitamin C, making it a good combatant against winter colds and influenza, it is also a liver tonic, stimulating the production of bile and reducing the stones in the gallbladder, and a diuretic, promoting the elimination of toxins and stones through the kidneys. You can get this in herbal form, as a capsule, or, as we did, juice one black radish along with 6 carrots and 1/2 lemon and 1 small beetroot to make a good gallbladder cleanse. We were finally able to find some black radishes for sale at Highland Farms in Mississauga, I haven't seen them in other supermarkets, and, as I've read, black radishes are not grown by a large number of farmers, so it may be hard to find them.
I have a liking for sweet potatoes, so when we saw this interesting crinkle-cut chips from Terra Chips, which also includes chips made from beets (which my beautiful Bride likes), we knew we had to try them. I was struck by how red the beets chips were when I opened the bag. There was definitely a higher ratio of sweet potato chips in the bag, but they are good, and apparently a popular seller, according to their website. I found the sweet potato chips to be very crunchy, they are thick cut, so could not say they are crispy. The beet chips were thinner, but no less crunchy. I liked how they managed to make them crunchy; from experience in making sweet potato fries, they tend to be soft when cooked in hot oil. Because they are natural chips, and "healthy" chips, they tend to be more expensive than potato chips, this bag was about $4.
I like blood oranges for a few years now, so I was intrigued by this new offering from President's Choice. Given that this is a soda, albeit an Italian soda, the ingredients are better than the average sugared drink, other than carbonated water, sugar and natural flavour, there is concentrated blood orange juice and black carrot juice (for colour). This tastes to me like one of those sugared orange sodas, that is to say, unremarkable and at the same time, pretty good; I guess they are trying to emulate those. I like the better ingredients, but the price, $2 for 750 mL, is too expensive to drink all the time. It does put me in mind to juice some blood oranges, when they are in season, and mix it with a little sprudel and maybe a sprinkle of sugar. With a little ice, it should be refreshing.
This stainless steel knife from Thailand is used to decorate fruits and vegetables and desserts, to give them a waffle pattern. We got this from Thailand, and have not seen it for sale in Canada (or, at least not the Thai version).
This instrument from Thailand is used to make fruits and vegetables into small strips; it has a zigzag pattern on the stainless steel blade to accomplish this. You can use this best (very easy!) to make Som Tam (papaya sour salad), or for decoration, by slicing the surface in strips. We got this from Thailand, but I've also seen it for sale here in Canada, in various Chinese or Vietnamese supermarkets.
The idea of Organic and shade grown coffee from Costa Rica appealed to me on several levels: Organic, elimating the use of pesticides and using organic nutrients to nourish the coffee plants; shade grown, to preserve the diversity of plant and animal life as well as the soil; and Costa Rican, because I really like their coffee beans. Tasty. This coffee from Café Britt is a darker roast than others I have had, or perhaps because it is Organic, there is an intensity of flavour. Certainly it is good, and makes strong coffee. Better than the President's Choice Costa Rican that I normally drink, and only about three dollars more (for all the benefits I noted before). I definitely would buy this again, assuming that the store I found it in keeps stock of it.
This was the second of the two new juices from President's Choice I tried. It was not my favourite of the two, though pretty good. It is a mango orange blend, though very thick. Adding yogurt to it would make a great mango lassi! The mango here is purée only, there is also orange and apple juices as the sole other ingredients. Despite it not being my favourite, I think that I would buy this again.
This special edition box from Lindt comes out for Easter, and contains several mini filled eggs. We bought this at the Lindt Outlet store in Mississauga, though it looks to be for the German market, it is all in German. Oster Freuden means Easter Joys. There are four different kinds of mini eggs within the green and yellow Spring box, two of each kind: Nougat; Alpen Milk (Alp's Milk); Praline; and Trüffel a la Vanille (Vanilla Truffel). These are milk chocolate eggs, with various fillings; two of them likely contain hazelnuts (Nougat and Praline).
The Praline was the best tasting of the four, with some hazelnut flavour; the Nougat was the second best; the Alpen Milch was just milk chocolate, a solid egg, while the Vanilla Truffle was milk chocolate filled with a yellow creme tasting a little like vanilla. I don't know that I would ever buy this again, though the box was kind of nice.
I have a love affair with Costa Rican coffee. Well, not so intense a love affair, as it's fairly hard to find coffee beans from the Central American country in most supermarkets. So, when I found that Loblaws had a line of ground coffee beans from various countries known for their coffee, including Colombia, Kenya and Costa Rica, I hoped I had a potential source for the coffee I prefer. There was a time when I thought it had disappeared, at one time they came in cans, and, for a little while, I couldn't find them anymore, but they reappeared one week in the bag form you see them as now. The beans have been medium roasted, and then fine ground. Costa Rican coffee are Arabica beans, the ones used for this product are grown high in the mountains, but there is no indication of which region in Costa Rica.
Is this the best Costa Rican coffee I've drunk. No. But that might have more to do with when they were roasted, and how long the package has been open, than whether the beans were really premium when they were picked. I like the flavour of the coffee when it is made, and, though I have had better Costa Rican coffee, made from fresh roasted and ground beans, that is something that I have not found a good source for.
