Manner Haselnuss-Mignon

The Vienna Austrian company Manner produces a number of baked goods, their line of wafers are seen in many European delicatessens. This one is a chocolate coated hazelnut wafer (though hazelnuts really are a small portion of the whole, there is only 4% in the cream between the wafers).

The chocolate coating accounts for 30% of the ingredient.

I liked the small individual wafers, though I thought that the chocolate flavour overwhelmed the faint hazelnut taste. These are fairly sweet, too. If I were to try this brand again, I would think twice before selecting this particular offering.

Kaoka Ecuador Organic Dark Chocolate

Given that the origin of the cocoa beans of this chocolate bar is Ecuador, you can see that I was looking forward to this, having liked most of the chocolate that is made from cacao from there. Kaoka is a small French chocolatier whose Bio Equitable promise means that they pursue a close partnership with cocoa producers, with the intention of working towards a sustainable relationship that includes economic and social benefits (similar to many Fair Trade chocolate companies). The cacao content is high, at 80%. The ingredient listing is fairly good, organic cocoa mass, organic raw cane sugar, sunflower lecithin and organic vanilla essence (good, but perhaps it would be better without the lecithin and vanilla - I've become convinced that you don't really need those, but at least they are better than artificial ingredients).

How does it taste? Not bad, a fairly good chocolate, though I think that it would have done better at 70-75% cacao content, something seemed either too strong or out of whack for me to really enjoy it.

Pringles Select Cinnamon Sweet Potato Chips

Pringles is more known for its uniform wavy shaped stack of flavoured and formed potato chips, this new line of theirs has lost the wavy shape, and taken on new flavours, and ingredients. I was intrigued by this one, enough to buy it, even though I don't really like cinnamon, and was not swayed by their attempt to market sweet potatoes as a dessert, as it contained sweet potatoes rather than the more ubiquitous cousin, the potato (albeit, it does contain potatoes, just not as the main ingredient). It also contains cornmeal, oat flour, rice flour, sugar, oil and spices.

How does it taste? Not bad, very cinnamony, and I could hardly taste that it is sweet potato rather than potato, so I doubt that I will try this again.

Korean Potato Pancakes

This recipe called to make eight in total, we managed only five, I guess we made them too big or something. They did taste really good, the sesame oil gave them a quite different flavour than other potato pancakes I've eaten. Serve them with soy sauce only, or with a sauce made from the pancake sauce below.

Korean Potato Pancakes
Adapted from a recipe from Korean Cuisine
2 potatoes
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup carrots, finely shredded

Peel and finely grate potatoes; squeeze out water. Place 1 cup grated potatoes in a bowl with sesame oil and salt. Mix well and divide into 8 portions. Soak 1/2 cup of carrots; drain, then divide into 16 portions.

Heat 1 Tbsp oil; sprinkle one portion of 16-portion carrots into frying pan. Place one portion of grated potatoes on top and then add another portion of 16-portion carrots on top to form a "sandwich". Fry until both sides are golden brown. Add a little oil as needed when frying.

Pancake Sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tsp onion, minced
1 tsp green onion, minced
1 tsp red bell pepper, minced
1 tsp carrot, minced
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp red pepper powder
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Mix all ingredients in blender thoroughly.

I never even thought about it - Waste Cacao as BioFuel

I guess I never even thought about it, but the Chocolate Industry creates a lot of food waste every year, that mostly goes into landfills, though I hope I'm wrong, but why not convert this waste into something that can be used. That is exactly what one company is doing in England. North-western English company Ecotech is taking waste from the chocolate manufacturing process and turning it into ethanol, which can be then combined with vegetable oil to make BioFuel (see here for the full article). This BioFuel can be used in replacement of gasoline to power vehicles (though don't try this at home, you'll need to convert your System first to accept this alternate fuel source). The resulting exhaust, and your car, will smell more like vegetable oil than chocolate, unfortunately, but it's a great idea.

Doing a little digging, I came up with some very rough numbers. It requires about 300-600 cacao seeds (from 10 cacao pods) to produce 1 kilogram of cocoa paste. Couple that with a consumption of more than 3.1 million metric tonnes of cocoa (so 3.1 billion kilograms) worldwide per year (figure as of year 2000). That's an awful lot of food waste produced each year, and something that won't go away soon, as that amount of cocoa produces over 11 billion dollars (again year 2000 figures) in export revenue worldwide. Makes you think when you're enjoying your daily chocolate.

Green & Black's Celebrates the Extra Hour of Darkness

To celebrate the change of time on the 4th of November in the US, as we shift from Daylight Savings to Eastern Standard Time, and the gain of an extra hour of Darkness (the clocks change in the middle of the night, usually around 2 am), Green & Blacks USA wanted everyone (or at least the first 5000 to register) to experience the dark, cocoa-rich flavours of their Organic chocolate free. This promotion (of two 1.2 oz chocolate bars) is over now, and, unfortunately for me, available only to US citizens (there also seems to be promotions available for UK citizens on the UK website, that still leaves us Canadians out). They set up a special website Appreciate The Darkness to provide some information about their chocolate, and allow you to register for this event (and further ones, if you should wish to).

Jacques Grand Cru Chocolat Noir

The Belgian chocolatier Jacques teamed itself with one of the premiere makers of chocolate for professionals, Callebaut to produce these Grand Cru (or highest quality) chocolate bars. This bar is their Dark Chocolate Bar, and features 72% cacao content, not of single origin, with no added vegetable fats (likely responding to the recent move in America to allow companies to replace cocoa butter with other fats and still call the product chocolate, of which practice I highly disapprove). The ingredient listing is good, just cocoa paste, sugar, cocoa butter, soya lecithin and vanillin (though the last two should really be either omitted or replaced with something better).

How does it taste? Pretty good, dark and chocolatey, it melts in your mouth well, smells fruity and cocoa-y, snaps cleanly and sharply, and looks very smooth and dark, overall a very good bar. I would eat this bar again.

Larabar Pistachio

Having tried, and liked, Humm Food's Cherry Pie version of its fruit and nut bar, I got another sample, this one of the Pistachio flavour.

This one again is flavourful, sweet and chewy, quite good for a raw food bar. The ingredients are dates, pistachios and cashews.

Baked Spicy Sweet Potato Fries

I have been trying to eat more sweet potatoes, rather than potatoes, I find they are better for me, and looked for recipes that duplicated the sweet potato fries that I ate recently. These don't, but are quite tasty. They are baked, and the fries end up being very soft, only slightly crunchy. Add more chipotle powder, or any other dried pepper powder, if you want it more spicy.

Baked Spicy Sweet Potato Fries
Adapted from a recipe from Epicurious
sweet potatoes, 1 large per person
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp spice mix (see recipe below)

Preheat oven to 425F. Peel sweet potatoes and cut into strips about 3 inches long and 3/4 inches thick.

In large bowl, toss together cut sweet potatoes, olive oil, and spice mixture.

Spray flat roasting pan with non-stick spray, or line with parchment paper. Spread out sweet potatoes in single layer. Roast 30-40 minutes, turning about every ten minutes. until sweet potatoes are softened through and lightly browned. Serve hot.

Spice Mix:
2 Tbsp coriander seed
1 Tbsp fennel seed
1 Tbsp dried oregano
1/2 Tbsp Chipotle Pepper
2 Tbsp sea salt

In mortar and pestle or spice grinder, grind together coriander, fennel, oregano, and Chipotle pepper. Mix in salt.

This makes enough for several batches of sweet potatoes, so you'll need a small jar to store the extra.

Santa Cruz Organic Rootbeer

Having tried their Lemon Lime drink, I decided to try some of their other offerings. This organic root beer is a little disconcerting, only in that it's a clear rootbeer, I'm used to the darker coloured versions, but I think that is only a perception thing, as it's not the caramel that gives the drink its inherent root-beer-ness. The natural rootbeer flavour for this drink is comprised of licorice and sarsparilla extracts, sarsparilla is one of the flavour ingredients common to rootbeer. Wherever the flavour comes from, it tastes pretty good, though it's still a little expensive.