This is the Genmaicha that I normally drink, while it is good tasting, I find the green tea to be of less than superior quality, too, there are sticks that float to the top which I have to pick out. Still, the combination of green tea and roasted brown rice is very good.
You can find this particular Genmaicha in most Asian Supermarkets.
I've had and liked Chinese sweet and sour cabbage, this is very similar, but adds spice to the mix. I would think that the Sichuan peppercorns add enough heat, and you can decrease these and the dried peppers if you can't stand the heat, with the dried chili peppers, there was a definite heat to this dish. But good.
Hot and Sour CabbageWash cabbage in cold water and cut leaves into small pieces.
Cut the chilies into small bits (removing the seeds, if you don't want it too hot). Mix the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and salt together to make a sauce.
Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan on medium heat, until the oil starts to smoke. Add the peppercorns and chili bits, stir; a few seconds later add the cabbage. Stir for about 1-1/2 minutes until the cabbage begins to go limp.
Pour over the prepared sauce and continue stirring the cabbage until well blended.
Garnish with a little sesame oil just before serving.
My aunt recently sent a gift for my baby daughter, too she sent me some gummibears. These are better than the average, er, gummibear, there are more natural ingredients, with concentrated juice and natural flavours of lemon, apple, black currant and raspberry. Quite good tasting.
As I put this in my mouth, the dark chocolate melted, and I suddenly got this shot of almost espresso in my mouth. Great. A new offering from Lindt, Lindor Coffee.
Melting this in your mouth, you get the wonderful taste of hazelnut paste, and hidden within are two whole hazelnuts. Quite good. A new offering from Lindt called Nicciolato.
The good smooth dark chocolate of Lindt comes out in this tiny bar, and melts in your mouth great. A great little snack or pick-me-up. A new offering from Lindt, Extra Bitter.
This offering from Lindt had the amazing taste of dark chocolate mousse in solid form as I let it melt in my mouth. I really enjoyed this one. A new offering from Lindt, Fondente 72%.
I still don't quite like this, I've tried it before in egg form. The milk chocolate lindor encases are more solid centre than other Lindors. A new offering from Lindt, Lindor Au Champagne Marc.
The idea of the Bacio chocolate, is one of the combination of hazelnuts, whole ones, and chocolate, I would say that Dorgel's idea, or at least I hope that would be their idea, is to make a gelato that would duplicate the famous chocolate. But this seems to me to be just two of their gelatos, the Hazelnut one and the Chocolate Trifle one, put together in the container just in order to make a new flavour. So, it doesn't quite work for me.
I was at the Square One Farmer's Market this morning, specifically to find my favourite apple, the Russet, and I was glad to see that they are out this week (and indeed, russets usually come out the first week of October). Hurry or you might miss them!
The idea of being socially responsible for the food we eat, to actually think about what we eat, where it comes from, who produces it, how far it travels, what impact there is on the Earth for you to enjoy it, has been growing in force, certainly over the last few years, with the very scary reality of global warming, whether you believe or not in its impact, has been garnering more and more interest in my own life. Near and dear to my heart, chocolate, the dark, bitter, tasty, wonderful sublime treat that I daily enjoy in all forms, which faces extinction on several fronts, including the dying-off of pollinators due to deforestation, chemicals and global warming, the rapid rise in price for oil leading to increased costs of raw ingredients and the final product let alone the carbon produced, and the huge multinational corporations that pay little or nothing to the farmer who grows the cacao, at least gives one pause to ponder whether that treat I just enjoyed will tip the environment over the edge into oblivion. Okay, not anytime soon, I certainly hope, but, in the meantime, while we are all waiting for the end, we can do our little bit for the World, and one of them involves a concept called Fair Trade. Fair Trade is something I have discussed now and again, certainly there are more and more products out there, chocolate-oriented and others, coffee, tea, crafts, that give the farmer a fair price, investing in their lives, thus coming closer to ensuring a product for years to come. Which brings me to what I mean by reverse trick-or-treating. Essentially, a group of Fair Trade organizations have gotten together to allow socially-aware youngsters, as they go about receiving candies on Hallowe'en, to give back to the adults a sample of Fair Trade chocolate, with some literature about such, to educate them on the dangers inherent in the chocolate trade, including potential child-slavery and those environmental impacts. To order your sample of 20 Fair Trade chocolates, go to Global Exchange in Canada, there are also ones for the States, and order yours. Hurry, as quantities are limited; you have till October 15th to order as well. You can also order Fair Trade products there, too.
The idea of a guilt-free product is tempting, albeit illusory at best; much money has been made on low-fat products that still contains lots of calories, mostly from sugar, and often have white flour and other additives that don't make them good for you. This Organic product from Guiltless Gourmet, succeeds more than those, in that they use fresh ingredients, stone-grind blue corn, use less oil and bake them, and flavour them with less salt and more herbs and black bean powder. Of course, do they taste better than those fat-free ones? I say yes. The spice on the corn tortillas is very flavourful, the tortillas are not at all oily, overall very good. Enjoy them on their own, or with salsa. The only drawback, per se, is the higher cost for these better-for-you snacks.
Certainly, the idea of dried fruit in North America is much more popular than dried vegetables, I've seen some in Bulk Barn, but the vast majority of the dried products are fruit-oriented. It was interesting to see then, this dried vegetable product from Taiwan, indeed there were others, dried green beans, for one, but this 100% natural, no trans fats, no hydrogenated oil and no preservative product from Taiwan, Pumpkin Chips, with glucose, salt and palm oil, looked interesting. And it does taste like pumpkin, an Asian pumpkin certainly. I found this in a Chinese supermarket.
What a mouthful - for a name; I'll have to think of a better one. But I like the combination of dried cherries, chocolate chunks and toffee, and I have a favourite cookie recipe with such, so, I thought to make a blondie version. Blondies are like the more well-known brownies, save they don't have the cocoa/chocolate that makes them dark; often too they use brown sugar and are brown sugar blondies. I use muscovado sugar, a better version of brown sugar, but I think that you can just use brown sugar, and they will turn out fine. Certainly, these turned out fairly tasty, I must say, quite good, even better after sitting for a while, though I think that I would up the amount of cherries next time, so feel free to play with the amounts. The hazelnuts are optional, of course; I've added them because, well, I like them too.
Cherry Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut Toffee BlondiesButter a 9"×9" pan; use an 8"x8" pan for a thicker blondie. Mix the melted butter with brown sugar and beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla. Stir in flour and salt. Mix in hazelnuts, chocolate, dried cherries and toffee bits. Spread batter (it will be thick) over bottom of pan and bake at 180C/350F 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle. Cool on rack in pan. Cut into squares to serve.
