Banana Bunker

I totally want one of these. I love bananas but hate the brown spots that appear instantly when I put them in my purse or leftover grocery store bag to bring to work. Check out the banana bunker! The thing is, it really looks like a "toy" more than a food saver.

found by way of Corduroy Orange, a great food blog for the practical cooker/eater.

A Change in my Diet

Recently, I read a book called "Skinny Bitch" (A no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous.) This book is not a diet book. It's a pro-vegan, pro-organic, anti-factory-farm book. No details are left out about why milk is bad for you, how pesticides are in every freaking thing, and why you shouldn't eat meat or drink coffee. For at least a week, I could barely eat anything. I couldn't drink non-organic milk without thinking about the cows in the factory farms and all the details that the book described. Most of this, I knew, and blocked out. Some of it, I didn't know, and it was gross. I'm not going to outline all the details here. If you want to know where your food comes from, and can handle the shock-value that these authors are going for, get this book.

What I will say is, I am now eating less dairy, buying as many organic products as I can, and avoiding red meat, chicken, or pork (for the time being.) There is one thing you can't get from a vegan diet, vitamin B-12, and having had a B-12 deficiency in the past, I will not go through that again. If and when I do go back to red meat, it will probably be in the form of pepperoni (ok, I had both chicken and pepperoni last weekend, but not much), or it will be free-range meat that I cook myself.

Since I've been trying to buy a lot of organic foods that I haven't bought in the past, I'll be reviewing some of the best and worst here. Stay tuned.

Here's a quick review:

Newman's Own Fig Newmans - Wheat and Dairy Free: These are great. They taste almost the same as regular Fig Newtons, and after I ate about 5 or 6 of them, I still felt pretty good, not all full of fat. Price-wise, they were a little more than Fig Newtons, but not outrageous. I think somewhere around $3.50.

Snack Attack!!

Here are some reviews of some recent snack purchases.

Snyder's of Hanover Pumpernickel and Onion Sticks
These are fantastic alone or dipped in hummus or maybe a nice sour cream dip. I dipped them in Tribe Zesty Lemon hummus, which is quite delicious. Great consistency (not too chunky, not too too smooth), lots of garlic and lemon flavor.
I bought the Snyder's sticks because the grocery store (Price Chopper on Pullman St.) didn't carry the Pepperidge Farm brand of pumpernickel; they only had sesame and I think multi-grain.

Hummus
Another recent delicious hummus find was the Trader Joe's Organic hummus. Fantastic! Avoid the non-organic one though. It's flavorless and too smooth. It's more like a paste.

The best hummus ever, though, is from Ed Hyder's Mediterranean Market on Pleasant Street in Worcester. You can't go wrong. Tangy, garlicky, thinner consistency than most storebought brands.

Other good things to dip in hummus: baby carrots, tortilla chips, and Wheat Thins.

Chocolate Love

Dove dark chocolate hearts are so chocolatey and creamy that I'm going to stock up on them on Friday, when they go on sale. Go get yourself a bag!

Piccolo's on Shrewsbury St

I tried to go to Mezcal on Friday night, but at 8:20 pm, the wait for a table was an hour and a half. There were only two of us, and we were too hungry to wait that long. The bar's pretty small, and it was really loud. We decided to try Piccolo's, right across the street.

I ordered the ginger ale, which was good, but probably only about 9 ounces, and didn't have free refills. I guess it cost about the same as the water I bought at the movie theater - $3.68! But I needed it, I was having a coughing fit. Ok, back to the restaurant review.

We shared the Insalate Bel Mondo, which was absolutely the best salad I've had in forever. Romaine, dried cranberries, gorgonzola, green apples, and the best dressing made with white balsamic vinegar. The salad was gigantic and could have easily been shared by 3 people.

This was the best part of the meal. We ordered two appetizers that I thought were kind of disappointing. The giant chicken and ricotta filled ravioli, topped with pink sauce. The pink sauce was great, there were fresh tomatoes in the sauce, but the ravioli filling was bland, and the ricotta seemed kind of grainy. The other appetizer was an eggplant, chopped up and mixed with some other things, (can't remember what) and then put back into the mini eggplant shell. It was okay, just not awesome. Next time I think I'll go for a pasta entree. They all looked delicious but I didn't have the appetite for a big pasta meal. I filled up on salad!

Service was great.

My New Coffe Maker

I got a Keurig one-cup coffeemaker for Christmas! This is by far one of the most frequently used and most useful appliances in my kitchen. It's awesome. In less than a minute, I have a fresh cup of coffee, and then, almost instantly, there's another 8 ounces of hot water ready to go. I think one of the things I like best about this machine is its slick black and stainless look. Yeah, it's all about style.

This machine makes coffee that comes in little plastic pods. They go into a little vessel and the hot water runs through them and makes a nice cup of coffee. This version also came with a reusable filter so if I run out of pods, or if I want to drink the tasty Starbucks ground coffee I bought when all I had was an old-fashioned drip coffeemaker, I can use this filter.

Another awesome thing about the Keurig is that you can get just hot water! Instantly! As you can see, I'm making some lovely mint herbal tea. This Bigelow collection is quite tasty. I like the Sleepytime, a mixture of chamomile and mint. I also use the hot water feature to make instant oatmeal. I wonder what else I can use it for.

The machine came with 90 pods. Mostly coffee, but a couple of tea and some cocoa. I'm enjoying the Newman's Own Extra Dark roast. The Green Mountain Nantucket Blend is useless... pretty watery. The Caribou Organic coffee is okay. You can buy more pods online (kind of pricey but sometimes they go on sale at Target). I've been told that the Green Mountain Breakfast Blend is good, so I'm keeping my out for that, and will probably buy more pods when I run low. There are a 190 varieties of K-Cups (that's what they're called).

My First Spanakopita

I was volunteered to make the spinach pie (aka spanakopita in Greek) for Christmas 2007. I'd never made one before, but I've seen it done so many times, I figured it was easy enough. Plus, my sister made one a few weeks before, her first one, and it came out great, and we were using the same recipe.

I'll admit, it was delicious. My ratio of phyllo was a little off; could have used more on the bottom. Plus, I ran out of olive oil and had to stretch it at the corners, which were pretty high due to all of the folding over.

The recipe I used is from an old Greek cookbook, slightly modified by adding a half cup of uncooked rice (to soak up the water from the spinach) and a diced onion. You can find a good recipe here at Foodtv.com. Follow the variation that refers to the 13 by 9 inch pan. Easier and just as tasty.

Here, sauteeing one diced onion and olive oil.

2 pounds of baby spinach, wilting. Be sure to mix the onions in so they don't burn.

Melting butter and olive oil. This is for brushing between the layers of phyllo.

Crumbling the feta. One pound of feta to two pounds of spinach. Crumble it into fairly large chunks so that it doesn't melt when you mix it in with the spinach.

Ready to go into the oven.

Spanakopita is served!

Black Bean Soup - Panera

About 2 months ago, I got a delicious recipe for Black Bean Soup from my friend Melanie. Seriously, delicious. Here it is:

1 can black beans (not organic, unless you want to simmer for 30 minutes to soften them up)
1/8 cup taco seasoning
1/4 cup salsa
Green Tabasco sauce (This is unbelievable. Spicy, not as painful as the red Tabasco, tangier. I can't get enough.)
Water (as much as you want to make broth)

Mix it up and simmer.

Add some shredded cheese, then a dollop of sour cream to serve. Eat with tortilla chips.

So, I've been spoiled with this homemade soup that I can customize to have as much kick as I want.

The other day I had the "You Pick Two" from Panera: Half a Turkey Artichoke, bowl of Black Bean Soup. The sandwich was good, though those paninis are kind of oily. Not really healthy. The soup was low-fat so I did feel like I was doing the right thing. I asked the cashier if they had any Tabasco. After a long, loooooong discussion with one of the sandwich makers, the cashier came back and said that they had "mumble mumble chipotle mumble mumble". He said it didn't have as much spice as Tabasco and it was what they used on the "mumble pork mumble". I just assumed it was some sort of sauce, since I had said I wanted the Tabasco for the soup. So, I said I'd like some on the side, paid, and got my receipt.

There on the receipt were the words "Chipotle mayo, side". Mayo?! This is what I was getting to put in my soup? Gross! Why would they think I'd want that? Well, as it turned out, when my order was up, they'd forgotten to put the side of mayo on the tray. I didn't bother complaining. Important to note is that the soup was super bland and going forward, I'll be bringing my own soup to work for lunch.

Panera

I swung by Panera in White City late this morning, on my way into work. I had my fingers crossed that they had Lattes. I'm used to going there for lunch, so I really had no idea what their breakfast drink menu looked like.

Lucky for me, they do have Lattes, and they are of a comparable price to other coffee joints, $2.99. It was pretty good, thought not as strong as I usually like. It was just kind of weak. I also got a Cobblestone, which is basically a cinnamon bun with raisins, apples, and glaze. Really tasty. So not healthy.

Apples

I went apple picking at Honey Pot Hill Orchards, in Stow, MA. I got some empires, cortlands, and a bag of winesaps for my sister. I made a pie with the cortlands. It was delicious. I recommend following the recipe, though and avoid putting in more apples than the recipe calls for. Otherwise, the liquid doesn't dissolve enough, and the apples don't cook all the way through.

The winesap apples are delicious! They taste like apple cider - crisp, sweet, and a little bit tangy. My sister made a pie out of them and it was unbelievable.

It's Pumpkin Season

It's pumpkin season and all the local coffee joints are serving up pumpkin this and pumpkin that. I'm into it. Here's what I've tried so far:

Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Spice Latte: This was too sickly sweet. Much better was the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, but with only 2 pumps of the pumpkin syrup. The syrup is sweetened and the standard 4 pumps would probably be disgusting.

Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Donut and Pumpkin Spice Muffin. Both are incredibly delicious, moist, and pumpkiny. The donut tastes pretty much like the Pillsbury Pumpkin Quick Bread, which is really good.

Calamari

I had some really excellent calamari and some pretty terrible calamari recently. First, the bad, to get it over with. I was at the Gardner Ale House and three of us split the calamari. It has half rings, and half tentacles. Now, does anybody really want the tentacles, or whatever they're called? I don't think so. I tried some just to be a good sport. They weren't that bad, but really, all I could taste was breading, which wasn't that tasty. The rings were kind of rubbery, which is always bad, and they weren't spicy. I prefer the hot and spicy calamari, like the appetizer at...

O'Connor's. That's right, the Irish restaurant makes a mean calamari. It comes hot and spicy, they were cooked perfectly, not at all rubbery, and no tentacles, or whatever they're called.

You can also get delicious spicy calamari at the Boynton on Highland Street.

Cupcakes and Doughnuts, Oh My!

I think I'm going to make these this weekend.
http://cupcakeblog.com/index.php/2007/09/doughnuts-and-coffee-cupcakes/

Worcester Need a Cupcakery

I need to open one of these.
http://www.boston.com/ae/food/articles/2007/09/26/opening_her_own_business_is_icing_on_the_cupcake/

Trader Joe's Cheddar Puffs

This is a message of warning: Do not buy the Trader Joe's White Cheddar Puffs unless you are interested in eating flavorless, soft, air.

The Purple Cactus

On Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, you can get a huge, heavy, delicious burrito, chock full of fresh ingredients, for about $6 or $7, at The Purple Cactus. This place is so good, my brother asks us to bring home a Squash and Corn burrito and we live an hour away from the place.

I ordered a Grilled Chicken burrito with sour cream (lowfat, homemade) and guacamole. It probably weighed over a pound. I ate half for dinner, and had the rest for lunch today. The simmered black beans were great - not too mushy, a little bit of sauce. They were mixed with some brown rice, which was pretty mild in flavor but good. Not too dry, not too mushy. The guac was awesome. I know my descriptions are kind of generic - sorry. How about this: It was 1000 times better than the disappointing spinach and chicken burrito I had recently from Tortillla Sam's.

My mother loved the New Garden wrap on a wheat tortilla with grilled chicken. She also ate just half as it was HUGE.

Octoberfest Season

It's time for Octoberfest beers. I've tried 2 so far, neither winners.

Magic Hat Jinx: This is a beer packaged to entice the ladies. Pretty packaging, cute pink chick winking on the front. The beer is just okay. It leaves sort of a tangy aftertaste which I don't really like. The beer won't rot in my fridge but I probably won't buy a second sixer.

Spaten Oktoberfest: This beer was described as tasting like an octoberfest mixed with Heineken, and that's exactly what it tasted like, heavier on the Heinie than the fest. I did not enjoy it.

Made my day

At Friendly's, I ordered a 2-scoop cone, one scoop black raspberry, one scoop chocolate, on a sugar cone. The kid making the cone put one big scoop of black ras first, then the chocolate, and then topped it off with a cap of black ras. I felt like a little kid. The ice cream just made me smile! What great ice-cream-jockey. Or whatever they're called.

Start with Salsa, end with Joy-ful Peppermint

After a filling Mexican meal at Sierra's in Sudbury, I finished the night with a walk to Dairy Joy in Hudson from my friend's condo. I'll start with the Mexican.

Sierra's is on 117 in Sudbury, in what seems like the middle of nowhere. It's a small low building that looks sort of non-descript on the outside, but upon entering, it seems like you are in another world. The restaurant has a small bar, and several tables and booths in the main dining room. Chandeliers are made of large antlers, cast, I'm sure, not real bones, but you never know. On the walls are skulls with antlers, colorful ceramic plates, and small sconces. It's a very southwestern feel, but not cluttered like many restaurants. The tables are tile-top, and the booths are pew-like with cushions. Basically, I say that to let you know you need have good posture if you want to spend hours there.

We had chips and salsa to start, and I ordered totally delicious Raspberry Margarita (tequila, chambord, triple sec). The salsa was good - it tasted fresh but was mild. I prefer a spicier salsa, but this was still good.

I had the spinach and chicken burrito. It came with refried beans and rice, lettuce and stewed tomatoes. It was tasty. My two complaints are: It wasn't junk-foody enough, and wasn't spicy enough. The chicken was really moist and tender; it seemed like it had been poached in a seasoned broth. There were several fresh vegetables in the burrito as well: corn, red and green peppers, and onions. My friend had the chicken soft tacos and enjoyed them also. One think we noticed was that the guacamole doesn't come with everything so if you want it, be sure to order it as a side.

After dinner, we drove back to Hudson, a short drive, and walked to the Dairy Joy on Rt. 62. We both got the Peppermint Stick ice cream, mine in a cone, hers in a cup. The Peppermint Stick ice cream is like christmas. The sticks are red and green, with a pink colored ice cream. Totally creamy and delicious, it hit the spot.

Side note: Dairy Joy has awesome onion rings.

Summer, Citrus, and Straight Up Country

Summer's coming to a close, and with it, the season of summer beers. As much as I'm looking forward to Octoberfests, I really do enjoy a nice cold summer beer. Last night, at a local favorite, O'Connor's Restaurant, I had a pint of Wachusett Summer Breeze (is it summer breeze, or is that just a song?). I was given the choice of lemon or orange; I went with lemon, and it was the right choice, though it would have been fine on its own. The lemon added the right amount of crispness. Here's a tip, though, that I learned a long time ago. Drink it fast enough so you don't end up with half a beer that tastes like lemon pledge.

I also had a Wachusett Country, always a favorite of mine.

My dining companion had a BBC IPA. I didn't hear any complaints from him and he ordered a second. Unfortunately, the keg went dry and foam splattered all over the bartender (face included). Was it funny? No, and yes. I didn't laugh, though. He ended up with a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

O'Connor's had a number of other decent-looking brews on tap. They rotate their taps pretty frequently. I probably should have gone for something new or unusual but I was feeling like guaranteed satisfaction.