What I've been cooking

Here are some photos of the food I've been cooking this past week. Get inspired and get cooking!

Blueberry cobbler inspired by Ree Drummond's Blackberry Cobbler. I've been reading her blog for many years, but just started watching her new show on The Food Network. Best. New. Food Network Show. Ever.

Broiled chicken breast (boring but sometimes under-rated), boiled green beans (with Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter, of course) and Veggie Fried Rice (from the frozen aisle of Trader Joes--a nice discovery while the hubby was away last weekend).

Spinach-basil-walnut pesto. This will dress up any meal. Pasta, chicken, sandwiches, eggs, a piece of dry bread.

Love in a Lunchbox: 6.23.11

The focus of this week's lunchbox is very strongly tied to our dinner Sunday night, which happened to be Father's Day. After a wonderful day spent cooking breakfast together, going for a spontaneous jog with the jog stroller and "going for a boat ride in the river" (make-believe game) in our daughter's room, we realized we hadn't planned anything for dinner. That coupled with the fact that we have a potential car purchase on our hands later this month and I happened to discover some unused food during an afternoon freezer clean-out, meant that Father's Day dinner consisted of exactly what you see in our daughter's lunchbox: Trader Joe's Fish Sticks, Annie's Macaroni & Cheese, broccoli & ranch for dipping. Yup, that's what we ate for Father's Day dinner and let me tell you, it was YUMMERIFIC!!

We'd never tried the Fish Sticks before and rather than label them as a kids-only food, we decided to dive into the box as a family. Not only did E eat every bite on her plate -- and ask for more broccoli & ranch about three times after finishing her first plate of food, but we loved it all too. Sometimes it's fun to eat like a kid, and somehow, it was the perfect end to a wonderful father's day. Yes, I like homemade food most of the time, but don't ever think we don't buy boxed mac & cheese, fish sticks and bunny crackers. Cause we do.

Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter: Product Review

It may seem odd to write a product review of butter, so let me give you some background. I eat butter on a regular basis. However, recently I've been noticing that the butter I use at home has no flavor. Every time I spread it over something (broccoli, toast, a biscuit), I expect it to have that yummy butter flavor that I know I've tasted before. But alas, every time I use it I'm dissapointed. It doesn't taste like anything, so why spread it onto my food as a flavor enhancer? 

A few weekends ago, as I found myself staring at 20 different packages of butter in the grocery store, I decided to peruse a bit more vigorously than usual. Going off of nothing more than packaging, I picked up the one variety of butter that looked different than all the rest: wrapped in gold foil, it was called kerrygold Pure Irish Butter. The name alone caught my attention and gave me visions of eating fresh-from-the-dairy butter on a beautiful green field in Ireland. And let me tell you, three days later when I tasted the goods, that's exactly where the flavor took me. To a field in Ireland, eating a freshly baked biscuit in a quaint little farm house. In reality, I first tasted the butter atop a spelt english muffin, which is a pretty plain yet satisfying accompaniment to scrambled eggs in our house. And that's when the lightbulb flashed above my head, right there at the dinner table (yes, we eat eggs for dinner).

 

THIS is what butter is supposed to taste like!

 

I had a feeling things would turn out well when I first opened the gold wrapper and discovered a beautiful, rich golden color that I haven't seen in any butter I've purchased in the past few years (or ever). It looked like butter should look, and it even spread like butter should spread: easily. But most important of all, it tasted like butter should taste. Rich, somewhat salty, smooth, creamy and just plain, shall I say it? Buttery!

 

Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter is certainly a new staple in our household. I can't wait to make my buttermilk biscuits and eat them with a pat of this yumminess. If your taste buds have been let down in the butter department, I strongly recommend this brand. It is divine.

 

Happy spreading...

Favorite Product of the Week

As you know, I love my Nespresso machine, which makes amazing espresso for lattes, cappuccinos and other high-end coffee beverages. However, I’m not always in the mood for espresso. Sometimes I want regular coffee, and our old coffee machine began failing about a year ago. Because I loved the pod system of the Nesspresso so much I decided I had to have a similar system for coffee. The question was, which one?

I asked for advice right here on my blog. I posted to Facebook and I read every review I could find online. I was obsessed. My husband can vouch for that. I rewound DVR recordings just to watch a Keurig commercial. I read ads in magazines, I read reviews online and I talked to people about their coffee pod machines. While reviews helped me zero in on which machines I was interested in, the only way I felt I could make an informed decision was to taste the coffee. Not as easy a task as you might imagine. Until I discovered (when researching the Dolce Gusto, a coffee maker created by Nestle), that the day after Thanksgiving, Bed, Bath & Beyond was conducting live demos of the exact three machines I was interested in:

Keurig
Dolce Gusto
Tassimo

During my daughter’s naps on the three days following Thanksgiving, I drove over to Bed, Bath & Beyond to taste coffee. The first day I tasted coffee made in the Keurig. They weren’t serving decaf that day and it was about 2 in the afternoon so I limited myself to just a tiny cup, but I must say, it was love at first sip. I tasted the Donut Shop variety and I loved it. It just tasted great, plain and simple. It was exactly the kind of coffee I like, it was the perfect temperature and there were no grinds at the bottom of the cup -- a problem that was getting increasingly worse with our old machine.

Day two was a demo of the Dolce Gusto. I don’t have much to say about this machine other than it’s kind of cute and has a very small footprint, which is nice. I just didn’t like the coffee it produced nearly as much as I liked that made in the Keurig. So I moved on. But I do have to thank the folks at Nestle for posting information about the demo on their website, as that is the only way I found out about the Dolce Gusto demo (and subsequently the other two demos, which I learned about in the store).

On day three I tasted coffee from the Tassimo. We have good friends who have this machine and they love it. About a year ago we even had lattes made in their machine and we talked about those lattes for a week. We loved them. But I wasn’t in search of good lattes. I was in search of good coffee. I will say that the cup of decaf Tassimo coffee I sampled that day was good. It just wasn’t great. I was of course limited to trying the variety they had on display at the demonstration so it’s entirely possible I would have liked a different variety better.

The Tassimo has some real positives. Most obviously, it makes everything: lattes, cappuccinos, drip coffee, hot chocolate and tea. If we didn’t already have the Nesspresso, we may have indeed opted for the Tassimo. It also has a smaller footprint than the Keurig and I think has a slightly better, more sophisticated look about it. To be honest, the smaller footprint was a big selling point for me. However, I didn’t love the coffee I sampled that day and that bothered me.

So, after much debate about which machine to go with, I decided to opt for the Keurig and I must say, I love it! I haven’t consumed this much coffee ever, and I look forward to every cup. The coffee selection is tremendous. I also just happen to like the brands of coffee that are made for the Keurig machine better than the brands made for the Tassimo. To date, my favorite varieties are: Donut Shop by Coffee People, Dark Magic® Decaf Extra Bold by Green Mountain Coffee, Celestial Seasonings English Breakfast Black Tea (I was very skeptical of this one, but I LOVE it!) and….wait for it…Green Mountain Coffee® Half-Calf!!! That’s right, they make half-caf pods, which means the machine truly answers all of my coffee prayers.

We've had the machine since Christmas Eve, thanks to my mom asking me exactly what I wanted this year (I did my research!). I keep telling her that I think this is my favorite Christmas present ever. I love the machine, I love the pods, I love the coffee and the lack of clean-up. I love that I can make a cup of decaf after putting my daughter to sleep and it takes a mere 30 seconds. I just looooooove this machine. I may just have to host a BYOP (Bring Your Own Pod) party one of these days.

Thanks again, Bed, Bath & Beyond, for your holiday demos!