January Foodie PenPals
Lindsey at the The Lean Green Bean has come up with an amazing program called Foodie PenPals. Basically, (whether you have a blog or not), you can sign up for this program (sign ups end each month by the 4th, so if you want to participate, go to her blog and email her the requisite info!) and send someone a box of food. In return, you will get a box of food.
This month, my box of food was courtesy of Karla from Floozy Homemaker sent me an awesome box of homemade, jarred treats. Yay!
Upon opening the box, Tina and I were treated with four jars.
The first, which I originally thought was a watery cherry preserves, turned out to NOT be cherry preserves. It was cranberry and cinnamon infused whiskey. I took a sip. Sprouted extra chest hair. This stuff is hardcore. (But yummy.) As Karla said, “Strain it and add simple syrup. Unless you’re hardcore.” I can’t wait to try it with simple syrup. 
The next three jars were also a big hit. (Can you tell which one is my favorite?)
The jar that I someone has eaten at least a third of is pear sauce. It’s basically apple sauce, but with pears. Oh, so good!
The apple butter is someone smokey and sweet and savory all at once. The taste is hard to describe, but I can’t wait to try some on biscuits!
And the marmalade has quite the kick! I think it would pair very nicely with a pork dish. I may smear some on a pork roast next time I make it.
Karla, thank you so much for this assortment! And I need more pear sauce.
Foodie PenPals is going to be a recurring event in the Logsdon household.
If you would like to participate, just email Lindsey at theleangreenbean@gmail.com by February 4th and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)
Pizza #3 – Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza
Still no crust recipe. Sorry.
I’m also working on taking better food pictures. Trust me – they look much tastier in person.
This one was a nice, simple tomato sauce-based pizza.
We took our standard crust, smeared it with tomato sauce, sprinkled it with a little mozzarella, some cooked lean ground beef, cooked chopped bacon, and some cheddar cheese. (Any yellow cheese would have worked.)
Verdict? Awesome. So far, we’re at 3 for 3!
Pizza #2 – Turkey Taco Pizza
This one was SO easy and SO good!
One caveat – if you are coming here for specific recipes for pizzas, then this probably isn’t the right place. Eventually, I’ll post specific recipes for the crust, because that is a little more problematic, but my attitude in the kitchen is more “throw food together ’til it turns into a meal.” My wife is the baker in the family; I am the cook.
That isn’t to say I don’t measure, because I do. However, I measure the ingredients so I can calculate the PointsPlus value of each slice of pizza. This pizza turned out to be 5 points per slice. Oh, and so good.
We started off with a basic crust, which was topped with salsa. My wife and I both like a little heat (but not too much), so we used medium. Obviously, you can use any type of salsa you want.
On top of this, we put some ground turkey, cooked with taco seasonings, on top. (I will soon post a blog post about the taco spices we use. We make our own; it’s WAY cheaper, no preservatives, and it tastes exactly the same as the store bought.) Atop this, we sprinkled only cheddar cheese. Since this was a taco pizza and not a traditional Italian pizza, we eschewed the mozzarella and went just for yellow cheese. And lastly, we put a few jalapeno slices on top. We weren’t sure how hot they would be, so we just used a few. (We could have used more. They were pretty mellow.)
The result…
Oh, my mouth is literally watering right now thinking about it! We’ll probably explore a different type of mexican pizza later this year, because this one was amazing!
Pizza #1 – Tomato, Spinach, and Prosciutto
If you read my main blog Stellar Path, you may remember one of my new year’s resolutions to make 52 different pizzas in 2012. Well, I’m a little late posting this one, but this is the first.
I may sure a pizza crust recipe here eventually, but this “pizza series” is more about identifying what toppings in unusual combinations are good on pizzas. I’ll do different crusts throughout the year. This first recipe was on a very thin cracker-crust, and it went extremely well with these toppings!
It couldn’t have been simpler. Rather than use sauce, we sprayed the crust with olive oil and some seasonings, put very thinly sliced tomatoes on top in place of the sauce, topped that with a few strips of prosciutto, and finished it off with some slice baby mozzarella.
Quick pizza tip – we have discovered that if you don’t buy your cheese pre-shredded, it tastes MUCH better! Apparently, some type of additive, preservative, chemical, non-food-stuff is put in shredded cheese to keep it from clumping, so we now shred all of our own. Granted, for this particular pizza, we just did slices, but it worked out amazing.
When they come out of the oven, we topped each pizza with a few spinach leaves.
The heat from the oven made the prosciutto oily, salty, and hot, and the flavors blended together amazing! If we weren’t pledging to make 52 different pizzas this year, we’d probably eat this one again asap. But trust me – you’ll see prosciutto again with other toppings. It is just too good not to eat over and over!
December Foodie Penpals!
Lindsey at the Lean Green Bean has created an amazing thing for foodies called Foodie PenPals. Whether you have a blog or not, if you like food, you can participate. Click on the link above for more information.
This past month was my first month participating. The box I sent out went to a reader (Hi Rachel!) so I can’t link to a blog showing the goodies someone got from me, but I can share the food goodies I received.
My package apparently went the long away around the planet, but finally, the packed-with-care package from Elizabeth from On Tap For Today finally made it to my house.
One of the requirements for being a Foodie PenPal is a hand-written note, recipe, or something.
My letter from Elizabeth described everything that she carefully selected for me.
There was some good stuff in here. My wife snagged the gnome mug as soon as she saw it. (Tina loves gnomes. I don’t get it.) The sushi erasers are AWESOME! Also included were three different bars, one of which was just plain old delicious chocolate, and a tin of tea!
But my favorite…
Okay, in a way, I’m cursing Elizabeth a little bit, because she sent me something that I am now, after tasting, going to have to keep on hand for the rest of my life.
The blueberry is my favorite berry. Heck, it’s my favorite fruit. Almost my favorite food.
And this jam is… amazing…
Best yet – it’s clean. Tina and I are cleaning up our diet and eating no unnatural chemicals, and this jar of preserves has NONE! And fortunately, Stonewall Kitchen has a website where I can buy this blueberry jam regularly. Whew!
I learned a few things for next month.
One, eat a meal before you open the box. That way, you won’t scarf things down before you’ve had time to adequately photograph everything.
Two, that’s pretty much it.
It’s not too late to jump onboard for January’s exchange! My first time out was a blast (once my package finally arrived – curse you USPS!), and I can’t wait to do it again!
To sign up, just email Lindsey at theleangreenbean@gmail.com by January 4th and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)
Stellar Review: Hill’s Science Diet Ideal Balance for Dogs
Here at Stellar Eats, I’m not just interested in my nutrition. Granted, 99.9% of the stuff I’m going to talk about here is people food, but I want to make sure my canine friends are well fed, too.
I am a BzzAgent, and periodically, I get to try out various products. Most I review at my other blog, Stellar Path, but this is one that I felt was appropriate here.
I got to review Hill’s Science Diet Ideal Balance for dogs.
Before I jump into my review, let me also mention that Hill’s has partnered with PetMd to provide great nutrition for our canine friends.
My first thoughts upon opening the bag? I like that the kibbles are small. Both of my dogs are medium sized, and while they can eat big kibble, I can tell that they seem to prefer them smaller.
This is Malcolm. He is my least picky dog. He will eat anything, so honestly, him eating Hill’s Science Diet isn’t a big feat.
Chowing down. No problems there.
This is Molly. She is a very picky eater. In fact, I was a little nervous to introduce new food to her. On the few occasions I’ve switched dog food, she’s often refused to eat for two or three days.
And the verdict? Success!
She ate every bite.
Now, will I buy Hill’s again? Maybe.
My only concern is that it is pricey. A four pound bag, which might last me and my dogs five days, costs about $10. I typically buy cheaper food that my vet says is perfectly healthy for them. If I only had one dog and it was a much smaller dog, we’d talk. But for these two, especially Malcolm with his bottomless pit, I’ll probably stick to what I already use. Regardless, I am VERY impressed that picky-eater Molly chowed down and ate it all.
The Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich
Well, it took me two days to get this post up, but still… I present to you the best thing to come out of Thanksgiving (at least at our house)… the Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich!
After eating this and relishing in its wonderful yumminess, I can only question why it didn’t occur to me to make one of these years sooner. It takes all of the best of Thanksgiving and puts it on two slices of bread. I am by no means claiming I invented this. Goodness knows I didn’t. This is just our version, and it’s freaking incredible.
The best part – there is no wrong way to do this. If you don’t like an element, take it out. If you want to add something more, add it. Next time I make one, I want to use much thinner gravy and make a moistmaker a la Friends, a slice of gravy-soaked bread in the middle of the sandwich. Alas, the gravy I made this year was a bit too thick, so it ended up on the sandwich as a spread instead. And still awesome.
My sandwich consisted of gravy, stuffing, turkey, and cranberry sauce on two slices of bread. How do you make yours?
I started off with stuffing…
And then a little overly thick gravy smeared on top… (In the event the gravy was more liquid, I would have soaked it into a slice of bread and made a “moistmaker.”)
Topped with some turkey…
While that is being nuked to warm up, I smeared some cranberry sauce on the other slice of bread…
Combine and enjoy!
A Quinoa Leftover Meal
For the next few days, I’m going to be posting some Thanksgiving leftover meals here.
On Friday, I bought a rice cooker at Target. I’ve never had one but I’ve always wanted one. I’ll do a review of it at a later date, (but long story short – they are awesome! Get one!), but I had to share this amazingly good meal I made.
Even though it’s a rice cooker, it will also obviously cook quinoa. I rinsed off some quinoa and put a cup of it dry, along with one cup of water, in my rice cooker. I also added some sage and rosemary for seasoning. My rice cooker comes with a steaming vegetable rack to sit on top, so I threw in some leftover roasted veggies from Thanksgiving dinner, (sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and potatoes) along with some frozen broccoli.
After about fifteen minutes, my veggies were nice and hot (including the frozen broccoli), and my quinoa was done. One cup of dry quinoa made MORE than enough food for both me and Tina, so I mixed it all up, divided it into two bowls, and viola. A meal was born.
Sorry – my pictures aren’t especially enthralling this post as I didn’t decide to make a blog post of it until the last minute.
However, it felt like it was missing a bit of something. And for whatever reason, an idea came to me that I had to try. I wanted to fry an egg and put on top of it.
After I snapped that photo, I mixed it up. My egg was only soft-fried. I wanted a hot, runny yolk to help bind the quinoa and veggies together and hopefully add some delicious flavor. Did it?
And did it? Oh goodness. I will definitely be making this again.
Another Thanksgiving leftover post tomorrow!
Lost River Cave Pizza
Even though I am on a diet, I still consider myself a foodie. I often have to limit what I eat, just to make sure I stay under my point allowance for the day.
My wife and I try to take date nights fairly regularly, but with everything that has happened to use over the past few weeks (mother-in-law’s sudden, unexpected, but successful open-heart surgery, the demands of work for both of us, my sinus infection, among others), we haven’t had one in a while. Therefore, since we both got off work today at 3:30, we decided to make it a mini-date night.
Our destination was Lost River Cave Pizza.
I wish I had taken more photos of the establishment. I didn’t even get a picture of the menu. But it’s okay, because LRC Pizza is in our home town and we’ll definitely be going back. I’m just going to share with you this amazing Chicago-style pizza. We will DEFINITELY be back.
And yes, this was a splurge, but one slice had me completely stuffed.
Stellar Review: Bertolli Olive Oil & Garlic Spaghetti Sauce
I used to do this on my main blog at Stellar Path, but when I find an amazing item in the grocery store, I like to review it and share. Now that I have a food blog, I can do it here!
Tonight, I am reviewing Bertolli Olive Oil & Garlic Spaghetti Sauce. Please note – I paid for this out of my own pocket and none of the fine folks at Bertolli even know I am doing this. All thoughts are mine and mine alone.
In the past, my wife and I have made our own spaghetti sauces from scratch, and while a fresh tomato and basil sauce is delicious, it is SO much trouble.
Fortunately, we found this. It honestly tastes as good as homemade to me. It doesn’t have a tinny taste or an overly salted taste. I really feel like I can taste the fresh tomatoes and garlic in this sauce!
My wife eats it plain on her spaghetti. I seasoned mine up with a few meatballs (I was low on my protein for the day – don’t judge) and some parmesan cheese. (Besides – I felt I would be better served getting the calories I had allotted for dinner from meatballs than extra spaghetti.)
Delicious! The price isn’t exorbitant – I believe I paid $2.49 for this jar. It easily feeds the two of us, but I’ll be honest… I like this sauce so much that I took some of the leftover sauce and ate it with a slice of my wife’s homemade garlic focaccia bread. If you aren’t as ridiculous as I am, you should be pretty easily able to feed 3-4 adults out of this jar.
