All Entries in the "Food Review" Category

Cobram Estate’s Premium Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Complete Disclosure
This post is written based on an invite to an Olive Oil promotion event from Cobram Estate Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil. We were given 8 sample bottle of extra virgin olive oil at the end of the event. We were also provided with $1 Off Coupons as give away to chowtimes readers.

Suanne and I were invited by Cobram Estate Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil to attend a learning and tasting session about olive oil.

The event was held in The Dirty Apron. We had heard a lot about the Dirty Apron but never had the opportunity to go there. As I understand it, The Dirty Apron is a cooking school operated by the same people behind Chambar and Medina Cafe. It is located just a few doors away from the two very popular restaurants.

Gosh, have you ever parked during Canucks game night? I haven’t and was quite shocked that the parking rate was $26 at the parkade across the street!! Not wanting to waste that kind of money, I drove a block away and got a street parking spot.

The demonstration kitchen was very impressive with a lot of expensive looking appliances. It makes me want to cook, really. But this is just a cooking demonstration.

There was not a lot of people who were invited. Among the food blogger community, Matt of VancouverSlop and Jonathon of Food and Tell were present.

Himalayan Salt

Minoo gave me a piece of Himalayan Salt from her trip to Germany last October. The crystal salt is too beautiful to use it for cooking. I kept it for souvenir.

Minoo told me that a kilogram of this salt will cost about US40 if we buy it from the internet from Canada.  But, when she bought it from Germany, it only cost her about 4 Euro. What a difference in price.

Here is what Minoo shared with me about Himalayan Salt:
Pure Crystal Salt is becoming increasingly popular in the natural foods movement. The mines where “Himalayan” salt is harvested is approximately 1000 miles from the Himalayas !  It comes from the original primordial oceans that were covered up by mountains many millions of years ago. Located in remote regions of Pakistan , these mines have developed over many millions of years.

This Crystal Salt is considered by many to be the most pure and beneficial form on the planet. First, the mines were formed from waters that had NEVER been exposed to any impurities. It has had millions of years to mature under great tectonic pressure, far from exposure to any form of environmental pollution.

Unfortunately, even the highest quality sea salts can have picked harmful pollutants and heavy metals from the ocean in which they are harvested and dried. Moreover, the salts can contain trace amounts of sharp pieces of sand, which can be irritating to both the villi in the intestinal tract and the delicate cells of our body.

Secondly, all of Himalayan salt’s eighty-four minerals and trace elements are available in colloidal form . Having continually been pressurized and reduced in size for millions of years, the minerals have become colloidal in size, one of the smallest bioavailable forms minerals can take. This means that such necessary minerals as sodium, calcium and magnesium as well as trace minerals are readily absorbed and utilized by the body.

One might wonder if this form salt poses health risks for those with high blood pressure or kidney problems. More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Happy Planet Natural Sauces

Disclosure
This post is written with sample sauces provided by Happy Planet. Happy Planet sent us 12 packets of sample sauces. We are not paid for this post.

As you well know, Suanne and I get quite a number of companies asking if we wanted to try their products. We are picky about what we want to write about because it is simply impossible to review everything that comes our way.

Mostly companies will just send us coupons but once in a while they will go the extra mile to ship us samples. Happy Planet shipped us samples of the their range Happy Planet Natural Sauces. There are altogether six types of gourmet sauces with tastes around the world which includes:

• Thai – Yellow Curry Sauce
• Spanish – Red Pepper Sauce
• Indian – Butter Chicken Sauce
• Bengali – Coconut Curry Sauce
• French – Mushroom Wine Sauce
• Japanese – Ginger Miso Sauce

We were quite surprised that Happy Planet took all the trouble to ship the sauces to us. We did not expect it coming in a large Styrofoam container but soon realize the reason why. It is because unlike a lot of other sauces, Happy Planet’s sauces are made with fresh, natural and organic ingredients. There are no preservatives in the sauces and so it needs to be constantly refrigerated.

Happy Planet sent us a total of 12 packets of sauces and each of them is meant to serve 2-3 people. So that was a LOT we had. We decided to share this with Whitney and Ken’s family by cooking dinner together so that we can try a few of the sauces at one time.

Happy Planet’s Natural Sauces are easy to make and versatile. They sent us three recipes to go along with each of the sauces.

The beauty is that each of the recipes have just three easy steps. While the guys make guy talk and the boys execute head-shots on the PS3, the ladies whipped up the meal quite quickly in the kitchen. It seems to me like the most time consuming steps is the preparations.

The first one Suanne and Whitney used was the Japanese Miso Sauce. They could cook the Miso Sauce with Salmon Fillet, or Stir-Fried Tofu or Sauteed Chicken. They decided on Salmon.

Like I said it is just three easy steps. Step 1: Saute salmon fillets until cooked.

Step 2: Add sauce and cook for an additional 4-5 minutes.

Step 3: Serve with steamed rice and garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

Simple! Even Ken and I could have done that ourselves but then we had bigger things to do … you know, things like figuring out why the HDMI cable does not send sound to the receiver, dishing the local politicians, moaning the lack of snow, where to buy pirated movies in Richmond … you know what I mean,right? Basically big stuff. LOL!

The Japanese Ginger Miso Sauce with Salmon Fillet is pretty good. We just love the texture of the crispy skin along with the savoury and … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Red Espresso – Rooibos Tea Espresso

This post is written upon a package of free sample from Red Espresso. We are not paid for this post.

This came in the mail and oh yeah, its a sample for us courtesy of Red Espresso. Please note we are not paid for this blog post if that matters to any of you.

Actually there is a specific way to write the name of this unique product. It is not Red Espresso …

… it is red espresso. That is what I noticed … they made the word “red” red all the time and spelt them all in lowercases. Weird. But smart. That’s branding at its finest if you ask me.

red espresso is the world’s first espresso made of tea. It is made with Rooibos tea which is gaining popularity around the world and we had read about them before. So when red espresso asked if we would like a sample, we said sure. We were curious and wanted to see for ourselves what the fuss is all about.

What we found out was that Rooibos has all the versatility of espresso coffee. With this you could make latte, cappucino, americano, white mocha and even iced tea with apple juice. They even trademarked the red espresso names so that when you ask for these items below, it means Rooibos tea from red espresso:

• red latte
• red cappucino
• red canadiano (he he he … not Americano!)
• red symphony (is actually white mocha)
• fresh red (iced tea with apple juice)
• iced red (iced tea)

Before I continue, I want to point out that these pictures here are all mine. How did you like it? It is not exactly pro level but I am pretty pleased how they all came out.

Anyway, you can prepare a red espresso in a few ways. You could use an espresso machine, a stovetop espresso maker, a french press or even a drip coffee maker.

I don’t have an espresso machine at home. I had always wanted to buy one but Suanne kiboshed that idea because she said does not have anymore space in her kitchen. So we opted for the next best way to make this. We bought ourselves a stovetop espresso maker (above).

So I did a bit of research. Apparently the Rolls Royce of stovetop espresso makers are made by Bialetti. But Bialetti are so expensive with some fancy models costing over $100.

I found the basic one above in HomeSense. It is less than $10. Cheap but it works the same. He he he … I hope this is safe! OK we admit. We are noobs when it comes to this thingy. So, please don’t roll your eyes as I attempt to explain the basics OK?

With the stovetop espresso maker, you basically prepare your brew on top of your stove burner. The pressure from the boiling water will apply sufficient pressure to express a thick concentrated coffee from the beans. There are three sections: on the left is the boiler where the water goes. The middle part is the metal filter for the coffee (or in this case the red espresso). And on the right is the chamber where the espresso is collected.

It is a simple device. It is also the way the Italians make their espresso as I was told.

The Rooibos tea looks kind of like … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

New Jules+Kent and Undercurrents Products from Mad About Food

We have more samples delivered to our home.

This time it came from Mad About Food. We heard of them before. They are the gourmet food gift basket company.

Over the long weekend, Suanne and I had a little project to put into practice a couple of practical tips of taking food pictures. We learned this from Sea Salt With Food whose site traffic stands head and shoulders above every Vancouver blogs we know from the strength of her pictures.  [So, Angie, how are these shots?]

The above is Vegetarian Antipasto on Savory Crackers. We topped it with Goat Cheese. Yummy.

This is always a Canadian entertaining appetizer stapple. It had a savoury blend of vegetables and spices prepared in small batches. You can also add to pasta sauce or even use it as a sandwich spread, if you want.

We also had Tomato Chutney, similarly topped with Goat Cheese. The chutney has a pleasant, bright flavour.

It is versatile and is really intended to enhance pork, chicken and fish. You can also use this to cover the top of a wheel of brie and bake. That I got to try someday. How about blending this with cream cheese for an appealing appetizer?

Jules+Kent is the latest product line launched by Mad About Food. It is a range of specialty sauces that are locally-made.

Mad About Food also launched another range of “honey” products at the same time.

The Nutty Hazel Honey is great.  I had never tried nuts with honey before. It is organic BC hazelnuts combined with pure, unpasteurized Canadian honey. It is part of the new line of products called Undercurrents.

All these and more came in a nice practical gift basket like this. More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Frito Lay’s Flavoured Potato Chips

This post is written upon free samples provided to us by Frito-Lay Canada. We are not paid for this post.

We did not think that they were serious.

Frito Lay wrote to us some time ago alerting us that they had recently reduced the level of sodium in its entire lineup of Lay’s flavoured potato chips by at least 25% and up to 50% in some flavours.  They asked chowtimes if we would be agreeable to feature this in our blog.  We replied saying that we do not mind doing so as long as it benefits our readers.  We asked them for coupons that we can give away.

Well, they said did not have coupons but said they can ship us samples instead.

Even though they said shipped us some but I did not think that they would ship an entire box.

We always have a bag (or two) at home … but we never had so much before.  Oh yeah … Nanzaro was estatic over all the chips.

Frito Lay shipped us six different types of flavours.  What’s your favourite?  I like the Bar-B-Q the best but hate the Ketchup.  The Sour Cream and Onions are not bad.

Oh … about the sodium level of Lay’s potato chips … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

POM Wonderful — 100% Pomegranate Juice

This post is written upon free coupons from POM Wonderful. We are not paid for this post.

We do get samples every now and then.  Molly sent us an email asking if she could send us some coupons to sample.  We said yes and true enough the package came in the mail just a couple of days later.  That was fast.

Chowtimes had often been contacted asking if we would like samples from food manufacturers.  We replied to Molly saying that we’re in Canada because we thought that she may have mistaken us for a US blog site.  Very often, the samples comes from the US and the products are not available outside of the US.

POM Wonderful, as it turns out, is available widely in Canada.  It is just that we had never paid much attention to it.

We went to the Real Canadian Superstore to get some.  Never knowing where to look for it, we spent quite a bit of time looking — thinking that it is somewhere in the beverage section.  We actually had thought it was some form of a concentrate because of the word “concentrate” on the bottle.

As it turns out, it was in the section where food like salads are … i.e. at the produce section.  POM Wonderful came in a nice and unique bottle and is supposed to be drank cold.  They have a few flavours all identified by the colors on the cap.  The bottle is so nice, I know it will end up in the drawer where Suanne keeps these kind of cure bottles — she can’t bring herself to throw cute things away.

The above is Mango.  To me it tastes like More on following page. Click here to continue reading