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Cobram Estate’s Premium Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Ben — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:00:26 +0000

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.

The night’s event was organized by Cobram Estate who wanted to promote the use of Australian Olive Oil. We hardly use olive oil at home. Our perception was that olive oil is mostly used for salad and we don’t normally make salad at home. Suanne has a bottle all the time but it just takes forever to finish a bottle.

So we wanted to attend this to learn a bit more about Olive Oil.

Our first question is … why Australian Olive Oil? We had always thought that olive oil is almost entirely produced in Mediterranean region. The answer was “why not?” LOL! After all, Australia also produces some of the best wines even though it is not native to the country. The best reason we learn was that being in the southern hemisphere, it works to their advantage. This is because when it is off harvesting season in the Mediterranean, Australia will be in full production swing and this ensuring continuous world wide supply.

Along with this fact, unlike wine, olive oil does not get better with age. The fresher it is the better it is.

Cobram Estate ensures freshness by pressing the olive at the spot and not more than 2 hours after picking. We learned about the advanced production processes that Cobram Estate traces quality in every step right to the consumer.

We were introduced to four types of Extra Virgin Olive Oil:

Light and Delicate
Fresh and Fruity
Rich and Robust, and
Lemon Twist

It got a bit more interesting when we get to taste the olive oil. We were instructed to warm up the olive oil with our hands and swirl it around. It was fine except that my cup were leaking and made a mess. LOL!

We were supposed to swallow and then breathe out through the nose. We were not used to consuming olive oil like this. It was supposed to be peppery and spicy at the throat. Instead, I just choked at it, especially with the Rich and Robust.

I was told that this is what is sometimes called a three-cough oil. So, the more intense it is the more cough rating it has. LOL!

Cobram Estates wanted to let chowtimes readers also have a try at their Extra Virgin Olive Oil. They gave Suanne and I a total of 8 bottles. Because it was logistically impossible to distribute it, we gave it away to the readers who attended the 12B dinner and also to the leadership team of the Richmond Community Kitchen.

They had also kindly given us a LOT of $1 coupons to give away. The Cobram Estates Extra Virgin Olive Oil retails for $9.49 to $10.49 for a 375ml bottle. If you like to try the olive oil, please send an email to suanne@chowtimes.com with an address and we will snail mail a few to you.

I want to let you know that your mailing address will NOT be shared with Cobram Estates or anyone else. Neither will we keep your mailing address other than to use it to mail them to you.

The award winning olive oil is available in Safeway, H.Y. Louie, Thrifty Foods, Save-On-Foods, Price Smart, Cooper’s Foods and Overwaitea Foods stores throughout Western Canada.

The best part of the night is the cooking demonstration. Well, not so much of the cooking but the tasting that comes after!

The demonstration was conducted by Sally James who is an award winning Australian chef, author, television presenter and an ambassador for Australian food and wine. She has also published 18 books that have won international acclaim for food and wine pairing, health and creativity.

During that night, Sally demonstrated the preparation of four delicious dishes using the olive oil. That was the best part of the night … the tasting. If you are interested, below are the dishes that were prepared by Sally and its recipes.

Olive Oil Poached Kingfish with Pumpkin Puree, Lemon-Dressed Fennel and Rocket Chiffonade

1 bottle Cobram Estate Light and Delicate Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 sprig each thyme and rosemary
4 (about 6-8 ounce/180g) Kingfish Filet, skinless boneless (you can also use
Ocean Trout, Grouper or other firm fleshed white fish)
1/3 cup toasted almonds or pine nuts, finely chopped
Pumpkin Puree
14 ounces peeled butternut or Kaboocha pumpkin (squash), chopped
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons Cobram Estate Fresh and Fruity olive oil
freshly ground pepper to taste
Chiffonade
1 handful rocket (arugula), finely sliced
1 cup shaved fennel bulb
2 tablespoon finely sliced basil
3 tablespoons Cobram Fresh and Fruity or Lemon Twist Australian Extra Virgin
Olive Oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Cobram Estate’s Premium Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil (863 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post tags: Disclosures, Food Review

Himalayan Salt

Suanne — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:50:13 +0000

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 after the jump. Click to read the rest of Himalayan Salt (320 words)

Happy Planet Natural Sauces

Ben — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:17:54 +0000

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 after the jump. Click to read the rest of Happy Planet Natural Sauces (590 words)

Red Espresso – Rooibos Tea Espresso

Ben — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:40:33 +0000

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 after the jump. Click to read the rest of Red Espresso – Rooibos Tea Espresso (264 words)

New Jules+Kent and Undercurrents Products from Mad About Food

Ben — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:41:54 +0000

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 after the jump. Click to read the rest of New Jules+Kent and Undercurrents Products from Mad About Food (96 words)

Frito Lay’s Flavoured Potato Chips

Ben — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:43:36 +0000

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 after the jump. Click to read the rest of Frito Lay’s Flavoured Potato Chips (128 words)

POM Wonderful — 100% Pomegranate Juice

Ben — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:36:24 +0000

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 after the jump. Click to read the rest of POM Wonderful — 100% Pomegranate Juice (167 words)

Dr. Oetker Jam Express

Suanne — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:00:07 +0000

It’s strawberry season. Ben brought home a 4lb pack one day after work as he found a good deal at the groceries store, $4.98 for 4 lbs. Ben usually does not do groceries shopping. It just happened that he was looking for some stationery in the Real Canadian Superstore and saw the good deal.

With so much strawberries, I quickly check my pantry and found a pack of Dr. Oetker Jam Express Gelling Powder which I bought a couple of months ago. I wanted to make some blueberries jam but do not get down to do it. So, this is just great for making strawberry jam.

I like Dr. Oetker Jam Express Gelling Powder for it’s simplicity to use and no additional sugar is required. You can use it to make jam from various fruit like raspberry, blueberry, blackberry and other fruits or blends. If you use defrosted frozen fruit, include the juice which will enhance the flavour and recipe only requires 1 3/4 cup of chopped defrosted frozen fruit.

Nothing beats some freshly home-made strawberry jam on a toast.

Ingredients

3 cups fresh chopped strawberries, about 400g/1 lb
1 package of 200g Dr. Oetker Jam Express

Two 250ml washed, rinsed and dried jam jars with sealing lids

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Dr. Oetker Jam Express (188 words)

Between McDonalds and Starbucks Coffee

Ben — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:00:30 +0000

Just in case you don’t already know, the coffee war down south had just spilled over the border to Canada.

A few months ago, McDonalds setting its sights on Starbucks fired the opening salvo by putting up billboards that proclaimed “four bucks is dumb”. Dozens of these billboards were erected in the Washington state and from what I read, there is even one erected right in front of the Starbucks HQ in Seattle. It was direct confrontation of the specialty coffee market in the US.

Last week, the coffee war came to Canada when McDonalds announced that you could get a free coffee during breakfast time in all outlets for a duration of two weeks. Starbucks reacted with a feeble attempt by giving free coffee for just a few hours.

Suanne and I do not normally buy coffee. We make coffee at home and there is also a Starbucks coffee dispenser at work. Two cups in the morning is just about the max we consume everyday.

Last Sunday, we decided to go check out what the fuss was. We woke up early, very early and drove to the Starbucks at Ironwood and bought a cup of Starbucks regular coffee.

We then brought it across the parking lot to the McDonalds outlets to get the free coffee. OK, Suanne was afraid of being caught taking a Starbucks coffee into McDonalds, getting a free cuppa and then take pictures. It was quite obvious what we were doing to the people around us. LOL!

Bear with me OK? I am no coffee expert but this is just my way of comparing McDonalds coffee with Starbucks. First off, we are comparing apple-to-apple. Both cups are small coffee (McDonalds Canada does not have espresso yet, I think).

Size wise, Starbucks wins with its taller cup, slightly wider cup.

The Starbucks cup costs $1.65 while McDonalds is 22% cheaper at $1.29. McDonalds wins.

The cup in McDonalds I heard was a new design which does not require a sleeve … Starbucks does. While the sleeve was made of recycled materials, still it is another piece of garbage that needed to be handled by the system. McDonalds wins here.

Starbucks lid is of simpler design. I like the McDonalds one which has a pullback tab which helps keep the coffee hot a tad longer. McDonalds wins.

You probably read about how big a problem these coffee cups are to the environment. They had largely managed to figure out making the cups environment friendly but the biggest problem is with the pastic lids. They still have no solution to making a viable cheap alternative to the plastic lids.

Oh, there are now proposals to start taxing plastic bottle (I know I am digressing here) in Vancouver. I think it’s a great idea but I know the Vancouver City Hall is up against powerful industry lobby groups.

And now to the coffee. Starbucks serve the coffee with just the right temperature. I can just drink it the moment I get it. For McDonalds’, it was scalding hot when we got it that we had to carefully sip it in the beginning. Starbucks wins.

Starbucks will hand you a cup and lets you add in your own sugar and cream — and you get to chose what creamer you want. In McDonalds, they ask you if you want sugar and cream and adds it for you. You, of course , could add in more if you want but what if you wanted less. OK, Starbucks wins.

Taste wise … heck, I don’t know! Suanne says they taste the same … no difference. I felt Starbucks tastes like 2.4% better because I tasted a hint of bitterness in McDonalds’s cup. Starbucks wins.

Smell wise Starbucks has a stronger coffee smell and so I gotta give it to Starbucks. Starbucks wins.

Give me a sec while I tally up the score …

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Between McDonalds and Starbucks Coffee (55 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 10 comments
Post tags: Coffee

MaxFrut — Gourmet Fruitcicles

Ben — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:00:18 +0000

This post is written with sampling at MaxFrut. We are not paid for this post.

“Yes Virgina. Not only are there Gourmet Jerkies, there is such a thing as Gourmet Popsicle”

Anna of MaxFrut invited us to visit their premises to check out their cool new product … fruitcicles, not popsicles. We went right after the lunch we had at Kash Cool. It was just perfect … this will be dessert after the heavy lunch.

MaxFrut is located just around the corner from Kash Cool. They are located in an industrial area on 127 Garden Ave. This is where the MaxFrut Flavour Lab is … the birth place of the many uniquely cool flavours.

We were greeted by the lovely Anna who were so helpful with our many questions. Suanne and I love learning about the food we eat and was lapping up every single word she said.

As much as we were curious, we were more excited when Anna brought this large tray of samples. Oooo … nice!

Hey … these are not your day to day popsicles. These are what Anna calls whole fruit frozen fruitcicles. She had made a new batch of interesting flavour of cucumber lime. What a combination but really, it was quite nice and fresh.

They had all kinds of Classic flavours made from real fruits. Since this is a laboratory of sorts, they even have Premium flavours which is not found elsewhere but here in the flavour lab in North Vancouver.

We noticed they had a $5 bill tagged on the top corner of this poster. Suanne and I guessed that it must be the first $5 they sold here. You think?

It was fun learning about flavours. Out of curiosity, Anna brought out some chili seasonings and use us as guinea pigs. She wanted to see how we react to this odd combination.

Mango fruitcicle is a very Asian flavour since it is a common tropical fruit found abundantly in South and South East Asia. So, Anna figured perhaps some chilli seasonings may go OK with the Mango fruitcicle.

The taste was … errrr … different. It was not bad especially. Who would have thought of putting chilli on popsicles? MaxFruit would, that’s who!

More after the jump. Click to read the rest of MaxFrut — Gourmet Fruitcicles (409 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments
Post tags: Disclosures, Food Review, North Vancouver