Boylan Sodas

I've never been that big a soda drinker. I try to avoid high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, so giving up pop seemed like the easiest choice. But there's still something about a cold fizzy drink on a hot summer day. I know water is the best option, but sometimes you don't want the best option, you want the tastiest one!

Meet Boylan's Orange Cream Soda. Yes, the photo would have been more effective with the soda still in the bottle, but it didn't last that long! I'll post that photo tomorrow (using it as an excuse to buy more!)

I'm not fooling myself into thinking that this soda is healthy, it's not. But I do believe that it's healthier than the fake stuff, and tastier too. Sodas sweetened with real sugar seem to me to have a lighter feel, less syrupy. They make me crave other foods less and satiate more. Plus, they are naturally limiting - a four-pack of good soda costs more than a 12-pack of the normal kind. I'm okay with that, as it makes it more of a treat.

Our other favorite is Mexican Coca Cola. Yum! Our local Costco recently had 18 packs of Mexican Coke for about 75 cents a bottle. It really does taste better and more refreshing than the US stuff. Plus the glass bottles look cool.

There are many brands of cane sugar sodas out there these days. I highly suggest that you look around and try one near you!

P.S. Behind the soda bottle you can see fabric samples that I'm trying to decide between. I'm still not sure if they'll be curtains or accessories, but that's why there are random bits of clashing material hanging there. :)

My dirty little secret

I am a marketer's best dream.

I see something that looks good and I must try it.  I don't stop thinking about until I get to try it.  It doesn't even have to look that good, just intriguing.  It doesn't have to be marketing, maybe it's just a tv show.

The other night I saw Paula Deen cook some sweet potato fries and have been able to think of little else since then.  Right now I should be posting a photo-tutorial on how I sliced the sweet potatoes and blanched them or baked them or fried them or whatever.

Guess what?  I cheated.  I worked at 5am this morning and had a splitting headache so I cheated.

Luckily for me, the kind people at Alexia were nice enough to cut and package some sweet potato fries for me.  Then they were kind enough to freeze them and ship them to my local store where I bought a bag, for probably twice the price of an actual sweet potato.  My bad.

I knew from experience that sweet potato fries need dip.  After a bit of research on the topic I decided to blend something with greek yogurt, hoping for a spicy/tangy accessory to my cheater's fries.  Thankfully another company was ready and waiting for me at the grocery store in the form of Stonewall Kitchen's Maple Chipotle Grille Sauce.  (The extra "e" on grill was their idea, not mine.)

Overall, I'm a bit disappointed in myself for this half-assed approach to a craving.  But some days that's all the energy I've got.  The fries weren't bad for frozen, a bit chewy on  the outside from the sugars in the sweet potato, soft on the inside.  They would have been better fried, but most things are.  The grill sauce mixed with yogurt worked for a dip but next time I would add some more chipotle for a bit more Ooomph.  Now that I have an open bottle of the sauce, I'll have to find a more appropriate way to use it.

And what of my craving for sweet potato fries?  Satiated...but barely.  Sometime soon I'll do them justice and then I can move on with my life, until something else tempts my palate that is!

Strawberries!

About two weeks ago, to celebrate my freedom from radioactive isolation and one of Rich's last days off, we went to a local berry farm to load up on Strawberries.  We ended up paying $13.90 for about seven pounds of berries.  What a haul!  It only took us like 30-45 minutes to pick that many, I was amazed.  The plan was to make freezer jam but I planned poorly so we ended up with a small batch of jam and a big batch of crushed berries, frozen to be turned into something at a later date.

Being the kitchen gadget freak that I am, I bought two new small toys to deal with the strawberry harvest. First was a strawberry huller. Now I have tried these before, the dinky little ones that look like flat tweezers.  Basically worthless.  True, a paring knife works well but I'm not a big knife person and with the recent surgery, I was looking for something fast and easy.  This huller was awesome.  Even Rich started using it and he HATES my gadgets.  "A knife will do just fine," says he.

The Chef'n StemGem Strawberry Huller opens up, cuts into the berry, you give it a twist, and pop, you pull out the stem and (if you're really good) the woody center all at once.  It was fast, it didn't take too much berry, and it didn't get tiring or cause a repetitive stress injury.  Pretty good going for one little gadget versus seven pounds of berries!

My other toy is the Lattice Pocket Pie Mold from Williams Sonoma.  I didn't end up making it to the farmer's market so I had to use California berries instead of local, but they were on sale at Cub so c'est la vie.  After hulling a pound of berries (it's actually fun now!) I chopped them up and sort of made my own pie filling recipe.  I ended up letting the berries macerate with about 1/4 cup of sugar but should have used more, the pies didn't end up very sweet.  I realized at the last second that I had no cornstarch so I used arrowroot instead, about a tablespoon.  I also added a few grinds of black pepper, something that really works well with strawberries and makes them "zing."

From food.craft.life.

From food.craft.life.

Using a store bought pie dough (shame on me!) I cut out the shapes using the pie mold.  The plastic edges did a remarkably good job making a clean cut in the dough.  You then flip the mold over, press in the solid piece of dough, add filling, top with the lattice, and squeeze to seal.  The mold works pretty well but I can see that it will take practice (and better dough) to really make this gadget shine.  Most of my pies didn't seal properly or ended up misshapen when I tried to get them out of the mold.  The instructions on the box say to freeze the pies for 30 minutes before baking.  I'm guessing this is to help them keep their shape.

From food.craft.life.

From food.craft.life.

Despite my poor results, I think the pie mold has promise.  I would love to try some savory pies for lunches as well as more sweet pies.  Hopefully with better dough, better filling, and better technique, I'll be able to master the Lattice Pocket Pie Mold.  And hey, if not, even the ugly pies are tasty!

From food.craft.life.

From food.craft.life.