Bar Review 5/5!

Finishing the week strong with Lärabar! Since I am a sucker for snacks, the bar reviews this week may not be the most enlightening…if it’s portable and chewy and/or crunchy, I’ll probably like at least part of it! I don’t have bars everyday normally (I try to have some fruit throughout the week, or sometimes I’ll stick with some crackers or even just a bigger salad with my lunch), so this was a treat for me.  I’d have to say the winner for the week (who knew this was a contest!?) is the Bumble Bar from Thursday! Mostly because it was so unexpected and it really grew on me as I ate it. I can’t wait to try more of those! Really, any of the bars I tried this week I’d be likely to try again if I was in the right mood…and at least now I have a better sense of which ones to grab depending on whether I feel like chewy, crunchy, sweet, salty, etc.  The Oskri bar from Monday was good, but I definitely need to be in a big big coconut mood for that one! I bet it would be great broken up over chocolate ice cream or with some melted chocolate drizzled across the top! Mmm..now I might just have to try that! Both the Clif and Luna Bars were yummy and dessert like, which was a real pick-me-up in the middle of the week!  I’ll be glad to get back to some non-bar snacks next week, but I would definitely call this series a delicious success!

I’ve got lots of editing this weekend, and then hopefully it should be all done on Sunday! Then I’ll be back with more recipes and food photos instead of daily bar reviews.  Have a great weekend!

Bar Review 4/5 and a bonus!

* A note about natural flavors: I haven’t done a tone of research, so don’t use me as some expert witness to this, but in one of my grad classes a couple years ago, we read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. Really really interesting. He has a lot to say about flavors (natural and artificial), and the way that flavors are manufactured in giant factories. Schlosser does a pretty decent job of citing the claims that he makes, so while I’m not going to throw him out there as an irrefutable scientific resource, his concerns in this area are ones that I tend to have as well. Here’s a brief excerpt (which I snatched from a random website in order to avoid having to type it all)…there is a lot more interesting stuff in the book. I’d definitely recommend it.

The Food and Drug Administration does not require companies to disclose the ingredients of their color or flavor additives so long as all the chemicals in them are considered by the agency to be GRAS (“generally recognized as safe”). This enables companies to maintain the secrecy of their formulas. It also hides the fact that flavor compounds often contain more ingredients than the foods to which they give taste. The phrase “artificial strawberry flavor” gives little hint of the chemical wizardry and manufacturing skill that can make a highly processed food taste like strawberries.

A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a Burger King strawberry milk shake, contains the following ingredients: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone (10 percent solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent.

Although flavors usually arise from a mixture of many different volatile chemicals, often a single compound supplies the dominant aroma. Smelled alone, that chemical provides an unmistakable sense of the food. Ethyl-2-methyl butyrate, for example, smells just like an apple. Many of today’s highly processed foods offer a blank palette: whatever chemicals are added to them will give them specific tastes. Adding methyl-2-pyridyl ketone makes something taste like popcorn. Adding ethyl-3-hydroxy butanoate makes it taste like marshmallow. The possibilities are now almost limitless. Without affecting appearance or nutritional value, processed foods could be made with aroma chemicals such as hexanal (the smell of freshly cut grass) or 3-methyl butanoic acid (the smell of body odor).

The 1960s were the heyday of artificial flavors in the United States. The synthetic versions of flavor compounds were not subtle, but they did not have to be, given the nature of most processed food. For the past twenty years food processors have tried hard to use only “natural flavors” in their products. According to the FDA, these must be derived entirely from natural sources — from herbs, spices, fruits, vegetables, beef, chicken, yeast, bark, roots, and so forth. Consumers prefer to see natural flavors on a label, out of a belief that they are more healthful. Distinctions between artificial and natural flavors can be arbitrary and somewhat absurd, based more on how the flavor has been made than on what it actually contains.

“A natural flavor,” says Terry Acree, a professor of food science at Cornell University, “is a flavor that’s been derived with an out-of-date technology.” Natural flavours and artificial flavors sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods. Amyl acetate, for example, provides the dominant note of banana flavor. When it is distilled from bananas with a solvent, amyl acetate is a natural flavor. When it is produced by mixing vinegar with amyl alcohol and adding sulfuric acid as a catalyst, amyl acetate is an artificial flavor. Either way it smells and tastes the same. “Natural flavor” is now listed among the ingredients of everything from Health Valley Blueberry Granola Bars to Taco Bell Hot Taco Sauce.

A natural flavor is not necessarily more healthful or purer than an artificial one. When almond flavor — benzaldehyde — is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. Benzaldehyde derived by mixing oil of clove and amyl acetate does not contain any cyanide. Nevertheless, it is legally considered an artificial flavor and sells at a much lower price. Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature.

Iiiinteresting, no? I am definitely not one to condone anything for being not completely healthy, but I like bits of info like this that make me think about food labels and ingredient lists differently. Makes me feel like I am not so swayed by all of the marketing gimmicks that are out there.

Guest Post on Dori’s Shiny Blog

Click over to Dori’s blog to read my guest post about my Italian Wedding Casserole! Lots of pictures and the Sage Parmesan Meatball recipe! This is a really fun meal that Matt and I made together and has lasted through several rounds of leftovers…yum yum yum!  Here are the instructions for putting the casserole together (you’ll have to head over to DSB to get the meatball recipe!):

• What You Need:
  • Pasta (We used Rotelle, but any curly or spiral pasta will work)
  • About 1/3 of the sage parmesan meatball mix
  • Chicken stock
  • 1 Tb Flour
  • 1 Tb olive oil
  • 1 Tb Minced garlic
  • 1 Diced onion
  • 1 bunch fresh spinach, washed, drained, and chopped. (Or frozen spinach, defrosted, drained, squeezed as dry as possible)
  • Ritz crackers
  • Butter
  • Parmesan Cheese
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Basil, parsley, sage, cayenne pepper

 

• What You Do:
  • Cook pasta, as directed on package, drain, and set aside.
  • While pasta cooks, mix your meatballs and pan fry.
  • Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels — if there is a ton of grease in the pan, pour off or soak up (with a paper towel) most of it, leaving about 1/2 a teaspoon
  • Sprinkle flour around pan, stirring to coat with grease in the pan and let it cook for a couple minutes on medium heat (this will take away some of the floury taste)
  • Add salt, black and cayenne pepper, basil, parsley and sage and slowly add stock, stirring constantly and mixing completely with the flour after each bit is added.
  • When all the stock has been added to the pan, keep stirring so it doesn’t burn or stick. Bring it to a simmer and let it cook for 5 minutes. This will get it just a little bit thick.
  • While sauce is cooking, heat olive oil in pan over medium-high heat.
  • Sauté onion and garlic in pan until very soft and translucent (caramelized a bit if you want that extra sweetness).
  Add spinach to pan and stir. As the spinach cooks it will wilt down quite a bit. It might seem like you have a TON of fresh spinach, but it will result in a lot less cooked than you think.
  • Cook until spinach is wilted and tender, stirring constantly. Set aside.
  • In a large bowl, mix pasta, meatballs, spinach, stock mixture and a handful of parmesan cheese until well blended.
  • Pour into large, greased casserole dish.
  • In small saucepan, melt 1 stick of butter. Crush 1 tube of Ritz crackers (you can really use any kind of crackers you want, but Ritz are super buttery and have the best taste as far as I’ve found so far)and add to the melted butter (along with a small handful of parmesan cheese), stirring to coat.*
  • Top the casserole with the deliciously buttery cracker mix.
  • Bake this in 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes or until bubbly and hot in the middle. The time will vary based on what size/shape casserole dish you use. You’ll want to watch the crackers, because they could burn if the oven is too hot or they’re in there too long…if you see them starting to get too dark, just cover with aluminum foil. Since everything is already cooked, you’re really just aiming for it to be heated and bubbly all the way through and for the cracker topping to get nice and brown! 

*It should be noted that the topping on this casserole comes originally from a broccoli cheese casserole side dish I learned from my greasy friend from KY, Bob…while we were Undergrads, we spent a LOT of time topping things with butter and crackers.  It’s delicious.

Thanks to Dori for letting me guest post! 4th bar review later today after my afternoon snack! (The last of the leftover italian wedding casserole for lunch today, so that will probably hold me over for a while!)

Apple Bread & Bar Review 3/5

Even though I was really busy on Monday night, I managed to make some yummy apple bread for breakfast the next day! It’s from my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, and it was super easy! We doubled this batch because we had a giant pile of apples leftover in the fridge that weren’t good enough for eating out of hand, but perfect for shredding into some bread!

Apple Bread

• 1.5 cups AP flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 cup sugar
• 1.5 cups finely shredded, peeled apple
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, toasted (I didn’t toast them because I was lazy…it was 100% fine)

1. Grease your loaf pan (I used about 6 mini loaf pans for my double batch) and set aside.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg.  Make a well in center of flour mixture; set aside.
2. In another medium bowl combine egg, sugar, apple, and oil.  Add apple mixture all at once to flour mixture.  Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy).  Fold in nuts.  Spoon batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes (our oven is wonky and vacillates in temperature a lot, but all my mini-loaves baking at once took about this long to cook…I’d recommend checking on them at 30 minutes or so, just to make sure you don’t burn them!) or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.  Remove from pan.  Cool completely on a wire rack.  Wrap and store overnight before slicing (HA! This did NOT happen.)

I’m really glad I took the time out of editing to make this. It was really easy and everyone here, at my work, and at Matt’s work loved it!  Fruit breads like this (very similar to bananananana bread) are so easy because there is no special folding or sifting or straining or anything to do….mix the dry, mix the wet, throw ‘em together and you’re good to go! I grew up with Shed’s Spread Country Crock spread, and it is the PERFECT smooth flavor for this kind of bread, even though we go for regular butter most other times.

If you’re not a big baker, this is a good kind of baked good to start with (probably why I love it so much!).  Now, back to editing!! Tomorrow, guest post on Dori’s blog!

Bar Review 2/5

Blah Tuesday! I called it!! I am exhausted and had a super long day.  Thankfully I had an energy bar to give me a kick in the butt this afternoon! Tomorrow: Bake Sale update, Apple Bread, and maybe some other random fun things. 

If you’re looking for some additional reading in the meantime, check out Santana’s review of her new Kong toy…she loves it!