Product of the week: Chicharrones

Who can resist fried pork skins? Not our family.

When cruising the Mexican aisle at Food Lion I came across these chicarrones. The ingredients are literally fried pork skins and salt.

Andrew was pretty excited to give them a try. However it turns out they are fairly tasteless, almost like eating packing foam - light, airy and not very flavoursome. Nothing like Mr Porky's pork crackles. Katrina, you better bring a big suitcase full of Mr Porky's products when you come over (then again to keep Andrew's cholesterol down maybe just a couple will do!)

BTW check out this website dedicated to Hairy Bar snacks!

Product of the week: Abuelita

The Nestle package says that this is an "Authentic Mexican style instant chocolate drink mix". You just add hot milk or water. Abuelita (which means 'grandma') is flavoured by sugar, cocoa and cinnamon. Ingredients include: sugar, nonfat milk, dairy product solids, vegetable oil (partially hydrogenated), corn syrup solids, cocoas, various other ingredients and of course mono- and diglycerides. This particular packet mix is not too good and our Mexican friends suggest buying the tablet version which is much better. We'll check out the tablet version soon - or else make our own mix with sugar, cocoa and cinnamon.

Product of the week: Tam tam crackers

The name of these kosher crackers caught my eye (I was hoping for tim tams) and decided they were work a try. "The sweet taste of chocolate combined with the salty Tam Tam crunch is sure to entice every chocolate lover's palette." And indeed they are very good. So good that the contents of the packet only lasted 2 days in our house and they were all gone (or as Lucy says "in the mouth, down the throat, in the belly") Highly recommended!

Product of the week: Jell-o

When I think of the word Jell-o I think of jelly, that artificially bright-coloured rubbery substance that could almost bounce. Well Jell-0 does sell that sort of product but their range is much wider than that. Today's featured packet is coconut cream pudding. You just add 2 cups of milk to the packet mix, whisk for 2 minutes and then wait 5 minutes and your dessert is ready. With some left over pastry I made some mini pie shells and filled them with this jell-o. Andrew did a blind taste test and concluded that the pies were very good. I then informed him that he had eaten a whole lot of sugar followed by mono and diglycerides, yellow 5, yellow 6, and sodium metabisulfite (retains coconut whiteness). Admittedly there is coconut in there as well but overall two thumbs down on the ingredients list. The packet screams that it is a "good source of calcium as prepared" (ie the milk you add will give you calcium) so you are probably better off just having a glass of the white stuff on its own. Though it did taste ok it had nothing on Jestine's coconut cream pies from Charleston.

Product of the week: Butter bread (and Irish bangers)

This bread is yellow! (Thanks mainly to turmeric and annatto colourings) The bread does have butter in it but it also has lots of horrible things like high fructose corn syrup and mono and diglycerides. Disappointingly it didn't taste like butter which further adds to our theory that you can't buy edible bread at the supermarket! Lucy is still eating tapioca bread for lunches without complaint (and without butter or margarine) and will continue to do so for a while.

We bought this butter bread for our sausage sangers. Aahh sausages! We haven't had sausages since we left Oz over 16 months ago. The reason is that they are not readily available. There are sweet and spicy Italian sausages at the supermarket but no regular plain meat ones. I finally found 'Irish bangers' at Fresh Market and can recommend these as good sausages. Unfortunately Lucy has eaten far more hot dogs than sausages so we will have to remedy this soon.

Product of the week: Hamburger Helper

I haven't purchased this product so I am relying on Wikipedia to provide you the details. Once you've read the description below you will understand why the packet remains on the shelf of Food Lion.

"Hamburger Helper is a brand of boxed meal product produced by General Mills and sold under its Betty Crocker brand. It consists of a starch (most often pasta, but also rice or potatoes) and specially measured dried sauce packets separated in a single box. The remaining ingredients must be provided by the consumer. The consumer browns the hamburger meat in a skillet and then adds water, noodles, milk and the seasoning packet(s) to create the complete dish. There is as well an "instant" version of Hamburger Helper which contains dehydrated meat, noodles and seasonings in a small pouch — instead of adding meat, milk and water, the consumer only needs to add a small amount of water to a bowl containing the helper pouch contents."

Product of the week: Elmo cupcakes

I couldn't resist putting this photo up. We visited Apple Annie's bakehouse as we were at a shop nearby and a few people had recommended the bakehouse to us. It is a bakery specialising in cakes and bad-for-you treats. Lucy saw this Elmo cupcake and had to have it! Immediately! (But she had to wait to get home for a taste) She knows Elmo from a couple of books we have not from watching Sesame Street so she had no idea who the blue cupcake next to Elmo was (cookie monster). The head was mostly icing and thankfully Lucy had a few bites and then gave up.

Product of the week: F150

According to Wikipedia the F-Series is a series of full size pickup trucks (utes) from Ford sold for over 5 decades. The most popular variant of the F-Series is the F-150. It has been the best selling vehicle in the US for 23 years and the best-selling truck for 31 years. Analysts estimate that the F-Series alone makes up half of the Ford Motor Company's profits in recent years.

These cars are HUGE! It seems that Southerners like their cars big, red and with a confederate flag on the front number plate. With gas prices rising to $4 per gallon (roughly $1 per litre) everyone here is complaining. I usually tell them they have it good given that Oz prices are, I believe, $1.60 per litre but they don't want to listen. And they don't want to give up their gas guzzling cars. The F150 is the most common car in Wilmington and given some of the narrow streets around here it is scary driving next to one. I'm surprised I don't see dozens of side mirror casualties strewn about the place.

Product of the week: Weber

Andrew finally got his birthday present, a new Weber grill (bbq). He was very excited to try it out and had some lamb chops cooking within an hour of receiving it. We did a lot of research into grills and it seems that to get anything that won't rust within one season you need to spend some dollars. We heard lots of good things about Webers so we bought this one from Lowes and had them put it together for us. Lucy decorated it with lots of happy birthday crepe paper. For the past 4 weeks she has not stopped saying 'happy birthday' often breaking out in song to wish 'dear lucy' a happy birthday. I'm lucky if she only says it 25 times a day. She obviously enjoyed her birthday VERY MUCH! In any case, the birthday for Andrew lives on as he enjoys his new toy, the first component of the 'outdoor grilling area with a woodfired pizza oven'

Product of the week - Iron Chef General Tso's sauce

We saw this Iron Chef product at Costco the other week and had to blog it (though we did not purchase it). Here is the blurb from the website, and by the way if you haven't watched the original Iron Chef series you should!

Welcome to the home of Iron Chef Food. We are the exclusive licensees for all food and beverages for the Iron Chef, we are licensed by FujiTV in Japan and work closely with them to maintain the integrity of the Iron Chef name in our products and flavorings. Our Iron Chef products include an extensive line of sauces, a line of gourmet soup mixes, our line of exotic rice crisps and our new line of flavored Panko (Japanese bread crumbs). Four years ago, we realized that there was no brand that was offering authentic Asian sauces that was appealing to the American palate. There were a few sauces with Asian names, but these sauces used artificial flavor enhances and preservatives, or were sticky-thick sauces, that still needed to be refined by the customer. Iron Chef Foods developed a line that combined the authentic ingredients (like real brewed soy sauce) to create authentic Asian sauces that were exciting and credible to the American palate. At the same time it was important to us that all our flavors remain faithful to the original sauces that bear their names. In the words of the Iron Chef Chairman, "Allez Cusine! Let your cuisine reign supreme!”

Product of the week - Strawberry Fanta

At Subway the other week (I promise we only went there once but there are so many stories to come out of it!) we had the regular choice of sodas (soft drinks) with the addition of strawberry fanta. It seemed an unusual choice so I got Andrew to taste it so I could blog about it. It is extremely red in colour and it tastes like strawberry Aeroplane Jelly crystals! It is very sickly sweet and not something you can drink a lot of at once. I imagine that Lucy would take one look at the drink and start running around in circles singing happy birthday! The other downside is corn cyrup but don't get me started on that old chestnut.

Product of the week - Australian wines

Going to a boutique wine shop opened my eyes to a different range of Australian wines. Maybe they're not bad wines but the focus in definitely on the marketing of the label. I was cringing to see names like Bitch, Boarding Pass, and Ball breaker. Often there was no specific wine district on the label just something vague like South Eastern Australia. The staff at the shop were enthusing about what a great marketing genius the guy behind these labels is but to me these labels were a turn off. What do you think?

Thankfully this same wine shop is able to supply us with the amber coloured 2003 Noble One botrytis so not all is lost!

Product of the week - Teff flour

I read about the flour in a recipe for wheat free chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to try out the recipe so ordered a packet of teff flour over the internet from Bob's Red Mill. The cookies were awesome! I thought there were too many choc chips but Andrew disagreed with me and quickly ate 4 cookies when I wasn't looking. In any case here's the scoop on teff flour (though I find it hard to believe that is is grown in Australia):

Teff is an intriguing grain, ancient, minute in size, and packed with nutrition. Teff is believed to have originated in Ethiopia between 4000 and 1000 BC. Teff seeds were discovered in a pyramid thought to date back to 3359 BC. The grain has been widely cultivated and used in the countries of Ethiopia, India and it's colonies, and Australia. Teff is grown primarily as a cereal crop in Ethiopia where it is ground into flour, fermented for three days then made into enjera, a sourdough type flat bread. It is also eaten as porridge and used as an ingredient of home-brewed alcoholic drinks. The grass is grown as forage for cattle and is also used as a component in adobe construction in Ethiopia. Because the grains of teff are so small, the bulk of the grain consists of the bran and germ. This makes teff nutrient dense as the bran and germ are the most nutritious parts of any grain. This grain has a very high calcium content, and contains high levels of phosphorous, iron, copper, aluminum, barium, and thiamin. It is considered to have an excellent amino acid composition, with lysine levels higher than wheat or barley. Teff is high in protein, carbohydrates, and fiber. It contains no gluten so it is appropriate for those with gluten intolerance.

Product of the week - Triple Succotash

Succotash is an American dish and this one being a mixture of tomatoes, corn and butter beans. Really there is nothing to write about. I opened the can, heated the contents in the microwave and served the mixture. It tasted like a mixture of (canned) tomatoes, corn and butter beans. I assume there are more involved recipes for succotash but this one was pretty simple and pretty ordinary. Of course "Thufferin' Thuccotash" is the catchphrase of Sylvester the cat which Andrew tried to teach Lucy to say to no avail!

On a side note, the fridge is still broken. The GE repairman returned on Monday to say its last rites. After a lot of anxiety due to the fridge being 15 months old, and thus out of warranty, GE agreed to replace the fridge with just a $100 delivery charge. To downgrade to a different model that would fit in the space better would cost an additional $400! I don't understand and I don't care so long as we have an operational fridge. We need to wait another week for delivery so we are living out of a new bar fridge and a new deep freezer (total cost for both $350).

Product of the week - Coastal Carolina Coffee Beans (Decaf)

Thanks to cafedave for his discussion on decaf coffees as it made me search out some swiss water decaf here. I discovered this local business called the Carolina Coffee Company that sells its Coastal Carolina blend in a decaf version. Rick & Erica gave us a grinder so we can make freshly ground plunger coffee. This coffee is very good! We'll be buying some more of this brand soon.

On a slightly different note it is amazing how much people love Starbucks here. The moms in my moms group were complaining that there were no drive through Starbucks close to their houses! I told them that friends don't let friends drink Starbucks and they just ignored me.

Product of the Week - Pigs Feet

This probably isn't the most appetising way to start the month! Whilst shopping in Harris Teeter (Coles equivalent) we surprisingly came across a jar of pickled pigs feet.

Pigs Feet.

Edible Pigs Feet.

According to Wikipedia "Pickled pigs feet are usually consumed as something of a snack or a delicacy rather than as the primary focus of a meal as its meat course, although this is not a universal rule. If proper refrigeration is available, any unused portion can be kept in the jar for several days after it is opened. Often they will be consumed with crackers. Although long available commercially, particularly in grocery stores catering to consumers who are likely to have a preference for them, it seems that consumption of this product has declined in recent years due to changing tastes, health concerns, and the ready availability of other snacks."

We obviously live in an area that appreciates this sort of delicacy.

It is too gross to post a picture. If you want to see a jar then google it!

Product of the week - Melba toast

I have a couple of new cookbooks - American ones of course (which I will tell you about another time) So some of the ingredients are unfamiliar to me eg Melba toast. I recently made some crunchy pork chops that were baked in the oven. One of the ingredients for the crunchy crust was melba toast. I couldn't find melba toast at the supermarket so substituted in some savoury crackers. Then one day whilst meandering around the aisles I looked up and saw melba toast on the top shelf. They are just like toasted biscuits so nothing particularly special but they taste good.

Product of the week - Lindt (and other) lambs

Our theme for this Easter week is 'lambs'. All of the shops are promoting Easter with chickens, rabbits, and eggs but if you look carefully it is possible to find a very small amount of lamb related items! These chocolate lambs from Lindt are very cute, four white sheep and one black sheep! I'm sure they taste good but I won't be able to tell you until Sunday! We are also putting in Lucy's basket a lamb soft toy and a 'grow farm' lamb that grows to four times its original size when put in water (it will shrink back down when dry and can be used many times)


Continuing on our lamb theme yesterday Lucy and I made pictures of lambs with cotton balls, paper and glue. We put one lamb on each placemat at the dinner table as decoration!

Product of the week - Magic Eraser

Martha Stewart recommends having a 'magic eraser' in your cleaning cupboard. So I got a packet to test them out on some marks on the walls. I had tried using the enjo to no avail - the paint is very chalky and is hard to get marks off. So I tested out a magic eraser. It just requires a little water and then you rub off the mark and hey presto it works! It takes a little paint off as well but overall I was pretty happy with the effect. I have no idea what is in these things as they just look like innocent white foam blocks. But by golly they work!

Product of the week - Ice cream salt

I saw 'ice cream salt' at the supermarket and wondered what it was (salt not being an ingredient in home made ice cream). Here is the answer from my google search: rock salt = ice cream salt = halite = sidewalk salt = land salt Notes: This is the cheap, non-food grade salt that we throw onto icy walkways and use to make ice cream. It doesn't actually go into the ice cream, as some have learned the hard way, but rather into the wooden ice-filled tub that surrounds the bucket of ice cream. The salt lowers the freezing point of the ice, which causes it to melt. As it melts, it absorbs heat from the ice cream, helping it to freeze more quickly. Use a ratio of one part rock salt for every five parts of ice. If you're out of rock salt, other kinds of salt will also work, though you should use less since finer grains of salt can can be packed more densely into a cup than large chunks of rock salt. The biggest danger is that you'll use too much salt, which will make your ice cream freeze too fast and become crusty. When using salt other than rock salt, start with a modest amount and check the ice cream after you've churned it for ten minutes. If the ice cream is just beginning to firm up, you have the right amount of salt. If it's not yet firming up, you need to add more salt. If it's crusty along the sides of the bucket, then you've added too much salt.