Skittles Fizzl'd Fruits
This must be one of the most successful marketing campaigns in all of candy-dom. Even I heard about it, and I don't have a television, for pity's sake! I must have seen the ad on Hulu or maybe the AdultSwim.com website in between episodes of Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law or something.
These are the same basic concept as Sour Skittles: you take a perfectly innocent little Skittle, and you drench it in some kind of strange, occult sort of powder. Except that in case of drenching them in sour, the mad scientists at Skittles have drenched it in… Pop Rocks powder. Or the like.
Just as with Sour Skittles, the underlying Skittle is a regular flavor which you can find elsewhere in the line. In this case, the flavors are Berry Punch, Melon Berry, Raspberry, Strawberry, and Wild Cherry. That's right: it's the Wild Berry collection, straight up.
Except that… is it just my imagination, or do these Skittles have less flavor? It must be my imagination, right? Why would they re-tool their machinery and processing line just to create Skittles "just like those over there, but with less flavor"? It beggars belief. Nevertheless, it seems to me that once you lick off the powder (if you dare, or if you are of an inquisitive mind), the Skittle underneath is lacking in some of its typical oomph.
The flavor of the underlying Skittle may be compromised by whatever they have to do to the candy shell to get the powder to stick. (In so far as it sticks at all - which in my experience most of it doesn't.) Or it could just be that the flavor is simply overwhelmed by the fizzy powder.
But you don't care. You want to know about the fizzle. It's… I guess it's fizzly. I only ate one at a time; the effect may be stronger if you knock back a bunch of them at once. It's substantially less fizz than Pop Rocks proper. It's more like just barely licking the edge of an Alka Seltzer. Or holding a mouthful of soda.
The ads make it sound like WHOA STAND BACK THESE THINGS ARE REMARKABLE. But believe me, Fizzl'd Fruit Skittles are a lot less "impactful" than a static electricity shock to the tongue would be. In fact, I'm not even sure I would notice the fizzle if I hadn't been told about it ahead of time.
In exchange for delivering a mildly interesting sensation, the powder tastes… really, just awful. You could have labeled these Salty Skittles and I would have believed it. And it's not a nice salty, like pretzels - it's a gross salty, like stale sweat. The aftertaste is unpleasantly chemical and salty, as well.
Lo and behold, when I compared the nutritional data with that for regular Skittles, and it was virtually identical. The only explanation I can think of is that they took out some of the sodium from the Skittles candy, in an attempt to balance out the terrible saltiness of the fizz powder.
Fizzl'd Fruits Skittles has finally managed to dislodge Smoothie Skittles from the spot at the bottom of my Skittles preferences. They're gross, and bad, and I really would not recommend them to anyone.
Tzatziki: Greek Yogurt and Dill Condiment
I'm exceedingly fond of Greek food.
Truth be told, I'm fond of the entire of Greek/ Lebanese/ Turkish suite; there are, for some obvious geographic and historic reasons a fair amount of cross-over in terms of the Mediterranean cuisines. Greek immigrants have carried their traditions with them, and are found all over the Pacific Northwest, especially in Washington. There are a number of Greek festivals in Washington, including Seattle, Spokane, and Tacoma, even San Jose, California. Greek festivals are typically staged by the local Greek Orthodox church, with dancing, music and home-cooked traditional Greek food.
You've probably already heard about the benefits afforded by the Mediterranean diet; what people often miss is that the food is simple to prepare, economical, and just plain tasty. One of the staples of a Mediterranean is yogurt. Anyone who has ever been to a Greek restaurant or enjoyed a Gyros has had the amazing flavorful Greek sauce Tzatziki, made of a rich creamy Greek yogurt base and flavored with fresh dill, garlic, and cucumbers. Tzatziki used as a salad dressing, a condiment, and a dip. Some of us have been known to eat it with a spoon. A number of cultures have something awfully similar to Tzatziki; India has raita, for instance, Bulgaria has a cold cucumber, dill and yogurt soup.
You can buy tzatziki at many grocery stores—Trader Joe's has a better than average version in their deli section, but it's so very easy to make, and so fabulous when you make it fresh with local herbs and cucumbers, that you might as well make it yourself.
If you're going to make tzatziki, it's crucial to buy good fresh plain yogurt. It's best of all if you can find Greek yogurt (try Trader Joe's or your local health food, co-op or Whole Foods if your grocery store only offers Dannon and Yoplait and the like). Greek yogurt is thicker, and creamier than more conventional yogurts. If you do have to make do with non-Greek yogurt, you need to drain it before using the yogurt; a wire mesh works fine. You need to drain it at least a couple of hours, though draining the yogurt overnight in the fridge is better. Occasionally, you need to drain Greek yogurt too; you do want a fairly thick yogurt base for tzatziki.
The basic recipe for tzatziki requires:
Ingredients
- 1 pint of Greek yogurt (drained if it's watery)
- 1 tablespoon of finely chopped fresh dill
- 1 chopped cucumber (remove the seeds first, salt and let drain or squeeze)
- 1 teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon of olive oil
- 1 or 2 finely chopped cloves of fresh garlic
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste.
Procedure
- The dill and the garlic should be adjusted to suit personal taste and the flavor of the yogurt. Mix all the ingredients together except for the yogurt, then mix them into the yogurt.
- Chill over night or for several hours before serving.
Tzatziki works as a dressing on a simple salad of greens, olives, feta and almonds or walnuts, as a sandwich spread instead of mayo, as a dip with triangles of warm pita, a marinade for chicken or lamb, or as one of the necessary ingredients of a gyro.
You can find alternative recipes, and step-by-step photographs here and here.
Big Hunk
I have always hated nougat-only candy, but I was convinced to give it another try after I enjoyed a Look! Bar so much. And it turns out that the Look! Bar is just a chocolate-coated version of another Annabelle Candy Company standard, the Big Hunk. I thought it would only be fair to track one down.
The wrapper states that the candy is "terrific." That is how it is described: "terrific chewy nougat with peanuts." Nougat is one of those words, like "truffle," which has become almost meaningless today. It used to mean something; now it simply denotes "filling not otherwise described."
In the case of the Big Hunk bar, this is old school nougat. Imagine taking a hundred marshmallows, and distilling and crushing them down to a two ounce slab. It's dense, and sweet, and sticky, and has some interesting physical characteristics. If you smack it on a table, it shatters like a chocolate bar. But if you apply gentle pressure to the ends, it bends and stretches like a particularly hard taffy.
Even the wrapper acknowledges this disparity. It has eating instructions (when was the last time you bought a candy bar that included instructions on how to eat it?) for both modalities.
"Snack Attack" is the first modality. "Place bar firmly in one hand. Then… SMACK! Your BIG HUNK on a hard surface. Happily eat your bite size pieces."
If you want to leverage the bar's softer side, they recommend that you microwave that sucker. "Place your BIG HUNK in the microwave. Heat for approximately 5-10 seconds (microwave strengths may vary). Carefully eat your SUPER SOFT CHEWY SNACK! (Note: Adult supervision is required).
What if you don't want to either microwave your candy or shatter it? Well, good luck with that. I attempted to eat it like you would a regular candy. It was not successful. I bit into it and kind of wrestled the bar back and forth in an attempt to bite off a bit. When the bar finally snapped, I practically stabbed myself in the face with the other half.
Should you touch the Big Hunk with your bare fingers, the tacky texture persists, even after licking your fingers and wiping them on your jeans. (Not that I would ever do that. I would get up and go wash my hands like a regular adult. Obviously. I'm just saying.)
I made the mistake of setting a chunk of BIG HUNK on a sheet of paper while I finished some minor task. When I returned 15 minutes later, I found that the candy had fused with the paper. I tried pulling it off the page, to no avail. And it's only 66 degrees inside, so it's not like the summer heat made my candy melty.
But despite all this, I have to say that the taste is outstanding. The embedded peanuts lend both much-needed texture, and a delicious roasty sweet/salty taste. The candy chews like taffy, but it finishes with a wonderful vanilla marshmallow flavor. Everyone should definitely try it once!
The U-No Bar
The U-No is basically the indie version of a 3 Musketeers bar. In fact, I have always assumed that the name was a sly play on the theme - instead of three it's just one, or "uno." Although I could just be over-thinking it, because the dash in the name indicates that it's probably meant to be pronounced "you know."
As you might expect from the small producer's version of a big corporate product, the U-No is considerably better than its counterpart. The chocolate filling is smooth, not gummy in the fashion of a 3 Musketeers. You could not, as I did with the 3 Musketeers I sampled recently, pick off a chunk of the filling and roll it into a little rubbery ball between your fingers.
The chocolate is more convincingly chocolatey, whereas the 3 Musketeers has that sort of bland waxy taste. The overall effect is one of creaminess, like one of those little chocolate cream candies from a Whitman's sampler writ large. In fact, the Annabelle website describes the U-No as having "a truffle-like center."
Maybe this is as good a time as any to confess that I don't really have a good handle on the meaning of the word "truffle." There's the truffle fungus, of course. And truffle chocolates were originally said to resemble the fungus - small, round, dark, and crumbly-looking. The problem is that "truffle" gets used as an all-purpose term for anything the manufacturer wants to come across as luxurious, decadent, or (more to the point) slightly more expensive than you would expect.
Of course, as long as we're comparing the U-No to the 3 Musketeers, it must be admitted that the U-No has 17 grams of fat, whereas the 3 Musketeers has only 6. The added fat surely helps the dreamy texture of the U-No bar. But it makes me think that the 3 Musketeers saves on fat by recycling art gum erasers into filling.
There are little bits of texture sprinkled throughout the U-No bar. In perusing the ingredients list I find roasted almonds listed. These are just the tiniest flecks of almond, maybe half the size of the bits in a Toblerone bar. They flash past as you nosh, leaving just enough of an impression to catch your attention. Just a little something to keep you on your toes.
Of all the west coast-only candies, the U-No bar is one of the easiest to obtain. I regularly see them at Safeway and other grocery stores, although they are often consigned to the less-popular corners of the candy end cap. (Whenever looking for interesting candy, I always scope out the lower right and lower left hand corners. That's where they hide the weird stuff!)
U-No bars were created by the Cardinet Candy Company sometime around the Great Depression. Cardinet was bought out by the Annabelle Candy Company in 1978, which continued their manufacture (as well as another Cardinet success, the Abba Zabba). The Annabelle Candy Company, which describes itself as "one of the largest independently owned candy bar manufacturers in the United States," also makes Rocky Road, Big Hunk, and Look! Bars.
Seek them out! Buy more! Indie candy foreva!
Strawberry Festivals!
It’s that time of year again—when everything is ripe and juicy and berrylicious. The scent of strawberries is in the air, and not just because the round red fruits are in season. There are strawberry festivals popping up all across the country—be sure to find and hit yours or you’ll be sorry you missed it!
I don’t know how the strawberry festival near you works, but the one near us is always heavenly. Sure, it’s hot outside, but the homemade strawberry lemonade (doesn’t that just make your mouth water?) makes it all worth it. Plus, there are bushels of ripe strawberries ready for purchase—along with strawberry ice cream, strawberry pie, and of course, my favorite, strawberry shortcake. Strawberry festivals are a strawberry lover’s dream!
Of course, most festivals have plenty of other things for fair goers to enjoy. Ours, for example, has a ton of merchants who set up to sell things—everything from charm bracelets to lotions to crafts to clothes—packed way too tightly together beneath white tents. There is always a band that usually (and unfortunately, at least for us) plays country music, though they’ll usually throw in some golden oldies, too. Rides, a petting zoo, games, and other attractions are usually held at our festival, as well as an open house at the local venues. Since ours takes place in an historic town filled with quaint shops and eateries, there’s the added bonus of their presence—and of course, they all make use of strawberries, too! It’s just that good.
If you have an historic village or town that runs a festival near you (or even within a day’s drive), I highly recommend attending. Even if country-style stuff isn’t really your cup of tea, the food and beverages will make it worth it (not to mention the cool stuff you might find for people on your holiday list, or even Father’s Day coming up). Our festival always has a homemade root beer stand as well as a homemade chips booth—both are culinary treats you simply cannot miss.
But oh the strawberries—that’s what the festival is all about! So if you absolutely cannot attend a strawberry festival near you, you can always just buy a pint of red deliciousness and indulge at home. Prepare your own festival with your own preferred style of music and strawberry recipes. Experiment with homemade strawberry lemonade, as well as fruity cocktails and strawberry cake.
New M&Ms: Coconut and Pretzel
I should say that I really like coconut. Although I definitely prefer it in the form of, you know, actual coconut. (Like Almond Joy and Mounds.) As opposed to just coconut flavoring, which is what's inside Coconut M&Ms. Don't get me wrong, it's a very strong and convincing coconut flavoring. It's just a little unsettling, is what it is.
One thing the Coconut M&Ms definitely have going for them is their size. These are weirdly large, nearly the size of Peanut M&Ms, although I didn't have any handy for comparison. The larger size gives a better ratio between candy shell and chocolate interior. I really like the texture - it's less crunchy like the regular sized M&Ms, and comes off a little more creamy. (Were Dark Chocolate M&Ms this size? I confess that now I cannot remember.)
Coconut M&Ms come in a limited palette of white, brown, and green. Which if you ask me is trying a little too hard. Who's going to associate green with coconuts? I mean, aside from cartoon coconut trees, of course. This color scheme is carried throughout the wrapper, although I must say that I do like the graphic effect of having a mostly-white wrapper.
As long as we're talking about graphic effects, one weird thing that I noticed is that the M is stamped in an odd, grayish-green ink color. This works great on the white candy, but it's less successful on the brown candy. However, it's… yeah… on the green candy? Not so visible.
Keep an eye out for the oddball ones, which are stamped with a tiny M and a palm tree. Cute!
PRETZEL M&Ms
These are capitalizing on the craze for sweet and salty together. And I suppose on the tendency of some snack mixes to mix together pretzels and M&Ms. The first thing I noticed when I picked up the bag - before I had even opened it - was the scent of pretzel. But when I opened the bag and sniffed, I mostly smelled M&Ms. Can they have impregnated the outside of the bag with the scent of pretzel? I wouldn't put it past them. Even though it's an awful lot of trouble for something that sells for less than a dollar apiece.
Pretzel M&Ms are strikingly round. Rounder even than Peanut M&Ms, which are sort of oval. These are so round that they cause a major hazard when they bounce out of the package and go rolling across the desk. I had to pick up several from the floor and throw them away. I wasn't happy about this, because the colossal size of each Pretzel M&M means that each one counts!
Their roundness, and the hardness of the pretzel center, also made them exceptionally dangerous to slice in half for the picture.
I'm "meh" on the flavor of these, but I absolutely love the texture. It's like a Peanut or Almond M&M, but with even more snap to the crunch. The round pretzel nugget takes up about 2/3rds the volume of each candy, so it's mostly pretzel with a little coating of M&M candy.
I think salty/sweet fans will prefer something with a little more salty. These are heavily weighted towards the sweet part of that equation. But it's still an interesting variation on the old standard.
Big Cheap Food: Mesh Sack of Potatoes
Have you ever actually priced out the cost of those plastic mesh sacks of potatoes? They usually end up all stacked together in the farthest corner of the produce department, somewhere near the onions and yams. The sacks don't look very appealing, particularly not compared to the delicious bins of loose potatoes. But check out those prices!
At the grocery store I frequent, for example, medium red potatoes sell for about $1.99 a pound loose. Or $3.99 for a ten-pound bag. That's almost sixteen dollars saved! And it's hard to beat 10 pounds of healthy food for $4!
Potatoes are best stored in a cool, dry, dark place, at room temperature. Do not store them in your refrigerator, or in direct sunlight. If you have to prioritize, I find that air circulation is more important than darkness. I keep my sack of potatoes sitting in a corner of the kitchen where it gets ambient light, because I found that they turned black and squishy when they were kept trapped in a cupboard.
Carbs have a bad rap these days, but don't believe the hype. If carbs were really the devil, then why aren't vegans all hugely fat? Because believe me, vegans eat more carbs than you would imagine. Plus, as far as carbs go, good potatoes are pretty decent. If you eat the skin, potatoes have more potassium than bananas, and significant amounts of iron, vitamin C, B vitamins, as well as trace amounts of minerals like thiamin, riboflavin, folate, magnesium, phosphorus, and zinc. The skins provide a good dose of fiber, too, which is always a great addition to your diet.
Best of all, potatoes are versatile, fresh, filling, and easy! There are thousands of ways to prepare potatoes. Here are four of my tried-and-true recipes.
Home Fries
Cut potatoes into cubes about the size of your thumbnail. Add generous amounts of oil (olive or just regular vegetable oil), salt, and pepper. Cook in a pan over medium heat for about 20 minutes. Stir and flip them two or three times while they are cooking, but no more. Test for doneness by stabbing the bigger chunks with a fork - they should feel buttery inside, not hard and crunchy.
Baked Potato
Heat the oven to 350. Rub potatoes with butter or olive oil and set in a pan. Bake for 60-90 minutes, or until stabbing them with a fork meets with no resistance inside.
Mashed Potatoes
Cut potatoes into smaller chunks - sixths, say. If using red or yellow potatoes, leave the skin on. Peel brown Russet potatoes. Boil them for 20 minutes, along with 3-5 cloves of garlic (to taste). Potatoes are ready when a fork meets with no resistance inside.
Phase 2, drain potatoes in a colander and return them to the pot. Add a splash of milk and a good chunk of butter. (The exact amount isn't terribly critical - start small and add more if you think it's necessary.) Mash them up along with the cloves of garlic (a fork works fine for mashing). Add salt and pepper, and try to save some for leftovers!
Roasted Potato Deliciousness
Slice potatoes as thin as you can, leaving the skin on. Cut up whatever other vegetables you want to roast - onion, bell peppers, carrots, celery, etc. Toss everything with some olive oil and salt. Bake at 350 for 30-60 minutes, or until you can't stand the delicious smell any longer!
Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user FotoosVanRobin
Mixing It Up: Two Classics Get Wacky
This is a dual review of the Reese's Peanut Butter Lover's Peanut Butter Cup, and Skittles Crazy Cores. In both cases, the manufacturer got a wild hare to mix things up a little. Take what you usually get, and skew it just a touch off center. Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn't.
In the case of the RPBLPBC (can't they find better names for these things?) it worked. Like CRAZY. I am a peanut butter lover, I'll just state that up front. This Reese's variant has mostly peanut butter, with just the barest skim of chocolate on the bottom and sides. About the same proportions as, say, the crust of a cheesecake.
I firmly believe that the regular peanut butter cup has the optimal proportion of chocolate to peanut butter. But I will confess that on occasion, I have spooned extra peanut butter (from a jar of, you know, peanut butter) onto a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Don't judge me.
This variant cup is a great oddball version of the original. Oh Reese's, how I love your peanut butter!
At first glance, I thought the Crazy Core Skittles were simply idiotic. Why go to all that trouble to reproduce the experience of eating more than one Skittles flavor at a time? In other words, the experience of eating Skittles?
Then I looked a little closer and realized that these are actually flavor combinations that are difficult, if not impossible to pair yourself. For one thing, several of the flavors actually hail from the Sour Skittles line, albeit stripped of their sour coating to let the original flavor come through. And when I tried them, I found that they were pretty darned tasty! I'm sorry, Skittles; all is forgiven.
The five flavors are Cherry Lemonade, Strawberry Watermelon, Melon Berry, Mango Peach, and Blue Raspberry Lemon. The provenance of each flavor is surprisingly complicated to track down. I assumed it was just "mix one bag of flavor A and one bag of flavor B."
Cherry Lemonade: Cherry from Wild Berry, Lemon from Original. Tart and sweet, but not much in the way of cherry flavor.
Strawberry Watermelon: Strawberry from Original, Watermelon from Sour Skittles (sans the sour powdery coating). These were pleasantly flavored, although watermelon flavoring in general is a little too "bright" for me. A nice summery flavor, though.
Melon Berry: This one confused me. I was going to say it's Melon Berry straight up from the Wild Berry flavor line. Except that it's pink on the outside and green on the inside. So you could say that the outside is Watermelon from Sour Skittles, but what does that make the inside, green flavor?
My current leading theory is that this is Watermelon on the outside, and Melon Berry on the inside. As strange and confusing as that sounds. It just tastes sort of melon-y and fruit-y; no help there.
Mango Peach: Another complicated one. This is Mango from the Mango Tangelo flavor of Tropical Skittles, and Peach from (I assume) the Peach Pear flavor of Smoothie Skittles. I didn't care for Smoothie Skittles when I tried them ages ago, but I quite liked the Mango Peach Crazy Core Skittles.
Blue Raspberry Lemon: Blue Raspberry from the Sour Skittles, and Lemon from Original. This was my least favorite. It was aggressively lemon-y, and I've never cared for Blue flavor.
Finally Thin!
Kim Bensen knows what it’s like to be fat. At 350 pounds, she has been there with so many people who struggle with their weight, year after year. In her book, Finally Thin! How I Lost 200 Pounds and Kept Them Off—and How You Can, Too, Bensen describes so many humbling, embarrassing, and telltale moments that those of us who’ve struggled with our weight can groan or gasp or nod with and say, “Yeah, I’ve been there! That is me.” Bensen’s bravery in sharing these stories helps create a bond between her and the reader right off the bat.
Bensen then catapults the reader into the world of dieting—what has worked, what hasn’t, and her own experiences in the dieting world. BMI, caloric intake, exercise, and other factors are all explored. Most readers will probably already be familiar with these diets; Bensen says that while many of these plans did not work for her, they can work for others; depending on who you are and what you’d like to accomplish, any diet could possibly work for you. She then provides her own ten steps toward succeeding in your own weight loss journey.
While Bensen’s tips are very helpful, it all comes down to whether or not you are truly ready to lose the weight. One recurring theme in Bensen’s book is the yo-you routine that so many of us have experienced—losing and gaining, then losing and gaining again. Bensen went through her own yo-yo routine for decades, as have hundreds of other people; I think that no matter what approach you use, really being ready and sticking with your goals is very important.
The rest of Bensen’s book contains over 70 awesome recipes to use in your weight loss journey. Her whole wheat pizza crust contains less than 100 calories per serving, and her chocolate banana milkshake, which will surely satisfy any sweet tooth, is only 128 calories per serving. Other delicious recipes, such as coffee treats, artichoke cups, wontons, cheese dip, salads, and many more, are included. Bensen says that she is no cook herself, and that if she can cook any of these recipes, anyone can. (Her husband, she notes, agrees.)
She also lists several snacks under 100 calories, as well as under 50 and 25 calories, such as tomato juice, jell-o, cool whip, shrimp, and tomato slices. This will come in handy for planning your daily snacks and meals.