Snowulf - Food

Recipe: Brett's Kit Kat Ice Cream Pie

nospam@example.com (John) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Ingredients:

Pie Shell
1.5 Quarts Dreyer's Fat Free Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
4 Kit Kat candy bars (16 individual bars - you can use the Fun/Snack size Kit Kats as well, but will need 16 packs of those since they are roughly equivalent to one bar each)
Kahlua

Directions:

Bake Pie Crust in your standard 9" pie dish
If the crust puffs up, pierce the bubble and allow steam to escape, after a few minutes gently press it back down
Allow the frozen yogurt to defrost a little bit and then put about half of it into your blender
Finely chop up 2 of the candy bars and toss them on top of the frozen yogurt
Add some Kahlua (personal preference, at least a shot or three)
Blend it until well mixed, then add the rest of the frozen yogurt
By hand, crush one more candy bar and add it to the mix
Blend until completely mixed (adding more Kahlua as necessary), then pour into prepared (well-cooled) pie shell. Use a spoon to smooth over any lumps.
Break the remaining candy bar into 4 individual sticks and press into the pie (One of my bars was broken so I substituted 2 of the miniature kit kats for the last spoke)
Place the pie into the freezer and allow to harden.
Remove from freezer and allow to defrost for 15 minutes before serving.

As a side note, I had enough mixture left over for a mini-blizzard, which was quite tasty with a nice smooth Kahlua taste.

Kit Kat Pie

How it turned out:
I was really excited about this pie and it did not disappoint. The Kahlua was the perfect accent for this pie. Everyone was very pleased with how this turned out.

Transport was a bit tricky (as most pies are), however, I was able to place the pie dish inside a cookie container and surrounded it with ice packs (and placed all that in a cooler); it kept it cold enough to make the transit without defrosting.

This pie was inspired by (and made for) my friend, Brett, who once professed a love of Kit Kats.

Lime Liqueur

nospam@example.com (John) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0800

I've always been a big fan of limes. Love them in my water and especially in my sweet tea.

I have yet to see a Lime based/flavored Liqueur, something that has always disappointed me. So, when someone poured me a glass of homemade Limoncello/Lemoncello I realized I would have to make my own (a moral imperative, if you will).

Full list of ingredients and directions after the fold.

Mon Oct 26 - Day 1
I peeled 16 Limes into a sun tea jar. Then poured a 750 mL container of 151 Proof Everclear (Nevada being one of the states that doesn't allow anything higher than 151), along with about 3/4 of a 750 mL container of cheap 80 Proof Rum (less flavor than other rums). I used the rum to increase the sugar content, Limoncello recipes call for Vodka or Everclear only.

I ended up storing it under my sink for the next 16 days, shaking it up a little bit each day to unsettle the peels, making sure none got only partially absorbed.

Thu Nov 12 - Day 17
Strained the liqueur into a large stock pot; make simple syrup, let it cool, then added it to large stock pot, mixed the results, then busted out the funnel to try and bottle the stuff. Here I ran into problems.

Stock pots are unwieldy, thus attempting to pour one into a funnel to get liqueur into bottles did not work. Lost a little bit of alcohol attempting that :(
Thankfully, I had a soup ladle available and using that worked MUCH better. One bottle went into the freezer, the other 2 went into my pantry.

Fri Nov 27 - Day 32
Time to try my tasty beverage! I poured some into a shot glass and sipped. Very fragrant, mellow green in color, and quite strong. Jon would not approve of the alcohol taste in the beverage, but it was not bad. Next up was pouring a tasty beverage. For this I took a large glass, ice, water, Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka, and added my Lime Liqueur.

Very, very nice. Reminded me of having Sweet Tea with Limes like I had growing up, only with alcohol. After one glass I had a very pleasant buzz.
Continue reading "Lime Liqueur"

Review: Brothers-All-Natural Crisps

nospam@example.com (John) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0800

Recently, at CostCo I picked up a variety pack of Brothers-All-Natural Crisps, I had previously experienced these in Disneyland, specifically the Asian Pears.

Having enjoyed these at Disneyland, I decided to go for the pack, which included Strawberry Banana and Fuji Apple.

Thus far, I think the Strawberry Banana pack is my favorite. It has a different texture than the Apple and Pear crisps, which are very melt in your mouth. Additionally, nutritionally the Strawberry Banana pack offer the most value (41% of your daily dose of Vitamin C).

All three are very tasty and very low in calories (Strawberry Banana being the highest at 45), and actually quite filling, though I have yet to try to use them as a substitute for a meal (nor do I plan to do so). I do however keep a bag in my desk drawer to snack on while I'm at work.

Lastly, Amazon has quite a selection beyond what I have tried.

Recommendation: Buy a pack! These are great healthy, and more importantly, tasty snacks.

Review: Meat-free BBQ Pulled Shreds

nospam@example.com (John) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

Fake Pork, it's what's for dinner.

Lately, I've been working on being more healthy with my eating habits. Having a Whole Foods Market fairly close by certainly makes this easier, as it has a much larger selection of organic and vegetarian foods.
NOTE: I am not in any way a vegetarian, however, vegetarian food is generally higher in certain nutritious qualities (such as Protein) and lower in the less useful qualities (i.e. Saturated Fat).

Recently, while I was at Whole Foods Market, I saw the following item:
gardein meat-free bbq pulled shreds.

I was quite curious about this as I am a big fan of BBQ (being from Texas and all), so I tossed it in my bag.

Preparation is quite easy. Poke a hole or seven in the bag and then nuke it for 2.5 minutes. I didn't have any buns, so I sliced a cheese bagel and toasted it. Initially, I thought that the bag really wouldn't contain 2 servings and tried to fit it all on a bagel, but it ended up spilling out, so I tossed it into a bag for another evening.

Consistency was just like a pulled pork sandwich, however it tasted more like chicken.

Final Verdict: Tasty and would buy again. Very quick and easy meal.

Review: Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka

nospam@example.com (John) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

As I was at the grocery store recently, I happened to find myself in the liquor aisle. At the time, I was looking for Everclear, but that is a matter for another blog post.
I did not find the Everclear, but what I did find was a number of Sweet Tea Vodkas, which piqued my curiosity enough that I decided to buy one. There were a number of choices, but I settled on Firefly brand Sweet Tea Vodka, for two reasons: the first should be obvious; the second was the combination of name and graphics. They evoked in me a memory of a time long past when my brother, my father, and I would go out in the backyard and catch fireflies in a mason jar (yes, one with holes in the lid) and bring them over for my little sister to see.

The bottle recommended that I pour a glass of half spring water, half vodka, with a lemon twist. I took this into consideration and started with a tall glass with about a quarter vodka, tap water, ice, and no lemon twist (I prefer limes personally); this had a nice taste of sweet tea to it, but not quite enough, so I poured in a bit more and tasted perfection. It tasted just like the sweet teas I grew up with; as Dolly Parton pointed out in Steel Magnolias, Sweet Tea is the House Wine of the South.

I have imbibed said concoction a few more times, and what little is left of the bottle is currently sitting in my freezer. I will definitely be buying more. If you grew up in the South or have ever enjoyed a nice cool glass of sweet tea, I would highly recommend this. A quick google reveals that I'm not the only one.

Now, whenever I make an alcoholic beverage that I talk with Jon about, I give a special consideration to the "bite", that is the taste of the alcohol in the beverage, something Jon (and most people) dislike. This is one beverage I can easily make for Jon, though as he didn't grow up down south and is more of a hot tea kind of person, I doubt this would be his cup of tea (look, sometimes a pun is like T-Ball: the only way to lose is to not swing).

Lastly, a quick word about the company. They use twitter and have a decently designed company website (warning: flash content); their store however does not (no link because it goes to an IP address).

Food Review: Sushi Boat in Temecula, CA

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

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Today's food review is of the Sushi Boat in Temecula, CA (SoCal, ewwww).
Address: 40820 Winchester Rd, Temecula, CA
Phone: (951) 719-2991
Price: Cheap! My 3 item dinner bento was something like $11. Between Far and I we had 1 large roll, 1 small roll, my 3 item dinner, and a large carafe of sake. The total was just about $40.
Sushi Quality: Good. I had a salmon roll, and it was tasty.
Food Quality: Good. I had chicken teriyaki, tonkatsu, and gyoza and all of them were tasty and properly done.
Food Quantity: Excellent, especially for the price. I expected my dinner combo to be not very much food, but it was. The chicken teriyaki was about about one breast piece worth, same with the tonkatsu, additionally there was 4 smallish gyoza. Of course the dinner also came with soup and salad.

As my companion for the evening pointed out, it had a fairly nice ambiance, for being in a mall. The place had some nice Japanese knickknacks about that looked of fairly decent quality. As an odd contrast along the top of the walls were a bunch of anime drawings, I believe they were fairly high quality doujinshi prints. Lastly, they had at least one TV (and a projector) setup and playing sports. I am not a fan of having TV's in my eye line when I go out to eat (because inevitably my eye is drawn to watch them), but it is fairly common these days.

Overall, I thought this place place was very nice; the food was good (maybe not the best food I've ever had, but still tasty). Most importantly it was damn cheap. I would definitely go back there again. Fortunately, I found out that Sushi Boat actually started in the Bay Area and they have locations in Santa Clara, San Jose @ West Gate and San Jose @ Oak Ridge. Oh, and one final note, while I can't speak about the Bay Area locations, Sushi Boat Temecula had, in fact, no sushi on boats.

New column: Food Review

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

I like to go out to eat. I'll be honest and admit that I probably go out a little too often. Like most people, I go out when I'm out of town, but unlike most people, I'm out of town about one week a month, on average. On top of that, I go out to eat fairly often when I'm at home. Mostly for social reasons, but partially because I don't want to cook. It isn't that I can't cook, I can, and I'm fairly decent at it... I just don't like putting on a big production cooking for one person. So that brings us back to the topic at hand... our new column, food review (Editor's Note: Om Nom Nom)!

How does it differ from regular reviews? It doesn't really, it's still a review, but it has its very own category. Most of what gets posted here will probably be Bay Area eateries, and mostly in the Asian vein, because that's what I really enjoy. I will post some eateries from my travels in different area too. I may also see about tossing in some packaged products too. When a restaurant is involved, I'm going to include more than just how the food was. Service, selection, price, quality... all important things. For Japanese places I'll have even more, like the quality of their Sushi.

I get mocked by a few of my friends about the fact that I go to new restaurants all the time, but always eat the same thing. They don't seem to get it, but for me it makes perfect sense. First off, what I tend to order is my favorite, but more importantly, I've had those types of food so often, I can really compare and contrast one location over another. Sure, I have my all time favorites, but I'm always open to new and different ways of preparing the same dishes. Plus, once I've been there once, the next time I can go back and order something different. I try to make it a point of going everywhere at least twice (time/cost permitting, of course), and I try especially hard to make it twice when I don't like it. That will also be something important that will be included in my notes, if I've been there more than once. Wouldn't want to give someone a bad rap because they had one off night.

Enough for now, I've got tasties to try!