Review: Duncan Hines Simple Mornings Blueberry Muffins

So I was wandering around Kroger, trying to find snack foods for DivaMom and I. I've been trying to pick "clean" foods (i.e. no/low preservatives, no HFCS, etc.) and I saw this box for Duncan Hines Simple Mornings Blueberry Muffins :

 

DivaMom likes blueberry muffins, and I like streusel topping, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The instructions were pretty simple. Strain and rinse blueberries. Combine 1/3 cup of veg oil, 2 eggs,  2/3 cup of water and the muffin mix until blended. Fold in blueberries. Spoon into muffin tin, put streusel on top and bake at 400 degrees for 16 mins. 

This mix made 16 medium sized muffins total. I did leave the streusel topping off 7 of them since DivaMom doesn't like it (yeah, she's a little batty), but there was plenty of topping to put on all of the muffins. 

They taste great! They are moist, not grainy like most whole grain stuff is, the topping isn't overly sugary or sweet, but I am disappointed in the quantity of blueberries. They really need more! That's saying something because I'm not much of a blueberry fan. (when I was a kid I had an uncle that had a blueberry farm. We were innundated with blueberries! It took MONTHS of blueberry everything to get rid of the the blueberries he would give us!)

Would I buy this again....I don't know. Maybe if they come out with an "improved" version with more blueberries, or they are on DEEP discount ($1 a box). Otherwise they aren't worth it.

These get a "MEH".

Recipe Review: Sambal Chicken Skewers

So I bought a grill recently. It's a tiny propane camping grill, but it is perfect considering the last two large grills we had died due to the massive wind storms we get here. This one is portable, so I can bring it inside during bad weather.

DivaMom subscribed to Bon Appetit Magazine. I really don't know why since neither of us have much time to cook (hence the lack of posts).  I'm not working much this summer so I have a bit of free time, and decided to try the Sambal Chicken Skewers recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar

• 1/2 cup unseasoned rice vinegar

• 1/3 cup hot chili paste (such as sambal oelek)

• 2 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger

• 1/4 cup fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)

• 1/4 cup Sriracha

• 1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1 1/2-inch–2-inch pieces

Special equipment

• 8 bamboo skewers soaked in water at least 1 hour

Ingredient info

• Hot chili paste is available at Asian markets and many supermarkets.

Preparation

• Prepare grill for medium-high heat. Whisk brown sugar, vinegar, chili paste, fish sauce, Sriracha, and ginger in a large bowl. Add chicken and toss to coat. Thread 4 or 5 chicken pieces onto each skewer. 

• Transfer marinade to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until reduced by half (about 1 cup), 7–10 minutes.

• Grill chicken, turning and basting often with reduced marinade, until cooked through, 8–10 minutes.

I made a few changes:

1. I used bonless skinless chicken breast. 
2. The recipe says to use the marinade to create the baste(I know WAY too much about food borne illness to attempt this). I created a seperate batch of marinade to reduce to make the basting sauce . 
3. I used metal skewers instead of bamboo.

Result 

 

Verdict:

YUM!!!! This is slightly sweet, slightly spicy, and completely wonderful! It was pretty easy and quick to make. The most difficult part of this recipe was finding the Chili Paste. I ended up driving all over town looking for it, but couldn't find it near home so I drove about 30 miles to a store that I knew carried it.

I have no idea what sides I'm going to make with this, but this is so yummy it can stand alone! 

(link to the recipe : http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/07/sambal-chicken-skewers)

Boeuf Bourguignon a La Julia Child (Happy 2012!!!!)

Hi! Sorry It's been a while! 2011 was crazy, but hopefully 2012 will be more manageable.

For New Year's Day dinner, DivaMom and I decided to make Boeuf Bourguignon a La Julia Child (click the link for the recipe). 

This is a 2 person job! We had to make a few adjustments. I couldn't find solid chunk bacon, so we used regular bacon. We used 2 types of wine, both burgundy wines but one had 12% and the other had 14% alcohol. We used low sodium beef broth. We also doubled the recipe so we could take it to my grandparent's house to have dinner with them.


First we boiled the bacon. I'm not sure why this was necessary. I'm guessing it's to remove the nitrates.

  Then we took out our Dutch Ovens (we have 2 matching DOs) and put olive oil in them

 We dried the bacon.

Then we sauteed the bacon in the olive oil.

We removed the bacon from the DO and put in the stew meat (which had to be dried by hand so it got seared. I would have taken a pic of me drying the meat, but my hands were gross and I didn't want to contaminate the camera).

We removed the meat

and sauteed the carrots and chopped yellow onions. DivaMom likes carrots so we had lots of them.

 Once they were soft, we added the bacon and the beef back into the DO.

We added salt, pepper and flour then popped it in the oven (450 degrees) for 4 minutes, stirred, then back in the oven for another 4 minutes.

Time to add the wine!

and garlic, tomato paste, stock and herbs.  

It simmered on top of the stove, then it went back in the oven (325 degrees) for 5 hours (the meat was tough). 

I peeled an entire bag of potatoes to go with the stew.

After a few hours we started the braised onions (we don't do mushrooms).I pealed the pearl onions (what a pain in the butt!)

Melted unsalted butter in the skillet.

Added onions

Cooked them gently until they browned, and picked out the ones that separated because they got tough. Then added beef stock and herbs, and cooked them for about 50 minutes.

We then boiled the potatoes...well, over boiled is more accurate...

They were the consistency of baby food. There were a few chunks that were salvageable so when the stew came out of the oven we added the few chunks of potato to it. We also added the braised onions to it too.


after 6 hours....this is what we had: 

Since the potatoes didn't really work out. I made a package of frozen rice to go with it (after 6 hours, I didn't feel like making real rice).

poured the rice into a microwave safe dish, covered, and cooked it for 3 minutes and stirred. cooked it for another 3 minutes and it was ready!

The finished product!

(I have no idea why this pic is sideways, but you get the idea)

We've made this a few times before. This recipe is labor intensive, and takes a looooooooong time to cook. We've learned that the type of wine makes a huge difference. You MUST use a burgundy with a high alcohol percentage, otherwise you don't get the wine flavor to come through. You also have to use regular beef broth, not low sodium. This is not a diet friendly recipe, but for a special occasion, it is a tasty treat.

Review - Burgrz - Rochester Hills, MI

Recently I went to a yoga class in Rochester Hills, and as always I was starving after. I spotted Burgrz as I drove down Walton, and decided I wanted to try it.

It's another casual dining burger place, that's become all the rage lately. These little burger joints are popping up everywhere, and at first glance this one is no different from the rest. They have a decent menu selection with everything from onion rings to salads to chicken fingers. The thing that stands at Burgrz are the fries. They have waffle fries, which are pretty rare around here.

I ordered a burger with blue cheese, bacon, onion straws, lettuce, and yellow mustard, and a side of waffle fries.The burgers are made to order, so they take a few minutes to prepare. Once I had my food I picked up the burger and the first thing I noticed was how greasy the bun was, and not from the burger. I'm not sure but I think they buttered the bun and toasted it, and gave my hands a nice greasy sheen. The first bite would have been perfect, but the lettuce was iceberg and tasted like a mouthful of pool water. YUCK! I threw that out immediately. The next bite was great! the onion straws were crunchy, the burger was fresh, the bacon was salty and perfectly complemented the sharpness of the blue cheese. The burger was perfect. The waffle fries tasted ok, no salt on them though, and they were kind of tough. I hope this was just an oddity.

Overall it was good. I'd eat there again, and probably will next time I'm down that way.

Spike Your Juice? My adventure in home wine making...

So I was reading twitter, as I often do in my free time, and I came across an interesting product. I enjoy a spikey drink once in a while, so I purchased it! "Spike Your Juice" is a kit to make your own homemade campaign-like drink using bottled juice.

I hate most bottled juices, at least the ones I can get at the normal grocery (Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are about 40 mins away) so I made lemonade, breaking one of the rules of the product. The rules for juice selection are as follows:

• minimum sugar content of 20g/serving
• no refrigerated juices
• no artificially sweetened juices
• no unfiltered juices

I juiced about 10 lemons, poured the juice into a 1 gallon container (hence breaking the no unfiltered juices rule), then filled with water and lots of raw sugar.  Then I took one of the yeast packs out of the kit and poured it into the gallon of lemonade, put the airlock stopper in, and sat it on the counter for 2 days as directed.

Today I opened the bottle, and I could see the yeast had created this foamy substance on top of the lemonade, so I poured it through a fine strainer and gave it a taste...It was good, but not very alcoholly tasting. In the product's defense, I could let it ferment for a couple more days and it would get stronger, but I don't want to alter the flavor any further. If I had to guess it might have 4 percent alcohol in it, so less than a beer.

Since that turned out ok, I'm trying again on a bottle of Cran-pom juice my mother bought, and has since decided she doesn't want to drink (she switched from the full sugar version to the "diet" type). I'll let you know how it turns out!