Good morning!

Another nanner for breakfast today. I’m really starting to get addicted to this nut butter, I love how salty it is!

Last night I made a pan of enchiladas in green chili sauce. They’re filled with brown rice, vegetarian refried beans, black beans, salsa, and pickled jalapenos. I ended up going back for another half of one, so good!

And yesterday afternoon I made a recipe that I intended to write as a separate post, but it didn’t turn out so I’ll have to try it again.

These are Chines tea eggs, essentially boiled eggs that are marinated in an aromatic sauce. The marbling effect comes from cracking the shells before marinating, but I might not have cracked them hard enough because they didn’t get as intensely marbled as they’re supposed to.

They taste great, but I want a better picture for the recipe page so I’ll try them again when I get more eggs.

I did manage to complete some of the blog changes I mentioned yesterday but I’m having some issues implementing them, so I’ll probably have to wait until Jeff get’s home today to get some help with it. My Blogroll page has been updated though, if you wanna check it out!

Workout time!

June 22, 2011 Alayna Discussion 8 comments

Lots to do today. I have a couple of blog changes planned, I hope I can finish some of them so I can actually make the updates today. Very excited.

Breakfast was a gargantuan banana topped with maple Wallaby yogurt and Lovegrown apple walnut granola.

I made a really tasty dinner last night. Normally I suck at making pastas but this one turned out pretty great. Whole wheat tagliatelle with roast turkey, burst tomatoes, and peas.

Yesterday afternoon I roasted two turkey breasts with the skin on to retain juiciness. I just rubbed them with olive oil and salt and put them in the oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 40 minutes at 400 degrees. When they’d had time to cool, I removed the skin and pulled the turkey apart into shreds with my hands.

To make the sauce, I sauteed 6 large cherry tomatoes and a few cloves of chopped garlic in olive oil. I pricked the tomatoes with a knife so they wouldn’t explode and added about a half cup of prepared tomato sauce and a small dollop of cream cheese. When the tomatoes were blistered and splitting, I crushed them with the back of a spoon and grated over some parmesan. I just tossed in some of the shredded turkey and added boiled pasta and peas for an easy dish.

First task of the day: Photo shoot for a new blog header image! Gotta get it while the lighting’s good.

June 21, 2011 Alayna Discussion 2 comments

Wanna hear something crazy? I’m not really a huge fan of marshmallow. I know, there’s something wrong with me.

It may come as no surprise then that I have never really understood the hype surrounding s’mores. I mean, sure they’re good, but they don’t make my eyes roll back in my head at the mere mention of them like they seem to do for some people.

But, something about the drippy chocolate and barely toasted marshmallow “O” on the packaging for this Halo S’mores bar by Pro Bar caught my eye. It might have also had something to do with the fact that the graham cracker letters look more like shortbread to me with their golden hue and intentional dimples, and I am nothing if not a sucker for a butter-laden crumbly shortbread.

The ingredient list is a bit lengthy, but nothing too scary to be seen on it.

Surprisingly, although this bar is obviously trying to sell itself as a dessert replacement, the sugar content is lower than I would have expected at a mere 13 grams. And at 150 calories it stands no chance of making a dent in your healthy eating habits, or your hunger for that matter.

Appearance: The bar is about the size I expected from the size of the packaging. The look of it however, is nothing like what I expected. I knew it wasn’t going to look exactly like the cute packaging letters, but I at least hoped that it would be layered or have distinguishable graham cracker, chocolate, and marshmallow pieces. I guess it doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as it tastes good, right?

Taste: Well it doesn’t….taste good that is. Or I guess it tastes fine, but it doesn’t taste even remotely like a s’mores bar. In fact, it doesn’t taste even remotely like graham crackers or marshmallow and the chocolate is a bit off-tasting as well. I guess the flavor that stands out the most to me is brown rice syrup, followed by oats, not surprising since those are the first two ingredients.

Texture: Reminds me a lot of a chewy granola bar, lots of oat pieces and other unidentifiable bits of “healthy-tasting” things. There were approximately 3 chocolate chips, all of them on one side of the bar and some weird clump of sugar on the other.

Overall, this bar is hugely disappointing. I might have liked it if it were not marketed as a dessert because it set my expectations too high. There is no way in hell anyone would be satisfied with this as a dessert replacement, it is decidedly undessert-like and tastes nothing like the dessert it claims to imitate. It also didn’t do much to take away my snack cravings with such a low calorie count. 100% sure I won’t be buying again.

What dessert would you most enjoy recreated in bar form?

(Again, unless otherwise stated, these “bar exam” reviews are all unsolicited and reflect my true opinions of the product.)

June 20, 2011 Alayna Discussion 3 comments