Meltykiss Green Tea Chocolate

Waiting for Christmas Eve festivities to start is a bit like waiting around at the intermission of a middle school play. For the sake of keeping it seasonal, let's call it your nephew's musical version of a Nativity pageant. There's not a whole lot to do, but you're in a familiar place with the knowledge that when things do start, they're either going to be pretty awesome or god-awful. We always do a pretty low-key, but festive Christmas eve with tons of food and champers for all. This year, I'm contributing a few strange snacks of my own, not the least of which is a zesty Japanese offering, Meltykiss's 2011 limited winter release of green tea chocolate.
Meltykiss is green but is by no means environmentally friendly. If it was a Captain Planet eco-villain, it would be surely be the EnviroStrangler or something. There's more padding on this than there is on Martin Lawrence in any of the Big Momma films. However, it's all worth it, as each little chocolatey cube is perfectly formed with no scuffs or breakage. If you've had the classic Moritz Ice Cube candy, you can imagine what a Meltykiss tastes like. Roughly the size of a die, it has that chunky yet beguiling texture of vegetable oil and chocolate, with a low melting point that causes it to disintegrate as it hits the mouth. The center, for whatever reason, melts a little slower, with a smooth, chewy bite similar to eating a piece of gianduja or a slightly melted chocolate bar.
These have a cool texture on the tongue with a slightly bittersweet initial note from the light dusting of cocoa powder on top. The chocolate base coating is milky and sweet, more of a milk chocolate flavor despite looking fairly dark, but the center is perfection. With the fluffy texture of chilled buttercream frosting, the chartreuse center is a beautifully contrasting treat to behold.
The center contrasts the sweet chocolate with a bitter, strongly steeped green tea flavor, floral and perfumed, with a delicate sweet matcha flavor that permeates the outer and inner layers. It's very strong, which makes it the perfect gift for tea aficionados as it's not too sweet or diluted to impress. Perfect stocking stuffers and present toppers. Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

Planters Limited Edition Brittle Nut Medley

We baked way too many sweets today. You know that frenzy people get in around Christmas, the one that compels them to justify buying extravagant items they can't afford and stupid things like Hickory Farms and Soap-on-a-Rope gift packs? Well, it's also the one that, for one month out of the year, flips on the homing mechanism switch that whispers crafty thoughts in your ear while you sleep. "The more cookies you bake, the more people will love you," and, "You're only as gay as the quantity of rainbow sprinkles you can cram into your baked goods." True story. As a result of this sudden urge to bake and make merry, merry love, we have four batches of cookies, most of which are cat-shaped gingerbread people. #futurecrazycatlady
During this bake-a-thon, I got a package from Planters, which I received from the UPS man in my smoking jacket while chewing on a log of cookie dough. Keeping it classy all the time, son. Inside the package were six new limited edition Planters nut flavors, one of which I almost baked into another batch of cookies because it's so freaking delicious. That, my friends, is the terribly named Brittle Nut Medley, which isn't so much a name as it is a description of its contents. Let's break it down like it's 1980. Brittle. Despite being literally the first word of the title, this only makes up for about 20% of the overall mix. It's okay, I can deal because it smells awesome. If it were a perfume it would be Calvin Klein Legume. Nut. It's nuts, but that's not grammatically correct. Honey-roasted peanuts and cashews abound. Medley. Okay, so it's a term I'm more inclined to associate with mashups of the soundtrack to Carousel, but it's okay. That compromises the two wild cards of the bunch, pretzels and yogurt-covered raisins.
Overall, it's a group that leans toward the candy side of nut mixes, but manages to not create multiple cavities after a handful or two. The pieces are solid and whole, one of the least messy trail mix-style snacks I've tried, and are just as pleasant eaten together or individually. The brittle is the star of the show, a pity as most of it is so weighty that it's sunken down to the bottom. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like digging through a can of nuts to grab delicious candy. Altruism is so 2011. The brittle comes in molar-sized pieces, ironically as it will be your molars that are attacked first, and is mixed throughout the medley. It carries a salty, vaguely sweet flavor as addictive as potato chips with a little brown sugar thrown in for kicks. Eaten with the salty pretzel rods, they're a real treat. In fact, the little extras outshadow the nuts- the very crux of the snack itself. These are abundant and tasty, but I found the honey-roasting on the peanuts to be overkill in the sugar department. The neutrality of the cashews was refreshing after all the sweeter flavors.
The yogurt-covered raisins were surprisingly the only component of this snack that I was pretty ambivalent with. Normally I'd be excited about a snack that packs a ton of faux Raisinets in their mix, but these were basically flavorless and had a waxy, crumbly texture reeking of mockolate. I wished that these had imparted a more wintry flavor unto the mix, like spices or eggnog. Enjoyed with everything else, though, they were inoffensive and pleasant to munch on after a day of baking coo. All in all, a really good and creative mix to snack mindlessly on during A Christmas Story, or, if you're awesome like me, American Psycho, on Christmas night. Go on and brush your shoulders off, Mr. Peanut. You deserved it.

Hi-Chew Mini X Fanta Honey Lemon

I rarely get ill, but when I do, it knocks me out for a few good days. One day I'll be running around, wiping my nose on my Robert Graham coat and soldiering on as I do my daily errands and assignments, the next day I'll be laid up in bed, alternating between crying and sleeping and requiring a constant stream of Fruit 2 O IV into my left arm. And that'll be the next two weeks. Because of my staunch aversion to tea and my annoyance with my school's incompetant healthcare system, when I get sick, I'm sick for a week. Who really enjoys tea, anyhow? Half the flavors of tea are flavors that can easily be accessed with a stick of gum, another habit I'm not overly fond of, and it tastes pretty gross.
Apparently, in Japan, many share my aversion to tea. Japan hates tea, right? That's why they created the Honey Lemon Fanta? Sure it is. On this blog, it is. Well, apparently there's a new Fanta flavor inspired by tea, and now there's a Hi-Chew flavor inspired by the Fanta flavor inspired by tea. They went deeper. Take note, Christopher Nolan. The Hi-Chew, courtesy of J-List, has crunchy lemon dragees surrounded by the quintessentially creamy, chewy base.
These are a pretty faithful iteration of a classic beverage. While most soda or drink-flavored candies utilize sodium bicarbonate to mimic carbonation or various combinations of sugar to get the flavor well, these mimic the drink to a "tea" while still providing a little texture and variation in each piece. The crunchy pieces are plentiful and evenly spread throughout the piece, as you can see. They are pretty sour and tart, reminiscent of a Lemonhead, but any tartness is tempered by the milkiness of the base, with a smoothness similar to a Starburst but springier. The honey flavor is quite bold, with a rich, buttery flavor bordering on caramel that interacts with the citrus and dairy exceptionally well.
My chief complaint is that this flavor only comes in the "mini" pack, which contains seven pieces of candy as opposed to the full-sized Hi-Chew, which typically contains anywhere from 8-12 pieces depending on the flavor. At $2.39 a pack, plus shipping, this comes out to a little over a dollar apiece. Unless you're a huge fan of lemon and honey or are placing a large order at J-List, don't go out of your way to order these. They're still delicious if you've got them around, though!

Red Sauce

Tomorrow is the first day of winter, and that means those of us up North are settling into many months of cold and seasonal depression. And in my case, bitching about how cold and depressing it is. It also means that any fresh tomato you buy sucks. Ah, another thing to complain about.

What's a girl or boy who has resigned to eat seasonally, or just committed to flavor to do? And, now that we're all avoiding commercially canned goods because of their BPA lining, canned tomatoes are out of the picture. It's looking pretty grim for all those winter hearty pastas, stews, and casseroles that call for tomatoes, that's for sure.My solution for getting around crappy tomatoes in the off-season is to make what we've been calling around here "red sauce." Red sauce is nothing more than carrots, beets, onions, and garlic that, when cooked and pureed, come together into a vibrant, savory, red sauce with a hint of sweetness. If you didn't tell anyone that they weren't eating tomato sauce, they might not even second guess red sauce.

To be honest, we don't make red sauce just in the winter; we like it so much we make it year round. Red sauce can be used almost anywhere you would tomato sauce. We slather it on pasta, pizza, meatballs, and sloppy joes.

I'm posting this recipe for mostly selfish reasons (I'm tired of looking it up in a book), but I encourage you all to give this recipe a go. Especially in godforsaken, tomato-less winter.
Pizza loves red sauce!

Red Sauce
adapted from Yoga Kitchen

2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
4 cups peeled and chopped carrots
1/2 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups vegetable stock
1 medium beet, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
1 tablespoon fresh oregano, minced
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

• Melt butter in a large skillet. Add carrots, onion, and garlic. Cover and saute, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes, or until tender.
  
• Meanwhile, in a saucepan, boil beets until tender. Drain.
  
• Transfer beets and carrots to a blender. Add all remaining ingredients and puree until smooth.
  

Le Whif Chocolate Inhaler

To some of you, this may have come as a painfully apparent "DOOOI" moment, but to others, this might be a shock. Brace yourself. I was kind of a loser in high school. I know this is somewhat shocking being that I've presented myself as an awesome person on the internet. Shocker! You must think I'm like currency- legal and tender. But in reality, that's a little far from the truth. This anxious undercurrent of a subject matter may spring from the fact that I'm going home in a few days after defriending over 300 assholes on my Facebook and, due to Murphy's Law, will inevitably encounter at least eight of them while getting coffee and will have to endure awkward conversation and remind myself that I did what I did because I hated them.
I wish I had had Le Whif in high school. At least then I could have pretended to be edgy. It's the perfect amount of sleek, oily pretension combined with the allure of snortable drugs but- psyche! It's really chocolate. If I'd had asthma as a child, the irony of having this match my inhaler yet also be off-limits because of its powdery properties would not have escaped me. Le Whif is so impossibly vapid that even I, Lord of the Guise, must avert my eyes to its monochromatic color scheme and stupid "eating by breathing" mission statement. Seriously, Le Whif, you look like a tampon. You need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
While I can't honestly say this is the most embarrassing thing I've crammed in my mouth (that honor wholeheartedly goes to Kush Cakes) it's certainly the most awkward. It's a cross between a cigarillo and a plastic party noisemaker. And worse yet, you're supposed to smoke it as though you were smoking a hand-rolled clove cigarette- gingerly, with a slight air of disgust. Below are a few recent installments I like to call "Faces of Le Whif." They should give you a pretty good idea as to how we liked this.
I feel like a thirteen year old sneaking a smoke behind the bleachers for the first time, except this isn't a Virginia Slim and I don't feel cool at all. Despite the reassurance that the chocolate particles were too large to enter my lungs at 80 to 300 microns, I still feel like this crappy chocolate is bouncing around my respiratory system. After hacking up a Hershey's bar, I tasted it. It has the unmistakable flavor of crappy, unsweetened baking chocolate and granulated sugar- grainy, with a bitter and undersweetened flavor, a predominantly fake molasses and brown sugar taste.
It's like eating cocoa powder and Splenda, but with the added humiliation of sucking it through a patented device. Ick. It had a harsh, burning texture and left my throat feeling raw. All the thrill of a real cigarette with none of the Bond-level suavity or satisfaction. Also, it leaves a dirty, brown residue on the mouth of the depositor, a fine dust which inevitably gets all over your clothes and then melts for real.
There are absolutely no redeeming qualities to this product. Chocolatiers have scaled down their regular bars to make 100-calorie bars for the calorie conscious, and as far as I can tell, nobody has explicitly expressed a desire to breathe in their food. Perhaps this is a good chocolate "hit" for the stereotypical Hollywood female workaholic, but Jesus, so is a Tootsie Roll. Leave Le Whif in Le Trash and go drink some chocolate soy milk.

Hershey's Giveaway Winner!

Wandering Girl, you won the Hershey's Holiday Candy Giveaway! Email foodette.reviews@gmail.com with your email address, and for the rest of you...stay tuned! There are plenty of delicious giveaways coming up soon...

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Hotel Chocolat Chili and Orange/Hazelnut and Ginger Yule Logs

Will the litany of classy international holiday offerings never end? Hell no! You can take your holiday-colored Oreos an' shove 'em- I have connections in foreign places. Today's selection comes from the wonderful Cinabar of Foodstuff Finds once more, my official hookup for the tantalizing UK artisanal brand Hotel Chocolat and more. This is a pair of treats from their holiday selection- adorable Yule logs in chili and orange and ginger and hazelnut.
If you haven't heard of a Yule log, it's a hard, dense log to burn during Christmas time. The desserts, if you've ever had a Buche de Noel, are fashioned after the logs themselves and eaten. These Yule logs look fairly branchy and tree-like, which the chocolate helps with, but more in a minimalist, Charles Eames-inspired kindling for a couture fireplace fashion. The edges are smooth and domed and studded with chunks of each key ingredient according to the bar. Both bars are made out of gianduja praline and have very short, concise ingredient lists- no more than seven or eight components make up the bars.
The gianduja base is fantastic. The bars are protected in their own molds, and you can clearly see where the chocolate was poured in, sometimes to the point of nearly overflowing! While it was difficult to get the bars out of their molds without marring the delicate surface, the end result was beautiful. As you can see, the chocolate is very smooth and soft. Mine didn't escape without a few fingerprints! The toppings were set like jewels on top of the bars rather than being mixed into the chocolate.
On its own, the gianduja is cool and subtle, with a slow melt and pliable, fudgey chew and a bittersweet woodiness that was amplified in the ginger and hazelnut bar with the inclusion of lightly toasted, crispy hazelnuts. The crystallized pieces of ginger, which had a wonderful crunchy, jelly-like texture unto their own, added a spicy element to the bar. My only complaint was that the beautiful visual presentation, which alternated the ingredients to create a striped pattern down the length of the bar, allowed few bites to include both hazelnuts and ginger. With the complexity of the two toppings, it was quite a shame to not have that option when eating a bite.
The chili and orange bar was no less phenomenal. This bar also had nuts, sugared whole almonds. While there were no candied chili pieces with the candied orange peel on top, there was a persistent spiciness to the bar along with the pomander flavors in the candied peel- cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg that made for a delicious eating experience. This bar didn't quite suffer from the same inconsistency in between bites as the other, but was a little messier to cut as the almonds were placed horizontally and cut somewhat irregularly. The spices in this were perfect, though. An easy and indulgent holiday treat.