Mars Skittles Blenders

Did anyone else use M&Ms or Smarties in their elementary school math classes? I think it was third grade when my teacher presented every student in the class with their own bag of M&Ms to illustrate simple lessons in percentages and probability. I'm not sure if it was effective, but it was a lot of fun. I still remember that most of the M&Ms in my bag were light brown (I'm dating myself here - this was before the blue M&M).

There are five new flavors in this mix: Melon Berry Burst, Strawberry Lime Blast, Watermelon Green Apple Freeze, Cherry Tropicolada, and Mango Lemonade Freeze. I'm sure it's no accident that those names sound like they came straight off a Sonic Drive-in menu. Now, I mention M&M math because I applied some of the same principles when I sampled this bag of Skittles Blenders. It was immediately apparent that my bag did not contain an even flavor distribution (Mango Lemonade Freeze in particular was underrepresented). Here's a chart to illustrate my point.



Strawberry Lime Blast was similar to a normal red Skittle with a hint of sour lime. It was fruity, tart, and tasty, but it wasn't terribly exciting or special.

Cherry Tropicolada reminded me of cough syrup. The pineapple and coconut flavors were present along with the strong cherry, but it really rubbed me the wrong way.


witness the distinct lack of mango
Watermelon Green Apple Freeze worked well. The initial flavor was an artificial but tasty watermelon, followed by a green apple tartness. I'm not usually a fan of these flavors, but I liked them both here.

Melon Berry Burst reminded me of grape Nerds, but with more of a blueberry flavor. I didn't get much of a sense of melon flavor from this one, and it seemed to just be a rehash of a flavor from Wild Berry Skittles.

Mango Lemonade Freeze reminded me of my favorite smoothie (I've mentioned it before), so it was a bit nostalgic (especially since I just found out that shop is closed). The lemon flavor was sour and almost hit some floor cleaner notes, but it was saved by a good, distinct mango taste. Of all the flavors, this was the most unexpected.

Overall, Skittles Blenders is a decent mix, but it didn't really offer anything new or exciting. Still, it's worth a taste for fans of Skittles and fruity candy in general. Also, it seems like every time I review Skittles, their website just gets more and more cumbersome to navigate. I guess I'm not the target demographic.

B-

Skittles Website

Foodette's Second Birthday and Keepitcoming Love's Birthday Pasta

It's Foodette's second birthday! And like most two year olds, she's starting to feel a need to pull away from the Blogosphere teat and start eating solid, mushy foods. In commemoration of not aborting her in the first trimester, as happens to many baby blogs, Keepitcoming Love cooked a delicious and healthy vegetarian pasta dish, of which I consumed three servings.
Thanks for another great year, guys! We can only get bigger and more coherent as time goes on.

Keepitcoming Love's Birthday Pasta
Ingredients (serves 4)
3 large tomatoes
10 pieces of asparagus
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt, pepper to taste
1 cup of chicken stock or red wine
1 lb of your favorite pasta- we used Al Dente's garlic linguine
1 cup of baby mozzarella boccaccini balls
1/4 cup of basil1. Chop up all of your vegetables and cut the boccaccini in halves. Reserve one of the chopped tomatoes, the basil, and the cheese in a bowl.
2. Heat a pan up and place oil and asparagus inside. Sear until brown and put in the two chopped tomatoes and liquids. Season to taste and let simmer until cooked down and saucy.
3. Boil your pasta until done and toss with sauce and remaining tomato and cheese. Eat hot or at room temperature.

Ballpark Smoked White Turkey Franks

"Ball Park franks plumped when you cooked them, but Hercules Hot Dogs did something better. They came out of the package looking like normal, udder-pink wieners, but as they got hot, an amazing transformation took place..." -Jeffery Eugenides, MiddlesexA hamburger, done right, is a gorgeous, perfect thing, but how often do you come across the perfect burger? Either your standards are low or the burger is a plane ride away and you just have to settle. And there is no way you can get a good, simple burger for 50 cents at IKEA, at least, not in this century. Hot dogs are the underdog of the backyard barbecue. I find them highly underrated for what they are- perfect in any way, whether garnished with fifty toppings or a schmear of mustard.My 'dog of choice is Ballpark's Smoked White Turkey Franks. With 45 calories per dog and no fat, you'd have to eat eight of these suckers to knock off a little over half of your daily calories. This opens them to a wide range of possibilities and customization to give you a meal that doesn't fatten you up from wet sausages or pork calories, leaving your belly room for the real star of the barbecue- beer and potato salad. Salud!We polished off a package of these in about a week, customizing them with a near-obnoxious amount of toppings, from slathering them with our two favorite mustards to a New England bastardization of a Georgia Hot. Keepitcoming Love even baked special hot dog buns for the occasion. I like to cook my dogs one way- with as much open surface area as I can possibly fit and a near-black char on that exterior so that the skin is bubbling and crisp. You can never overcook a turkey dog. When hot dog buns aren't available, we turn to hamburger buns, an awkward fit but a better ratio of dog to bread, filling the bread to the gills with avocado, hot sauce, and in tonight's case, tomato basil mayonnaise. Any way you slice it, the lowly hot dog can be made king with a few easy customizations. Convert the nay-sayers and start frying with some of our favorite sauces and sides. Tomato Basil Mayonnaise
Ingredients (tops three dogs)
4 tablespoons of mayonnaise
2 tablespoons of ketchup
2 tablespoons of chopped basil

1. Chop basil and put it in a bowl. Measure out your two sauces and mix together.
2. Refrigerate until needed and top liberally.
Mustard Potato Salad
Ingredients (serves 2)
10-12 fingerling potatoes
4 tablespoons of oil or butter
Paprika
Salt
Pepper
4 tablespoons of grainy mustard

1. Chop your potatoes and throw them in a frying pan along with oil and spices. Heat and fry until golden brown and crispy on all sides. Place in a bowl and let cool.
2. When room temperature, toss with mustard and serve immediately.

Mars Twix Coconut

Even though I eat a lot of candy and chocolate just for this blog, I try not to let myself lose my love for the stuff. Sometimes, I eat candy just to eat it, and it feels good. One of my favorite "just for fun" candy bars is Twix, so I couldn't pass up a chance to try Twix Coconut. The sample in this review was kindly provided by a PR representative, but please rest assured that I did not let that influence my opinion (and I definitely would have bought it myself eventually anyhow).

Twix Coconut is a new, summery variation on the classic Twix, available starting this spring. The coconut flavor is in the caramel, which should be good news for those wary of coconut texture. Coconut is one of those great polarizing flavors, or at least, when people don't like it, they really seem to hate it. I don't know if it's the flavor or the texture, but I used to be a coconut-hater myself. Thankfully, my husband turned me around.


When I opened the package, the mild chocolate and strong coconut scent of the bars reminded me of German chocolate cake. The coconut flavor in the caramel was good, not too strong and not too sweet, and it went well with the milky flavors that were already there.

Twix is all about the chocolate/cookie/caramel texture combination, so no changes were made to that formula. I liked the addition of coconut flavor; it seemed to temper the sweetness of the bars, which made me happy. As long as you like coconut, this limited edition bar is certainly worth a taste.

B+

Twix website

Crystal Light Pure: Strawberry Kiwi, Mixed Berry, and Lemonade

Recently, and possibly after seeing my MiO review, I was sent a couple boxes of the new Crystal Light line, "Pure." Pure features flavor packets with all natural flavors and the standard gamut of flavors. Being that it was 66 degrees and hot out today, I decided that today was the day I'd need a serious refresher.The flavors are powdered, like the bulk of flavor packets out today, and are about three times larger than the standard packet. When I saw the size of these, I was reminded of the Special K Protein Water, but in this case, I couldn't quite see why there was a need for larger packets. I mixed up a glass of each flavor, strawberry kiwi, mixed berry, and lemonade, and was wary before I took the first sip. The drinks, which I expected to be clear and naturally colored as a result of their lack of artificial ingredients, were cloudy and neon-colored, reminiscent of the classic Crystal Light my grandmother would make me by the gallon as a child, with a murky, salty flavor. It wasn't a very good first impression. In addition to the flavor, these were absolutely pungent. The second I opened the packet, my nostrils were assaulted by acidic, sugary scents.The flavor of the mixed berry tasted somewhat fermented and jammy, like berries that had botrytized before being mixed into water. It was a sour, watery flavor with no distinct flavor that really reminded me of berries. If anything, it was like drinking Life Savers dissolved in water. The dissolving problem that I encountered in the mixed berry and lemonade was more improved in the strawberry kiwi and the water was transparent with no residue at the bottom. The flavor was also sour, but counterbalanced by a nice fruitiness to its body and a non-chalky consistency. This was my favorite of the three.
My final drink, the lemonade, looked appetizing and juicy on the package with slices of lemon. I was most excited for this one as I was hoping it would deviate from the traditional standard powdered lemonade and taste like something freshly made. Well, once you stop laughing, let me tell you that yes, you're right. Of course this wouldn't taste like a $4 glass of lemonade in a bistro or a $12 Lemontini or even like Lemon Pledge. Despite its hawkings of all-natural ingredients, I was just not convinced that this was any different than the store-brand version.All in all, I was pretty disappointed. As someone who has already established a healthy love of beverages, I have no qualms in crossing these off my list and sticking with drinks I already know and love.

Lindt Black Currant

Growing up in America, I have very limited experience with black currant. Writing a snack blog has certainly given me opportunities to try it, but it's still not a flavor I can immediately draw up in my memory.

Lindt's Black Currant bar was one of the first black currant sweets I've seen at my local grocery store, so perhaps this flavor is slowly working its way into American mainstream candy. Maybe one of these days, we'll join the rest of the world in having black currant Skittles instead of grape (not likely, and I hope not, because grape is my fave).


The dark chocolate bar smelled fruity and bittersweet, and the flavor was immediately intensely fruity, with strong, slightly bitter and liquor-esque cassis flavor. The almonds added a toasty flavor and a gritty crunch to the chewy texture of the dried fruit, which went well with the smooth, clean feel of the dark chocolate.

The dark chocolate was fairly standard; it had a good snap and a mildly bitter flavor that was a bit overpowered by the black currant. I don't see myself buying this bar often, but I would certainly go for it over a basic raisin and nut milk chocolate bar.

B+

Lindt website

Sweet Tea Pie

I'm not sure what to start defending first: this sweet tea pie that needs perfecting; or the magazine — Garden & Gun, with one of the worst names of any magazine I've ever encountered — which shot me an email newsletter with the recipe.

Every time I hear the name of the magazine Garden & Gun — an absolutely fabulous and beautiful "Southern lifestyle" magazine that launched in 2007, featuring all things Southern in a stylish and smart manner, and to which I happen to subscribe — I want to violently shake whoever decided Garden & Gun (an obscure reference to a '70s disco in Charleston, SC) was a name that would attract people, as opposed to scare them away.
Yes, there are gun articles in almost every issue of Garden & Gun, but they are in the line of erudite articles about gun-loving Ernest Hemingway, or sentimental stories of bonding with a favorite hunting dog.

The other 95 percent of the magazine is about Southern art, food, gardens, architecture, design, history,and culture. If you're a Southerner living outside of the South like I am, there is almost always an article in each issue that touches upon a fond memory or place that is dear to one's heart. If you grew up in the South or live in the South, you should put Garden & Gun on your wish list, even if you will never touch a gun in your life. Trust me.
Now onto the pie.

The sweet tea pie recipe comes from Martha Hall Foose, a Southern-born pastry chef and cookbook author. Martha Hall Foose presents sweet tea pie in her James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea, and she also contributed her sweet tea pie recipe to Nancy McDermot's cookbook, Southern Pies, but I came about the recipe in a newsletter from Garden & Gun (sign up here, if you like).

This recipe got immediately bookmarked, but, as always, I took a while to make it. Essentially, this pie puts a new Southern twist — sweet tea — on the traditional Southern chess pie. As one of the stories goes, chess pie got it's name when someone said the pie was "just pie" — because there ain't nothin' fancy is chess pie, just eggs, butter, and sugar — and at the end of the line "just pie" transmuted into chess pie.Martha Hall Foose's sweet tea pie gets it's sweet tea flavor from the addition of strong brewed tea in the pie batter. And that batter contains about twice as much butter — two sticks!! — than most chess pies, not to mention eight egg yolks. This ain't no diet pie!

And since this pie is so indulgent, I haven't made it again to perfect the recipe to my liking. I found the sweet tea flavor to be too subtle. The recipe only calls for 3/4 cup of strong brewed tea without suggesting how many tea bags to stick into 3/4 cup of water. I went with two (added another bag after I snapped the photo), thinking that would be plenty for such a small amount of liquid. I suggest more. How many? I don't know, but just use more.
I also found the lemon flavor to mask the subtlety of the tea. Next time, I'm using half, if not less than half the amount of lemon zest called for.

Also, this pie had to be baked for much longer than called for, but, in the end, the pie did set. The pie is even firmer the next day served chilled.

I'd like to try this pie again, but I certainly don't want to be left home alone with a two-stick-of-butter and eight-egg-yolk pie. Invite me to a picnic, and I'll make it for you!Sweet Tea Pie
adapted from Martha Hall Foose
makes 1 9-inch pie

pastry for a 9-inch single crust pie (store bought or basic pie crust)
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
8 egg yolks
3/4 cup strong brewed tea, room temperature
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest (next time, I'm using 1/2 teaspoon or less)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt

• In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter with a mixer until fluffy.
  
• Add egg yolks to the butter and sugar mixture, one at a time, beating well after adding each egg yolk.
• Add tea, lemon juice, and lemon zest to the batter, and beat until mixed well.
• Add flour, cornmeal, and salt to the batter and stir in with a whisk until incorporated.
• Pour batter into the pie crust.
• Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven in the lower part of the oven (I suggest placing a baking sheet below the pie to catch spills) for 45 minutes (mine baked for 70 minutes), or until the edges are puffy and the center is firm.
  
• Cool pie completely before serving. (I enjoyed the pie best refrigerated the day after.)