Food Follies – Page 12 – Cooking, Baking, Recipes, Food, Desserts

Blue Sky Cola

Blue Sky Cola was one of the first ‘colas’ we’ve run across in a LONG LONG LONG (long!) time that had any HINT of the origins in it – namely the cola nut. Now, Blue Sky Cola has ‘cola nut flavoring’ and we’re not sure EXACTLY what that means, but the important thing is that it tasted like what we thought it should taste like!

We were very happy with the cola-y flavor of this soda and will be getting more of it next time we find it on the grocery shelves. Now, it doesn’t have any caffeine, and it doesn’t have any phosphoric acid, and perhaps it’s this lacking combination that gives the texture of this drink a ‘softer’ feel than coke/pepsi or even Jones cola, which are sharper in the mouth. Still, the ‘softer’ feel doesn’t detract at all from the experience. So we can heartily recommend Blue Sky Cola – they also have a root beer and maybe some other varieties. In any case, we were just very happy to find a locally available cola made with much tastier CANE SUGAR (Jones cola doesn’t seem to be in stores in Upstate NY yet – alas!) instead of high fructose corn syrup. Go Blue Sky!

[Tags: cola, cane sugar, blue sky soda, high frustose corn syrup, caffeine]

Virgil’s Real Cola

Since moving to New York from California one of the hardest to find food items for us has been cane sugar colas. When we saw Virgil’s in a local grocery store we were thrilled! We love Virgil’s Root Beer with it’s unique spices and figured their cola would be equally distinct.

Well, it was distinct, there’s no doubt about that, but I’m sorry to say that I didn’t like it at all. The first sip seemed mediciney at first and after a while I realized that it reminded me of carbonated Listerene. It’s either the clove bud oil or the cassia oil (or both) that coat your tongue when you drink it, slightly numbing it and drowning out the other flavors. There are also lemon, orange and lime juice extracts which you can barely taste but when it does come through it hits like orange juice right after you brushed your teeth. Bleh.

I’m very confused as to why they called this a cola, as it is not like any cola I have ever tasted. And like most, it has no mention of cola nuts in the ingredients. So where did they get the idea that this is a “real cola?” Maybe the marketing department thought calling it a cola would attract more buyers. (It worked on us.)

We’ve actually found one brand of cola that has “cola nut flavor” in the ingredients, but that’s the subject of another post.

[Tags: Soda, Cola, Virgil’s, Root Beer, Beverages]

Relax Riesling

Since we’ve moved to Upstate New York we’ve been trying to find some good local wine & liquor stores to browse for wines. We found this riesling at a little store who’s owners had trained their little white dog to greet customers and also bring them their change – it was very cute.

This white wine was from Germany; a pleasantly sweet riesling with such citrus and apple-ish overtones it reminded me of the hard apple cider I also like. But the finish was much dryer, which was an excellent combination. It’s easy to drink for people who aren’t sure they like wine much, and goes well with crackers and cheese. We had it with a smoked provalone and lappi, which is swiss-ish. We’re thinking about getting another one just to have on hand. Oh, and as you can see it comes in a bright blue bottle, with a cool modern label!

Price: $9.99.

[Tags: wine, wine review, white wine, riesling, german wine, food follies, food blog]

The Double Down By KFC: A Sandwich NOT!

I enjoy a good chicken sandwich as much as the next guy. In fact I generally won’t order grilled chicken at a restaurant because they’ve usually been on the grill for several hours and taste more like warmed over shoe leather than anything resembling meat.

The new Double Down by KFC though, while I have not tried it, quite frankly repulses me. The “sandwich” consists of two breaded chicken fillet patties in place of bread or a bun, filled with cheese, bacon and the Colonel’s sauce. I freely admit that I’m not much of a KFC fan to begin with. They use way too much MSG in their food so when I eat it I end up with an insatiable thirst, a headache and sometimes my hands break out in a rash.

This entry to me is not a sandwich though. Sandwiches start with bread and good sandwiches start with good bread. One of my favorite chicken sandwiches used to come from the old Wolf’s Deli in downtown Manhattan. It had a breaded chicken breast on a kaiser roll, with bacon and swiss cheese and barbecue sauce. Not too different from the entry above in terms of ingredients, but in my mind far more appetizing and attractive than that greasy monstrosity above.

[Tags: KFC, Chicken, Sandwich, Food, Restaurants]

Gelsosomo’s Pizza

Well, we’re on the road, on our way to our new home in Upstate NY. We haven’t had much of a chance to eat at independent restaurants along the way (a bit hard to find along interstates although occasionally we luck out), but tonight we did, when we stopped in Chesterton, Indiana! We ordered pizza from a place called Gelsosomo’s Pizzeria (the other two choices were Pizza Hut and Little Caesars) – and it’s delicious! We got a simple sausage pizza and although the round pizza was cut into a grid pattern instead of the classic slice formation, it’s still extremely tasty. It arrived hot, and in fact, I’m going to get another slice now and stop writing this post. Tah!
[Tags: food, pizza, indiana, road trip]

Truck Spill With A Fruity Finish

We were driving into town and got passed by an ambulance, then a police car, then two more police cars, all going in the opposite direction. They were headed into the country, towards the vineyards by us. Turns out that a wine truck overturned and lost 4800 gallons of Paso Robles wine! It drained into the dry creek bed near the road – alas! Click here for the full article.

In other news, we haven’t been doing much cooking lately because we’re moving, and all of our cooking stuff is pretty much in cardboard boxes, ready to make the move to Upstate NY, home of coneys, salt potatoes, and half-moon cookies! So, while we won’t be posting for a while, we’ll have a whole new culinary landscape to investigate once we get there, plus a new kitchen to break in, so stay tuned!
[Tags: wine truck, vineyards, moving, food, cooking]

Pound Cake with Raspberry Sauce

I’d never actually made a pound cake from scratch before so I looked around online for a few likely recipe candidates – finally settling on a few from allrecipes.com, and adding my own little tweaks. This isn’t a loaf pound cake, but a tube pan pound cake – MUCH bigger. And taller. And excellently dense, of course. I’m also glad I had the foresight to pull out our extra huge bowl to mix this in too – not surprising though, once you see the ingredients list! (Sorry – forgot to take an in-progress photo of the bowl of batter and beaters, etc.)

The batter was so thick that when I was putting the batter into the pan, it was much less of a ‘pour’ and more of a ‘scoop and drop’, but it worked out fine, as you can see:

Pound Cake baked in tube pan, out of the oven for a few minutes.

The cake came out really tall too, although that’s hard to see in the photo.

While the cake was cooling, I made an easy raspberry sauce – nicely raspberry-ish, but not overly sweet:

raspberry sauce, cooking on the stove

After the sauce was done I put it through a small strainer to take most of the seeds out so it was very smooth.

And the serving suggestion – slice a nice hunk of that cake and drizzle the raspberry sauce over it just before serving – yum! Would probably also be good with a dark chocolate drizzle or the like. Take a small slice unless you’re REALLY hungry – as with most pound cakes, this is very dense and filling.

Pound Cake with Raspberry Sauce

Pound Cake with Raspberry Sauce

2 cups butter, softened
2 3/4 cups white sugar
6 eggs
3 3/4 cups flour (use cake flour for a less dense cake)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. lemon extract

Grease and flour a tube cake or bundt cake pan.

Sift together flour, salt, and nutmeg in large bowl. Set aside.

Beat butter until soft and creamy. Gradually add 2 3/4 cup sugar, beating as you go, 5-7 minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until the yellow of the yoke disappears.

Add flour mix alternately with milk, beginning and ending with the flour. (Mix on low speed, just until blended.)

Stir in the lemon extract.

Pour batter into pan, smooth out the surface. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Raspberry Sauce

1 pint raspberries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 cup cold water

Put raspberries, sugar, and orange juice in a saucepan. Whisk corn starch in water, then add to ingredients in the sauce pan. Bring to a boil.

Simmer five minutes, stirring constantly, until desired consistency and thickness. (Sauce will thicken a bit more as it cools.)

If you want, you can also pour the sauce through a strainer to remove the seeds and make a smooth sauce.

Drizzle over slices of pound cake just before serving.

Winey Words

We picked up a California Chardonnay (blend) the other day because I realized that we hadn’t tried one in a LONG time. So we chose one more or less at random at Trader Joes, just by reading the descriptions on the labels. (We like to live in the fast lane – LOL.) Here’s a snip of the lucious text: “Opens with the intense, signature tropical fruit and citrus aromas typical of our terroir. Flavors of pineapple, fresh peach, lemon zest, and mango are augmented by good weight and perfect acidity.” Yes, just because it’s on the label doesn’t mean it’s TRUE – we know this – at least we didn’t choose it because the logo was cool – ha! (Although it was rather nice.)

So… Well… the ACIDITY was good. But otherwise, despite our best efforts, we couldn’t make out any distinct flavors. It just tasted like a basic “Chardonnay”. No peach, or zest or this or that. Yes, it was a blend, but we’ve had blends before that were more “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” rather than a homogenous mix.

Oh, well – win some, lose some! And no, we’re not mentioning any names. 😉 We just wanted to discuss the disparity between the description and the actual taste, which we haven’t actually experienced much of until now, which is, overall, a credit to the wine industry.

[Tags: white wine, chardonnay, california, wine, review]

Pessagno Pinot Noir (California)

After watching the movie Sideways I decided that I had to try a Pinot Noir and see what all the fuss was about. We picked one from Pessagno Wines because it came from a local winery and they actually differentiated between the various vineyards the grapes were grown in. Ours was from the Central Avenue Vineyard, vintage 2006.

We weren’t disappointed. Now I understand why in the movie Sideways, Miles was so crazy about it. The wine was very rich with a complex taste that really challenged the tastebuds to define it. There was a subtle cherry flavor followed by a bit of pepper that left the tip of your tongue feeling slightly hot.

We had the wine with some smoked gouda and they paired very well together. At first I thought the smoky flavor of the cheese would overwhelm the wine’s flavor, but they complemented each other nicely. We’re definitely going to have to include Pinot Noirs in our regular wine rotation.

[Tags: wine review, pinot noir, sideways, red wine, california]

Wine Flu?

First off, let me say that I think people are doing a good job of keeping the public informed about the spread of swine flu and steps to take care of yourself while it’s flitting about. Secondly, and a however, I also think the media has taken advantage of the situation a little to enhance the drama a SMIDGE beyond what’s necessary – heh. So this new Wine Flu t-shirt is just a funny joke about the media hysteria, not about the virus itself! Besides I can’t resist a good play on words – you should all know that by now.

Wine Flu is available on all kinds of t-shirts and sweatshirts – click the image to browse!
[Tags: swine flu, wine flu, humor, funny, tshirt]