Blog Archives
The Snack Report: Dole Smoothie Shakers
Smoothie Sunday season is almost here! I better get to work and start coming up with some new smoothie recipes! In the mean time, I decided to ease into things by reviewing some smoothie products you can buy in stores. First up is Dole Smoothie Shakers. These seem to be the option for if you want a quick smoothie on the go since no blender is necessary. There are seven flavors available (though I only saw two in the store I was in): blueberry banana, pineapple mango, strawberry raspberry, peach mango, strawberry, strawberry banana, and mixed berry. I tried pineapple mango. I went with that one because it also has carrot and sweet potato in it, and since I tried making my own carrot and sweet potato smoothies last year, I wanted to see how a different one would taste. I also I just enjoy both pineapple and mango.
So, how did the smoothie stand up?
Test the Recipe: Grandma Lil’s Peanut Butter Cookies
“Test the Recipe” is a recurring column on PCFG where we test vintage (anything published before 1990) recipes and see if they stand the test of time or need updating. In this post we test the recipe as exactly as possible for the most accurate outcomes. Those recipes that need updating will be featured later in a “We Can Do It Better” post.
I’m mixing things up a little bit with this Test the Recipe post because I didn’t find it in a book; I found it in my grandma’s recipe box. As such, I don’t know the actual date on it, but considering the recipe is my great-grandmother’s I think it’s fairly safe to assume that the recipe falls within the time frame I established. I think a lot of the Christmas cookies my mom makes use my great-grandma’s recipes, but she doesn’t usually make peanut butter cookies, so I wanted to give these a try. I really enjoy peanut butter, and cookies are great, so I was excited to have some peanut butter cookies to eat. I’m sure my great-grandma didn’t come up with the recipe totally from scratch, but I don’t know where she may have gotten the original recipe from either.
Great-grandma Lillian
Cheat Codes: How To Make Cracked Black Pepper
A couple months back, we went over the qualities and a general overview of the tiny, hard berries of the peppercorn bush, also known as just “pepper”. As a quick refresher, you can typically use it ground, cracked, or whole. Grinding it is easy enough since pretty much everyone owns a pepper mill of some sort, or you can buy it pre-ground. Using it whole may be pretty intense if you don’t like the flavor, but it’s a welcome addition to many dishes. What about cracking it though? Do you need some sort of fancy, complicated device, or have to spend big bucks to get something as fancy-sounding as “cracked black pepper”?!
Nah, you just need a glass or a bowl.
Food 101: Tostones aka Fried Plantains
I created a monster. I turned Erik into a tostones monster. My first experience with plantains was tostones. I saw Alton Brown make them on Good Eats and was intrigued, so I made them. Erik’s first experience with plantains was them just cooked and in a sauce as a side dish at a Colombian restaurant. He couldn’t understand how I liked plantains so much (since not-fried plantains, while not bad, are definitely not as good as their fried brethren). So I told him about how amazing fried plantains are and that I would make them for him sometime so he could see for himself. I think he may still have been a bit skeptical. But boy did his mind change after he had them. Now we cannot go to a grocery store without Erik sneaking some plantains into our cart to make with dinner. As I said, I’ve created a monster.
This is what you’ll be starting with
I’ve talked about plantains before in a review of plantain chips. As I mentioned in that post, fried plantains are pretty much the best French fry you’ll ever have. Because they’re so starchy, when you smush them and fry them they almost become self-battering. It can be hard to believe that they haven’t been dipped in something other than water. They’re crunchy, starchy, and salty in all the best ways. You’re definitely going to want to give these a try.
Cheat Code: Egg-less Avocado Chocolate Chip Cookies
I realize this is now our third chocolate chip cookie recipe on the blog, but well, we really like chocolate chip cookies. While the chocolate chip cookie recipe using cream cheese instead of eggs came about out of necessity, this recipe was developed strictly out of curiosity. I remembered from an old episode of Good Eats that Alton Brown said that avocados are actually kind of similar to eggs in terms of fat content so that got me to wondering if avocado could also replace eggs in cookies. And I was right! The cookies ended up with a slightly different flavor than regular chocolate chip cookies, but nothing that can really be pin-pointed to avocado. Even skeptics will enjoy these cookies. They’re also some of the most cakey chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had, so if that’s your favorite type of cookie, then these are for you.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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