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Traverse Bay Farms Salsas: Is It Good?
Pineapple.Cherries.
Michigan.
Not the words that spring to mind when someone says “salsa,” so when Traverse Bay Farms offered to send me a sample pack of their salsas, I had some reservations. (Okay, my hesitation lasted about 30 seconds, and then I was all WOO FREE FOOD about it.)
Traverse Bay sent along no less than SIX full-sized jars of salsa, one each of their different varieties. Although they’re all said to be “medium-hot,” I found the level of heat varied quite a bit from jar, which you’ll see in a minute.
So… is it good? Overall, yes. Each salsa was as good or better than a premium (read: non-Tostitos) shelf-stable salsa, although I liked some mush more than others.
Here’s my official ranking of the six different salsas:
#1: Pineapple. I was the most uncertain about this one, but I assure you, this was possibly the best salsa I’ve ever eaten. Distinctly fiery and sweet and tart, without one overwhelming the others — like the greatest sweet-and-sour Chinese food goo on earth, but even better by making it spicy. It was the first one to get polished off and the one I missed the most once it was gone. If you’re only going to try one of these salsas, the pineapple one should be it.
#2: Cherry. I really had my doubts about cherry salsa, but Traverse Bay won me over. Cherry anything can often be sickly sweet (or worse, cough medicine-ish) but this was only slightly sweeter and less tart than the pineapple salsa, and probably as close to fresh cherries as a jarred salsa could get.
#3: Red Raspberry. Very hot and very sweet. It was honestly a little too much on its own, but I after combined most of the jar with an 8-ounce block of cream cheese, it became an absolutely incredible spread for crackers (or celery or, um, a spoon).
#4: Peach. I admit, I’ve never been a fan of peach salsa. My husband really liked this one, but it was just too… peachy for me. I think it would have paired really well with pork, but someone finished off the jar before I could find out.
#5: Corn. Much milder than I expected, the least spicy of the six, so a bit more like a corn relish than a salsa. The corn was was crisp and sweet but had a little of that odd canned corn taste going on. Not bad, but not my favorite either.
#6: Black Bean. I dunno, this one just didn’t really do it for me. Maybe it was because the others were so great, but the black bean one was a bit bland and only kind of better than a store brand.
Traverse Bay Farms Salsas (as well as a variety of other cherry- and fruit-based products) can be purchased through their site or through other online retailers.
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Brave New Food: Karums
When I was a kid, we lived in a very suburban town. There weren’t really any small shops to walk to and goddamn if the ice cream truck didn’t know exactly when my family was sitting down to dinner to come through my neighborhood — an event which only happened a couple times each summer anyway — and we were almost never allowed to leave the dinner table to go buy something.
Now, as an adult, on any given day that’s above 70 degrees, I have virtually no ability to pass by an ice cream truck or deli without buying something sweet and frozen. (And this year, I’m even tracking just how many things I buy on Daytum.)
Which brings me to the photo above. I was in Food Palace (the little store selling Russian and Eastern European things like jam and cookies) when I spotted a freezer chest full of little blocks of K?rums for 99¢ each. I picked an orange one and some kind of peanut/hazelnut one.
I was a bit taken aback by the price because they’re quite small blocks — about half the size of a deck of cards. As my husband, kid, and I all walked home, we tried to figure out what they tasted like, exactly. The coating was obviously chocolate, but inside? It was creamier and richer than ice cream. A bit like custard, but not eggy. Eventually, in the mass of other languages on the wrapper, I spotted a description and ingredient list in English:
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Cheese Is The New Wine: Roka Blue Cheese Dressing
I really can’t explain what made me buy this.
I almost never buy bottled salad dressing. And, as you might remember, I have a particular horror of cheap blue cheese dressings.
Still, one day, I had an absolutely overwhelming desire for blue cheese dressing, and as I turned down the first supermarket aisle, there is was. On sale. For a buck. And you know I can’t turn down a cheese on sale for a dollar.
So, to my surprise, I bought shelf-stable Kraft Roka Blue Cheese Dressing.
Even more surprising: it’s actually really good.
I don’t know how they managed it—and in fact, I probably don’t want to know—but Kraft has somehow engineered a bottled blue cheese dressing that doesn’t taste like crap. It’s got a very good blue cheese taste to it (mild blue cheese, to be sure, but still) without that pongy gym-sock aftertaste most dressings have. Even my kid, who has made no secret of how much she hates “all stinky cheese,” really liked it.
Its lack of blue cheese pieces (and slightly scary ingredient list) keep it from being a truly great blue cheese dressing, but other than making it yourself, this is possibly one of the best grab-and-go blue cheese dressings around.
Ingredients: [Oh dude. You so don’t want to know. Although the label claims “No Artificial Preservatives,” it still has plenty of wtf is that? “natural” preservatives in it.]
Country of origin: USA.
Aged: N/A
Price: $.99 (on sale) for 8 oz. at Fine Fare.
Final verdict: Hide it at the back of the fridge when your foodie-douche friends visit if you must, but you and I will still know it’s well good. -
Photo Friday: what she does not know is she will soon face an Intervention
My name is Kristen: k-r-i-s-t-e-n…
…and I’m addicted to buying crappy mass-market paperback cookbooks from the 1970s.
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Pepsi Throwback: Is It Good?
UPDATE: It’s coming back! According to this tweet from Pepsi, Pepsi Throwback — and, I assume, the Mountain Dew Throwback as well — are coming back for another 5-week run, starting August 1st 2010.
UPDATE 2: It’s back FOR GOOD (for as long as people keep buying it). According to Consumerist.com, “[t]he beverage company has announced that plans to sell its sugar-sweetened Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback sodas as long as people buy them.” Availability is still limited by individual bottlers, it seems.FINAL UPDATE: Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback are no longer a “Limited Time” product but are now a permanent part of the Pepsi pantheon, as reported by BevReview.com.
If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you might already know my obsession with sugar-sweetened sodas (like Ting). So, last summer, when I heard Pepsi was coming out with a sugar-sweetened version called Pepsi Throwback, I looked for it everywhere. I didn’t find anywhere in NYC, so when we drove to Massachusetts for a wedding, I looked in every gas station mini-mart from New Jersey to the Mass Pike. Once it became fall, I stopped looking and eventually gave up.
Then, last week, a friend posted a photo of a case of Pepsi Throwback she had just bought. According to Pepsi’s site, “[d]ue to all the Throwback tweets, Facebook fan pages, videos, blog posts, pics & pleas, Pepsi Throwback is back” — at least until February 28th.
So… is it good? The Pepsi, definitely. The formula appears to be the same as a HFCS Pepsi (e.g. pretty sweet), so if you’re fond of that, you’ll love this. I sometimes wished I was drinking Coke Throwback instead, but it’s still very good. The Mountain Dew… a bit less great. It’s either sweeter than a regular HFCS Mountain Dew, or it’s less citrus, or both. Still, the sugar really makes all the difference in the world. There’s no filmy mouth feel, no glorky (yes, I say it’s a word) feel in your throat afterward. I’m already looking around my apartment to figure out where I can stash multiple cases of this stuff for the summer.
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Tuna Salad (Minus The Mercury)
I love tuna salad. Canned white tuna, with minced celery and pickle, some mayonnaise and maybe a few capers… if I could eat that as often as I’d like, I’d end up as mad as a hatter (or maybe just as mad as Jeremy Piven) due to the elevated levels of mercury in canned tuna.
What’s a tuna-phile to do?
Fake it.
Fake Tuna Salad
Mash 2-3 cups of chickpeas with the tines of a fork. (You could trying using a food processor but one pulse too far and you’ve got hummus instead.) This can be a little tedious but the resulting texture is more appealing. To pass the time, I recommend Pandora’s Oldies Soul station, as pictured above. Add minced celery, pickle, mayonnaise, or whatever your mom added to tuna salad when you were a kid.
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Apology Soup
When I was a kid, I always thought my grandfather had some odd eating habits. He liked his apple pie with Cheddar cheese. He grated his own Parmesan at the dinner table (which we all politely declined, preferring the powdery stuff in the green can). And—which I thought was the weirdest of all—sometimes he would open a can of chicken broth, cook a half-dozen or so tortellini in the broth, add some of his weird cheese and eat it.
Having made gnocchi soup recently, I can now say: Granddad, you were right and I was definitely wrong. This was far and away the best soup I’ve had in ages and possibly the best soup I’ve made EVER.
I only made this because one of my followers on Twitter mentioned she was having a gnocchi soup for lunch that day and I remembered I had a bag of gnocchi languishing in my freezer (along with some chicken broth and a bag of peas, which also went into the recipe).
Gnocchi soup
Put about 6-8 cups broth (I used chicken broth I’d made a while ago, but any broth will do) and several cloves of minced garlic in a large soup pot over medium-low heat. Simmer uncovered until the garlic is tender. Add a couple stalks of diced celery and continue to simmer until almost tender. Bring broth to a full boil and stir in a 12-ounce bag of frozen gnocchi and cook until the gnocchi float. Stir in 10 ounces frozen peas, cover, and turn off the heat. Add plenty of pepper and Parmesan cheese (or Argentine Reggianito which I really like these days).