Sunday is now Bar Day

I've actually had these bars over the past few days, but I decided to wait until today to review all of them.

First, I bought some Larabars after reading about them on all of your blogs. I got three varieties of the Jocalat bars (Chocolate, Chocolate Orange, and Chocolate Coffee) because they were on sale.

I had the Chocolate first, and I really wasn't that impressed. It was dry and crumbly, but I did like the flavor. Next was the Chocolate Coffee, which was much better than the first. I liked the texture and could taste the coffee flavor, but it was subtle. I actually decided the first bar must have been stale - probably why it was on sale in the first place.

I haven't tried the chocolate orange, but I am hopeful because that is one of my all-time favorite flavor combinations!



And speaking of good flavor combinations, I had an Honest Foods Cran Lemon Zest country square for breakfast one morning (with coffee, of course). This is my favorite one out of all of them! I have also tried the Choco Peanut and the Apple Ginger (I think?) and the Cran Lemon is the only repeat purchase I have made.


In exciting news, my Clif Z Spooky S'mores came! I found them on drugstore.com, and I was rather impressed with their service. I got free standard shipping for a purchase over $25 and it came in three days.

I really enjoyed this bar. It tasted a lot like my favorite one, Honey Graham, with a marshmallow flavor. I didn't really taste any chocolate, but I was looking for the marshmallow flavor anyway.


I also got a box of Honey Graham.


So, my question is this - do you think it would be okay to freeze the Clif Z bars? Or just put them in the fridge? The expiration dates are far off, but I know it will take me awhile to get through 36 of them.

Also, if any of my faithful readers (all two or three of you) would like a sample of either Clif Z Bar, just shoot me an e-mail with your address and I will be glad to share!

Cooking Light

I bought the September issue of Cooking Light several weeks ago, but didn't have time to really look at it until a few days ago. I think this issue had a lot of great recipes. It's probably not on the shelves any more, but you should definitely search for this month's recipes on their site.

The first recipe was Turkey-Ricotta Meatballs. Sorry, the recipe isn't posted on their site yet, but I'll try to remember to link it once it it. These meatballs were great - they were very easy because they are baked, and they stayed moist due to the addition of ricotta cheese. The recipe called for part-skim, but I used fat free since that is what I had on hand.

I think my favorite part of the recipe is that it did not give specific directions on how to serve them, and I have found that they are extremely versatile. I put one half of the batch in some homemade tomato sauce (more on that later) and served it with pasta, and tomorrow we are having the second half in a stroganoff-type dish. I imagine they would also be tasty in some barbecue sauce or something similar as an appetizer.

Here they are, straight from the oven:


Now my dilemma is this - I have over half of a container of ricotta left over, and I don't like it on its own. Does anyone have a good recipe that incorporates ricotta?

Tonight I made the Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp. I really like Thai food (and by that, I mean all I have ever had is pad thai), so I decided to try making it. I have to admit that I have never ordered a curried dish at a Thai restaurant before because I was didn't think I would like something with coconut milk in it, but this recipe was quite good and very light.

I only made one substitution - I used dried basil instead of fresh because I couldn't find any at the grocery store.

With brown rice and steamed broccoli:


We also had some frozen and thawed mango for dessert. Yum!

I think I may subscribe to Cooking Light. I have really cut down on the magazines that I subscribe to due to so much paper used and the fact that I can find them online. There are some that I still really enjoy reading in print, though.

What magazine subscriptions do you have?

Move over, peanut butter.

I had been holding off on trying cashew butter for two reasons:

1. I don't like almond butter, and didn't know if I would like nut butters other than peanut.

2. It's very expensive, and I didn't want to waste the money if I didn't like it.

Anyway, I decided to bite the bullet and went to EarthFare yesterday. I was pleased to find a half size jar of MaraNatha:




My review: Oh my. OHHHH MY. This has to be one of the most delicious things I have eaten. Ever. In my whole life, all 28 years of it.

I tasted it alone first, then decided the best delivery method was 1/2 mini whole wheat bagel:

I quickly went back for the second half. It's official - I'm in food love.