Wednesday 30 October 2013

Product Review: A&W BBQ Sauce

At Christmas this year we went to St. Augustine, Florida for a day trip.  It's an incredibly interesting little town with an incredibly HUGE amount of touristy things to do.  I loved it.  I especially loved the trolley rides that you can hop on and off - the driver tells you all about the history and the buildings and on and on.  If you're a history buff, I definitely recommend it.
 
The point is, there's this little store in St. Augustine that specializes in barbecue sauce, hot sauce, salsas, spreads, jellies - the whole nine yards.
 
While snooping around, I found this A&W BBQ Sauce and thought it would pair perfectly with my Root Beer Pulled Pork. 

 

I LOVED it.  It was BBQ sauce with a hint of root beer and a little bit of spice.

The bad news?  It's not available here in Canada.

The good news?  The little shop in St. Augustine will ship to us.

I'm frothing at the mouth to put in an order!


 
Now I just need to remember the name of the store.....
 
On the off-chance you randomly find some of this awesome BBQ Sauce - it's a BUY for sure.  Don't even hesitate.
 
Yum.


Sunday 20 October 2013

Curry Sweet Potato Fries

I don't often put a lot of thought into sides.

Mostly because I could care less about vegetables. 

Scurvy.  It's a thing I'm bringing back.

But when I was living at my brother's house, and they have - well - a human being to raise and teach good habits to, I'm sort of forced to think about sides and vegetables.

Also, I have to think about healthy, non-white coloured sides and vegetables.

I figured that Joy the Baker's Curry Sweet Potato Fries would totally fit the bill.

And they are so simple.


Cut the sweet potatoes into evenly sized pieces.


If I had to make fries from scratch all the time I would get one of those press things.  Talk about a time-saver.

Please note at this point that I thought I would do 3 sweet potatoes.  I should have done 2.  Smallish ones.  Because 3 was too many.

Then, in a small bowl, whisk the egg until whitish and frothy.


Then add the curry powder,


cumin,


turmeric,


and crushed red pepper flakes,


and salt.  Stir to combine.


Toss the egg mixture with the sweet potato and spread out on the baking sheet.


And bake.

Now.  If you're like me and over-estimated how many sweet potatoes you need, then crammed them all together onto a cookie sheet, then baked them - those fries are likely to be soft and floopy and have almost no structure.

Don't be like me.

Over-crowding is bad.

And, if you're also like me, then you forgot to line your baking sheet and those fries stuck completely and totally on the sheets and it took you 45 minutes to scrub them down.

Don't be like me.

Not following instructions is silly.

Follow Joy's instructions.  She's smart and awesome.


The end result....  These were an awesome twist on the old standard of just plain old salted sweet potato fries.  And super healthy too.  Also, you'd expect them to be very spicy - but they're just a bit spicy which offsets the sweetness.

Pop on over to Joy's corner of the Internets and check them out.  You won't be sorry.


Source:  Joy the Baker

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Tuna Burgers

You know how when you're on a diet and you would sell your kidney for a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger?

Sometimes that happens to me.

And sometimes you want a tuna sandwich with mayo (but not TOO much - it can't be soggy) and salt and pepper and sometimes finely chopped celery and lovely soft fresh bread.

But.

You're on a diet so you need to improvise.

Try these on for size.


In a large bowl lightly beat the egg.


Add the breadcrumbs.


And the tuna.


Stir together.


Then add the celery.


And the onion and pimento.


Lemon juice, horseradish and garlic.


Last of all, the pepper.


Then form into 4 patties, or 8 if you're like me and have to make sure that there's lunch for the next day.  If you're finding that the mixture is really wet, just add in a little bit more breadcrumbs.  I did.  But I don't think I drained the tuna as completely as it could have been.

Also, I think that refrigerating the formed burgers will help them hold their shape.

In a frying pan over medium heat, cook the burgers until golden brown on each side.  (The recipe says to finish cooking in the oven until golden brown, but doesn't say what temperature to bake them at - so I decided to skip that)


I was really wondering how these would turn out.  Because I've been really excited to try them since I saw them on Tastespotting.

You know what?  They were actually pretty darn good!  I wouldn't even have known that there wasn't mayo in the burgers.  I thought the pepper was a little heavy handed, so that could be reduced by a bit. 


For a healthier alternative, these totally fit the bill.


Also, the next day my brother and I each took one of these for our lunches.  He heated his, I left mine cold and they were terrific either way.  Even the smallest of our group agreed.


You can check out the recipe here.

Source:  Paula Deen