NY Times Salted Caramel Article

So PC is just following the pack, but they are still pretty awesome! Basically the gist of this article is that if you eat salted caramels you can be like Barrack Obama.

Check out our blog post from Dec 08.

PC Fair Trade Chocolate

As promised in Ian's 2008 insider report review, we found the Peruvian PC Fair Trade dark chocolate bar at the No Frills and brought it home to try.

Ian says "Tasty. It had a rich flavor". Janice says "kinda expensive, but overall no major complaints".

PC website says 4 stars outta 5.

Nacho Surprise (with PC Salsa Original Recipe)

A bit odd, but that's the nature of cleaning out the fridge nachos. Chips, cheddar, roasted beets & butternut squash, black eyed peas and tomatoes.

Overall very tasty!

Even better with PC Texas style original recipe salsa.

PC Dark Chocolate Covered Caramels with Sea Salt

Sounds a little odd...but really really really tasty!

PC Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade

Moderately tasty and contrary to most PC appetizer products, not very detrimental to your health.

Internet people don't have a heck of a lot to say, but so far 2 reviewers on the PC website give it 5/5. I would rate is more like a 4.

Here's Ian enjoying on a crostini (whole wheat sour dough baguette toasted with some olive oil).

Insider's Report - Christmas 2008

The new Insider's Report is out and there a few interesting items!

Here are some of the items that I may try:

• PC Entrees - Shrimp & Penne - This is one of these fast saute things. I'm not generally a fan of the concept as they're usually a little pricey (these are $6.99) but I'll probably give these a try.
• PC Wild Black Cod Fillets - Apparently black cod is the latest sensation. We'll find out if it's a taste sensation
• PC Dulce de Leche Cheesecake - Last year we tried out the then new PC dulce de leche and we definitely liked it. Now they've combined it with the cheesecake. I usually prefer chocolate on my cheesecake but let's face it, I really like all cheesecakes so we may give this a try. The related pocket PC Dulce de Leche Ice Cream Desserts looked tasty when we saw them on the weekend. Sadly the health police (Janice) were also around so this item didn't make it into our basket. Maybe I'll dodge the police with a mid-week trip.
• PC Salsa Peach and Mango - Janice loves the sweeter salsas so I forsee this ending up in our basket if we see it.
• PC Fair Trade Chocolate - I will likely try this for obvious reasons.
• PC Our Best Ever Meat Lasagna - I like lasagna but we'll have to see the damage this new creation will inflict on my heart before we take the plunge
• PC Soups - Asian Chicken Noodle, Tomoato & Roasted Red Pepper Bisque - We recently cracked the last of our Trader Joe's soups so we have to find a new tasty soup source

PC World's Best Meatless Burgers

Miriam and Dave cooked some up last night on the BBQ. They were extremely good and highly recommended. I had with some tasty home-made guacamole. Mmmm...must move out of the condo so we can get a bbq.

The internet crowd does not agree.

PC 100% Purée & Juice Mango Orange Blend

The new insider report from a few weeks ago was a mild disappointment. Aside from the pineapple upside down cake reviewed previously, there weren't a lot of new and exciting items. One other exception however was the PC 100% Purée & Juice Mango Orange Blend. We picked some up yesterday and it is terrific. The fools on the internet rate it only a 4.1/5.0 but I think it should be more like 4.7. The thick juices really don't get enough credit. Janice disagrees with my assessment but I view that as good news - more juice for me!

PC Pineapple Upside Down Cake

The good:

- sugary & sweet
- PC website people rate it 4.7/5
- Janice & Ian rating - 4/5
- foolproof and easy to re-heat
- Price is right at about $5 for 4

The bad:

- sugary & sweet, possibly causing cavities within minutes
- Calorie laden & a frightening amount of fat!
- Definitely need some sort of frozen yogurt to cut the sugar
- Not enough real fruit on there (was basically just white cake, a ring of pineapple & caramel sauce)...although I suppose that is the essence of pineapple upside down so I should stop complaining and maybe put this in the "good" list??
- Texture was a bit odd - the cake was a bit pasty and was over-saturated with sugar sauce


The final word - go with PC sticky toffee pudding instead!!! That's some serious tastiness per unit of un-healthiness!

Gourmet Burger Ian Style

Pita break multigrain + PC chipotle hummus.




















Avocado
























+ PC Blue Menu Burger


















MMMmmm

PC Brie and Cranberry Filo Parcels

I went to a clothing swap event last night and the host made some PC Brie and Cranberry Filo Parcels. I was expecting a high amount of tastiness, but they were actually a bit bland and leaning toward odd tasting".





I have purchased some PC fig and goat cheese items for the scrabble crowd tomorrow night - hopefully these are tastier!

Dim Sum and Inca Kola

One of the new items in the insider's report was Dim Sum. It comes with Har Gao and a bunch of other dim sum items but the har gao was enough to make the sale. I tried them last week in the microwave and they were alright but this week I decided to do things properly with a homemade steamer arrangement since we were too lazy to find the steamer in storage











Up close and personal with the best looking item









Me eating the meal with inca kola. I assume you can't get any more authentic than that?













Overall, the items were pretty good. I hate to bash the president but the real issue is the price, $7.99. The president certainly isn't a benevolent leader with those prices which work out to 53 cents a piece. Sure that's cheaper than the places on Dundas I go to with 2 buck items (3 or 4 pieces per basket). I don't know if this is a well known rule but Ian's rule indicates that eating at home should be 50% cheaper for it to be a good deal.

Gluttonous Insider Report Item of the Week - Dulce de Leche

We went to our usual Joe's (a.k.a. No Frills to the rest of the Toronto and other areas served by them) today for the first time in a few weeks. (As a complete aside, it hardly seems surprising that Loblaw's is in trouble with confusing name issues like Joe's and the Rennie and Liz's we frequent). Anyway they have a pretty decent selection so we were able to pick up some Dulce de Leche. We'd seen the ads on tele and eyed it hungrily in the Insider report so it was only a matter of time before we picked it up.

We had it straight up with some frozen yogurt and it was terrific. I would have taken a picture
but it didn't last long enough. Next time I may mix it up and have it with bananas. I didn't this time so I could fully appreciate it on it's own.

In the mildly concerning department there was no foil or wrapper on the container when we opened it. Nor did I hear it pop when it opened (but an examination of lid seemed to suggest it might not have made a noise). So if this is our last blog post it looks like contaminated food or botulism? may have been our downfall. Given the tastiness though, we have no regrets.

Coming up tomorrow if all goes well, up close and personal shots of the President's Choice Dim Sum I had today (along with my comments of course!)

A picture is Worth a 1000 Words

is

Going Overboard with the New Insider's Report

A little while ago we talked about all the exciting stuff in the latest insider's report. Well this weekend we went out and bought a lot of the stuff.










I guess the Chocolate Granola wasn't in the report but I hadn't seen it before so we couldn't resist. Anyway we've now tried all the products.

Sticky Toffee Pudding - As Janice said, very tasty. Also very unhealthy.
BBQ Chips - I haven't had BBQ chips in ages so I can't really say if they're better than average but they are definitely tasty
Pistachios - Janice's thing not mine
Maple-Flavoured Butter Fudge - Very tasty. I went into this thinking, "Fudge, it's going to be disappointing if it isn't chocolate fudge" but in the end I was very surprised. It's great
Chocolate Granola - This is pretty good. It actually makes me consider eating cereal. I haven't quite gone that far though, and I'm sticking to mixing it with fro yo.

A Loblaws outing last night allowed us to pick up another fun item, Smoking Stampede Beef Brisket. We had some tonight with fresh bread.










And because it was whole wheat we didn't feel bad about clogging the arteries with Brisket. If only BK would have whole wheat whoppers, then I could have as many as I want.

President Back in the Good Books

So we sampled two new items from the PC Insider Report today. Sticky toffee pudding did not disappoint. Highly recommended with some chapman's or PC fro yo.

PC BBQ chips (aka smokin stampede bbq flavor) also very tasty and cheap!

Presidents Choice Disappoints

Chunky Soy Milk...that is all

The Winter Insider's Report

It's almost as if the world knows how obsessed I am with the PC products because yesterday in the paper we got two copies of the insider's report. This also works out well with our poor sharing abilities.

Anyway from my preliminary perusal of the Insider's report here are the items I plan to check out on the next visit to the grocery stores. Purchase will of course depend on trans fat content.

Dolce de Leche - Janice is quite excited about this. It's unfortunate that they imported it from Argentina though. At 2.99 though it will certainly outshine the William's Sonoma version that she used to be obsessed with.

Chinese Dim Sum - They have Shrimp Har Gao so that pretty much sealed the deal that I would want to look int it. At 7.99 not super cheap but definitely something to check out. I'm curious to see if the from frozen will work well with har gao

Crunchy Rippled POtato Chips - Everyone knows ripple chips are the best so these may be interesting to check out. Smokin' Stampede seems like it will be the flavour of choice.

Seafood Medley in Garlic Butter Sauce - Sounds good but don't anticipate it being a repeat purchase with the 4.99 price point.

Chocolate Chip Miche - who knows what miche is but chocolate chip like bread seems brilliant. At 3.99 a loaf we'll have to see how big the loaf is!

More to come

The More Litter Free Way to Grocery Shop

With the addition of a few more PC bags, we now have enough for a week of groceries! Today, I was on my own and decided to ditch the plastic bags that you put fruit and veggie in! They really have no use and I just end up throwing them out anyway.

It wasn't all that bad! I just put them all on the top shelf and it only seemed to take the cashier an extra few seconds overall. More deelightful for unpacking too!

Healthy Snack Food for Those Who Do Not Want to Die

PC fig newtons. Seriously tasty, fat free and 60% whole wheat. They even pass the Ian taste test. Check out this link. He may be off the chocolate for good - at least for between meals. He still eats at breakfast and the non-newton desserts.







PC flax seed chips. Ian likes plain, I like spicy. No trans, low in saturated and include fiber and other good booty that flax seed seem to have (it's hard to keep track of the omega's).





Who doesn't like m-wave popcorn? Just remember steer clear of the fumes while opening the bag to avoid popcorn lung.

No trans here! Yeah!