Category: Healthy (Page 14 of 24)

      Roni Sue who?

      December 7, 2011 /

      So this past weekend, my wife was traveling on business to New York City, and when she had told me en route home that she picked me up something, I didn’t think much of it at the time other than it was nice she was thinking of me. But then when she arrived home and handed me a bag with 1) BeerCorn (beer caramel corn) and 2) chocolate covered bacon, it was like the holidays had arrived early.

      The place she picked these items up from was a booth at a street fair, from a vendor called Roni-Sue’s Chocolates. The bacon is really good, but, well, how can chocolate covered bacon not be? But the BeerCorn blew me away. It’s beer and pretzel caramel corn with candied mustard seeds. So not only is the caramel corn itself delicious, but throw in the malty aftertaste of beer and the faint taste of mustard, and it’s like a ballpark exploded in your mouth.

      Thankfully you can order this stuff online, and there are also items that are intriguing, like maple/bacon lollipops, chile/lime lollipops, truffles, BeerCrunch & bacon buttercrunch, and chocolate covered pretzels. But maybe the best part is that everything from Roni Sue is handmade and all natural. So yeah, it tastes amazing and there are no weird artificial ingredients. What more could you ask for? Except more!

      Chefs and Restaurants, Healthy, Ingredients, Product Reviews

      Turkey Day is upon us

      November 18, 2011 /

      Folks, where did that year just go? Just like that, it’s Thanksgiving again. This year we are visiting family and going out for dinner, but we plan on having our own turkey dinner the week afterward. Meanwhile, I thought it would be a good time to plug my own blog here, and publish a link to last year’s instructions on cooking a turkey 101.

      Here is that link:

      And here is a link to what to do with your leftovers

      You can also make the soup recipe I posted a few weeks ago using turkey instead of chicken

      Then, of course, if you can’t button the button on your pants, you can make this healthy turkey sandwich.

      I’ll have more ideas for leftovers next week, but for now I wanted to make sure you were covered with a refresher and some ideas for leftovers to start out.

      Food on a Budget, Healthy, Ingredients, On the Grille, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      1-2-3 chicken soup

      November 4, 2011 /

      Last weekend I was caught by the smell of the rotisserie chickens in the grocery store. Sometimes I can walk right by them and sometimes I shop hungry, which is always bad for the wallet. And it’s especially bad when confronted with especially delicious smelling roasted chicken. I got home and we had chicken sandwiches for lunch and picked it all off the carcass to save for recipes or chicken salad. Sometimes I throw the bones away, but as you should do with a cooked chicken or turkey, I wrapped it up and made soup on Sunday.

      Making homemade chicken soup is so easy, a monkey can do it, especially when you have grocery stores that roast the chicken for you. Anyway, here is how to do it…

      Put the carcass in a large soup pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, while adding chopped carrots and celery and some parsley sprigs. Add some salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, thyme, a bay leaf, and pinches of onion powder and garlic powder. Lower heat and simmer for about two hours, adding more water as necessary and adding more salt and pepper to taste. When cool enough, remove bones, and make sure you leave the meat in the soup (or add in meat you may have taken off the bone earlier). Then cook some noodles or rice separately and add to the cooked soup or in individual bowls to serve. Nothing is better than homemade chicken soup. To me, canned soups are for some reason becoming more and more disgusting. I’m not sure if it’s the preservatives or the weird spices or thickening agents used, but blech. So yeah, make my soup instead!

      Food on a Budget, Grocery stores, Healthy, Ingredients, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      Perky Jerky in prime time

      November 2, 2011 /

      Last year, we reviewed a product called Perky Jerky on the Bullz-Eye blog and then this past January, the company sent us the new Turkey Perky Jerky which was reviewed here on Mikey’s Kitchen. So last night I was watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and as she was talking about the “Best New Thing in the World” and promo-ed it by saying that the best new thing was going to be caffeinated meat, I knew right away what she meant–Perky Jerky.

      Since many of you probably began searching for this product after watching Rachel try to re-create it by stirring Red Bull with a Slim Jim, and then pouring Red Bull into a bowl of jerky like milk on cereal, I thought it might be appropriate to plug the product again. And it’s especially appropriate because Brian Levin, the founder of Perky Jerky, is running the NYC Marathon this weekend dressed up in a coat made of Perky Jerky packages. Now that’s marketing. But having Rachel pimping his product couldn’t have hurt either.

      Anyway, go check this stuff out–it’s tasty and it works!

      Food TV, Healthy, Product Reviews

      Product review: CASCAL fermented soda

      October 27, 2011 /

      On the surface, it sounds kind of funny and maybe not too appetizing–“fermented soda.” And maybe when you realize that CASCAL is a product endorsed by Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods fame, you might think you’re about to taste something strange. Then again, what do you think wine is? Basically fermented grape juice, right? And it’s also worth noting that there are no odd things in this beverage like, oh I don’t know, Mediterranean bug juice or bull testicle extract. They are basically sodas with fruit flavors, but with a couple of twists. For one, some of the fruits are fermented, giving it a half-sour, on its way to being alcohol flavor; and also there are some flower flavors such as rose and magnolia.

      The taste? They are actually really delicious and refreshing. I’m a big fan of flavored, unsweetened seltzer, and since these are not as sweet as soda or even fruit juice infused seltzers, it’s refreshing without coating your mouth with sugar. The brightness of the fermented aspect is nice too without being over the top. My favorites were the Bright Citrus–with flavors of lemongrass, tangerine and pineapple; and the Berry Cassis, with black currant, tangerine and lemon. I wasn’t as crazy about the Ripe Rouge. The cherry and chocolate flavors in that one were nice but were overpowered by the rose flavoring. The same goes for the magnolia in Crisp White, which took over the pear and apricot tastes.

      Zimmern offers advice on which flavors go best with which fare–such as Crisp White going well with egg dishes; and Ripe Rouge a nice complement to barbecued ribs. Thankfully, he doesn’t suggest pairing any of them with some of the weird things he eats on the show. So go try CASCAL in confidence if you are intrigued, and I know you are. The stuff is really interesting and for the most part, mighty tasty.

      Grocery stores, Healthy, Product Reviews, Your Kitchen

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