Jun 28 2012

Leftovers: Guacamole

Posted on June 28, 2012 by thepoli3

Nothings worse than having leftovers that “go bad” fairly quickly and, sadly, guacamole is definitely one of those items. But fear not- there is something you can do with your day-old guacamole so as not to waste those precious & expensive avocados.

Seven Layer Dip

It’s easy to make, vegetarian, and can even been vegan (if altered a bit) so it is sure to please many picky palates. Best of all, since your fresh, homemade, guacamole is sandwiched between two layers, it extends it’s fridge life a bit. Hubs and I enjoyed ours for a good 3 days until I felt it was time to throw out any leftovers.

Now I’m sure there are many delicious Seven Layer Dip recipes out there but this one is my all-time favorite – the only change I make is that I put the guacamole layer on top of the refried beans layer, then top that layer with the sour cream mixture. This way the guacamole is between two other heavy layers, which keeps it away from any air exposure and stops it from rotting so quickly.

Your wallet and tastebuds will thank you!

Use that day-old guacamole in your Seven Layer Dip recipe to extend it’s fridge-life!

Delicious!

-J

Jun 26 2012

Pinterest Tested: Mashed Potatoes with Bacon & Cheddar

Posted on June 26, 2012 by thepoli3

I hate when that happens.

I had my doubts about the many recipes floating around on Pinterest when I first signed up and saw so many photos of skillfully photographed food being re-pinned over and over on my feed. I wondered ‘So it looks good but does it actually taste good’? After making a few ~~disasters~~ recipes I soon realized the answer. I’m sure you have experienced the same. In order to save you time and money we will be testing out some of the most popular Pinterest recipes every so often to give you the lowdown.

Lets begin… a while back I pinned this lovely looking photo of Mashed Potatoes with Bacon & Cheddar. As I was making hot dogs (one of my husband’s favorites… such a refined palate, I know) one day I decided this would be a good side item. So I whipped it up and here is the photo to prove it, followed by my rating below:

Overall Rating: 6 (scale: 1-10)

Cost: $$ (scale: $-$$$)

Difficulty Level: Moderate (scale: beginner, moderate, intermediate, advanced)

Thoughts: I thought it was pretty good. Not as good as our Mom’s mashed potatoes, but pretty good for mashed potatoes with bacon & cheese in it! Hubs hated it. He didn’t even finish the scoop on his plate, which he usually does. Sadly, that means this dish will not be making an appearance in our house again. There was an entire pack of bacon, about 2 bags of shredded cheese (I added more to please the hubby), a block of cream cheese, and decent amount of sour cream in this, so it had a lot of ingredients that are decently priced if you don’t get your money’s worth out of them, which happens around here when hubs refuses to eat things.

Do you have any recipes you have pinned & tested recently? How did they turn out? Also, do you have any Pinterest inspired suggestions you’d like us to try out first? Leave a comment and let us know!

- J

Jun 24 2012

The “Real Best” Guacamole

Posted on June 24, 2012 by thepoli3

Summer is in full swing! And with 4th of July coming up, we hope we can help you be the life of the party with the BEST guacamole dip!

The contenders:

Avocado.com’s Best Guacamole Ever- Winner of 2010 California Avocado Best Guacamole Contest Best Tasting Category Winner, David Vaughan
Alton Brown’s Guacamole
Allrecipe’s Guacamole

The nitty-gritty:

Each guacamole was scored on a scale of 1-10 (where 1= that’s food? and 10= the best guacamole that has ever entered my mouth) for overall score, the boyfriend/husband test, and the leftover test. We also provide other comments.

Avocado.com’s Best Guacamole Ever

Overall score: 8.5

The boyfriend/husband test: 8.5

The leftover test: 8.5

Comments: This wasn’t too hard to make, and it was really good! However, next time I make it I’d modify the recipe a little bit. Specifically, I’d use less lime juice and more onion, jalapeno, cumin, and cayenne pepper. What is shown in the picture is only half the recipe, so make sure you are hungry for a lot of guacamole, or have at least a few guests! However, it did refrigerate well (I covered it with plastic wrap), so you may be able to reuse this for the next couple of days.

Alton Brown’s Guacamole

Overall score: 9

The boyfriend/husband test: 9

The leftover test: 9

Comments: I thought this was really good! I liked it a lot and it was very easy to make! My husband doesn’t like guacamole in general but he liked this one. I wouldn’t make any changes next time either! It’s perfect!

Allrecipes Guacamole

Overall score: 10

The boyfriend/husband test: 10

The leftover test: 9

Comments: OMG… THIS… WAS… SO… GOOD!!! This was literally the best guacamole we have ever had! It was sooo delicious- the flavors went together perfectly, I think because I used fresh cilantro, as opposed to the one I usually use from my spice rack. Also, the particular tomatoes in this recipe are perfect for guacamole, who knew a tomato could change so much? The only thing I would change next time is to cut down on the cilantro, since it was fresh, it was very overpowering, and for people like me who don’t love cilantro, I could taste it in every bite. But otherwise this was amazing and will definitely become a regular around here!

The winner:

For your next party the dip to bring is…

Allrecipe’s Guacamole

Special Diets:

While we can’t guarantee the results, here are some ideas you can use to customize the winning guacamole to your dietary needs:

Gluten-free: This should be inherently gf, but double-check everything just in case!
Vegan: This should be inherently vegan, but double-check everything just in case!
Vegetarian: It already is!
Lower fat: It’s commonly said that the fat in avocados is good for you! But, if you must lower the fat, consider this adaptation.
Lower sugar/calories: There already is no added sugar!

Leftovers:

If you happen to have extra guac after making this, consider keeping it fresh by including it in this:

Seven layer dip

Jun 16 2012

The “Real Best” Salad

Posted on June 16, 2012 by thepoli3

With all the unhealthy things we have been testing lately, we figured it was time for something a little more attuned to bathing suit season. So, give it up for the “real best” salad!

The contenders:

Allrecipes Strawberry Spinach Salad

Allrecipes Jamie’s Cranberry Spinach Salad

Allrecipes Roquefort Pear Salad

The nitty-gritty:

Each salad was scored on a scale of 1-10 (where 1= that’s food? and 10= the best salad that has ever entered my mouth) for overall score, the boyfriend/husband test, and the leftover test. We also provide other comments.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

Overall score: 6

The boyfriend/husband test: 6

The leftover test: 4

Comments: This salad wasn’t bad, but there just wasn’t enough in it. There was a ton of spinach, and only strawberries and a tiny amount of silvered almonds as substance? Maybe the dressing was supposed to make up for it or something, but it wasn’t even that good. Jennifer picked the recipes this time, and I think she purposely gave me (Megan) the most boring, expensive, and fattening (see: the dressing) salad. To convince myself to bring this to work for lunch the next day, I added pecans and used a honey mustard dressing (side note: I highly recommend Bolthouse Farms dressings that are made with Greek yogurt!), and it was a little better. The salad holds up great for a few days (and I would know, because most of the leftovers sat in my fridge, uneaten, for quite a few days after), but the dressing does NOT do well in the fridge.

Jamie’s Cranberry Spinach Salad

Overall score: 7.5

The boyfriend/husband test: 8

The leftover test: 7

Comments: This salad was okay… I think it could have been much better with a raspberry-walnut dressing rather than the one in the recipe. It did taste much better chilled the next day but you have to make sure to keep the dressing separated from the spinach leaves otherwise they will wilt. Overall this is a very healthy salad with a little bit of extra punch to please a picky eater (i.e. husband thought it was actually really good!) but for a frequent salad eater, this is something I may make again, modified.

Roquefort Pear Salad

Overall score: 9

The boyfriend/husband test: 9

The leftover test: 8

Comments: To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to like this, but it was soo good! Even my husband loved it! Side note: I added red onions for color.

The winner:

Roquefort Pear Salad !

Special Diets:

While we can’t guarantee the results, here are some ideas you can use to customize the winning salad to your dietary needs:

Gluten-free: While this looks to be inherently gluten-free, double-check that all the ingredients are, in fact, gluten-free because you never know!
Vegan: Leave out the cheese.
Vegetarian: It already is!
Lower fat: Use less or omit cheese, avocado, and pecans. (Although, the kind of fat that’s in avocado and in nuts is said to be good for you.. but I can’t say the same for the cheese!)
Lower sugar/calories: Save 1/4 cup of sugar by not caramelizing the pecans.

Jun 9 2012

The “Real Best” Yellow Cake

Posted on June 9, 2012 by thepoli3

Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was asalted.

….I had to open with a really corny joke, in order to make the following one-liner funnier by comparison: Get ready to find out which yellow cake “took the cake”!

HA! I’ve been waiting to say that all week.

The contenders:

Joy of Baking’s “Yellow Butter Cake”

Smitten Kitchen’s “Best Birthday Cake”

Allrecipes: “David’s Yellow Cake”

The nitty-gritty:

Each cake was scored on a scale of 1-10 (where 1= that’s food? and 10= the best yellow cake that has ever entered my mouth) for overall score, the boyfriend/husband test, and the leftover test. We also provide other comments.

Joy of Baking’s “Yellow Butter Cake“

Overall score (cake): 1

Overall score (frosting): 4

The boyfriend/husband test (cake): 1

The boyfriend/husband test (frosting): 1

The leftover test (cake): 1

The leftover test (frosting): 3

Comments on the cake: I kid you not… cake is my FAVORITE food. In fact, yellow butter cake with chocolate frosting is literally my favorite. You could not imagine how excited I was to have an excuse to make an entire cake of my favorite flavor… even while on a diet. I figured if I had 1 piece a day I could still semi diet the rest of the day. I had it all planned out. Then all my brilliant plans went to you-know-what. Why? THE CAKE SUCKED. Not even “eh.. it’s okay…” sucked. More like, “did I really just waste 3 hours on a Friday night making this disaster?” sucked. I am not even a little bit exaggerating when I say this was the absolute worst cake I have ever had. Even worse than those cakes you have at weddings when people pick horrible flavors because they think it’s fancy. I have no clue how anyone could have said this was the best cake ever… my only conclusion is because maybe its an old recipe… and people didn’t have good cake back then. Who knows? This cake was WAY too sweet- not buttery at all. It reminded me more of white cake than yellow cake… but I could have probably had a better white cake any day then this concoction. Note to self: if you are ever on a diet again and crave cake… make this exact recipe for guaranteed weight loss results.

Comments on the frosting: The frosting was much better than the cake itself… but that is only in comparison to the cake. I have had way better frostings from the jar in the baking aisle. Sad face.

Smitten Kitchen’s “Best Birthday Cake”

Overall score (cake): 8.5

Overall score (frosting): 7

The boyfriend/husband test (cake): 6

The boyfriend/husband test (frosting): 3

The leftover test (cake): 7

The leftover test (frosting): 7

Comments on the cake: Smitten Kitchen was on a mission to create a delicious homemade yellow cake, and I think she did it. This was the best yellow cake I’ve ever made from scratch (granted, I haven’t made that many). Mike, however, thought the cake was just an average yellow cake– not bad, but not the most amazing yellow cake ever. Sighhh. Boys just don’t understand how hard it is to make a good yellow cake that doesn’t involve a box mix! On that note, while this cake was really good, it wasn’t over-the-moon-amazing.

I was nervous about using buttermilk because I’ve used it in another famous yellow cake recipe I’ve made before, and the cake ended up tasting like a mix between cornbread and buttermilk biscuits… Both delicious food items, but not what you want to taste when you bite into a chocolate-frosted slice of cake! Luckily, that did not happen with this cake!

The cake didn’t hold up amazing in the fridge, hence the lower leftover score. Even after just one day it was slightly hard. Have you ever had a homemade cupcake that was like, 5 days old? It was similar to that texture, but after only one day. But somehow, still yummy!

Comments on the frosting: I used the chocolate sour cream frosting that Smitten Kitten suggests. I thought it was fine; a pretty average chocolate frosting. However, Mike was NOT a fan. He did not like the sour-creaminess at. all. He did say it wasn’t as bad the next day, but he still wasn’t a fan. Next time I will look for a really fudgy chocolate frosting recipe instead.(Side note: Has anyone ever tried Publix Bakery’s chocolate fudge frosting?! Seriously so so delicious, and if I ever find a copycat recipe of it my life may be complete!)

Allrecipes: “David’s Yellow Cake“

Overall score: 10

The boyfriend/husband test: 8.5

The leftover test: 9

Comments: Some of the reviews on Allrecipes said that this cake was dry, but it wasn’t! I thought it was really moist (side note: I hate that word!). This really was the best yellow cake I’ve ever had! I would definitely make this again! Since the recipe didn’t provide a frosting recipe, I just used a whipped chocolate frosting.

The winner:

Allrecipe’s David’s Yellow Cake!

Special Diets:

While we can’t guarantee the results, here are some ideas you can use to customize the winning yellow cake to your dietary needs:

Gluten-free: Use a gluten-free flour (and don’t forget to check that all your other ingredients are, in fact, gluten free!)
Vegan: Use a vegan butter substitute, and a vegan egg substitute. Double check that the rest of your ingredients are, in fact, vegan! I’m not sure how this would turn out, since eggs seem to be integral to yellow cake, but if you try it, or have another suggestion, leave a comment and let us know!
Lower fat: Try substituting some of the butter (about half) with sugar free applesauce. Use skim milk.
Lower sugar/calories: Substitute some or all of the sugar for Splenda® (see conversion info here), Stevia (see conversion info here), or xylitol (measures 1:1 for sugar). Some people do not like how these taste, though, so proceed with caution!