Category Archives: food related products

Fish recipes to take your Lenten meals over the top

Did your Catholic family eat frozen fish sticks every Friday in Lent when you were a kid? It was the only exposure of any kind to fish that my siblings and I had. I remember fondly the crunchy coating and the non-taste of the little bit of “fish“ inside. The coating and the ketchup and the jarred tartar sauce made an okay dinner option for me.

Nowadays we know we’ve gotta be careful where we get our fish so we don’t over fish and strain our great oceans anymore than they already are. A company called Wild Planet has some really original ideas for using their sustainably fished products that they fish for using the pole and line fishing methods.

Herewith, a couple of Wild Planet recipes that won’t remotely remind you of frozen fish sticks.

Southwest Chipotle Tuna Burgers
Recipe by @crepesandbows

Southwest Chipotle Tuna Burger

Ingredients

2 (5oz) cans Wild Planet Skipjack Wild Tuna
1 Egg
2 tbsp Chipotle pepper paste
2 Green onions, finely chopped
½ cup Shredded sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup Panko breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper to taste
Vegetable or olive oil

Burger Toppings (optional): Mayonnaise, Brioche buns, Lettuce, 1 Avocado, sliced, Pickled onions

Directions

Mix everything together and refrigerate for ~30 minutes to let the flavors develop.  Using a measuring ½ cup, form cakes and gently round with your hands. Preheat the pan to medium heat, add oil and pan sear until each side is crispy golden brown. To serve – add some mayo to brioche bun, top with lettuce, tuna burger, avocado slices, and pickled onions.

Mackerel Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients

3 large butter lettuce leaves
1/2 cup raw beet, cut into matchsticks
1/3 cup grated Granny Smith apple
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
1 (4.4oz) can Wild Planet Wild Mackerel Fillets in EVOO, undrained
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Arrange lettuce leaves on a serving plate. In a bowl, mix together the beets, apple, lemon juice, lemon zest and the reserved olive oil from the can of mackerel. Divide the mixture atop the lettuce leaves and top with mackerel fillets.

Finish with a sprinkle of chopped parsley and freshly ground pepper.

Anchovy Frittatas

Ingredients

6 eggs
1 (4.4oz) can Wild Planet White Anchovies in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, undrained
1 cup chopped kale
1 cup broccoli slaw
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl, whisk eggs and season with salt and pepper. Set aside. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil from the anchovies can and sauté kale and broccoli slaw until beginning to soften, 3-5 minutes. Add tomatoes, sauté another minute. Add eggs to skillet and cook undisturbed for a minute or two. Top with anchovies, place in oven and cook 10-15 minutes or until eggs are fully set and frittata has puffed a bit. Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly and serve.

Go forth and enjoy. You don’t need to confine yourself to Fridays or even to the Lenten season to get the most out of these and other  excellent recipes.

3 new consumable ideas for you

From time to time, we are privileged to review food or drink products that interest us. This week we’re happy to introduce you to a brand of all-natural nut butters, a line of slightly exotic seasonings, and a new line of drink-enhancing cordials for mock- or cocktail time. Love to hear your feedback on any of these you decide to try.

Crazy Richard’s Nut Butters are made without the usual oil, added sugar and salt. Our experience was that the peanut butter tastes more like pure nuts than others we’ve tried. The texture seemed a little drier as well. Crazy Richard’s butters come in traditional jars and in single-serve carry-along or lunchbox pouches. Try it in Extra Creamy or Crunchy Peanut Butter, Almond Butter, or Cashew Butter. The new Peanut Powder is convenient for ramping up protein in smoothies, and for baking or cooking. And they’ve just launched their new frozen snack line, Wholly Rollies – Frozen Protein Balls. But if you decide to buy online, be sure to compare prices. We found dramatically different pricing on different sites. For example, Amazon was three times more than Walmart. So do your due diligence.

Crazy RIchards butter prices - all over the place
Crazy RIchards butter prices – all over the place
Loved the flavor kick from Pereg in this slow cooker crustless pumpkin pie
Loved the flavor kick from Pereg in this slow cooker crustless pumpkin pie

Pereg Natural Foods makes a wide variety of unique food products. We recently agreed to sample a couple of their distinctively different seasoning blends that work either for sweet or savory. We found both of them complex and pleasurable in their own ways. We used the sweet blend as part of our seasoning in our favorite slow-cooker dessert/breakfast/snack recipe for no-crust pumpkin pie. It gave the dish a slightly exotic touch that went perfectly with the normal pumpkin-pie-spice-mix of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves (or allspice). We also liked it quite a bit mixed with cottage cheese sweetened with a good sprinkling of powdered stevia. What an easy way to have an exotic but healthy dessert without cooking!

Plain cottage cheese tasted like dessert with Pereg
Plain cottage cheese tasted like dessert with Pereg

The savory mix gave a little mystery to the slow-cooker chicken we rubbed with it. We highly recommend trying these seasonings if you like to give your cooking a little pizzazz without a lot of work – and without a lot of extra sodium and sugar. Pereg hawaij retails for about $5.99. Available at kosher food stores, independents, health food and many chain stores (ACME, Albertsons). And check out some of their other healthy products like pasta made from quinoa. Love that idea!

Sōm Cordials are hand-crafted with exotic botanicals, tropical fruits, local Oregon berries. They’re called cordials because they’re concentrated. You use them as flavorings to mix zero-proof “mocktails” or to create luxurious regular cocktails without having a closet-full of bottles for special liqueurs. Flavors include Ginger, Cranberry, Tangerine, Oregan Berry, Thai Basil and Pineapple. Conceived and perfected by a chef who loves Thai cuisine. Mix one of these with plain or even flavored sparkling water and you’ve got yourself a complex, layered treat. If you want a kick, they mix beautifully with real spirits, too. We did one with 3 parts raspberry-lime sparkling water, 1 part Tub gin (really good gin, by the way) and 1 part Cranberry. Wow. You’d have thought we had a professional mixologist hiding in the kitchen. Read more here.

Reviews: 2 food-related products

We are sometimes offered samples in the hope we’ll review them, so we try to accept samples of only products we think our readers might be interested in. They’re usually food and drink, but sometimes they’re simply related to food and drink, like today’s products (occasionally they’re even more random than that). One is a floss-bristled toothbrush that’s also antimicrobial. The other is a new type of food storage container we are pretty excited about called Wellslock. We wrote about these once already but thought they were worth mentioning again.

Doctorr Plotka's flossing-bristle toothbrush
Doctorr Plotka’s flossing-bristle toothbrush

Doctor Plotka’s Mouthwatchers is a group promoting the toothbrush invented by a dentist that has flossing bristles that clean better on and around your teeth. Those bristles are also infused with silver which they say makes them naturally antimicrobial – meaning they eliminate 99% of bacteria that grows on bristles between uses. The net effect for users of the new brush, according to their marketing department, is an opportunity to have better overall health by not reintroducing harmful bacteria into your body via your toothbrush. They couldn’t direct us to any scientific studies backing this up or any way for the consumer to see it in action, so feel free to take this claim with a grain of salt.

But those flossing bristles do seem to clean teeth better than any of the brushes we’ve been using lately – grocery-store varieties and the ones that come free from the dentist. We like the feel of this brush when it’s cleaning – it seems more thorough than most toothbrushes these days that are being made with fewer and fewer bristles. The Doctor Plotka’s brush bristles are also made of polyester, which they say will outlast the nylon ones on most traditional brushes. Can’t say for sure on that because we haven’t been using this one long enough, but we did learn something new. Their marketing materials note that your toothbrush durability is based on times you brush. SO, if you only brush once a day, yours should last six months instead of three!

We are fans. And if you try it yourself, they offer a 100% guarantee that if you don’t like it, you get your money back. You can get ’em in a two-pack on Amazon for $9.99.

Wellslock comes in cool sizes
Wellslock comes in cool sizes

As for Wellslock, these containers boast a double-snap tab that, in one move, creates a watertight seal that really works. And the plastic of the containers themselves (not the lids) is nearly crystal clear, like glass, so you don’t have to guess what’s inside. We particularly appreciate that they come in some unusual sizes – for example, one deep enough to accommodate a big avocado with just a small section removed (normally something we’re not able to fit into a plastic container and have to put in a plastic bag), or a big chunk of fresh orange or of red onion or any clunky piece of fruit or veggie. We use one for our cut lemons and limes, which we tend to have always on hand. Once you’ve identified a size that fits something you regularly use and/or refrigerate, you may, like us, tend to want to re-use that one for the same thing each time. It’s like buying one of those containers-made-just-for-half-an-onion, except it doesn’t have to be for that. It’s nice having options!

We enthusiastically recommend these Wellslock containers. Safe for dishwasher, microwave and freezer. Start with the smaller 14-piece mixed-size Wellslock storage set ($27.47 on Amazon). Try ’em in the bathroom, or sewing room, or craft room, or kitchen, and see where your imagination takes you. P.S. The taupe-tinted lids look classy.