Yogurt is really tough to beat when you’re looking for a delicious, yet healthy treat.  And the other day I was looking on all the wonderful flavors and decided to give Stonyfield’s © Mango Honey a go. .. That’s really a combination you don’t see all that often but doesn’t it sound like one of those naturally good parings?

And of course it’s Stonyfield©, a really good company that’s located only about an hour away. It is of course organic and has the USDA Organic Seal to prove it. And it’s also low fat which someone like me who’s gained a few holiday pounds can really appreciate.

So it’s healthy and good for the planet as well as our bodies. But taste.. the taste was very nice. The first thing was to give it a gentle stir until ultimate creamy goodness was achieved. .. And this come across in the silky texture and creamy mouthfeel. .. The flavor was this wonderful combination of yogurt with a clear but somewhat subtle backdrop of mango and honey. Really good levels of flavor with the yogurt taking center stage and being supported by the mango and honey. Which is what I prefer. Mango flavored Yogurt not Yogurt flavored Mango if you know what I mean.

In all this is highly recommended. It’s got it all. Health, an organic pedigree and wonderful flavor.

Related Posts:

• First Video “Recipe”: Strawberries & Yogurt
• Blueberry Yogurt Instead of Blueberry Flavored Yogurt, There’s A Huge Difference…
• Smoothie-Theo’s Creamy, Delicious & Faux Decadent (Blueberry, Strawberry & Pineapple Flavor)

We’re doing a three for the day blog posts. One for Organic Test Kitchen and then one each for Theodore Richard’s Food Blog & En Coffee’s Coffee Blog. I got to tell you I’m feeling burnt out about now. … But anyway, there’s still time to get some great gifts for your whole food eating friends. Here’s some ideas, nothing earth shattering, and you’ve probably already had these in mind.

Buy them some new and or exotic spices that you think they’ll use. For example, maybe you could go with a new type of peppercorns, perhaps a vanilla bean or maybe some whole nutmeg?

And then there’s the foods that they may use every day but unfortunately don’t buy organic. For some foods, as you know, this makes a Big Difference!

And of course you can go prepackaged, professionally made foods. I have got to tell you, this Almond Anise Biscotti from the Berkshire Co-Op in Great Barrington, MA was incredible.

Hope you, your family and friends have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!      Like this post? Please share with a friend.

Related Posts:

• Last Minute Foodie Christmas Gifts from TheodoreRichard.com/FoodBlog
• Last Minute Coffee Christmas Gifts from EnCoffee.com/CoffeeBlog
• Review of Teddie Organic Peanut Butter, A Step Up From Just Natural Peanut Butter

With the weather starting to cool down here in New England we thought we’d purchase a box of Nature’s Path Toaster Pastries. The Apple Cinnamon Flavor sounded good so we went with it.

What we found is a Organic Product that offered convenience and real fruit while at the same time sparing us from the “not-good” aspects of chemical residues. However, how would this processed product with no preservatives hold up in comparison to the well known chemicalized versions?

First, the packaging. These guys came in what looked like the same foil wrapping as the chemicalized ones. This is a plus in my book since you know that any low tech paper wrapping just couldn’t do the job.

Second, appearance. …. Well.. as they use to say “a face that only a mother could love…on payday”. These guys I’m sorry to say are just plain ugly. Man are they ugly. However, they toast up similar to the non-organic version, smell great and let’s face it the non-organic toaster pastries wouldn’t win any beauty contests either. Here’s what they look like pre-toaster.

Once we had these guys toasted they did as mentioned smell very good. Taste. …Very nice for a convenience product. The crust had a nice flour flavor and a bit chewy as you expect from a toaster pastry. For us, the frosting added a nice touch of sweetness without being over the top. And the cinnamon played nicely off the apple flavor from the center. A lot of good mellow flavors going on with a satisfyingly texture and mouthfeel that makes you want  to luxuriate over this while sipping your coffee or tea.

In summary, we enjoyed this product and felt the quality was superb for a ready to eat food.  This, of course, was only enhanced with the knowledge that we were only eating food and nothing but the food since there were no chemical residues hiding in the mix.

Related Posts:

• Cultured Organic Butter. A Review of Organic Valley Cultured Butter
• Review of Costco’s Kirkland Organic Salsa
• Review: So Delicious Organic Dairy-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Frozen Dessert

So let’s take a look at something radical. Peanut butter made from Organically Grown Peanuts (that is, just peanuts without chemicals of any kind sprayed on them) and sea salt. It’s as pure and simple as that. This is of course is in contrast to the more mainstream peanut butter. For instance, the local store carries a Creamy Peanut Butter.. Sounds good and they are extremely proud of it being Gluten-Free (displayed in big letters). However the devil is in the small print which of course is the list of ingredients. This stuff contains: Peanuts, Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Rapeseed, Cottonseed, Soybean), Dextrose, Salt, Molasses, Monoglycerides. … Huh … Well I guess I’ll be a radical and go with the chemical free peanuts and sea salt option..

So one of the first things you’ll have to do is to stir all the oil back in as it would have separated itself out (that’s why they add monoglycerides, keeps separation from happening .. I’ll pass, just give me the real food). The key to doing this is a stiff wide blade butter knife and just taking your time. There’s no rush. The second thing to remember is to relax. it doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect. Good enough is good enough with peanut butter.

Now the taste… I guess I’ll fall back to a common description used in this blog. .. Bright. Clean.. really peanutty with a nice & oily mouth-feel. When compared against that chemical mish-mash known as store brand creamy as described above… Well, the store brand chemicalized PB was sort of bland and my taste buds seemed a little out of focus. There just wasn’t that sharp bang of the strong peanutty flavor. … Would I have noticed it if I never compared? Probably not. But would I notice it if I never got a good glass of  wine or a cup of fresh roast coffee?  Same thing. Live a little and bring some additional quality into your life already.

So much for pleasing the palate. But as you know, Olive Oil is one of those rare foods that in addition to being fantastic also has this amazing list of  health benefits. Whole Foods does a good job in summarizing these on their olive oil page here. … And why organic? … Well you might want to check this out. .. Is this something we should worry about or not? … Who knows?.. But, back to flavor for a sec,  I just compared the Wild Harvest Organic Olive Oil to a leading brand of Extra Virgin Non-Organic I had laying around. Surprisingly, the Non-Organic was actually more aromatic, however,the Organic Olive Oil had, for me, superior flavor. And flavor of course is something you can really put your finger on as a definite reason to recommend this product. I know it’s a little more expensive.. Just make coffee at home for a day instead of going out and you’ll be in decent olive oil for a month.

Related Posts:

• Organic French Vinaigrette Dressing
• Taste Test: Revision..Conventional Extra Virgin Olive Oil vs. BJ’s Earth’s Pride Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Storing Olive Oil
• Organic Olive Oil Spiced Up With Some Heat

So I’m told that they are the only USDA Certified Organic Coffee Roaster in New Hampshire. Thank God we have at least one up there. And, being a processor you need to do more than just purchase organic green coffee beans. As part of the organic standard they are required to be certified USDA Organic by undergoing an annual audit.  … But the fact that they are organic means more than just producing awesome aromas and having to close your eyes while savoring their blends. Much more. You see, for coffee the environmental and health  considerations are ratcheted up a notch from where they usually are. I know, I know, coffee as compared to other organic foods has low residual levels of pesticides since it’s the internal bean that’s consumed (and some feel that the high temps of the roasting process destroys anything left… although I haven’t

seen the before and after chemical analysis to know if this is true or just a combination of speculation & wishful thinking). The big issue really is that coffee is basically a third world crop where growers tend to raise their families in intimate proximity to the farm. Also, the rules for pesticide and herbicide usage can get pretty loose and fancy-free in some of these countries. .. So.. we have a direct exposure issue and then there’s the run off … and then there’s the potential drinking water supply issues etc etc. Definite issues in every case? No. A definite concern? Absolutely. .. This just isn’t a visual I feel comfortable with. Anyway, with coffee, more so than with most products, I feel that I’m doing the world as well as myself a favor by going organic.

So much for the “malarkey theory” of organic food.  … Now what about the the coffee in and of itself? First, we need to know how fresh is fresh and does it make a difference? Well this morning I sauntered down to the corporate coffee cafe and took a peek at a pound of French Roast. Noted that the expiration date is a mere seven months from now. This of course would make Justin and Emeran just about pass out (my father would say what’s the rush). These guys, like every coffee connoisseur, states that after a week forget about it, it’s morphing into instant.  … A week vs. seven months. … But they do qualify this statement by saying that the coffee changes, evolves, as soon as roasting is complete. First, in a universally good way.. you need to give the newly born roasted beans about 24 hours to degas and otherwise settle down before they can be truly appreciate in their full coffee flavored purity. But they continue to change, age and as a general rule, get as my old friend Ray Kavanaugh would say, “not-good”. But like anything there are exceptions .. Justin mentioned that one coffee he found tends to become better with age to his palette.. but I doubt he was talking seven months worth of aging.

In addition to these post birth from the roaster issues, there are also considerations beyond the organic pedigree for the prenatal green coffee beans. For instance, Emeran mentioned how the industry is continuing to evolve where in the past it was generally assumed that a one year shelf life for the green beans were acceptable where now things are beginning to turn where three months is starting to become the more prevalent standard of excellence. And then of course there’s the trend towards micro-lots where they will separate the better grade high altitude coffees form the the other “not so good” beans instead of bagging everything together was was traditionally done. … And, even the bags themselves. Where jute tended to be used exclusively is now giving way to the use of so called “GrainPro” Bags  which help maintain freshness.

But getting in the finest beans (Emeran generally looks at cupping data to make her choices…BTW her staff recommended the Brazil Blend for it’s ashy notes.. Awesome! So good I finished the bag before taking the earlier pic) and keeping them fresh is only part of the beautifully complex world of coffee roasting. Since coffee is a natural product it will obviously not only vary by grower and farm but also season to season from such things as a particular year’s unique climate (here wine has the upper hand where a vintage from 2007 could be excellent … with green coffee, after three months… not a pretty picture). So the raw materials of the roast, the green beans, are a constantly moving target and  it takes a bit of artistry to combine and roast them to achieve a consistent and almost decadent product. Making a low end product is easy.. High end is hard. And high high end with ingredient variations like coffee… now we’re starting to drift into artistry. And I’m not being dramatic. It literally takes years of apprenticeship before one is considered a Master Roaster. In fact, one business in the next town over makes it known to new roasters that they would like to see at least a ten year commitment to the company before starting out. … These are important people you want in your bunker .. And here’s a small snippet as to how they go about their craft. .. When fresh beans arrive Eneran & Justin will roast small batches and after a day taste test the coffee. Depending upon the attributes found they will make their adjustments in order to produce a consistent flavor and aroma profile for the various blends.  And for those not yet introduced to the world of coffee tasting.. there’s an entire vernacular to learn and understand … they’ll mention taste notes such as chocolatey or blueberry (that’s right blueberry) … if you’ve ever heard a wine tasting described you’ll know what I mean. According to Emeran coming into a coffee shop and asking for French Roast is like going into a bakery and asking for bread. .. Indeed. .. A word of caution to the uninitiated. Get into the world of freshly roasted coffee at your own risk. By this I mean that you really don’t know how bad your current on the shelf for seven months coffee is. But once you learn, it will ruin you for life.  .. Take my father. He has been drinking this horrible mass marketed $2.99 a pound stuff forever. .. And he’s happy with it. It’s a disaster but he doesn’t know any better so he’s satisfied. .. That’s one hand. … On the other, however, is that I really don’t see him savoring his coffee. He just chokes it down and calls it a day. A nice piece of home-baked chocolate cake … this he savors.. 

So bottom line is that if you haven’t as yet taken the plunge I highly recommend that do and pick up some really fresh roasted coffee. It has a depth and complexity you’ll never find in the cheapo or even the corporate specialty coffees. Fresh is best in coffee, it truly is. And looking at the price, I can buy Corporate French Roast for about $11 a pound or purchase freshly roasted beans from someone such as A&E for just about the same money (with shipping & handling it may or may not be pricier, and if so, not by much). To me this is a total no-brainer. Superior product for the same to a few cents more per cup, no pesticide issues, feeling the love, etc etc. .. And if you were wondering, my father did ask Justin (seriously he did) if he got his coffee from the poo of some animal (if you don’t know what I’m talking about rent the movie ”The Bucket List” or read this New York Times Article, BTW Justin said no) …  I think he meant this as a good thing, a gourmet thing, but who knows. He has been known to slide in a zinger under the radar to avoid detection.  . .

Hope you enjoyed this post and that it gets a few people interested in the Fresh Roast Revolution. If you think this is any good please pass it along to your friends or family members who insist of torturing you with the black coffee swill of the past. Spread the word about Organic Test Kitchen.com  …  Best, Theo

Well depending upon where you are (the Organic Test Kitchen blog reaches 25 countries around the world as of this writing) you may be use to the standard factory production butter. This is especially true if you live here in the USA. If this is all you’ve ever eaten then you’re probably OK with it, but I seriously doubt that you’re excited about it. Well, check this product out and prepare to get excited.

First, this is a cultured butter. And basically what that means is that the butter is made from fermented cream. This actually sours it and produces truly incredible taste notes in butters. And of course, the typical non-organic production butters have such a lack of character that “natural flavors” must be added to make them palatable. … That alone is a red flag to keep me away from the stuff. .. Second, this is a European Style Butter. Basically, this is a term that refers to the fact that good butters in Europe have a significantly higher butterfat content than in the USA. Typical American butters will contain about 80% butterfat which coincidentally they have to contain in order to be legally sold as butter over here. So, as expected, they will make the product as cheaply as possible and stay as close to this minimum as they can. European butters on the other hand tend to run about 84-85% butterfat providing a creamier, richer product. The Organic Valley Butter has 84% butterfat. … nice.

In writing this I’ve come to realize that we need to do a primer on butter in the future. But for the purposes of this review we’ll focus on how good this product really is. You’ll first meet this butter in the market where you’ll notice that it is sold in an 8 oz foil wrapped blocks. Percentage-wise the price is greater than that of regular or even other common organic butters. But as you know percentage differences in low cost items only amounts to a buck or so. But we did keep this in mind and one of the questions we needed to answer was “Is is worth it?”.

On the way back to the kitchen we swung around to Abraham’s in town to pick up some bagels to see how this butter really performs under mission-critical circumstances. … First, we unpacked everything and opened up the foil revealing a good looking but not over the top yellow appearance. In short, it looked real. As an aside, the producer informs us that the color or this butter will vary with the seasons. In the Summer when the cows are in pasture the cream will contain a higher beta-carotene content leading to a deeper yellow color than during the Winter when the cows are eating stored forage. This is the difference from a product that is “grown” rather than manufactured in a cookie cutter fashion. … Anyway, we then cut some thin slices and spread them on the cutting board to soften. It seemed a bit more challenging than the typical stick to cut. .. This is probably due to a combination of the rectangular block configuration and the higher butterfat content.   … Anyway, a bagel was then sliced and toasted while the butter was warming up…

Show time..  By the time the bagel was ready the butter softening wasn’t complete so we let the bagel do the rest of the work by placing the butter on it’s warm golden surface (totally reliving this experience). .. Appearance-wise the butter began to glisten and form pools of creamy happiness. .. Taste. At a new level. Words that come to mind are wonderful, creamy, buttery, homemade.

So in summary, this product definitely gets the Organic Test Kitchen “Pure Goodness” Award. It really is that good. And, really worth the price. This is now our go-to butter for topping breads and warm veggies. For now we’ll still keep with the organic stick butter for baking since it will save a few cents. But we’ll be running comparison tests and if this butter provides a superior baked product we’ll switch it for this as well. … I’m really interested to see the effect of the cultured flavor notes and the higher butterfat content. They claim that it produces a flakier pastry. Maybe they’re right, but the proof is in the baking. I’ll let you know.

Other bites. .. Being organic this product is made with no artificial this or “natural flavor additive” that. They are also earth friendly as we would expect from an organic product. In fact, they have a nice statistic on their website stating that “Your weekly purchase of 8oz European Style Cultured Butter prevents …. 10 lbs synthetic nitrogen (and) 2.3 oz synthetic herbicides & pesticides” In our opinion this is nice to keep off of the planet and out of our bodies. .. Other notes. This butter won first place at the 2009 American Cheese Society Awards (.. who knew there was an American Cheese Society anyway?). .. We think that if you try this product you will be pleased. A link to the producer’s website is here.

And as a final note, hopefully you’ve notice that this blog up is being taken up a notch. Just launched a flickr site (link to my photostream is here) that will house the photography, will be upgrading the format of this blog, have the twitter thing started (link here) and will be starting a new blog devoted solely to good cooking & baking that will be announced when ready. Anyway, the purpose of all this is that I hope you will be getting more out of this. If so, please share this blog with your friends. With even more readers I would like to take this full time so more content can be generated and hopefully more people seeing the reasons and benefits to converting to an organic lifestyle. For themselves and for the planet. Thanks.

What exactly is the Chemex? Well if you look at it closly and remember your high school chemistry class it is basically a modified Erlenmeyer Flask. Apparently, a Mr. Peter J. Schlumbohm developed the thing. He took the flask design and added a funnel area to allow air to sneak past the coffee filter and vent as it filled with brewed coffee. Very simple, very basic. … I love it.

And one the the things I love best is that it’s all glass. I have done testing and no matter if water contacts a heating tube of a drip coffee maker, stainless steel or whatever it leaves an aftertaste which in all likelihood are oxides which naturally form. Anyway the cleanest way to handle water to brew coffee is with glass (that is Borosilicate Glass designed to handle high temperatures, otherwise it will shatter and potentially cause significant injury from broken glass and scalding water…don’t go there, use only glass designed for the purpose).

Anyway with the Chemex you simply place a paper filter with organic coffee grinds on top, pour the heated water on top of the grinds, it drips through and wah-lah. .. Coffee, only the coffee and nothing but the coffee. No this or that muscling in to mess up the taste. .. One tip though .. right before adding the filter and brewing I add some heated tap water swish it around and toss it to preheat the Chemex. I find that this helps maintain the hot coffee temperature which I like, otherwise the cold Chemex will suck some of the heat from the brewed coffee. .. A bit more work than a coffee maker but worth it. Enjoy!

 First, the price for a 65 oz. jar was $5.66. Nice. .. Especially when you look at how much those small jars of the non-organic salsas cost.

 Next, ingredients. This stuff contains (all these are organic) .. tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, tomato paste, cilantro, sugar, vinegar, cumin, garlic and cayenne. It also contains water and citric acid. By the way, the organic ingredients just listed were by order of amount contained in the Organic Salsa. Water was in a lesser amount than the tomatoes, jalapenos & onions. That’s Nice. .. Should be a good thick salsa.

 Opened it up and you’ll find that it really is a nice thick and chunky salsa and not some watered down soupy thing. .. Taste… kicks butt. A really nice and full flavored salsa. And the type we reviewed was the medium and it was in no way over the top in terms of heat. And if you want to spice it up with seasoning and fresh peppers you can easily knock yourself out by using this as a base to make your own signature organic salsa (… a good idea for a future post).

 This stuff also is impressive nutritionally. For a full two tablespoons it has only 10 calories (however, beware, it does have 220 mg of sodium if you are watching this). Why does this impress me? Because you are getting a great bang for the calorie in terms of taste enhancement of your dishes.

 Now I use this on everything. Nothing against ketchup but for my taste it’s totally lame in comparison. Soupy, nothing going on. Now with the Costco Organic Salsa,  I put it on my egg white omelettes and many other dishes. It not only tastes great, but I’m eating a nice variety of things and that my friends is definitely a good thing. I’m thinking that this is a product you want to have on hand as BBQ Season starts.

 So, in summary, thumbs up for this Salsa with low cost, organic ingredients and great taste.

 Anyway, after the run and a quick dip in the ocean I sat down with my puzzle and cakes. .. And the first thing I noticed was that these non-conventional ones were thicker. They were also pretty pale looking vs the organic ones which have a nice brown freckling. Took a quick look at the ingredients just in case .. “Whole Grain Brown Rice, Salt.” OK, at least no names that take a degree in chemistry to pronounce. Then I took bite. … Not-Good. My teeth crushed through this Styrofoam-like texture. Like I said, Not-Good…

 So I saved a few to bring back home to do a fair side by side comparison (it was easy to not eat them all). Here’s what I found…

• The Organic Rice Cake (Lundberg) had as mentioned a specked color that struck me as less processed when compared to the lily white conventional brand.
• Confirmed that the Lundberg was a little bit thinner.
• Bit into both. The Lundberg Rice Cake had some mass to it. There was something there. It also had much more of a crunch than the popular conventional brand.
• The flavor of the Lundberg was clearly superior. It had an interesting and pleasing combination of flavor notes vs the conventional which had only one flavor … bland. The Lundberg also had a nice salt note going on while not being really salty. Checked the ingredients .. Sea Salt vs Conventional Salt.. figures.
• Noted that the size of the individual rice puffs in the Lundberg were smaller than the conventional. Aha! Less “poofing”! Meaning that the conventional had more air and less rice! To confirm checked the weights.. A Lundberg had a weight of 18.5 g per cake. The conventional 9.0 g per cake. So the conventional was all air and less than half the rice.. This explains why they are thicker and also why their texture is like an insulating material (both contain maximum air)

 You know, two of the most favorite ingredients of the conventional food crowd are air and water. Both are incredibly cheap and both give the consumer less for what he paid for. So we give Lundberg the Organic Test Kitchen Seal of Approval for both Quality and Nutrition. It not only gives you more of what you want but also excludes the nasties such as chemical residues that you want to stay away from.

 Spread the word and share the post! Some related links are:

• Lundberg Rice Cake Page
• Review of Organic Sesame Corn Thins