Cooking for Seven

Disclosure: The author (that’s me) received a gift package from Land O’Lakes, including two cookbooks, a whisk, a slotted spoon, tongs and a full-value coupon redeemable for LAND O LAKES^® Butter with Olive Oil & Sea Salt, for recipe development and review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, let’s talk butter.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a major fan of butter. Besides being incredibly healthy, it just plain tastes awesome. On just about everything. That’s why I was excited to be able to test and review some new butter from Land O’Lakes.

Pioneer woman has teamed up with Land O’Lakes to help sing the praises of one of their new products: Butter with Olive Oil and Sea Salt. Last month I was lucky enough to be able to attend a webinar hosted by Ree, in which she detailed some of the wonderful qualities of butter, its history and how to cook with it.

It was so informative and fun, and the folks at Land O’Lakes even sent me a thank-you package with some awesome items (more on that later). When I couldn’t find any of the butter in our little town, Land O’Lakes sent the butter straight to my door. Yep, I was impressed.

To test out the butter, I decided to see how it performed in baking. Using my buttermilk biscuits recipe as a base, I substituted the olive oil & sea salt butter for all of the fat, added a bit of rosemary and brushed the tops of the biscuits with extra virgin olive oil. They were simply scrumptious. My sisters-in-law and I gobbled them down (spread with the olive oil butter & honey, of course) before Reuben could give them a try. Poor guy was rather disappointed.

Final Breakdown of What I Think of the Butter:

• Because there is some oil in this butter, it comes to room temperature faster than “regular” butter, which is quite handy.
• I was a bit skeptical when I heard about this product - it’s “adulterating” my perfect food, I thought. And whereas I think it’s an awesome idea to pair olive oil and butter, I wish Land O’Lakes would have used extra virgin olive oil, which is much healthier.
• As for taste, it’s lovely. I would say, since there’s only one less gram of saturated fat in the olive oil butter than regular butter (olive oil is mostly monounsaturated fat), it’s still mostly butter. Thus, the olive oil doesn’t overpower the butter flavor, it just complements it slightly. It’s wonderful spread on bread and crackers. The sea salt is also a nice addition.

But on to the giveaway. Land O’Lakes will be giving away Ree’s Cooking Essentials (the same package I received) to one lucky Cooking for Seven reader! The winner will receive both of Ree’s cookbooks, a whisk, a slotted spoon, tongs, and a full-value coupon for Land O’Lakes Butter with Olive Oil and Sea Salt.

Here’s how you can enter to win:

Leave a comment on this post answering the following question: What’s your favorite use of butter and/or olive oil?

Rules:

• US residents only, please.
• Only one comment per person allowed.
• You must leave a valid email address in the comment form so I can contact you if you win.
• Giveaway ends Wednesday, July 25th and 12:00 noon, Central Time. No comments will be considered for the giveaway after that time.
• Using random.org, I will choose one winner. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be selected.

Good Luck!

I love reviewing products. It’s just fun to test out new things, discover if I really like it.

Today I’m reviewing Clearly Fresh® Bags, storage bags with a 3-inch square membrane that allows your produce to breathe.

The claim: Clearly Fresh® Bags can extend the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables by up to 50%

The Test: To test the Clearly Fresh® Bags claim, I allowed three bananas to sit on the counter for 12 days.

I chose three bananas from the same bunch. 1) was placed on the counter without a bag. 2) was placed in a Clearly Fresh® Bag and sealed. 3) was placed in a cheap (conventional) storage bag and sealed.

The Results:

Let’s start with the cheap bag. On the outside, it looks perfectly normal. But peel back the skin and you discover a nasty, squishy mess. Plus, the tip formed all sorts of nasty mold. Ew.

Now for the Clearly Fresh® Bag. On the outside it looks much the same as the banana stored in the cheap bag, but the inside was less icky and squishy. The tip was quite mushy, but the rest of the banana was fairly good. The tip also formed all sorts of icky mold, but a bit less than banana #3.

Finally, the banana stored without a bag. To my surprise, this banana performed the best on the squishy and moldy test. It was still quite edible after 12 days. However, it attracted fruit flies like crazy. Gross.

Conclusion: The Clearly Fresh® Bag definitely kept the banana fresher than the banana stored in the conventional bag. The banana stored without a bag stayed firm and mold-free the longest, but it attracted a multitude of fruit flies. Totally gross.

What I love about this product: The generous size: substantially larger than a gallon bag. It’s so much more convenient to store large amounts of produce in a bag that’s actually big enough! Right now I’ve got three heads of broccoli in one Clearly Fresh® Bag.

Is it worth it/Would I buy it? I think it’s worth $3.99 for 10 LARGE (12” X 14”) bags. Plus, I stored the bananas longer than Clearly Fresh® recommends (9 days is their limit). If I want to store bananas for a week without generating fruit flies, I would definitely chose the Clearly Fresh® Bag.

You can purchase the bags for yourself here: {Link}

Need some banana recipes?

Banana Nut Bread

Banana Poppy Seed Bread

Creamy Coconut Fruit Salad

Banana Cake

A few weeks ago I received this beautiful gadget and excitedly opened it. Let me share my findings with you!

The Perfect Portions Scale is a special food scale that helps you to accurately keep track of your nutritional & calorie intake. It’s a food scale + nutrition facts. Here’s how it works:

Find your food’s number in the index.

Enter the food code and place the item on the scale.

And there you have a complete nutritional analysis: calories, carbs, fiber, etc. How cool is that?

Continue Reading »

{Chicken Scampi}

Back in January ‘09, I was approached about doing some photography for an  e-cookbook. I was super excited. This February things started to take shape, and I photographed five of the awesome dishes in March.

Allow me to introduce you to Nourish Me Naturally.

Continue Reading »

Last week, I received a message asking if I would like to sample some granola from Malachi’s Harvest. Of course I said yes - granola is one of my favorite breakfast treats!

My analysis:

Malachi’s harvest is a business run by a homeschooling family of six. They strive to provide nutrient-dense, flavorful, and healthy granola. Visit their Etsy shop to learn more.

Taste/Quality: I was very impressed with the flavors - complex and delicious. Also, it was loaded with quality nuts, fruits, and coconut chips. The texture was a bit soft for my taste, but the  flavors certainly made up for it. Check out the ingredient list in their shop. I think you’ll be impressed.

Okay, here’s the fun part.

The people from Malachi’s Harvest were generous enough to send me two samples - one to try and one to share…with you!

.

How can you enter this giveaway?

1) Leave a comment on this post telling me about your favorite breakfast treat.

2) For another chance to win, tweet about my giveaway. Come back and leave another comment with a link to your tweet.

3) For another chance to win, blog about my giveaway. Come back and leave another comment with a link to your post.

No comments will be considered after Wednesday, March 24 at 11:00 p.m. CST. On Thursday morning I will select a winner using random.org.

EDIT: The actual date of the end of this giveaway is March 24, not 23. Thanks, TJ, for notifying me!

Good Luck!

This giveaway is now closed. Thank you to all who entered!