Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews

Giveaway: Midwest Dairy Council's Get Mooving Pack

(Editor's Note: Every time I post pictures of my kitchen on the Internet, I cringe a little. This is not the way it will look when I get all done with it. /insecurity)

Almost a year ago already, I went to a dairy farm to check out some totally awesome cows with my girl and some friends on behalf of the Midwest Dairy Council. Recently, my friends the cows asked if the little angel and I would like to try out the MDC's Get Moooving Pack. It contained recipes, a Blender Bottle, a cute hat, cow socks, a cow pen, some samples of biPro whey protein, an iTunes gift card and a Cuisinart hand blender for making smoooothies.

I have all sorts of friends going Paleo or vegan or what have you, but we of the Arens family are still staunchly behind eating cows and drinking their milk. What can I say, we live in Missouri. (I was a vegetarian for 11 years and a vegan for 7, and I was just not very good at it, so I speak from experience. YAY FOR DAIRY!)

I tried as usual to take a picture of myself in the mirror wearing the cute hat and failed miserably. How are you all taking the sexy Facebook avatar pics in the mirror? Because I totally do not get it.

 Serious fail. And yes, this is me at nearly five in the afternoon on Sunday, unshowered. Whee!

I decided to go back to Old Faithful, the little angel, who always looks cute, regardless.

Any day now, she's going to lose that tooth.

The cow pen was the little angel's favorite part of the Get Mooving pack.

My favorite part was totally the cow socks, modeled by Neighbor Girl.

I used the iTunes gift card to craft my Dairy Disco playlist, for all that dancing my girl and I need to do before we make the smoothies and recipes. She prefers Top 40 girl jamz, so there was a lot of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga and Kelly Clarkson rocking this playlist. 

 

The girls (I somehow inherit two extras whenever I have something to review) got in a quick jog.

We used this cute shaker (there's a metal coil inside) to make orange whip smoothies, which were a huge hit.

Two ingredients: orange juice and vanilla ice cream. Then shakey shakey, a job easily outsourced to children.

Next, we completely ruined the recipe for peanut butter banana shakes by failing to add peanut butter and not freezing the bananas. Um.

We used the Cuisinart blender thing that came in the Get Moooving pack to blend the shake.

Cheers! Oh, shut up, you loved to drink out of shot glasses when you were a kid, too.

Then we made the recipe for pulled pork tacos and it was GOOD.

Yay for cows. Who would like a Get Mooooving Gift Pack? The fitness pack (valued at $100) provides you with all the essentials for your favorite outdoor activity, including an iTunes gift card, a Cuisinart hand blender for your post-workout smoothie, and Dairy Makes Sense wicking gear.

For a chance to win, comment as many times as you like. Each comment counts as an entry. I will shut down comments at 5 pm CT on May 2. Good luck!

 

Dove Chocolates Discoveries Barnyard Truffles

The email I received said -- and I quote:

I hope you are well! Easter is quickly approaching, and Dove Chocolate Discoveries has an adorable Barnyard Truffle recipe (image below) that brings great cheer to the holiday! These festive truffles are made with three simple ingredients (featured below) and decorations for their eyes, ears, and noses. They make perfect cupcake toppers or a fantastic extra treat for your Easter celebration. Making the truffles is easy and a great activity for kids too! 

"Easy and great for kids."

Great! Send it on over! That sounds fun!

And then I got a box with a metric ton of high-end chocolate:

This was when I started to worry a little bit. No instructions, just a recipe book. That said stuff about a tempering kit, which was apparently not included.

What the hell is tempering? Oh, she-yoot.

My husband was looking at me with one of those "what has she gotten herself into" 100-mile stares. But my girl was ready to MAKE THE TRUFFLES!

How can I resist this?

I decided to attempt a new skill. I seriously should've realized that truffles would be hard, but I sort of did what a lot of reviewers did -- I glanced at the pictures and assumed "easy" and "do with your kids" meant that.

The first step was to chop the dark chocolate into the shape of a map of the United States.

This was really, really good chocolate. It smelled heavenly.

Next, you were supposed to boil some heavy cream and pour it over the chopped chocolate and let it sit for two minutes. Note to self: submerge the chocolate chunks, because otherwise they won't melt. Mine didn't after hand whisking my hands into severe cramps. Beloved ended up reheating it in a double boiler to get the lumps out. He is so smart. Then we refrigerated it for an hour and went to buy cat food.

Next step: Temper the chocolate to go over the main truffle innards we had just created. I was completely paranoid as a) I didn't know how to temper chocolate (whisper to it reassuringly?) and b) I didn't have the fancy tempering kit clearly referenced in the provided recipe. Oh, and you need a candy thermomenter. Which I didn't have. We picked one up yesterday while out and about -- more on that later.

Easy!

So I printed something off About.com.

Note it says the difficulty is "average." The hubris of About.com. AND ME!

To temper, you have to use that double boiler again (I used a Dutch oven with a metal bowl that balanced on top with the bottom just touching the water). You get it hot, then you add 1/3 of the remaining chopped chocolate, which makes it cooler, then you get it hotter, not to exceed extremely specific temperatures that my $3 candy thermometer did not go down to. So I totally winged it.

My thermometer started at 100 degrees. ha ha ha ha ha

 

If the chocolate is tempered correctly, it's supposed to look shiny dried on waxed paper. Can't believe I pulled that off.

We coated half the truffle mix in dark chocolate and then went on to try the white chocolate, because, barnyard animals.

What up?

The About.com instructions said you really need a pound of chocolate to temper. I only had eight ounces. Here goes nothing!

Shiny! Again, it's an Easter miracle.

Decorating supplies not included in the kit. 

Pig.

Rabbit.

His whiskers are made out of tempered-dark-chocolate-covered potato sticks. Because I had more than a pound of the dark chocolate and no idea what to do with the extra once it was all tempered and stuff.

Bear.There are totally bears in barnyards. In Montana.

Hewwow? I wuv you. Come back! Don't be mawd about the chocowate.

This is an Easter egg decorated by a Montanan bear.

Pig who stayed out too late last night.

Bunny who let the bear apply his make-up.

Dark chocolates I made with the candy molds I bought when I realized hey! I need a candy thermometer and I have more than a pound of expensive dark chocolate.

LOOK HOW SHINY!

Total time from first chop to clean kitchen and immediate review written: Six hours.

Family loved the chocolate. Cute idea. Not a successful review experience.

Ragu Fresh & Simple

Initially when I received Ragu Fresh & Simple spaghetti sauce in a pouch, I thought the gimmick was the packaging.  It's in a pouch instead of a jar.  It has three serving sizes instead of however many are in a jar.  I thought, that's cool.  Whatever.  There are only three people in my family, so that's kind of nice not to have a yucky half-filled jar sitting in the fridge forever (because for some reason, half-used spaghetti sauce just doesn't seem appetizing to me).  I also thought it might be cool if you wanted to use spaghetti sauce as marinara sauce for dipping.

Basically, you cut the edge off, put the whole pouch in the microwave, and pour.  We made it, ate it, thought it tasted great.  But we think regular Ragu tastes great, too, so I was still a little confused.

THEN I actually read the ingredients:

• Tomato puree
• Crushed tomatoes in puree
• Onion
• Carrot juice concentrate
• Sunflower oil
• Salt
• Garlic puree
• Spices
• Acerola cherry concentrate
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Basil

SOLD.

Kellogg's Whole Grain Pop-Tarts

MomCentral recently sent me two boxes of Kellogg's Whole Grain Pop Tarts to review.  Strawberry and Brown Sugar Cinnamon.  They arrived last Friday, just in time for me to scarf a few and write this review.  I have a long-standing love affair with Pop Tarts that may cloud my judgment.

When the box arrived, the little angel immediately asked if it was for her, as so many of these review things are essentially for her.  I opened the box.  Oh, no!  Not for you, little girl!  MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE

There are few things in life I love more than strawberry Pop Tarts.  My beloved eyed the first box warily.  "Whole grain Pop-Tarts?" he snickered.  "I bet THOSE don't come in Brown Sugar Cinnamon." 

And then I got to pull out the box of Brown Sugar Cinnamon ones and laugh in his face.  (Editor's Note:  So thank you, Pop Tarts, no matter what I think of your product, you gave me a fine sense of comedic timing at the end of a long day, and the look of shock on my husband's name was priceless.)

Getting on to what I think of trying to make yummy, wonderful treats healthy.  I'm of two minds. On the one hand: Eh.  I don't know know that I'd bother.  I'm guessing no one puts Pop Tarts in the healthy food category anyway.  I looked at the nutritional value, and while whole grain is better than whatever they make normal Pop Tarts out of, I wasn't shocked by the differences I saw in nutritional value.  The whole grain pop tarts had drizzles of frosting, which disappointed me.  I like my Pop Tarts covered with both the frosting AND the red sugar.  Without it, I wasn't sure if I wanted to commit to the 190 calories of Pop Tart.  That's how I view Pop Tarts:  as dessert.  As a treat.  As something I have to be prepared to deal with on my hips.  Pop Tarts:  I don't eat you lightly.  So as much as I wanted to love the whole grain Pop Tarts because then I could eat them more often, I felt cheated by the lack of icing and little red sugar sprinkles.  I thought the whole grain taste of the crust was just fine - didn't bother me a bit.

On the other hand:  Why not make every little choice about inserting whole grains and healthy stuff the right choice?  A bunch of little good choices might just add up to one big avoided stroke! So Pop Tarts, bring back the full frosting and add back those red sugar sprinkles, and I would buy the whole grain ones every time - otherwise, it's a no-brainer. 

Breakfast Breaks

Recently Mom Central Consulting sent me two packs of Breakfast Breaks.  They're sort of like breakfast kits, or maybe the breakfast equivalent of a Lunchable. 

Every weekday morning, my daughter sits downstairs on the couch and watches Tigger & Pooh while my husband and I get ready for work.  We usually give her something nonmessy for breakfast - a Nutrigrain bar, string cheese, something like that, and milk.  I'd love to say I get up, put on my housedress and slippers and fry her up some bacon and eggs, but I don't.  I also don't give her organic waffles drizzled with honey from bees in Eden, though I'd also love to say I do that.  I don't.

So in other words, this product is really perfect for me.  Each box contains a mini fruit and grain bar, a container of dry cereal and a juice box of 100% juice.  I hid the juice boxes in the fridge, because I prefer she drink milk for breakfast, but I gave them to her later in the day, so it wasn't a waste. 

If your child likes milk in his or her cereal, this isn't quite as handy.  It doesn't come with milk.  It does come with a spoon, but you'd have to scrounge around for the milk.  I understand why it doesn't, since nothing in it is refrigerated, but you know, details.  The little angel likes her cereal dry, so it was no biggie for me.

She really liked the mini-ness of the fruit and grain bar.  I really liked that it wasn't all full-sized because it didn't need to be a ridiculous amount of food for such a little person. Overall, I'd say this is a really fair solution if you have a child who needs something to eat before school and you don't have time to make something hot.  Also could be a good choice for an after-school snack -- probably better than say, Cheeze - Its.  The only thing I don't know is how much they cost.  I will look into that and post here when I have some clarification.  I'm sure it varies a bit by market.

Tyson Refrigerated and Frozen Chicken and Steak Strips

I am never one to turn down the offer of free food.  Tyson recently sent me coupons for a bunch of chicken and steak strips. They offered to let Denise Austin teach me how to make healthy recipes, but I laughed, as my beloved does the cooking around here. If it's healthy, that's because I snuck something in.

Basically, these are precooked chicken and steak strips that you use in regular recipes.  We tried two. The first was fajitas.

The nice thing about using these chicken strips is that you don't have to deal with raw chicken at all. Because that totally grosses me out. Just throw it all in!

 

MMM.  What? What's that? You don't like chicken?

   

We can do it all around here.

The next time we used them, we used the frozen variety and thawed them in the fridge the night before. We made some sort of sloppy casserole that didn't set up right, but it still looked finger-lickin'.

It was not the chicken's fault the casserole was a little soupy.  That was the fault of ze chef.  But I am not complaining, because he cooks a lot.

These things are very handy if you are like my colleague at work who hasn't eaten chicken in her own home ever because she is too grossed out by raw chicken to make it herself or if you are like me and would like to make casseroles or fajitas or multi-step meals more often but can't spare the twenty minutes to cook the chicken first.

Also, the little angel ate it. SOLD.

Froose Whole Fruit Drink

Last night we got a package in the mail.  The little angel and my beloved are getting accustomed to random FedEx packages bearing products for me to test and review, but the little angel always hopes they are for her, anyway.  The one last night had a big moose on the front.

"This one is for me!" she cried.  Indeed.

It's called Froose.  It's a "whole food" drink.  (I can just imagine the product managers and marketing people arguing about what to call this stuff.)  I guess that means that it's not juice, but rather juice with, um, stuff in it.    "Stuff" for the peach flavor includes water, organic brown rice syrup, peach juice concentrate, organic apple juice concentrate, organic brown rice flour, inulin, natural peach flavor, xanthan gum, citric acid, annotto and ascorbic acid.  This stuff also contains 80 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, 15 mg of sodium, 110 mg of potassium, 19g of carbohydrate, 3g of dietary fiber, 7g of sugar and 1g of protein.  That's for a four-ounce container.

I ripped open the package and immediately handed one to the little angel.  She sucked it down immediately.  "I need your honest opinion.  How do you feel about the Froose?" I asked. 

She asked for another one.  That worked for me.

The little angel drinks no juice at home.  She never has.  Why? I find it nearly impossible to hand her four ounces of juice when all of the cups we have are at least 8-oz cups.  When she was a baby, the little angel was off the charts in terms of weight and height. I worried she was going to have weight problems, she was such a big baby. PEOPLE I DIDN'T KNOW WOULD STOP ON THE STREET TO COMMENT ON HER WEIGHT.  So when the ped told me to limit the juice, I decided what good is juice? I'll just give her fruit instead. And that's what we've always done.

My beloved came home with juice boxes last summer, after she'd turned three.  She did like them, but they are considered "treats."  I've been backed up a lot by her school, which has been drilling healthy eating messages all year.  These Froose things, though, I can get behind them. They have a lot of potassium and come in a four-ounce container.  No measuring. No limiting other than just giving her one.  And she likes the taste.  Easy, peasy.

I haven't seen these on the shelves, but I don't go down the juice aisle all that much. I'm sure you can find them here.