GAEA Vegan Vegetable Spreads
Tis the season of hors d’oeuvres with holiday parties and family get togethers. Instead of overly rich canapés and other finger food, consider offering healthier choices in bite-sized apps whose foundation includes vegetables. GAEA – a Greek company that specializes in olives, olive oil, and Greek food products – makes vegetable spreads that come in two delicious plant-based flavors: Read more 
What is a TigerNut?
If you’ve ever traveled to Spain, then you’ve more than likely seen “Horchata de Chufa” on a beverage menu, especially in the summer months when this refreshing drink is very popular. A sweet, creamy, milk-like beverage, horchata de chufa is traditionally made with ground tiger nuts blended with ice-cold water and sugar. The word “chufa” is spanish for the tubers of the nut sedge plant, which is another name for the tigernut (which is also spelled “tiger nut”). Read more
Lagusta’s Luscious Heathen Toffee
People who follow a plant-based diet may be considered heathens – people who do not follow or belong to a widely held belief or faith – of a different sort because they don’t subscribe to the standard American diet (SAD) – a diet with a heavy emphasis on animal products and highly processed foods.
But being plant-based doesn’t mean you have to give up favorite treats because there are some incredible alternatives out there. Take toffee – a crunchy, rich candy typically made with butter, sugar, almonds, chocolate, and salt – a holiday favorite (although I used to eat toffee all year long). Without butter, how could toffee possibly be toffee? Read more
Cinnamon Roll Bread
Cinnamon Roll Bread is wildly different and wildly delicious homemade bread with no added sweeteners. A nutrient dense no-knead loaf, Cinnamon Roll Bread is very easy to make and requires no bread baking experience to make a loaf that looks like a professional baker’s creation.
The secret to the nutty cinnamon flavor and moist texture of this bread is a single 1.75 ounce packet of Wildway Cinnamon Roll Instant Hot Cereal made with walnuts, ground flaxseed, cashews, coconut flour, pecans, cinnamon, dried dates, and vanilla bean. Read more
Raisinets v. Woodstock Organic Dark Chocolate Raisins
Back in 1971, a commercial for Goobers (chocolate covered peanuts) and Raisinets (chocolate covered raisins) came out with the jingle
Goobers and Raisinets, Goobers and Raisinets, the chocolate covered candies that pour..
that still pops into my head whenever I see a box of Raisinets. As iconic as that jingle is, I can’t bring myself to ever buy or eat Raisinets because of the ingredients, which include dark chocolate (sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, milk fat, soy lecithin, nonfat milk, lactose, artificial & natural flavors), raisins, sugar, tapioca dextrin, confectioner’s glaze (lac-resin), and alkalized cocoa. Read more
Nuttyness Marzipan Bars
Marzipan is often known as almond paste in the United States and is generally reserved for holidays or specialty cakes but only because Americans haven’t really discovered the wonders of this nutty, chewy treat. Traditional marzipan is made with ground almonds blended with sugar or honey but modern marzipan can also be made with pistachios or hazelnuts.
Chewy and sweet, marzipan is the perfect ingredient for a candy bar because the combination of dark chocolate covered marzipan is a contrast in flavors (nuts and rich creamy chocolate) and textures (hard and chewy). Read more
Peregrino Toasted Almond Tortas
Seville, Spain is a city defined by its traditions, one of which is the “tortas de aceite” which is directly translated to mean “olive oil cakes” although these sweet, thin, crisp, flaky treats are more like a dessert cracker than a cake. Made by hand in Seville, tortas de aceite are typically made with flour, extra virgin olive oil, sugar, baking powder, sesame seeds, anise seeds, and a touch of salt although there are many variations made by adding crystallized oranges and spices that may include cinnamon, rosemary, and thyme. Read more
FIKA Almond Butter
Consumers are paying more attention to what’s in their food by reading labels and forgoing products that have unrecognizable ingredients, high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, artificial flavors, and colors – leaving food manufacturers to figure out how to make food products simpler, tastier, and economical by including as few ingredients as possible. Even the Wall Street Journal – a newspaper known more for business coverage than trend spotting – recently (August 9, 2016) reported that food companies are touting simplicity in response to consumers preference to recognize what they eat (see Packaged Foods’ New Selling Point: Fewer Ingredients). Read more
Antidote Dark Chocolate Bars
Seeing red? Feeling blue? There’s an Antidote for that.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of incredible chocolate bars on the market but Antidote Dark Chocolate Bars are in a league of their own. Created by Red Thalhammer who was born, raised, and educated in Austria before moving to New York City, Antidote Dark Chocolate Bars differ from other bean-to-bar chocolate makers in that she uses half raw and half roasted cacao to make bars that are comparatively low in sugar (0-8 grams per 1.1 ounce serving) but off the charts in flavor. Read more
Needed: Single Serving Non-Dairy Milks With No Added Sugar
All I want is a single serving container of unsweetened non-dairy milk…..
Whenever I travel, I take along alternatives to dairy milk which generally includes a quart of unsweetened almond, cashew, hemp, soy or oat milk so that I can enjoy my coffee or a bowl of muesli or granola in the morning. It’s not that I oppose eating breakfast at a hotel; I would gladly eat what most people consider the most important meal of the day in a sun-filled dining room if these breakfasts included fresh fruit, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and unsweetened non-dairy milks. I would add legumes and vegetables to that list but for most Americans, these items are an acquired taste before noon. Read more
Paddock Post 