Sweetie Beans Many Cake Cake Mix
Sweetie Beans Many Cake Cake Mix is a gluten-free and vegan blend of ingredients – primarily white rice flour, sugar, tapioca starch, potato starch and potato flour – that serves as a base to make truly delicious cakes. Several months ago at a convention for health products, I was drawn to a booth with a crowd of people vying for samples of a variety of large sheet cakes – chocolate, spice, vanilla, and more. Read more 
Bella di Cerignola Olives
During the holiday season, there is no better time to enjoy one of nature’s most perfect foods: the Cerignola Olive whose real name is the Bella di Cerignola Olive. Grown in the southern province of Puglia, Italy, the Cerignola Olive is named after a town of the same name, a place known for its cathedrals, red wine, and very special olives. Abnormally large, the Cerignola Olive is sometimes referred to as the “beginner’s olive” because of its mild and smooth taste, but fans of Cerignola Olives remain a loyal group long after their first taste. Read more
Bell Stone Toffee
Novi, Michigan is the home of Bell Stone Toffee, a company dedicated to making scrumptious pecan toffee from a recipe that has been handed down from generation to generation since the 1880’s. Made of four ingredients – butter, sugar, chocolate, and pecans, Bell Stone Toffee is made fresh and shipped within days to ensure toffee lovers enjoy this treat at its freshest. With no preservatives, artificial colors, or flavorings, Bell Stone Toffee is everything toffee should be: buttery, crunchy, sweet, and slightly salty – with the top covered in milk, dark, or white chocolate (your choice) and covered in chopped pecans. Read more
Amy’s Holiday Cookie Collections
Amy’s Cookies of Brooklyn, New York makes fabulous cookies and during the holiday season, this star cookie maker creates exquisitely hand decorated cookies in a variety of shapes and sizes: sleighs, snowflakes, ornaments, gingerbread, winter caps, mittens, sweaters, and more. The cookies are wrapped, on a bed of brightly colored raffia in a beautiful box (or two) tied with a grosgrain ribbon. The six themed holiday cookie collections range from $45-$68 plus shipping and can be ordered on-line at www.amyscookies.com.
Byrne and Carlson Palets des Fleurs
Byrne & Carlson opened up its doors 14 years ago (1999) in a historic brick building on State Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, just a few blocks from the Memorial Bridge (the bridge that separates New Hampshire from Maine). The company was founded with a commitment to make chocolate and confections in small batches by hand using only the finest ingredients. Read more
Askinosie Peppermint Bark
Springfield, Missouri may be the birthplace of Route 66, but the town is also the home of Askinosie Chocolate, a small batch, bean to bar chocolate manufacturer who sources 100% of their cocoa beans directly from farmers throughout the world. Although the company specializes in single origin chocolate bars (whose beans can be traced to the source), Askinosie also makes a truly scrumptious peppermint bark of single origin dark chocolate, buttery white chocolate, and all natural crushed peppermint candy. Read more
Bamboo Utensils by To-Go Ware
We have bento boxes, thermo pots, soup carriers, sandwich carriers, cupcake holders and more so why has so little attention been given to non-disposable utensils on-the-go? Maybe because plastic utensils are so readily available and because so few of us are accustomed to carrying around our own flatware. Read more
Kitchens of Africa
Some people rely on pre-made sauces while others – like me – are suspicious because many shelf stable sauces contain unwanted ingredients which has led me to always read labels. At the Natural Products Expo this past September, there was a booth with a beautiful woman dressed in native West African clothing giving out samples of African sauces made with natural high quality ingredients. Her name was Jainaba Jeng and she hails from Gambia, went to college in Nova Scotia and then moved in 1997 to Raleigh, North Carolina where she eventually founded Kitchens of Africa, a company dedicated to producing flavorful and authentic African-inspired convenience foods. Read more
Peanut Butter by CB’s Nuts
Twenty-five miles northwest of Seattle, Washington is a small town called Kingston, home of CB’s Nuts, a family owned business that makes the best homemade peanut butter and it’s only $6 a jar. What makes CB’s so great? Fresh peanuts are slow roasted in small batches in old-fashioned (1920’s era refurbished) roasters and then ground to a smooth consistency in a refurbished grinder that has an 18-inch girding wheel before being jarred in-house. Silky smooth with little or no separation, CB’s Peanut Butter has no additives, sweeteners, preservatives, or artificial anything. There is just one ingredient: U.S. grown peanuts. Read more
Natural Food Colors, Sprinkles, and Sparkles
It’s that time of year when many of us start dreaming about cookies: rolled cut-out, springerle, snowballs, pinwheels, gingerbread, crescents and more. Most holiday cookies have some type of decoration which led me to start thinking about what I was putting on top of my cookies. As I went through my baking cabinet reading labels, I was surprised to learn that nearly all the bottles of food coloring and jars of sprinkles and sparkles contain artificial colors and additives so I tossed them in the trash. I knew there had to be healthy alternatives out there so I set out to find food coloring, sprinkles and sparkles made with natural ingredients. Read more
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