Tervis Tumbler and Blueberry-Lemon Tom Collins

As part of the FoodBuzz Tastemakers program, I was able to test out one of Tervis' Tumblers. According to the Tervis website, these Tumblers are made from high-quality polymer and are so impact resistant that it is very difficult to break them. They are sturdy enough to withstand heat or cold, can be used indoors and out and can be used in the dishwasher, microwave and even the freezer. I haven't done any tests with mine to see if these claims hold up but I'll take their word for it.

There are lots of different designs to chose from. Check out the Tervis website for more information. I had never heard of Tervis so I was surprised to see they have been around for 65 years. A lot of their Tumblers have designs printed on them. The one I received had FoodBuzz Tastemakers logo emblazoned on it. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the design. I prefer simplicity and a clean appearance to my kitchen ware. I guess it's not that much different to having a design on your coffee or tea mug. So maybe it just takes some getting used to.

I used my Tervis tumbler to make Blueberry-Lemon Tom Collins. Most Tom Collins are made with lemon juice and served with a lemon slice. Some are topped off with a maraschino cherry. In my recipe, I enhanced the traditional Tom Collins by adding some freshly squeezed blueberry juice and some whole blueberries for garnish along with the lemon juice and lemon slice. It was delicious! My photos don't show the ice but please do put ice in the drink to keep it cool. My Tervis tumbler had just enough room to make one delicious Blueberry-Lemon Tom Collins. One thing I noticed is that I couldn't feel the cold of the drink when I held the tumbler in my hands. It's very insulated!

Ingredients:

1/3 cup of fresh blueberries

1 tbsp of sugar

juice of 1/2 a lemon

1-1/2 ounces of dry gin

soda water

ice

lemon slice & blueberries for garnish

You'll need cheesecloth for this.

Rinse your blueberries. Set aside a few for garnish and add the rest to a piece of cheese cloth and twist into a bundle. Hold the bundle over your tumbler and squeeze the juice out. It's okay if some pulp gets in. Wipe the tumbler's sides in case any blueberry juice spilled.

To the bottom of the Tumbler add the sugar, lemon guice and gin. Stir then add a couple ice cubes and fill up with soda water. Give it a quick stir then garnish with blueberries and a lemon slice. Enjoy while cold!

Portobello Mushroom Lasagna Rolls with Bertolli's Arrabiata Sauce

Can you recall the last time you had a lasagna in which the sauce was the rock star? Not the pasta, not the cheese, not the fillings, but the sauce? Unless it was a special non-tomato sauce, chances are you don't notice it. Chances are, the sauce was part of the big picture but didn't stand out from the rest of the ingredients.

When Bertolli and Foodbuzz sent me a jar of Bertolli's Arrabiata Sauce, I wanted to make sure that whatever I made with it, the sauce would get center stage. Sure, I could try to make some really complex recipe with a long laundry list of ingredient. However, I wanted to keep it simple.

Bertolli's Arrabiata sauce is slightly spicy and contains red peppers for an added dimension of flavor.

So how to I make this excellent sauce stand out? Complement it with other ingredients that support it but don't overtake it. Portobello mushrooms have a nice meaty flavor and can serve as a healthy alternative to ground beef. Mushrooms naturally take on any flavors that surround it and give a nice textural element to whatever it's in. I kept the Ricotta filling plain. Ricotta, egg and salt. That's it. I had contemplated using smoked mozarella but opted to go with regular shredded mozarella so as not to compete with the spiciness of the Arrabiata sauce. This is now my favorite lasagna. It even beats my mother's classic mushroom & beef lasagna, which I was literally raised on. I highly encourage you to try this dish out.

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You'll need a whole jar of Bertolli's Arrabiata sauce for this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 portobello mushroom caps, sliced and chopped
1 small onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
1/2 cup of Bertolli's Arrabiata sauce

2 cups of ricotta cheese
1 egg beaten
salt to taste

package of lasagna noodles

1/2 cup of Bertolli's Arrabiata sauce*
to coat bottom of casserole dish

rest of the jar of Bertolli's Arrabiata sauce
2 cups of shredded mozarella cheese

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Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
Heat up a large pot of water until it's at a rolling boil. Cook your lasagna noodles according to package directions (or until al dente). Fish out noodles and add them to a large bowl of cold water. This will stop them from cooking, keep from them sticking together and make them cooler to handle.

Heat a skillet with some light olive oil. When the oil starts to sizzle, add your portobello mushrooms, onions and garlic. Cook for a few minutes until they start to soften. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix in the 1/2 cup of Bertolli's Arrabiata sauce and heat through. Set mixture aside to cool.

Mix your ricotta cheese, egg and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

Take your casserole dish and smother the bottom with 1/2 cup of Bertolli's Arrabiata sauce. This will help prevent the rolls from sticking to the bottom.

To create the rolls. Lay out a lasagna noodle. At one end of the noodle, add a spoonful of the portobello mushroom mixture. Then add a spoonful of the ricotta mixture on top of the mushroom mixture. Carefully roll the lasagna noodle, tucking in the mixture as you go. Roll until you have a nice bundle.

Add your rolls to your casserole dish, making sure that the end of the noodle is facing down so that your roll doesn't unravel. Keep adding your rolls until the casserole dish is packed. Depending on the size of your casserole dish, you may have extra noodles, mushroom mixture and ricotta mixture.

Cover the rolls evenly with the remaining Arrabiata sauce. Then sprinkle your mozarella cheese on top.

Cover the dish with aluminum foil (don't seal) and cook in the oven for 30-35 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for 15 more minutes or until the cheese on top gets nice and bubbly. Let cool for about 10-15 minutes and serve.

The rolls make individual portions and make the lasagna easier to serve. I like to sprinkle some extra mozarella on top while it's still hot. This dish is even better as re-heated leftovers the next day.

Kikkoman Ponzo Lime ~ Marinated Flank Steak Sandwich

Foodbuzz and Kikkoman recently sent me a bottle of Kikkoman's new Ponzo Lime Citrus Seasoned Dressing & Sauce to try out. I was very inspired by Vietnamese style sandwiches (Bahn Mi) and wanted to try to make one by using the Ponzo, fresh lime juice (to enhance the lime flavor of the Ponzo) and lean flank steak. The result was great! This is by no means a traditional Bahn Mi but it's a good attempt. Next time I might add some thinly sliced onion.

If you can't find Daikon, just use thinly sliced radishes. However, I highly recommend trying to find Daikon. My favorite produce market, Wilson Farm, almost always carries it and I've seen it in a few other places. It's got a radish flavor which is more mild and palatable than proper radishes.

Ingredients:
A piece of flank steak (at room temperature)
1 lime
1 bottle of Kikkoman's Ponzo Lime Seasoned Dressing & Sauce
1/2 cup of thinly sliced Daikon (in half moons)
1/2 cup of thinly sliced cucumber (in half moons)
1/2 cup of thinly sliced carrots
Cilantro
Fresh baked bread
Cornstarch (optional)

Season your flank steak liberally with salt. Then squeeze a lime and smear the juice all over the steak on both sides. Let sit for a few minutes.

In a shallow dish, add 3/4 of your bottle of Kikkoman Ponzo Lime so that the flank steak is completely covered. Let sit for about 30 minutes.

Heat up your grill pan with a light coating of oil. When it's super hot, add the flank steak. Cook steak for about 10 minutes on each side. This for me gets it medium-well but cook it to your preference. Just test it with your finger. If it's soft, it's more rare. If it's a bit tough, it's medium. If it's really tough, it's well done.

Set aside steak and let it rest. In the mean time, slice your carrots, daikon and cucumber and chop some cilantro.

Cut flank steak into very thin slices. Cut with a serrated knife and at an angle, going against the grain of the meat. The thinner the better.

Slice open a few loaves of bread and toast in the oven for a few minutes. Then fill them up with steak and vegetables.

Optional Sauce: Heat up the last of the Kikkoman Ponzo Lime in a skillet and add 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Whisk until cornstarch is incorporated and heat until the sauce gets thick. If it gets too thick, feel free to add a tablespoon of water to thin it out. Drizzle the sauce over the meat before adding to the sandwich.

Enjoy!


Vietnamese Sandwiches

The Ultimate Autumn Sandwich ~ Pumpkin Butter, Apple & Cinnamon on Nature's Pride Bread

Autumn isn't Autumn without pumpkins and apples. You could argue too that cinnamon is a mainstay of the season especially when used to enhance the natural flavor of both those fruits. I decided to create a dessert sandwich that epitomized Autumnal flavors. This is a super easy sandwich to make and it's great for breakfast, as a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack or even as dessert to cap off a nice home-cooked dinner. There is something so satisfying yet light about this sandwich. I hope you'll try it out and make it part of your Fall menu.

First I start off with Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Bread. The slices are wide enough to hold a substantial amount of pumpkin butter and thick enough to hold up against the crisp apples. I toast them for this sandwich to add an extra crunch.



For the filling, start off with a nice tart Granny Smith apple. The Pumpkin butter is already very sweet so this is the perfect apple to balance out the flavors.

Halve the apple then quarter it. Core the pieces by cutting into each quarter diagonally with your knife in between the core and the flesh of the apple. Cut each quarter into thin slices. Squeeze a good amount of lemon juice over the slices, mix by hand and set aside.

Take two slices of the toasted Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Bread. You can butter the outside of each bread with regular unsalted butter if you want to make it extra decadent.

Slather them with a good amount of Pumpkin Butter. You can find Pumpkin Butter at your local Trader Joe's. I got mine from my favorite high-end produce shop Wilson Farms.

One one slice of bread add a layer of apples. Then sprinkle cinnamon on top.

Close your sandwich and cut on the diagonal with a nice sharp knife. Devour happily.

One Granny Smith apple will probably make you around 4-6 sandwiches.

Have a great Fall!

Domincan Triples Sandwich with Nature's Pride Bread

I just got the amazing opportunity to try out two different loaves of Nature's Pride bread. When I received them in the mail, I thought to myself "what am I going to do with two whole loaves of bread"? I stuck them in the freezer immediately and got to thinking. It didn't take me long to come up with 4 sandwiches that would really take advantage of these breads! Here is the first one.

Dominican Triples Sandwich

My mother is from the Dominican Republic but she had very little to no experience with this sandwich. I found the recipe on the Dominican Cooking website and found it interesting. It's a triple-layer sandwich used as an appetizer for parties. I think it's far too complicated to make to just be an appetizer so I incorporated it into a proper dinner. The original recipe seemed only had 2 layers which I thought was strange (unless they thought the bread was the third layer), so I added a third one. It's one layer of egg salad, a second layer of avocado salad and a third layer of tuna salad.

This recipe makes 3 sandwiches

Egg Salad

6 hard-boiled eggs chopped
1/3 cup of Mayo
1 tablespoon of Dijon Mustard
Some chopped Dill
Salt and Pepper


The most difficult part is peeling those darn eggs! Otherwise, just throw everything into a bowl and mix. Set aside.



Avocado Salad

1 whole avocado
1 small tomato
Lemon juice
Salt and Pepper


Run a knife along the outside of the avocado from tip to tip until it's cut all the way around. Then twist until the two halves come apart. Hit the knife quickly onto the pit and twist your knife until the pit pops out. Score lines down the halves of the avocado making sure you cut all the way until you hit the skin (don't cut past the skin though). Do a cross hatch by scoring it across. Do this to both halves and scoop out the chunks with a big spoon running it along the inside of the skin.

Chop your tomato and add to a bowl with the avocado. Add Salt, pepper and lemon juice. Mix thoroughly and mash the avocaodo a little bit. This will help hold the mixture together but will still allow you to have chunks of avocado.

An alernate way of doing this is just creating thin slices of avocado and tomato for layering in the sandwich. Don't forget the lemon juice so that the avocado doesn't get brown on you!


Tuna Salad

This is where I take from my Dominican side. My mother always made tuna salad with vinegared red onions. I have fond memories of this and I like to make it when I can. The red onions add a kick and the vinegar helps remove some of the raw flavor of the onion.

1 quarter of a red onion finely diced
2 tablespoons of red-wine vinegar
2 small cans/1 big can of tuna packed in olive oil
Mayo to taste



Process the onions and add them to a bowl with the vinegar. Let sit for 5 minutes or so.



Drain the red onions to get rid of the vinegar and add to the tuna mixing in mayo to your taste. You'll notice my photos didn't have any mayo (oops!). You'll need the mayo to hold the tuna salad together and to prevent your sandwich from falling apart.



Dominican Triples Sandwich
6 slices of Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Bread
Egg Salad
Avocado Salad
Tuna Salad




I have to say I was really impressed with Nature's Pride 100% Whole Wheat Bread. The slices were hearty and wide. They really held up with this monster sandwich. However, unlike most whole wheat breads it wasn't rough like sandpaper! It was nice and soft which goes well with the soft salads within the sandwich.



I do one layer of egg salad on one side, tuna salad on the other and the avocado salad in between.

Enjoy this with a nice hot bowl of tomato rice soup and some Giardinera (pickled vegetables) on the side.