Mine Mine Mine, All Mine!

I was one of the lucky folks chosen to get a free jar of McQuade's Celtic Chutney from Blake Makes. I'm having a very hard time with it though. My natural inclination is to horde it away for some rainy day. Putting it on the pantry shelf so I see it every time I open the door, and smiling in anticipation of what I'll do with it.

As it is, I've left it pretty much as you see it here: on my kitchen counter with the pamphlet it came with. Just sitting there mocking me whenever I'm in the kitchen. I know that I should be deciding when to serve the curried chicken salad that was my entry in the contest. But someone else brought up a goat cheese and chutney tart, and holey cow, doesn't that sound good?! Or served over the cheese with crackers? Or glazed on some grilled chicken? Or on a turkey sandwich? Or eaten straight out of the jar (this one is winning the votes whenever I'm in the kitchen)?

An enterprising cook would just do all of them, perhaps holding her own impromptu tasting menu for her unsuspecting spouse. Hmmm.... what kind of wine goes with fig and ginger?

Blake Makes Giveaway: Sucré

I was one of the lucky lottery winners over on Blake Makes for a sample box of Sucré chocolates.

The box arrived today, and I wasted no time ripping that baby open. Gorgeous packaging, complete with a cold pack to help the chocolate arrive fresh.

As you can see, the chocolates arrived a little banged up from shipping, but who can hold that against them? A thousand mile plus voyage can be rough on even the hardiest of us sweet confections, am I right?

(For a picture with names and descriptions of each of the pieces, click here.)

The first piece I tried was the Lemon Confit - a dark chocolate ganache with candied lemon. The lovely shape and bright yellow stripes called to me, even though candied lemon in chocolate usually isn't one of my favorites. From the first bite, I was in love. The dark chocolate is set off by the bitter and sweet lemon in such a way as to wake up every taste bud you have.

Piece after piece was an adventure. Unlike some other high end chocolates that I've tried, each description represented the actual chocolates received perfectly. Every one was delicious, but as in all things, some knocked my socks off while others just... didn't.

My three favorites were the Meuniere (brown butter infused white chocolate ganache - called Saints on the Sucré website), the Lemon Confit, and the Avery (caramel and milk chocolate ganache enhanced with salt).

Bill's favorites were also the Meuniere and Avery as well as the Sucré Dark (just like the name suggests, dark chocolate).

I have to say though, some of the salt from the Avery had migrated onto the Meuniere and it made the piece divine. We both thought it was supposed to be that way. I'll have to check the small remainder piece tomorrow sans salt to see if I like it as well.

All in all, Sucré offers a fantastic array of delicious chocolates, well worth remembering for gifts, special occasions, or even just when you want/need a bit of pampering.

Blake Makes

I was one of the lucky few (right around 40, I think) who got these adorable jars in the mail last week. If you're not familiar with Blake Makes, go take a gander at his site. He's putting together a group of food bloggers (code name Soopz) who will receive products in the mail to review. He also is playing around with making fun flavors of dulce de leche, and he's giving away samples to the lucky few who make the cutoff. Last week was the second round of giving away peanut butter dulce du leche (PBDDL).

When I got my package in the mail, I had just enough time to squee at the fantastic packaging before I ripped that baby open. There was one fleeting moment when I thought that I should take pictures of the box, but that pretty much got lost as I danced around the living room with the two wee jars. (Seriously. The Man husband thought I'd lost my everloving mind. He still has next to no idea what the hell I was babbling about or why it was a cause for dancing or giggling.) (In my own defense, whenever I get something tangible from this amorphous electronic waste-of-time, I pretty much have the same reaction. Except the cuteness of the whole package topped with the small jars pushed me into overdrive. Miniature anything just makes me happy. And yep, I fully realize the direction that could go. Heh.)


ANYWAY. The Cold That Wouldn't Die (henceforth abbreviated as CTWD) has sapped me of all but the basic brain wave patterns, so I was at a loss for ways to use my precious supply. Since this weeks TWD recipe used dulce du leche, it seemed like an excellent fit. I made the executive decision to use the PBDDL in one corner by itself to get a good idea of the taste (you can see the PBDDL in the lower right hand corner). I toyed with putting down a layer of the PBDDL and then covering it with regular DDL, but I was afraid the flavor would get lost.

I'd love to give a review of how this worked in the Snickery Squares, but the CTWD ensured that I forgot to mark which corner of the pan it was in. So when we tried the squares, I cut the opposite corner. Whoops! I'll give an update when I manage to get the rest cut up to bring into work.



I can say that this stuff was good enough that I briefly considered licking the remnants out of the jar. As it was, I spent a good chunk of time swiping it out with my finger. If I'd tried it before making the Snickery Squares, I think I'd have just set those bad boys aside for a two person dipping party. (Heh. That is to say, I'd have put together a tray of various dippers like apples, shortbread cookies, bananas, etc to sample. I think those with apples would make a nice little dessert. You'd probably have to thin the PBDDL a little for optimum dipping.)