As I’ve written before, there is usually only one time an year that I yield to the temptation of delivery pizza. This year however, another Football even led to my breaking this tradition and ordering in again – the NFL Draft. Usually, this mid-season football extravaganza is over the weekend, when I settle down with my other favorite pigskin food – fried chicken. This year however, the NFL wanted to make more money and drag out the event, and thus started in on a freaking Thursday night – Thursday, I tell you! And since I try not to eat meat on Thursdays, I had to settle for pizza – the wife and I decided that we might as well check out what this Papa John’s hype was all about.

I’ve had Papa John’s a few years back, and remember that my buddies at the time were crazy over the garlic oil that came with the pizzas. So we got a few thin crusts with a variety of toppings amongst them – and were surprised at how quick the delivery was! The pizza boxes smelled really good – which was a very promising start indeed!

Opening the boxes led to another surprise – a little pepper in the corner and a packet of special seasoning in every box. My, its almost like they are making an effort to make there pizza look presentable – kudos Papa! The toppings looked a bit sparse though, and the green peppers werent nearly as fresh as I’d expected them to be.

The crust was thin enough, but did not have much flavor to it. The sauce was ok, nothing to write home about but definitely better than the much hyped new Domino’s. The garlic sauce and the seasonings did add quite a bit of flavor to the pizza, but I could almost feel the amount of fat and sodium I was ingesting as I was eating them!  However,  for the most part the pizza was tasty enough to go down well with the draft.

Super Bowl Sunday is one day in the year I allow myself to guzzle down cheap, watered-down mass-marketed bottled American lagers (piss waters as I normally refer to them as); my friends come over and between the Coors, Buds and Millers, we chug down quite a few of these flavorless brews – hey, they pay for most of the coverage of the game, going by the ads, so might as well give them their due one day of the year, right?

This year, though, my German brother-in-law Andreas, who I consider to be the definitive authority on beer, brought by a cool Polish beer to mix things up a bit. Zywiec, with a crisp white-background and a Polish couple dancing in ethnic costumes on its label, stood out immediately amongst the other generic beer bottles – and its taste didn’t let it down either.

One of my main complaints with the afore-mentioned piss-waters is that they try to compensate for the lack of flavor by over-hopping; I am not a fan of bitterness. Yet, Zywiec showed me how hops were probably intended to really work in lagers and pilsners – to complement the flavor, not to make up for the absence of it. The sharpness of the hops cut through the yeasty flavor of the beer (not much malt here, to my disappointment), giving the beer a nice, light, refreshing mouthfeel (which Coors can only dream about). The 5.6% alcohol kept the brew very chuggable, and made it the perfect complement to the delivery pizza (like I said, this was one night I indulged in the frat boy lifestyle) – I might have found my new football brew!

THE REVIEW: ZYWIEC POLISH BEER

BOTTLE: Generic bottle, but with a cool white label with a dancing couple in Polish (in guessing) costumes and a crown to indicate its rich tradition, I suppose. Red, white, blue and gold color scheme gives a hint of the rich yet light flavor awaiting us.

SMELL: Not much aroma here beyond some slight hoppiness ala pilsners.

HEAD: Cannot say; I chugged it right from the bottle!

TASTE: Definitive flavor which was spiked with the bitterness from the hops. Very light mouthfeel, a bit of carbonation, and very easy to chug down.

FOOD PAIRINGS: Greasy delivery pizza went wonderfully with this beer, and I would imagine any party fare like sandwiches or chips go well with this.

With all the marketing blitz surrounding Dominos Pizza recently, I’m sure you’ve heard of the story by now – they changed their 50-year old recipe in an effort to better respond to ‘America’s’ tastes, or so they say. So of course, the one day of the year we definitely order delivery pizza (Superbowl Sunday), I HAD to try the new Dominos pizza for myself.

I have always been a thin crust fan, and for the Superbowl Party at home, I ordered a majority of thin crust pizzas along with a couple of regular pies for friends who might not be thin crust fans. However, due to the immense number of orders on that day, there was bound to be some snafus at the local Dominos outlet I suppose, and we got mostly regular crusts. They were nice to me when I called to complain, and promised a free thin crust of my choice the next day – who was I to say no? So what you see above is the green-pepper thin crust pizza with original sauce that showed up at my door step – and I have to say, for all the hype, I am a bit underwhelmed by the pizza.

Let’s begin with the good part -  the crust. Both the pizza above, and the one thin crust chicken pizza they delivered with the original order, had a nice, light, crispy thin crust - just the way I like it. I do not like the New York style thin crusts (the soggy, malleable kinds) – I like my thin crust to be hard enough to have a bite to it, and for the toppings to stay on it rather than to slide down (unless its a home-made thin crust, where I control the toppings and thus don’t mind a thinner layer). So major points for getting the crust right atleast.

And the green pepper toppings was, well, not screwed up at the very least – a generous enough portion of decent-sized pepper pieces, rather than the wispy, paper-thin, barely-recognizable veggies certain other chains thrown on. I could actually taste the green peppers so they must have been fresh enough.

And now for the moneymaker – the sauce. Yech. For all the revamping they did, I still could not detect any hints of flavor, or atleast pizza-sauce-like flavor. There was something vaguely herbal about it, with maybe the slightest waft of garlicy undertones if I really focused hard – but where oh where was the tang of tomato?! or the bright notes of herbs or spices? or, at the very least, the recognizable flavor of cheese? It was like eating a nice crunchy, pepper-flatbread with barely any sauce on it. The regular pizzas of the night before with the ‘original’ sauce on it were the same way – barely any flavor. The one pizza I ordered with white sauce on it was way more flavorful, I am going to stick with that from next time!

Lets hope we don’t have to wait yet another 50 years for another change to make this sauce better!

One of my food resolutions for this year was to move out of my normal comfort zones and try new foods and ingredients in my cooking. Cheese was one of the first ingredients I wanted to experiment with; as I taught myself to cook, I stuck to the safe and traditional cheeses to begin with – supermarket bright yellow cheddar, shredded mozzarella, and maybe an occasional bar of Monterey Jack cheese. Over the past few months, I’ve begun experimenting with some goat cheese, fresh mozzarella (a revelation!) and different types of cheddar.

Once I figured out the difference between mild, medium and sharp cheddars, it opened up a large world of customized used for me: flavor for a quesadilla? extra sharp ofcourse. A delicate omelet? medium for body but not to overpower the eggs. And for light sandwiches where I wanted to taste of the main ingredients to come through? The New Zealand mild cheddar above suited me perfectly.

The cheese is truly a mild cheddar (don’t be fooled by the ‘to medium’ claim) – not a whisper of a bite, but the naturally aged taste of the cheddar came through enough to leave a nice cheesy taste in the sandwich. The texture, when melted, added a velvety, gooey layer that contrasted well with the crispy ciabatta I paired it with (recipe to follow). Definitely not a cheese that will blow your socks off, but good enough to top on some soup also I would think. Definitely a cheese I will keep around for its versatility.

It boggles my mind that there are countless ads in this country for instant energy drinks, natural energy bars, easy energy tables – but no one gets on a TV and says ‘Eat fresh fruit, you’ll have all the instant energy you’ll ever need’! I guess its just too easy for anyone to ever take it serious. OR, in this capitalistic world we live in, there probably just isn’t much money in get folks to eat fresh fruit - no big corporation needs to process anything and thus isn’t making any money off fresh produce, and the only folks who stand to gain from you eating fresh fruit is mostly the import companies and the actual farmers who produce the food – and who cares about those porr farmers anyways?!

But I won’t go off into a rant about how eating local (or even non-local) fresh produce is the best way to ensure farming remains a viable profession and we don’t end up as a world filled with more machine-produced that nature-produced food. (I’ll save that for another post). What I’ll focus on here is how eating fresh fruit can really help you save money and provide instant nutrition.

Let’s focus on the watermelon today, because this is such an easy-to-eat and easy-to-use fruit that is a breeze to cut at home without spending money on expensive watermelon juices or pre-cut fruit cups. Watermelon, with its dark green skin and bright red flesh, is just such a beautiful fruit to have around the house – whether you buy the whole fruit, quarters of market-cut fruit like in the photo above, or if u’re really laze and go for those containers of pre-chunked melow, having them around the kitchen will be a joy, I promise you!

The bright red flesh will cheer you up instantly, and the water-filled fruit is such a good thirst quencher that it makes a wonderful post-workout snack. The fiber and water content of the fruit will fill your stomach up quickly without weighing you down, and most of the time the fruit is so sweet that you barely will need any additional sweeteners or flavors to make it a healthy and wonderful dessert.

When picking the fruit, one easy tip my tatayya taught me was to tap on the fruit and check for a hollow sound. If it is hollow, and fruit seems heavy for its size, you have yourself a ripe, juicy melon! If you’re buying a pre-sliced or pre0cut watermelon, check for bright, deep red flesh – if the flesh is pale, it won’t be sweet enough, and if the flesh is too dark and appears wilty, it is not fresh enough.

If you end up with a slightly less sweeter fruit, don’t fret! You can still whip up a refreshing juice by adding a little sugar, some fresh lemon juice, and if you’re feeling adventurous adding some fresh ginger into the mix. You will get a fresh push of energy from the juice, without worrying about any added ingredients. And lest you think watermelon is just a summer juice, enjoy a few slices in the dead of winter and tell me you aren’t feeling a bit tropical!

I wrote last night about how waffles make a great, nutritious breakfast – something to help start off your day with sustained energy. However, dousing your home-made waffles with sugary, sticky, artificial syrup (yes, Mrs.Butterworth, I’m looking in your direction) just negates all the good nutritional karma you’ve built up. Not only do those ‘pancake’ syrups tend to be overly sweet and thus completely mask the delicious taste of homemade waffles, but just reading their ingredient lists is enough to give you science class flashbacks – tons of complicated compounds and additives, nary a natural item on the list. And once you get off the sugar high, which will be quick given the sweetness of the syrups, you won’t fee so good about you day anymore.

Pure maple syrup, on the other hand, has just the right hint of sweetness without being too heavy or numbingly syrupy. This is how nature intended us to complement our breakfasts – with the earthy, sweet tang of mapley goodness. Warmed up for a few seconds in the microwave, maple syrup becomes easily pourable onto your freshly made waffles -  and boy does it add just the right undernotes while still letting the bite and taste of the waffles come through.

Now, I realize that maple syrup is pricier than the artificial syrups – but there are different brands and different varietals (a listing of which will be a separate post altogether) that can fit your budget. Don’t be scared off by the notion that all maple syrup is an indulgence; there are certainly options for the thrifty amongst us too. Specifically, I find that Grade B maple syrups are less expensive than Grade A, but still work wonderfully on waffles and pancakes. They have a slightly richer flavor and are thicker, but as I mentioned above, microwaving in a small bowl for a few seconds helps with the viscosity.  I’ve been using a big batch of Whole Foods’ 265 brand Grade B syrup for a while now – I find it economical enough to even share with breakfast guests !

ITEM: WHOLE FOODS 365 BRAND GRADE B MAPLE SYRUP

TASTE: You can definitely taste the maple in the syrup, and the sweetness doesnt overwhelm the flavor. The syrup adds a nice sweetness to waffles and pancakes, but is definitely a more subtle flavor than the imitation syrups.

APPEARANCE: Slightly thick after opening and storing in the refrigerator, the syrup loosens up nicely if microwaved for a few seconds. A nice golden brown color, the syrup is not sticky at all.

RATING: Like it. While there are small-batch producers with a much richer maple syrups, which are worth the indulgence occasionally, the Whole Foods generic brand has enough flavor and is economical enough to suit the everyday usage.

This was the first loaf of sour-dough bread I’ve ever eaten – and I have to tell you, I was a little underwhelmed. I’ve come to understand that sourdough bread is one of those polarizing foods that will split a population into believers and haters – some love it, some can’t stand it. Me? Eh – it wasn’t the best bread I’ve eaten, but it still had enough flavor and complexity to merit another try.

I happened upon this at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago; my favorite whole grain loaves had sold out so I decided to give this sourdough a try. Perhaps I should’ve stuck to a white sourdough to start off with – but who am I to say know to the healthy benefits of whole grains, especially now that the marketing world constantly hits me over the head with how many grains I should be having every day. (Any more and I wonder if I’ll turn into a horse, you know).

The slightly sour (duh) flavor of the bread contrasted nicely with the earthiness of the whole wheat, but also got dulled a bit by it, I think. A slice of this bread was good to dunk in to soup as it held quite a bit of the liquid and added a nice tangy undertaste, but did not go so well with a slice of pepper-jack cheese. The wife did not seem to care much for this bread, but I may give this another try next fall when the baker is back, and will definitely try a regular white sourdough first to see if we fancy it.

THE REVIEW: WHOLE WHEAT SOURDOUGH from the Farmer’s Market

CRUST: Not too hard, cut through easily with a knife without leading to too many crumbs. Not too crispy when toasted.

CRUMB: Fairly dense, with a chewy mouthfeel and slight sour taste. Toasting after freezing led to a nicely browned slice with the crumb losing a bit more of the sourness, but retaining the earthiness from the whole wheat.  Mostly smooth crumb with no additives at all.

OVERALL: Went well with soup but not with a slice of cheese. 2 oranges, meaning we may give it another try but are not particularly craving it again.

Sunday nights, especially in this time of the year when there is a chill outside and football on the tube, are for settling down with a good bottle of beer. I was never much of a beer fan, especially as an alcohol to be abused when going out on the town (stay classy with a gin and tonic or a vodka drink, people). But lately I’ve been finding that one bottle of beer works perfectly to take the edge off on a Sunday night, when all you want to do is to kick back with some good food, good conversation and the occasional scream at the wide reciever who dropped the ball.

At such times, you do NOT want to reach for just the generic big company flavor-less piss water that is mass marketed in the State (Bud is, I repeat, not good beer). You want to pick up a local micro-brew or an import with some complexity to it. Look a little deeper in your local alcohol store’s beer cooler and you are sure to find a beer that calls out to you – an India Pale Ale, a Pilsner or even a Stout, perhaps. Or hit up your nearest wine shop and ask for recommendations on a good beer  -  they are sure to carry a few that would merit mention.

You want a beer that stands up to the food you eat it with – not just to mindlessly drink the night away. Don’t get me wrong – when I want to just get wasted, I’d save my money, buy the cheapest coors six pack and call it a night. Some of these beers also have great labels and names, and make for wonderful conversation starters if you have company over. Don’t be shy about taking a unique six pack to the next house party you get invited to either – that cute blonde girl or baseball jock you’ve been crushing on might just be impressed with your new found beer IQ!

This week, I settled on the White Rascal – a Belgian-Style Wheat Ale from the Avery Brewing Company in Colorado. Wheat ale’s are one of my favorite kinds of beer – light and refreshing without being cloyingly sweet or’ hoppingly’ bitter. This ale is brewed, in the tradition of witbiers, with spices like coriander and Curacoa orange peel – and you know given my love for oranges, I had to try this. This is also an unfiltered beer, meaning the yeast used during the brewing process is left in the bottles, settling near the bottom. It gives the beer a yeasty nose and taste – but the spicyness of the coriander and zest of the orange peel more than compensate for any yeasty undernotes you may encounter. In all, the beer was an excellent pairing with the biryani the wifey and I made last night – and for the high-scoring Cardinals- Vikings game too!

THE REVIEW: WHITE RASCAL BELGIAN ALE

BOTTLE: Standard brown glass bottle. Label has a horned white devilish creature, completed with tail and horns, holding a glass and sporting a mischevious look. There is a small picture of an orange with vague leaves under – signifying the spices that the brew contains I suppose. No easy-twist caps here!

SMELL: I definitely got a sniff of the yeast as soon as I opened the cap; I expected to get atleast a hint of the orange peel but could not

HEAD: Not very long-lasting, but definitive and dense. The label recommended pouring out most of the beer into the glass, then swirling the remainder in the bottle to pick up the yeast and top off the glass with it. This added a nice warmth to the head, contrasting the spicy kick the first taste of the beer yeilded.

TASTE: While I could not distinguish the coriander or the orange flavors as distinct components, there was definitely a nice spicy punch to the beer. There was the signature malty undernotes common with wheat ales, and the warmth of the yeast lingered. There was not much bitterness as these beers are not really brewed with hops (but hops may be present in the gruit or spice mix used to flavor the beer.

FOOD PAIRINGS: The beer was excellent paired with a mildly spicy Chicken Biryani; it also held up to some milder fare like garlic mashed potatoes with bacon. This might not be a good beer for very spicy stuff like Chili Chicken; it would also overpower blander, cheesy foods like pizza I would think.

COST: $9 for a 6-pack at Whole Foods.

OVERALL: A very nice belgian-style wheat ale with a nice spicy taste and good flavor. Not too pricey – and an easy entry if you are looking to get in to belgian-style ales. Definitely a top beer in my list. 3.5 oranges – which means I like the beer and will go back to this quite often.

This week was surprisingly busy, but luckily a ton of leftovers from last week, combined with a couple of soup and bread nights have gotten us through to the weekend. The bread we are using this week is a Multi Grain round from Whole Foods – yes, yes, the big bad organics supermart is still the best place to pick up fresh non-commercial bread in the winter when the farmer’s market near us closes.

And the breads from WF still taste much better, and contain much less nasty stuff, than anything you can pick up at the regular grocery store – since they claim to bake everything on their premises, we choose to trust them and feel like we’re eating a healthier bread. During my pre-thanksgiving Wednesday visit to WF,  I saw a nice, large round of Multi Grain calling out to me; as expected, the texture and grainy taste of the bread has complemented wonderfully the many Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving left-over meals over the past few weeks.

This loaf froze wonderfully well also; I pre-cut the slices before freezing so all we’ve had to do is throw them in the toaster oven for a couple of mins to get a hot, crusty slice ready for whatever our appetites were on the mood for – a quick snack , a dunk for tomato soup or even, as I experimented with today, a perfect base to top my chocolate ganache with – using flavorful bread (and not just cake) as an unexpected pairing for the sweet, silky ganache being a trick I picked up from La Maison Du Chocolat, of all places!

THE REVIEW: We LIKED it

Flavor: Aromatic and a bit nutty when fresh; picked up a very slight sour depth upon freezing and reheating. Not as nuanced a flavor as the farmer’s market whole-grain I reviewed a week or so ago – which is to be expected with the more mass produced and generic Whole Food’s loaves than the small-batch local bakers’.

Texture: Very crusty on the outside, and airy and light inside. I could definitely pick up the whole grains in a few of the bites, but mostly had a mouthfeel like regular white bread – though not soggy in the least.

How to eat it: We liked it best when toasted with a slice of pepper-jack cheese (thanks to the wifey for suggesting we try that). It was sided nicely with tomato or sweet corn soup, holding the liquid nicely when dunked in. Definitely worked well with the ganache after freezing/toasting because the slight sourness contrasted nicely with the sweet richness of the chocolate.

The days leading up to Thanksgiving can be a bit stressful for any cooking-centric young couple; most are either hosting a party at home or heading to a family dinner and worrying about what fabulous dish they should take with them. We at eatlovecook usually rely on one small purple can of a simple herb mixture to get us through this holiday, choosing to make simple choices with what we cook and leaving ourselves plenty of time to mingle with family, play or watch some football and most importantly – eat till we can’t eat no mo’!

What is this magical mixture, you ask? Why, Herbs de Provence, ofcourse! Herbes de Provence, as it should correctly be called, is a mixture of dried herbs – the original combination, marketing would have you believe, was derived from the herbs individually used by Provencal grandmothers for centuries in their warm, rustic comfort foods.

Whether the legend holds true or not, the mixture is wonderful to use around the holidays – it provides plenty of flavor when used as a rub for the turkey I roast every year, adds a wonderful depth to simple mashed potatoes, kicks up a batch of oven-roasted vegetables into a Thanksgiving-worthy side-dish, and when added to the base of any soup can transport you to the south of France. Keep this in your pantry and you can quite easily pull off a sophisticated dish (or three) on Turkey day – and have relatives asking you to share your flavor secrets all evening long! And we all know that anything french sounding can only make you look sauve and sophisticated, right?

The mix usually differs based on the brand you buy, but more often than not contains the following: fennel, basil, thyme, and lavender flowers and other herbs – lavender being the key ingredient that really identifies as authentic Herbes de Provence. This mix is becoming more available in regular grocery stores, but when I first sought it out a couple of years ago I found it only in a gourmet food store. It may be a bit pricey compared to your normal Mccormick herb bottles but believe me – a pinch goes a long way and one can will last you atleast an year. (You DO throw out all your dried herbs after an year, don’t you? Do it, do it now and don’t look back.)

WAYS TO USE:

• Mix with softened butter and use to rub turkey before roasting. (Recipe to follow in a couple of days)
• Sprinkle on your choice of vegetables to roast, tossing them in some olive oil and throwing them in the oven
• Add to potatoes before mashing
• Add to soups or stews instead of fresh or other dried herbs
• Sprinkle into your pasta sauce for a truly provencal meal

ELC VERDICT: LOVE it!