Three Dog Kitchen

When I’m bored, I mill around Chowhound. I’ve gotten pretty good at not reading posts with titles that I know will annoy me. I now ignore them. Sometimes I get tricked and read a post only to discover that it’s a stupid question (yes, there are stupid questions AND stupid answers in this world) or completely unrelated to the title. These days, Chowhound is most useful to me for providing insight on new restaurants in the area. Of course, I don’t trust chowhound praise outright. No, typically I’ll see a few restaurants named and I’ll read about them and try and get an idea if the reviews are balanced enough to believe. I don’t trust gushing at all. Especially if it’s accompanied by PRAISE in CAPITAL LETTERS. So, I make a mental note of these places and then if I see it pop up on a couple local blogs it triggers a “hmm..” moment. At that point, I probably write it down somewhere and tell T that I want to try it. Or Cami. And then a few months go by before we ever get to where it is we’re craving. So, I’m totally not a trendsetter when it comes to new restaurants. Except for places in Poway, I guess.

My actual point, however, was to say that I don’t actively try to annoy myself with Chowhound. I feel like I’ve been on that site long enough for the vast number of topics to actually start repeating themselves. What to make for V-Day. What to cook to impress a first date. What to do with leftover ham. What’s your favorite cheese. OMG - Greek yogurt rocks. How long do I roast a chicken. Where to eat during Comicon. No car in SD - what food is bearable. And on and on.

What I don’t understand is what people think the site is for. I see questions pop up that make me wonder if they think they’re having live conversations*. Like, there’s a chicken burning in the oven and the dinner party starts in half an hour - what should they do? If I had a dinner party in half an hour and my food was burning, my first instinct would not be to consult a message board for an answer (and then wait for said answer to eventually appear). I would turn on the vent hood, stick the food outside, and either run to Costo for a roast chicken or make a frantic call to Joey’s Smokin’ BBQ. But, I also plan my dinner parties very carefully, so the chances of this happening to me are small. Also, for small get togethers, I don’t tell people what I’m cooking. For all they know, I was planning on having take-out all along!

Or someone will pull out chicken, a pepper, cheese, and couscous and ask what they can make for dinner that night. In half an hour. Do you really think people are sitting at their computer, constantly hitting “refresh” to see what last-minute disasters they can solve?

My latest favorites, however, involve broken appliances. My oven sometimes bursts into flames - should I worry? My refrigerator is leaking water - what should I do? Weird noises, odd smells, random flames, and puddled liquids are not questions for a message board. That’s when you start calling repair people. Some problems don’t get better the longer you wait to fix them (actually, I don’t know of any problems that do that). The concept boggles my mind.

But, just so I don’t end this post on a grumpy note, I will tell you about a cookie from Trader Joe’s (I know, surprise, surprise!) that I bought and didn’t like that later grew on me to the point where I took the bin to work so I didn’t eat them all. In one sitting. They are like Nilla Wafers, if Nilla Wafers were made with butter and vanilla beans. They’re called Ultimate Vanilla Wafers. They come in the plastic tubs, like the chocolate chip cookies that are also addictive. The cookies are crisp-soft. Not as hard as Nilla Wafers, but not as soft as a chewy cookie. You can definitely taste the butter, but sometimes you can also feel the vanilla bean seeds (some people don’t like that). It’s kind of nice to know that you could use a more natural cookie in place of Nilla Wafers (remember making mini cheesecakes with the wafer as the bottom crust?), but I also take comfort know Nilla Wafer are always on grocery store shelves. For all I know, the vanilla thins are “seasonal” and will disappear once summer is over. All in all, it’s a good butter cookie, with just a hint of vanilla.

* Some message boards really are like real-time chatting. I know friends who frequent boards like this and they form their own little odd community. This comes in handy if, say, your car is stolen and you need hundreds of eyes keeping a lookout until it’s spotted, at which point they band together, block said stolen car in until police arrive, and help you get your car back. I’m just saying.

I get enough hits from people looking for information on Trader Joe’s detox kit that it piqued my curiousity.  So, the next time I found myself in Trader Joe’s, I picked one up.  You get 3 containers of pills - fiber, liver, and a “digestive” formula.  The plus side is that you only have to swallow pills; no drinking of funny powders.  The downside is that you may find yourself swallowing up to 8 pills, twice a day.  This may not be a problem for those of you who can swallow more than one pill at a time, but I found it to be a lot of capsules to gulp down.

Now, I admit that I didn’t alter my diet for this “detox”.  I didn’t give up red meat, dairy, sugar, coffee, etc.  Is this why I didn’t feel “cleansed” and totally energized?  Who knows.  I will say that this must be a pretty gentle detox, which is nice if you don’t want to worry about your bathroom schedule.  ‘Nuff said?  Okay.

I also did a little Googling and found claims that people heard other people lost 10 pounds doing this detox (or any detox) for just a couple of weeks.  I didn’t find too many first-person proclamations.  I’ve also come to the conclusion that if you spend 2 weeks eating only vegetables and water and maybe some bread, it’s not far-fetched to except weight to drop off.  You’re not eating much!  If I did that I could drop pounds even without detox pills.  I’d also be hungry and cranky and not much fun to be around.  I don’t buy the hype that you shouldn’t eat solid food while detoxing to give your system a break.  I think your digestive system works whether you’re eating raw carrots or drinking carrot soup.  I’m also skeptical that all the weight you drop with a “proper detox” wouldn’t just come right back after eating your first real meal.  You know, water weight explanation and all.  You certainly couldn’t exercise while on a detox - you’d pass out from lack of calories!  Of course, what do I know.  I’m no expert. 

So, I have come to the conclusion that the most practical way to lose weight and be healthy is: eat less and exercise more!  Stunning, isn’t it?  Eat a couple of salads, maybe you don’t indulge in a double cheeseburger at every lunch, have some fish (non-fried) for dinner!  Honestly, I find that when we do eat at home, it’s quite often pretty healthy.  I don’t tend to make a lot of fried foods or heavy cream sauces.  I leave those to the restaurant folk, which is why I tend to order those things when we do go out for dinner.  I also tend not to eat salads when eating out because I find them to be boring and if I’m spending money on a meal I want to really enjoy it.  I think an exception to this is the tri tip salad at Joey’s Smokin’ BBQ.  It’s a salad, so you can feel like you’re eating healthy, but it has a good amount of tasty tri tip on top.  Plus, the beans and corn and whatnot sprinkled throughout make it a really tasty dish.  Would I rather have the brisket plate with mac ‘n cheese?  Yes!  I’m just saying that their salad doesn’t make me sad and wishing I had ordered something else.

Okay, so I’m kind of glad there’s a kid out there with enough conviction to tell the Smithsonian they’ve made a mistake.  However, this article brings up a few things I would like to point out:

• If the musuem paleobiology department knew the sign was wrong 27 years ago, why didn’t anyone at the museum listen to them?
• His last name is Stufflebeam?  Really?  Does he get ridiculed a lot considering he comes off as a nerdy kid and he has a wonky last name?
• This kid is totally going to grow up to be that guy in college who asks a bazillion questions in class and corrects the professor all the time.
• Seriously.  Stufflebeam?

I’ve noticed that people are finding my site on a weekly basis by Googling “gruesome death pics”.  I have no idea why this site would come up, especially because I can’t get here running the same Google search.  It’s very bizarre to me. [edited to add: maybe they come here because I keep putting that phrase up wondering how they're finding this site...]

Also, someone is looking for who is selling Trader Joe’s kitchen cloths.  Umm, that would be Trader Joe’s. 

To the person looking for vegetable shumai, Trader Joe’s sells one with an edamame on top and it is very tasty.  However, be forewarned that their vegetable shumai is not going to save you many calories or fat grams compared to shrimp shumai.  You’d think the vegetable version would be healthier, but it kind of isn’t.  It’s still really good, though.

Right about now, my mom is wondering if I shop anywhere besides Trader Joe’s. She’s also probably getting ready to see if she should rush out to her Trader Joe’s to pick up some new finds. I think I may have a problem. Has anyone started a Trader Joe’s Anonymous group yet? “Hi, my name is Leanne and I’m addicted to Trader Joe’s shopping.”

I was reading Chowhound (yes, again) and there was a thread on boxed mac ‘n cheese, the emphasis on “boxed”. “Foodies” like to turn their nose up at any form of mac ‘n cheese that involves powder or a squeeze pack of goo.

okay, total side note here, but am I the only one who feels like sometimes people post on Chowhound just for praise? Like a kid who doesn’t get enough attention so they go to the one place that will get all giddy for doing normal things like flushing the toilet? I mean, I’ve been reading posts where someone comes out and says that they tasted foie gras for the first time and absolutely love it and they were thrilled when their dining partner didn’t because that meant they got to eat twice as much. And then everyone comes out to say “Congratulations!” and how a whole new world of food has been opened up to them and it’s so sad their dining partner doesn’t appreciate the fine tastes of foie gras and blah blah blah. Yeah, maybe it’s just me.

Uh, where was I? Oh, yeah, snubbing the neon orange cheesy noodles. I actually prefer Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese to any other (except the crab mac ‘n cheese at Chive, that was pretty good) because when I crave it, that’s what I crave. Not some four cheese, needs-salt, light orange pasta dish. I want the neon color, the high sodium flavor, and the light coating of cheese-like product. Personally, I’m not a fan of the Deluxe version, but I think if you grew up with that, that’s the one you’d crave, too. If I want a “real” creamy pasta dish, I’ll order something Alfredo.

Second side note: right now my mom is also wondering why I enjoy a $1 box of mac ‘n cheese but turn my nose up at a $30 brunch because it doesn’t include lobster tails and caviar and I have to settle for crowds and cold crab claws, which is true and also sad because said caviar-brunch now costs $75 a person, which is just ridiculously expensive and even I can’t justify going back. Even if it is my parents’ money.

My point is, the thread ended up praising the cheesy goodness of Trader Joe’s frozen mac ‘n cheese that comes in a box labeled “Joe’s Diner”. Of course, I had to go test this out. The box has 2 servings; 1 serving has nearly 400 calories and a quarter of your daily fat and sodium allowances. Since we also had chicken sausages in the fridge that needed to be cooked, I opted to do it all at once in the oven. This gave me half an hour, which I oh-so-efficiently used to do my requisite 30 minutes of exercise! It would have been very easy to eat the whole tray of noodles (tip: it will look oddly like it did before you heated it all up, but give it a good stir and you’ll see that it did indeed turn into a creamy sauce of cheesy goodness, really!) but I loaded my plate with salad and only ate 1/3 of the tray (not even a full serving!). Very proud of myself. This also leads to my next find from TJ: salad dressing.

We own zero salad dressings in this house. None in the fridge, none in the pantry. This is because creamy dressings are not good for you and anything else I can whip up with a good oil/vinegar base. But, I am also lazy, which translates into no homemade dressing and very few salads eaten. I trust in TJ to sell dressings that are marginally not-going-to-kill-you bad, so I picked up a bottle of the Goddess dressing. This is not Green Goddess dressing, this is a creamy dressing with soy sauce and other flavors that I can’t think of but come together for a nice subtle flavor. Oh, fine, I’ll get the bottle. It has tahini, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, sesame seeds, parsley, and chives. Along with the usual oil, salt, and xanthan gum. It’s good; I like it. Which means I’ll probably use it to go through the huge bag of salad greens that came in the CSA. And take salad to work for lunch. The lesson here is that sometimes you just don’t want to always make your own salad dressing. And for those moments TJ will come to your rescue.

I also bought frozen oatmeal and lobster ravioli. If I hadn’t been planning on the mac ‘n cheese and the sausage, I would have made the ravioli for dinner.  We did eat the ravioli over the weekend and it was nice and lobster-y, although T says he would have prefered lobster chunks rather than the smooth lobsterness inside the ravioli.  It was nice with a browned butter sauce and grated Parmesan, and it was also nice as leftovers with a light marinara.  I’d imagine a light cream sauce would have also been tasty.

I went to Trader Joe’s to pick up a few things (those flyers they send out are the best marketing ever) and ended up with more than just a few things. But, I did try some new items, and I like them, so here they are. I was also going to break it up into multiple posts, but I’m kind of lazy, so they’re all going in this one.

A while ago, my mom told me about something she bought for my sister from Trader Joe’s that was surprisingly good for being non-meat (my sister is a vegetarian of sorts). I must have been distracted, because all I remember is something about edamame. I saw these Vegetable Shumai with Edamame (possibly not the official name on the package) and thought these might be what they were talking about. Also, it is dangerous to shop at Trader Joe’s before you’ve had dinner. I rarely microwave foods, but these turn out pretty good microwaved and, as a bonus, they’re ready to eat in a jiffy! They come with a ponzu sauce, but I saved the packet for when I eat the rest of the shumai and just ate these with Som Good Sauce. They have a texture similar to shrimp shumai, but these are all vegetarian. They aren’t bland, either - I like them! Ironically, these are better than the shrimp shumai I’ve bought from Trader Joe’s. Don’t eat the whole package in one sitting, though. They have an oddly high fat content.

Sea salt, chocolate, and caramels are the new trendy thing. Or maybe they’re an old trendy thing and I’m just now getting with it. When T and I were in Seattle, we tried Fran’s smoked sea salt caramels and weren’t terribly impressed. Perhaps the caramels were too chewy for the combo to work. I made a note of these after reading the review on Baking Bites (whose pictures are also way better than mine).

Sorry, Fran, but these are way better than yours. The caramel is soft, but not oozy. The chocoalte is crisp, but not waxy. Everything is balanced so it’s not too sweet and then you get a crunch of salt and that wraps it all up. Like eating a chocolate caramel covered pretzel, but without the actual pretzel. These are delicious and I may go buy another box before the season is over.

HeatEatReview reviewed the Trader Joe’s cookie dough, as did Consumer Reports. The consensus was that it was the closest-to-homemade cookie dough available, beating out Whole Foods. I routinely make a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, portion it, and the freeze the dough. Then I can just take out a few pieces and bake them, getting fresh-baked cookies on a moment’s whim. I love fresh cookies, warm from the oven, with gooey chocolate chips and a cold glass of milk. But, sometimes I just don’t want to make a batch of cookie dough and wash mixing bowls. Hence, I was curious if these cookies really did capture the homemade touch. The ingredients (listed on HeatEatReview) are the same as in my cookie recipe - no preservatives to be found. So I baked 4 cookies to test them out.

See? They came out a little thinner than my recipe makes them, which means they tend to bend in half when you’re eating them warm. They are also a tiny bit less buttery than my cookies (I used the recipe from Alton Brown’s baking cookbook, which I think is like this one). But, they have no funny aftertaste and they are wonderful and easy. Now, the $3.50 price tag is a little much for 16 balls of cookie dough, but it is extremely convenient. If I didn’t have cookie dough in the freezer and I was at Trader Joe’s, I’d probably pick these up again.

Just a quick blurb. Recently, the City of Poway sent a survey out to residents asking about their shopping habits. A quick summary can be read here. I just found it funny because Trader Joe’s was the most requested business Powegians wanted to see come to town. I would be willing to bet that the majority of people who said they do most of their shopping in Carmel Mountain instead of Poway do so because that’s where our Trader Joe’s is! Just imagine… I could do all my shopping at Trader Joe’s, Henry’s, and then Vons and the City would get its tax benefits!

I already frequent the Poway Home Depot and Costco, and Target is located within city limits, so I guess you could say I really do most of my shopping in my city. Yay!

Tiramisu has to be one of my favorite Italian desserts, yet I rarely order it in a restaurant. I’m very picky about it and it seems like every restaurant does it a little different. I like it light and fluffy, not too boozy, with ladyfingers and not sponge cake or pound cake. I found a recipe for tiramisu that didn’t involve eggs or egg whites or cooking something into a sabayon. I tweaked it a bit to make it simple and fit what I probably had when I first made it. The best ladyfingers are the ones I buy from Trader Joe’s, although they are now a “seasonal” item and will probably disappear soon after the New Year begins. Two boxes of ladyfingers would fill a 9-inch springform pan perfectly, I discovered. Also, do not ever use a tiramisu recipe that calls for cream cheese. Yes, it’s similar to marscapone but it’s not a substitute. It’s like saying yogurt is the same as mayo in tuna salad - it’s not.

The original recipe uses a springform pan so you can release the outer ring and dust it with cocoa powder and the finished dish looks spectacular. Lately, I’ve been making it in a 9-inch square baking dish, which uses fewer ladyfingers (about 1.5 boxes) but is still delicious and looks pretty in the dish. You can also just brew really strong coffee if you don’t have espresso (or instant espresso). You do need to let it sit in the fridge for a few hours for the ladyfingers to fully soften and meld with the coffee and cream. It’s still really good right after assembly, but the ladyfingers will be a little harder in the middle.

This dessert is a hit every time I make it and I’m always happy to take it to parties because it means I won’t be eating the whole thing by myself. I’ve also convinced T that there’s no reason to order tiramisu when we go out because mine will be better. Most of the time, I’m right, too. It’s safe to say I outright brag about my tiramisu, and I’m proud that it’s one of the few recipes I’ve tweaked to make my own (although, it’s probably published somewhere with the same ingredients because I’m not that much of a culinary genius).

Tiramisu

Ingredients
1 c. espresso
3 Tb. + 3 Tb. sugar
1/4 c. + 1/4 c. amaretto
8 oz. marscapone
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. whipping cream
8 oz. ladyfingers (2 Trader Joe boxes)
1 Tb. cocoa powder

Directions
1. Combine the espresso, 3 Tb. sugar, and 1/4 c. amaretto in a small dish and set aside.
2. Whip the whipping cream to the soft peak stage.
3. In a separate bowl, blend the marscapone, remaining 3 Tb. sugar and 1/4 c. amaretto, vanilla, and 2 Tb. of the coffee mixture. Fold in the whipped cream.
4. Briefly dunk the ladyfinger in the coffee mixture and layer on the bottom of your pan (briefly - dunk to cover and take out, don’t let it sit in the coffee or it will get too soggy). Spread half the marscapone mixture over the ladyfingers. Repeat with the layer of ladyfingers and finish with the rest of the marscapone.
5. Dust with cocoa powder and let it rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Every now and then I go on some product kick and enter a phase where I am totally 100% committed and involved and so into something that I believe I will single handedly change the world. Once, that phase involved my dogs and how I was going to feed them homemade food, full of goodness and real meat and crafted with love. I bought this book on holistic dog care that had recipes for dog food and explained how to crush eggshells to give you dogs essential calcium and whatnot. I made shopping lists of powders and vitamins that I would need to mix into the ground beef and chicken and eggs. And then the dogs ran out of Pro Plan dog food and I figured I would just solve the situation by upgrading to Eukanuba. I still have the dog food book. And a container of brewer’s yeast. But now I silence my guilty conscience by buying natural dog cookies and just trying to avoid commercial dog foods with evil poisonous Chinese wheat gluten (Eukanuba is good; as is Castor & Pollax organic food, and apparently the Science Diet natural food).

My latest feel-good phase involved being green, going organic, and eating locally. I was going to shop at the farmers market every weekend and support the small farms by purchasing the organic seasonal fruits and vegetables. Apparently, bananas aren’t really local or seasonal and the fresh, just harvested eggs were really good, but I couldn’t noticeably tell the difference between those and the ones I get from Trader Joe’s. I have compromised by joining a CSA, which takes care of most of our veggie needs. I still shop at Vons and Ralphs, though, and don’t feel guilty about it.

My green aspirations involved purchasing Method products, using canvas bags for grocery shopping, using compostable plastic doggy pickup bags, and getting rid of environmentally destructive cleaning products. Then Target stopped carrying the Method bloq lotions and such and I’ve never seen the dishwasher cubes on store shelves. I also kept forgetting to bring in the canvas bags when I went shopping, so I would just opt for paper bags when I could. We are still going through the Formula 409 and Palmolive dish soap, but I have a veritable hoard of Method cleaning products that will clean and be environmentally friendly. We get a plastic sleeve on the newspaper every day, so I use those for picking up after the dogs. I have switched to a biodegradable kitty litter, but that was mainly because it smells less kitty-litterish.

In the end, convenience trumps everything when it comes to my life.

One of the products I picked up while I was stockpiling green items was Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap. Trader Joe’s carries the peppermint version, although I hear Whole Foods also has the lavender version. The soap comes in a plastic bottle covered in messages, saying, directives, and other odd notes. It’s a concentrated soap, with different dilutions for different uses. You can use it for body wash, toothpaste, shampoo, dog wash, dishwashing, floor scrubbing, oven cleaning, etc. It’s sold in small bottles at camping stores because it is so versatile and is non-toxic. I had grand plans of cleaning the house from top to bottom using only this Magic Soap, and then the bottle sat under the sink, unopened, for months. Until the day we cleaned the vent hood in the kitchen.

If you’ve ever tried to clean the hood, you know it gets caked with grease, dust, more grease, and the more dust. It’s not like cleaning the counter; you usually end up smearing the greasy sludge around until pieces of the paper towl get stuck and you give up, rationalizing that no one ever really looks up there anyway. Well, T tried to clean it. He started with 409, moved on to some other spray, got to the Orange Clean and then was stumped. Digging through the cabinet produced a scrub pad and the forgotten bottle of hemp soap. Perhaps the “Magic” in the title gave us hope. I squirted some into a bowl with hot water and set to scrubbing the vent, one small portion at a time. The grease came off, but apparently so did some paint. I would advocate more dilution than one squirt to 2 cups water, for future reference. Once the hood was clean, I noticed the vent filter was pretty gross. I almost wish I had taken a picture so you could appreciate the years of disgusting that was on this filter.

My grandma used to clean the filter with a toothpick, paper towels, and dish soap or some cleaning spray. It would take her forever and get the filter only mostly clean. We started to clean it by dousing it with the rest of the 409. This didn’t do much, other than rinse off some dirt. If Magic Soap could strip paint off the hood, surely it could clean layers of grease off, right? The bottle says that the Soap doesn’t just clean, it dissolved dirt and grease. I filled the sink with hot water, added 2 generous squirts of Magic Soap, swished the filter through the hot soapy water, and then left for 15 minutes (in all honesty, the strong peppermint vapors were getting to me). I came back, fully expecting to scrub and poke and consider just buying a new filter. I came back to a shiny filter and sink full of cloudy water. Amazing.

I may not ever brush my teeth with this Soap, but I fully endorse it for cutting through awful grease jobs. You should go buy it, even if only to use for cleaning the vent filter over your stove.

We all know I love Trader Joe’s. It’s no secret. I always find something new and tasty when I shop there. I’ve also noticed that they started printing a categorized shopping list in their Fearless Flyer so you can check off which new items you’re interested in and just take the little list shopping with you. Genius! Not only does it make shopping more convenient for me, it also makes me buy more because I’m not forgetting what I want the second I step foot in the store.

I have always been a fan of the frozen creme brulee at Trader Joe’s. Two little ceramic dishes full of rich, creamy goodness that only need to be defrosted, sprinkled with sugar, and torched until carmelized.

Well, let me tell you that the panna cotta is even better.

Panna cotta is generally made with cream, milk, sugar, vanilla, and gelatin. Essentially, you’re making cream jello, but it’s rich and silky smooth and oh-so-decadent. There are variations that use yogurt, in an attempt to reduce the fat content and allow you to indulge more often, and they’re good versions but nothing like the full-fat kind. It’s like eating creme brulee versus a pudding cup. Umm, okay, maybe it’s more like eating apple pie with flaky crust versus eating a baked apple. Both are good, both are sweet, both are satisfying (in their own way), but the apple pie is just more comforting and yummy.

One of the best panna cottas I have had happened to be on a cruise ship. T and I cruised to Mexico from San Diego (making for a very convenient vacation) and splurged to have lunch in the “upscale” ship restaurant. I happen to be a fan of cruise food anyway (dining room, not buffet), and perhaps everything seemed extra special because we were the only ones in the restaurant that day, but it was a truly enjoyable lunch. One of the dessert choices was panna cotta, which I thought I’d try, since everything else had been so wonderful. It was smooth and creamy, not too firm, with the richness of vanilla cream but not overpowering.

Trader Joe’s Panna Cotta blows the cruise ship panna cotta out of the water, no pun intended. You do need to let it defrost for almost 2 hours in the fridge, but you don’t have to invert it onto a plate unless you’re serving company and want it to look fancy. If it’s just you, feel free to eat it, one spoonful at a time, going from the peach side to the blueberry side and back again. If you’re lucky, you will have someone in the house who will take a bite, think it’s fabulous, and help you eat half the container. If you’re really lucky, he’ll help with the second one still in the freezer, too.

So, go to Trader Joe’s, pick up some cheese curds, the Sparkling Mojito Beverage (non-alcoholic), ladyfingers (they’re in season!), and the panna cotta. Maybe two of the panna cotta.

Trader Joe’s sells these “Unburied Treasure White Cheddar Corn Puffs” that are remarkably similar to Pirate’s Booty. Unburied treasure, pirate booty… I don’t know, isn’t it the same thing? Anyway, Trader Joe’s is know to sell brand name products under their label (kind of like Costco/Kirkland), so perhaps that’s the situation? Some people like the cheesy puffs, as they’re like Cheetos but without the crunch. Others think the stuff is more like cheese-flavored packing peanuts. Neither view is the point here, though. The point has to do more with caramel corn.

Have you ever been to a Harvest Festival? It’s like a huge craft fair where people come to sell their wares and foods and whatnots that people can store away for Christmas presents. There was one in Las Vegas and my mom went and discovered Dazzles Gourmet Oven Baked Corn, Caramel flavor. She loved it because it was good, crispy, light, and kernel-free. How do they make that? My mom loved it so much, she wanted to buy more to give to people. She tried ordering it, but the website is really not great. She tried calling, but didn’t get a call back for weeks. Then, she tried to find a recipe, but every recipe started with acquiring corn puffs. Where on earth do you purchase corn puffs?

Somehow, she stumbled across these Trader Joe’s Unburied Treasure puffs and, somehow, made a connection that these puffs were like the Dazzles corn puffs, only with white cheddar cheese powder. Back at home, she whipped up her caramel corn recipe (which is pretty awesome in its original form) but used the cheddar corn puffs instead of air popped popcorn. Lo and behold, she made Caramel Corn Puffs! Puffs that were so good, T couldn’t tell the difference between hers and the Dazzles. Puffs that were, kind of, better than the Dazzles! You don’t even notice the white cheddar under the caramel coating. You get bags and bags of this yummy, poofy, low-fat-ish (there is butter in the caramel, after all) snacky treat to enjoy and share without having to deal with ordering from an unresponsive seller. And I’m sure they’re cheaper, too.

So, let this be a lesson to all you beginning entrepreneurs. If you want to succeed, you should 1) build a good working site that doesn’t take forever to load and 2) answer the questions of potential new customers before they go and figure out how to get the goods without you. I guess it’s possible that Dazzles is so successful they don’t need new customers. I suppose they figured that it’s so hard to buy corn puffs that no one would attempt to make their own. Certainly not starting with cheese puffs! And, so none of you (all 4 that read these posts) have to ever deal with Dazzles’ spotty customer service, I am going to give you my mom’s delectable caramel corn puffs recipe. And while you’re at Trader Joe’s, go pick up a box of the Peach Blueberry Panna Cotta in the frozen section. I’ll tell you why tomorrow.

p.s. - The Dazzles lady called my mom back after a few weeks but got the answering machine. My mom didn’t call her back. I said she should and tell the lady that because she had to wait so long for an answer she just went and made her own!

Caramel Corn Puffs

1 c. butter
2 c. light brown sugar
1/2 c. light corn syrup (Karo brand)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
24 c. corn puffs (Trader Joe’s White Cheddar Corn Puffs work great!)

Pour the corn puffs into a large (large!) bowl or pan.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Stir in the brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Then, boil without stirring for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda, cream of tartar, and vanilla.

Gradually pour the caramel over the corn puffs, mixing well (and quickly).

Bake at 250°F for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and stir until slightly cooled. Break apart when completely cooled.