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Taste Test Tuesday — Take our Hot Chocolate Survey

By KariV on November 12, 2013 in Taste Test Tuesday

We have an exciting Taste Test Tuesday coming up! It’s our Hot Chocolate Challenge and we want to hear from YOU.

In our research and testing, we’ve found more hot chocolate brands to try and that MUST be included in our challenge. We will be bringing the results to you soon! But for now, help us out by taking the SURVEY to tell us your favorite hot chocolate mix. And do you prefer marshmallows or whipped cream (or neither)?

Click here for the Hot Cocoa Survey. It’s only 2 questions and will just take a minute.
Thanks for your help and input.

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Taste Test Tuesday — Starbucks vs. Dutch Brothers Hot Chocolate

By KariV on October 29, 2013 in Taste Test Tuesday

Welcome to our Taste Test Tuesday Hot Chocolate Throwdown! Today, we are highlighting two powerhouses in hot chocolate: Starbucks vs. Dutch Brothers. We wanted to include Seattle’s Best (because I LOVE their hot chocolate…they even serve it up with a little chocolate swizzle stick); unfortunately, there aren’t any Seattle’s Best near us anymore. 🙁 They all closed.

But we DO have a Starbucks (actually 2) within 1 mile and a Dutch Brothers just down the street. It’s about time we held a blind taste test between the two. And, since the weather is cooling off just a bit, now seemed the perfect time to hold this throwdown!

We ordered 2 plain hot chocolates. Nothing fancy, no peppermint or gingerbread, no vanilla or hazelnut. Just. Plain. Chocolate.

The Starbucks hot chocolate cost us $3.25
The Dutch Brothers cost $2.50

Both came with whipped cream on top.

I was surprised to see more whipped cream on the Starbucks (on the left), since we purchased that one first before running to Dutch Brothers (on the right). I thought it would have all melted in by the time we got to it.

Since this was a “blind” taste test, I marked the tasting cups with an “A” and a “B” and poured the chocolate in before handing them over to the judges in the other room.
The Dutch Brothers was significantly lighter in color than the Starbucks. And the Starbucks tasted much richer, and like a dark chocolate.

And when the judges cast their votes, it was UNANIMOUS!

The Winner {Drumroll please…}
By a landslide, the winning Hot Chocolate maker is: Dutch Brothers!!! (Crowd goes wild)….Congratulations to Dutch Brothers!!

Final Notes
After the votes were tallied and the winner was announced, one of our judges declared that the absolute BEST way to drink them, was to mix them together to get just the right balance of chocolate flavor. So, if you are in the mood to give it a try…order up one of each and mix them up. 🙂

I love hot chocolate in the fall!

Next Taste Test Tuesday will be a PART II to this taste test: Homemade Hot Chocolate. Yes, we will be searching all grocery stores and specialty stores for the BEST hot chocolate mix that you make at HOME.

So, what’s your favorite…leave me a comment below and we’ll include it in our next Taste Test Tuesday! Thanks for stopping by.

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Taste Test Tuesday — Hummus 3 ways

By KariV on October 8, 2013 in Cooking Light, Taste Test Tuesday

Taste Test Tuesday is back! Starting with a fun experiment with hummus.
I have never made hummus before, but I’ve always wanted to. Luckily, the famous (infamous?) Casey Conrad (fitness and health guru) was here for a few days and she whipped up a batch of hummus! She divided it into thirds, added garlic to one part, spinach to another and shredded BEETS to another!

Just look at that bright pink color! I love beets in my Hot Pink Breakfast Drink so I thought it sounded perfectly reasonable to add it to some hummus. 🙂

Now, a quick note on the Sesame Tahini that is required to make hummus. I always thought it came in a squeezable tube…which is perhaps why I haven’t been able to FIND it in the store. It actually comes in an orange and brown can with a lid. Casey instructed me to look near the jam at the health food store, and sure enough, that’s right where I found it!

Hummus is surprisingly easy to make with a food processor. Just throw the basic ingredients in (garbanzo beans, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt), mix it up, add your flavor choices and VOILA! Homemade Hummus. As I work out my favorite hummus recipe, I will be back to share it with you!

And now for the taste test RESULTS:
it was completely divided! Some liked the spinach the best, some liked beets, and some liked the garlic! I personally, liked them all, but I have to say the garlic won me over.

So try adding some different veggies to your next batch of hummus and let me know if YOU find a winner.

Do you have a favorite hummus recipe? Let me know in the comments below.

Be sure to come back this week, when I will share a Gluten-Free & Vegetarian Chocolate Cake that is actually delicious! Casey taught me just how to make it…and you will be surprised at one of the main ingredients!

Until then,

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Taste Test Tuesday — Sprinkles Cupcakes

By KariV on July 30, 2013 in Taste Test Tuesday

Since we’ve been out of town, I couldn’t hold my usual taste test complete with panelists. So instead, my family & I held one of our FAVORITE tests of all time. Sprinkles Cupcakes!

This is such a great activity for you to do with your family or friends. (In fact, I love this taste test so much, and I’ve always wanted to take a trip to Sprinkles with my girlfriends to conduct one of these…and I’m sure I will someday!)

Since there were 6 of us in total, we each picked out our favorite cupcake and then took them back to the beach house. Do you like the top three cupcake decorations? We just happened to be in San Diego the same time Comic Con was there, and Sprinkles had some special decor to celebrate. 🙂

The flavors in this taste test were:

1) Salted Caramel
2) Strawberry
3) Double Cinnamon Sugar
4) Red Velvet
5) Chocolate Marshmallow
6) Vanilla with chocolate frosting and sprinkles

We cut each cupcake up into 6 pieces…which worked out great because by the time we “tasted” each of them, we had each eaten one whole cupcake.

I know, those paper towels are fancy, right? Sometimes you have to use what you have available, ha!

I think my nephew, G, might have enjoyed this taste test the most:

I just love that kid!

THE REPORT:

Sprinkles Owner, Candace, has really figured out how to master the basic cupcake flavors. Which is exactly what I would expect from this cupcakery. These cupcakes were all DELICIOUS, and we actually loved them all. But there were a few that stood out from the rest.

First place:

Surprise! Perhaps one of the most basic flavors ever, Vanilla Cupcake with Chocolate Frosting, was the FIRST PLACE WINNER. It was SO good, moist, with just the right amount of chocolate frosting. And the sprinkles on top were definitely a winner with my nephews. 🙂

SECOND PLACE: Red Velvet
THIRD PLACE: Strawberry

So it seemed this time we preferred all the classic flavors, which really surprised me! So if you have to choose just one flavor to get at Sprinkles Cupcakes, don’t overlook the basic classics!

P.S. Before I go, I must mention that this is NOT the first time we’ve done a Sprinkles Cupcake taste test. (Did I mention it’s our favorite out-of-town taste test ever?)

And in fairness to you, dear reader, I’d like to report the first place winner of our first taste test of these cupcakes: Fresh Orange. Sooooooo good! We may have included that one in this recent taste test, but they didn’t offer that flavor on the day we were there. So try the orange cupcake (a surprise winner last time) if they have it!

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Taste Test Tuesday — Sweet Pork (Cafe Rio Copycat) with NO cola involved

By KariV on July 9, 2013 in Dinner in Minutes, Recipes, Taste Test Tuesday, Uncategorized

There are a lot of Sweet Pork (Cafe Rio Copycat) Recipes out there. But have you noticed that most of them call for Coke or Dr. Pepper? Well, I’ve tried my fair share of these recipes in the past…but since I strongly dislike colas (yes, all of them) I found that I did not like those recipes that included them! {Plus, I sorta have an aversion to cooking with soda pop.}

SO, I’ve been searching for a good recipe for sweet pork that didn’t have cola in the ingredient list. I’m happy to announce that I found a couple recipes and then put them up to the Taste Test Challenge!

The great thing about these recipes is: you put all the ingredients in the crock pot to cook all day (easy!), then just shred up the meat and add in the sauce. I love that!

After I cooked up both recipes, I put a taste of each on small plates for our judges. And then, when they picked their favorite, they got to make an entire sweet pork salad (or burrito). Now those are some lucky judges!

Sorry about the half eaten salad in this next picture…it was SO good that I forgot to take a picture before I ate most of it!

We used the following for our salads:

Fresh cooked tortillas
Cilantro Lime Rice
Garlic Black Beans
Lettuce
Peach Mango Salsa
Kari’s Garden Salsa
Cheese
Cilantro Lime Dressing

Oh. My. Goodness. I think these homemade salads are SO delicious! (They do rival the restaurant — however, there is something lovely about having all the ingredients ready and a salad made-to-order for you at the restaurant!)

Just to make sure of our results, I took both cooked recipes to my brother and sister-in-law (who just had a baby! yay!) to try out. The difference was, they would warm theirs up for dinner the next night. And they both liked the SAME one.

THE RESULTS:

Surprise! It was a TIE. I know, I know. I can’t believe it either.

So today, I am going to share with you my mother’s recipe for Sweet Pork.

And I will link up to the other cola-free Sweet Pork recipe ~~as soon as I get permission!~~ Permission granted! Here is the Sweet Pork Recipe that was a favorite among 50% of the judges! (Thank you to The Sisters Cafe for such an awesome recipe!) If you do try this recipe, be sure to try their Garlic Black Beans as well…so good!
[Note to judges: this was recipe 1 for all of you that picked the first sweet pork sample as the winner]. This one has a small hint of a spicy kick to it (probably from the enchilada sauce) that was delicious, and this one was definitely quite a bit sweeter than the other.

And the other 50% of the judges liked my mom’s recipe! {recipe to follow} This was, in my opinion, the easiest of the recipes. You just mix together all four ingredients (yes, only four ingredients!), add on top of the pork roast, cook it up all day, take out the pork and shred it up, and add back in some of the sauce (not all of it….it makes a lot of sauce!) [Note to judges: this was recipe 2 for all of you that preferred this one]

*Recipe here

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I used the green can of El Pato (jalepeno salsa). The yellow can said “hot” and I was a little ~~scared~~ hesitant to try it. If you like a little more spice, try the yellow can.

So there you have a couple of the BEST cola-free Sweet Pork Recipes! Give them a try and let me know what YOU think! I just love a good Sweet Pork Salad. 🙂

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