Two Things I Ate Last Week

Last week was very interesting. I went skiing for the first time in my life, which was life changing. The Superbowl happened. It was the first full week of class in a while. ... But despite all of this excitement- there was still more to be had.

I had the privilege to try two new treats, one that was a gift from the Quaker oats man, the other from the Village Point Market, where I work.

Quaker True Delights-

OK- I never thought that having this FoodBuzz publisher thing would ever pay off, (look to the far right) but any time you get free food it is a plus for sure. One day last week I opened my mailbox and to my pure joy and excitement there was a large envelope with the FoodBuzz logo and 6 "new to the market" Quaker Oats granola bars.

They were AWESOME! My favorite is was the Banana Macadamia Coconut combination, with a close second being the Cashew Berry. When these things hit the market (they might already have) everyone should most diffidently go out and buy a box. There are only 140 calories and taste like they have 100 more.

Vosges Bacon Chocolate Bar-

I have had my eyes this bar ever since my first day at work. The bar comes in a nice little box, but disappointingly the chocolate is about 1/8 the thickness of the box it comes in - very misleading. The chocolate was very...interesting. It tasted like straight smoked chocolate. Would I buy this particular bar again?- probably not. Would I buy another Vosges Chocolate bar...maybe.

Would I buy some more Quaker True Delights? You bet.

Candied Ginger-

There is no mistaking that candied ginger is ginger. In case you were wondering or assuming that coating thin slices of ginger root in sugar would in some way dull the infamous spicy after taste- it most certainly dose not. Is it still good? Yes.

That being said, doing the candying process in your own kitchen is very cool. You have to remove the paper thin skin off the root and then get to have fun slicing  it on a mandolin. It is a little bit of work but if for some reason you need a pound of sugar coated ginger, very worth while. I have a few ideas for how to use the stuff, and will have plenty of room to experiment given I do in fact have a pound of ginger now. 

You could go the ginger snap cookie rout, and there are TONS of good recipes out there. I really want to hunt around and find something different to make with my ginger, something a little more unexpected. 

Until then, enjoy these little snacks of sugar coated ginger goodness. Eaten one at a time on there own they are really tasty and have a unique taste, but as mentioned about, you know you're eating ginger. 

Happy Super Bowl Sunday. 

Candied Ginger-

One large "hand" of ginger

5 cups water

Sugar

Break hand into manageable pieces and remove skin by quickly scraping a small knife up and down the sides. Set mandolin to 1/8 of an inch and slice ginger into rounds. (If you don't have a mandolin, you can try and use a large knife but ginger is very fibrous and sometimes hard to cut thin.) Add ginger and pour water into a medium sized pot. Bring to a boil then lower to medium high temp and cook for about 35 minutes. Strain out ginger but reserve 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid. Measure the weight of the cooked ginger and then add an equal weight of sugar to the cooking pot. Add back the cooked ginger and the reserved liquid and cook on medium high heat until all of the liquid is cooked off. Spread out on wire rack to cool.