Hearty and substantial Three Bean Vegan Chili from BeanVivo.
If you’re on a mission to incorporate more healthful beans into your diet, but dread taking the time to cook them from scratch, BeanVIVO comes to the rescue.
These organic, entirely plant-based cooked beans come ready to eat in shelf-stable, microwavable pouches.
That means you can keep them handy in your pantry, then pull them out at the spur of the moment for a quick side dish or entree at home. Or throw them into your backpack to enjoy when camping.
I had a chance to try samples of the four different flavors: Baja Black Beans, Coconut Curry Chickpeas, Three Bean Vegan Chili, and Refried Pinto Beans. They are all gluten-free, and contain 13 to 16 grams of protein and 120 to 150 calories per serving, depending upon the variety.
Grilled steak and mushrooms get elevated with Stateline Road BBQ Truffle Sauce.
When you get samples in the mail of new barbecue products from a chef who’s cooked at Michelin three-starred Alinea and rose to executive sous chef at Thomas Keller’sBouchon in Yountville, you know you’re in for something special.
Such was the case when I unboxed the goods from Chef Darryl Bell, Jr., whose Stateline Road BBQ products have already garnered a following. Bell started tinkering with his barbecue sauce while working at Bouchon, where he’d use it to spiff up staff meals, much to his co-workers’ delight. When he got up the nerve to let Keller try it, the renowned chef was so impressed that he put it on his menus served aboard Seabourn luxury cruise ships.
Bell, now chef de cuisine at Press in St. Helena, was born and raised in Kansas City, so he knows barbecue inside and out. In fact, Stateline Road BBQ is named for the major thoroughfare that divides Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KC, a region that’s a hotbed for some of the country’s best barbecue joints.
Stateline Road BBQ’s line of products.
You can purchase Stateline Road BBQ products on its web site. In spring 2022, though, it’ll be easier to get your hands on them when Northern California Whole Foods stores start carrying them.
Would you believe these decadent peanut butter mousse brownies have no sugar added to them?
Those peanut butter mousse brownies above are everything you expect — decadently rich, deeply fudgy, and loaded with irresistible sweet-salty, smooth peanut-butter goodness.
But they also lack something surprising — added sugar.
They are the creation of a unique Seattle bakery, The Unsweetened Tooth. As the name implies, this bake-to-order shop makes treats with no added sugar. Yet, they taste every bit as satisfying as their conventional counterparts — and minus the unpleasant aftertaste of so many sugar substitutes such as Stevia.
The bakery was started by Jude Sharp, who worked as an engineer in the tech industry in Silicon Valley with her fellow engineer husband, for years. But a health scare put her on a different path. After learning that she might become diabetic and lose her sight if she didn’t drastically change her dietary habits, she decided to give up sugar, and lost 100 pounds in the process.
Using her engineering know-how and love for tinkering, she built a commercial kitchen, and started coming up with no-sugar recipes after the couple moved to Washington state. In 2016, she launched The Unsweetened Tooth there.
Spicy, garlicky and rich tasting, Mariam’s Garlic Goodness Chili Pepper dip is irresistible.
How many times have you smacked your lips over a sauce or condiment at a restaurant, and thought, “This is incredible! They should bottle it and sell it.”
Mariam Elghani did just that with the luscious Lebanese garlic dip her family created at their Falafel Bite Mediterranean Grill in Sunnyvale.
Asparagus shines three ways in this composed salad.
With his trademark crisp white shirt, Christmas-red bow tie, and denim overalls that he’s never without (not even at the black-tie Jame Beard Awards), Farmer Lee Jones is a larger-than-life character.
But he is no caricature.
He is the real deal.
When his family nearly lost its soy bean and corn farm in Ohio during the 1980’s economic downturn, he managed to save it by taking a gamble to transform it.
Instead of growing feed crops like soybeans and corn, he downsized to nurture obscure specialty herbs, fruits and vegetables after a chance meeting with a chef looking for someone to grow squash blossoms.
Today, the small, sustainable Chef’s Garden is revered by chefs nationwide, including Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, and Jose Andres. It’s this farm that we have to thank for the whole microgreens movement. During the pandemic, the farm adapted to changing times once again, offering delivery of its produce to consumers so that Jones wouldn’t have to lay off any employees, despite its main customer base, restaurants, ordering far less because of curtailed operations.
Jones’ story is captured in “The Chef’s Garden: A Modern Guide to Common and Unusual Vegetables–with Recipes” (Avery), of which I received a review copy. Written by Jones with Kristin Donnelly, former food editor at Food & Wine magazine, this lavishly photographed 240-page book is not only packed with recipes, but detailed information about selecting, storing, cleaning and using a wealth of produce. The book hones in on both the familiar and the esoteric, from ramps, hearts of palm, and bamboo shoots to amaranth, arrowhead root, and crystal lettuces.
