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Food for Thought

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Rain City Soups

How many people do you know have a passion for soup? Daniel Wagner is the brains behind Rain City Soups. He creates artisan soups in small batches to keep his quality of soups high with the freshest local and most natural ingredients he can find.

Rain City Soups can be found at local Farmers Market or retailers such as Cioffi’s Meat Market and Deli or Lee’s Market. There are other retailers too, but you just gotta check their website.

My friends and I got a few packs of the soups to share just to get a taste of their soup. Everyone was excited. We usually have Campbell’s soup if we felt like soup, so this was a definite change. We thawed the soups and then began brining it to a boil on the stove.

Rain City Soups

Chorizo, White Bean and Kale was the soup we all had to try first. The soup is made with filtered water, house-smoked chorizo, onions, celery, carrots, tomatoes, squash, kale, white beans, garlic, salt, and pepper. The guys really loved the soup as it had a good balance of ingredients and the smokey chorizo adds so much flavour. On their website, they say you can enhance this soup by adding in garnishes such as crispy chorizo, garlic bread or pesto.

Rain City Soups

Lentil and Spinach Soup was my personal favorite. If you have a few dietary restrictions, this soup is gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan. It is made with organic lentils, onions, celery, carrots, spinach, garlic, lemon zest, spices, salt, and pepper.

The acidity from the lemon zest paired well with the lentil and spinach. I felt super healthy from eating it afterwards.

Rain City Soups

Butternut Squash and Fennel soup is gluten-free and vegan. It is made with filtered water, butternut squash, fennel, onions, carrots, apples, coconut milk, garlic, olive oil, spices, salt, and pepper. The apple was a surprising ingredient in this soup, but it did sweeten up the soup. The texture was very smooth but I felt that eating the soup as-is was a bit bland for my tastes, so I would definitely try to spice things up with their suggested garnishes – bacon, creme fraiche, toasted seeds or fried onions.

Rain City Soups

Lemon Thyme Chicken Noodle Soup is made of chicken stock, onions, celery, carrots, free-range chicken, lemons, garlic, thyme, linguine, spices, salt, and pepper. This is a classic soup and it a bit hard to reinvent the wheel and try to enhance the flavours. The lemon they add gives a a bit of a slight acidity to compliment the soup.

Overall, the soups taste pretty good and tasted quite healthy. I’d definitely try these again.

Websitehttp://www.raincitysoups.com/

Birds Eye Tea

Birds Eye Tea is a monthly tea subscription service from Seattle, Washington. Sarah Farr is the creator of Birds Eye Tea and promotes her organic hand-blended, handpicked herb and tea blends online and at local markets.

Monthly subscriptions are $22 per month and you get 3 hand-blended teas at the beginning of the month. Sometimes, there is even a little extra treat too. You can also find some of their teas at Whole Foods.

Birds Eye Tea

Since I am a tea fanatic, I wanted to try the different teas they offer. I grew up on Chinese teas, so I am more used to green and black teas. When Bird’s Eye Tea asked me to try their teas, I agreed.

Birds Eye Tea

Each package has clear ingredients on the back and instructions on how to prepare the tea. All the teas were very easy to prepare and not too difficult.

Birds Eye Tea

The teas chosen for each subscription is based on the theme and season.

Birds Eye Tea

Sarah is a responsible wildcrafter, ecologist, and herbalist. She strives for extreme integrity in all of her herbal products. All the herbs are organic or ethically harvested. Any herbs that come from overseas are fair-trade as well as being organically grown and are tested for purity/quality.

Birds Eye Tea

Besides tea subscriptions, Sarah sells her tea from her other brand – The Harbor Herbalist and sells teas by the bag and for retail. Xocolatl is their signature herbal hot chocolate, which is quite popular.

Birds Eye Tea

Overall, I didn’t particularly like any of these tea combinations. My love of tea is mostly for green, red and black teas. If you are an adventurous tea drinker and like to try new combinations, the Bird’s Eye Tea might be for you.

Website: https://www.birdseyetea.com/

A trip to Seattle isn’t complete without going to Wal-Mart to stock up on prepackaged foods not available in Canada. I probably spent more at Wal-Mart than I do at the Seattle Premium Outlet. Pretty sad, I know!

Most of these items that I found have a bit too much salt, but that’s normal for pre-packaged foods.

Chef Boyardee

We totally don’t have Chef Boyardee’s Macaroni products in Canada. When I saw these items, I knew I had to try it. I might be disappointed, but I wanted to try anyways.

The Mac & Cheese was horrible! It tasted so bland and boring. It was so hard trying to finish the entire can.

The Cheesy Burger Macaroni and the Chili Mac wasn’t too bad at all. If you add some hot sauce into it, it really makes it taste a lot better.

Campbells

Campbell’s Raviolios are similar to Chef Boyardee’s Beef Ravioli. The only major difference is the shape of the pasta. Raviolios are oval-shaped compared to the square shape of the usual beef ravioli. Tasted good and no complaints.

Spaghettio’s Meatballs is like regular spaghetti and meatballs but with circular pasta. Tasted alright as well.

Spaghettio’s Goldfish was fun to eat since everyone loves the snack the smiles back…goldfish!

Campbells

I also have these cool new line of soups called Campbells GO. It’s targeted towards the younger generations that are ethnically diverse and have sophisticated tastes. I grabbed 2 of the different flavours since I thought the packaging was cool and the flavours really sounded yummy.

Chicken and Quinoa with poblano chilis and the spicy chorizo and pulled chicken with black beans tasted pretty good. It was easy to prepare and ready within minutes.

I am always in a rush, so meals like this work for me. Thus I rarely cook at home…and eat out all the time.

Warheads Sour Chewy Cubes

When I was a kid, I always adored Warheads for creating their sour warhead candy. It was a pleasure to see people putting the candy in their mouth and seeing them squirm from the sour taste. I was an evil kid, but it was something fun to do.

When I was at Wal-Mart, I saw this in one of the aisles and decided to give it a try. We were very excited because the only items we’ve only had were the sour warheads.

Warheads Sour Chewy Cubes

The cubes come in 6 flavours – Green Apple, Blue Raspberry, Strawberry, Watermelon, Orange and Black Cherry. The candies are not very sour at all. Not even comparable to the sour in Sour Warheads.

After trying all the flavours, all of them suck! The only flavours that were remotely decent was the orange and green apple. It had a very strong artificial taste to them and the watermelon flavour really seeped into the other flavours. I probably will never buy this product again.

Are you a Warheads fan? Have you tried this product yet?

Website: http://www.warheads.com/

McDonalds USA

When CanuckGirl and I go to Seattle, we usually stop by a McDonalds. She loves her cheap McNuggets and I love reviewing items that are different the McDonalds Canada.

Since it is the holidays, McDonalds released a few holiday items like the Peppermint Mocha and the Peppermint McFlurry. Also the CBO Sandwich intrigued me.

McDonalds USA

Grilled Chicken CBO Sandwich is 480 calories and has slices of cheese, the grilled chicken, bacon, sauteed onions, and sauce.

McDonalds USA

The sandwich was really good and all the ingredients made it a very creamy experience. The sauteed onions really make this sandwich awesome. So yummy!

McDonalds USA

Peppermint Mocha is different from the ones offered in Canada. The US version just has chocolate drizzle as the Canadian one has peppermint pieces on top. It tasted OK, but nothing very amazing at all.

McDonalds USA

Holiday Mint Mcflurry has swirls of reduced fat soft serve vanilla ice cream blended with peppermint candy pieces. CanuckGirl thought it was OK. She was craving something cold and sweet.

Have you tried any of these unique items?

Pizza Hut Canada finally introduced the Hot Dog Stuffed Crust after a successful launch in the UK and US. When the Vancouver Social Media Awards committee got together for a whole day meeting, we decided to order some pizza. We were browsing a few sites and saw this new creation.

We are adventurous eaters, so we decided to order it. We were a bit skeptical at first about this, but we would soon realize how delicious it would really be.

A bunch of Angus beef hot dogs are placed inside Pizza Hut’s stuffed crust. In the past, the stuffed crusts would be filled with cheese. You can have the option of the pizza being stuffed in any medium or large-sized pizzas. Eating the stuffed crust was similar eating the ‘pig in a blanket’.

It comes with a few packs of ketchup so you can dip the crusts into.

There are Honey Mustard Dips too for the crusts.

Chicken Lover Pizza (Large) has grilled chicken breast, peppers, onions, mushroom, and mozzarella.

Meat Lover Pizza (Large) contains pepperoni, italian sausage, mild sausage, beef, ham, bacon, and mozzarella.

No matter which pizza you order with the hot dog crust, it shouldn’t matter too much since the toppings isn’t directly in the proximity of the crust.

Have you tried this yet?

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On my birthday, I decided to try to get as much free food as possible without going crazy. I browsed through an e-book on how to get free stuff in Vancouver. There are tips on how to get other freebies in Canada too. It’s very thorough but some items are a bit outdated, so you need to double check if they still have those offers.

My first stop was Vera’s. If you are subscribed for their Vera’s Club membership, you get a $10 gift certificate on your birthday. I signed up a few hours before I left the house and I still got the discount.

I got the Canuck Burger that was just under $10. It is their classic bacon cheese burger. I got it to-go, but it got a bit soggy by the time I get home.

Present your registered Starbucks card and you get a free beverage of any size. I ordered a Venti Cappuccino.

At Denny’s you can just flash your ID and you get a FREE Grand Slam Breakfast. The Grand Slam is customizable, so I chose sausages, bacon, hash browns, and pancakes.

It’s not meant for to-go, but they were really nice and let me. I chose to-go because I didn’t want to eat alone. #FirstWorldProblems.

At the end of the day, my parents got me cake too. This wasn’t free, but it’s a cute cake from Anna’s Bakery.

I’d say it was a good day for free food. Might as well right?
What free food items did you get on your birthday?

On Episode 4 of Food Network Canada’s Recipe to Riches, Jackie Koh of Vancouver, British Columbia battled against other home cooks in the Hors d’Oeuvres category.

Small in stature but big in personality, Vancouver’s Jackie Koh has a flair for fashion, fun and food. She was born and raised in Seoul, Korea and is passionate about maintaining a strong link to her roots through her cooking. Jackie’s sweet, spicy and savoury meatball recipe is an homage, of sorts, to her late father and to the great pride for her Korean heritage that was instilled in her by him.

I was very excited to try these Korean Meatballs and to see M’s reaction to the meatballs. As he is Korean, he would know if they are truly good or not. You can find the Triple ‘S’ Korean Meatballs at any Loblaw store for $6.99 in the frozen section.

Even though the box says there are 21 meatballs, my box had 23. Woot!

The Triple ‘S’ Meatballs is a blend of beef and pork and a combination of sweet, spicy and savoury spices. These meatballs are already fully cooked, so you stick them in the oven just to heat them up. When cooking them, I did find red oil coming out of these meatballs, but when you put them in your mouth, it’s a bit dry.

The level of spice was nice if you like an extra kick in your food. I wasn’t a huge fan of the meatballs, but M did enjoy the taste.

The recipe is on their website here.

On the 5th episode of Food Network Canada’s Recipe to Riches, Rick Matharu won the entrees category with his butter chicken lasagna creation. It was a very close competition, but Rick’s unique recipe and personality shined through to win the prize.

Rick Matharu is a proud Canadian of Indian descent with a friendly smile and a velvety smooth voice. He’s a local Punjabi radio personality who is enthusiastic about food, photography, and the fine art of spinning tunes. Over the years, Rick has also become something of a master of fusion cooking – a skill he picked up as a schoolboy from his mom, who would always put an unexpected Punjabi twist on little Ricky’s lunches.

When my mom went to the store to buy a few Recipe to Riches items, she was very very excited  since she thought it was very creative. It retails for $7.99 and can be found at any Loblaws stores or places that sell Presidents Choice products.

You stick it in the oven with the plastic cover on, just pop some holes through it so steam can escape. Later on, you can peel off the entire sheet so the top can brown nicely.

The butter chicken lasagna is made of tandoori-spiced chicken in a savoury sauce made with garam masala, sautéed red onions, green peppers and mushrooms. It is a bit spicy, so little kids may not enjoy it. It has a medium amount of spice, but it blends nicely.

The recipe is on their website here.

In Episode 2 of Food Network Canada’s Recipe to Riches, Stephen Child’s Chipotle Chili Slams won the Savory Snacks Category. He is from Victoria, British Columbia and battled many other home cooks to win. Don’t let the chili scare you on the package, it’s not that intense.

Childs is a civil engineer whose passion for food is surpassed only by his keen sense of ingenuity. Only a guy like Stephen could take a recipe for a classic comfort food like chili with cornbread and turn it inside-out, so to speak, with delicious success.

Each box retails for $4.99 and is available at all Loblaw stores across Canada! Any place that sells Presidents Choice products.

Inside the box are 4 wrapped up Chipotle Chili Slams.

You can either microwave it quickly or throw it in the toaster oven.

Thats how it looks like when it’s out of the oven.

The Chipotle Chili Slams contains some vegetarian bean chili filling covered in a golden wheat and cornmeal pastry. I find the best way to prepare this is through the mini oven, but if you don’t have time, the microwave is good too, except you won’t get as crunchy of an exterior. It wasn’t too spicy at all and tasted really good. The only thing I didn’t like was the cornmeal falling off.

Too bad they had to modify the recipe. I would have loved to try it how it was meant to be eaten.

The recipe is on their website here.

In Episode 3 of Recipie to Riches on Food Network Canada, Tracey Rigden from Etobicoke, Ontario battled it out in the Cookies and Squares category for her Salt-Kissed Dulce de Leche Brownie.

Tracey Rigden has been baking for as long as she can remember. A self-admitted ‘geek’, she loves to read fantasy and sci-fi in her spare time, and has even been known to attend the conventions… when she isn’t busy baking, that is. Tracey’s winning brownie recipe is definitely out of this world – a combination, in fact, of two recipes which she has perfected over several years.

Salt-Kissed Dulce de Leche Brownie retails for $8.99 at any Loblaw Stores such as Superstore, No Frills, etc.

Inside of the box is a large pan of brownies, you just let it thaw and it’s ready to be served. It’s great that it’s so easy to prepare.

It’s easy to slice up and great for a large party. You don’t need a lot of this to be satisfied. You can slice up about 16 squares.

The Salt-Kissed Dulce de Leche Brownie is a dense brownie layer topped with sweet dulce de leche under a rich chocolate ganache sprinkled with sea salt. I thought the dulce de leche was a tad sweet, but my sisters loved this.

Have you tried this? Thoughts?

The recipe is on their website here.

Mini Cheesy Bees’ Nest was the Week 1 winner of Food Network Canada’s Recipe to Riches for their cakes, puddings, and pie category. Jason Keary is from Saint John, New Brunswick and created the recipe from random items in the kitchen.

Jason had one of the most unusual jobs among the Recipe to Riches finalists as he used to ‘repel’ for a living, accessing tricky places by rope for repair. He once did it in full contamination gear repaired inside a nuclear power reactor and describes it as the “coolest job ever.”

Jason’s love of cooking permeates his life, but when he’s not in the kitchen he makes jewelry out of antique silverware.

My mom is totally in love with the show, so she brought a bunch of items from Superstore to try. This product can be found at any Presidents Choice stores across Canada for $7.99 in the frozen food section.

The box comes with 12 pieces, the size of little tarts. The mini cheese Bees’ Nest is made of cream cheese, mixed berry coulis and shredded cheese wrapped in phyllo pastry.

It didn’t take that long to bake and make sure you don’t turn on the temperature too high or else they will burn fast. You can either cook it in those mini muffin tins or on a sheet pan. You can’t go wrong.

The mini cheese bees’ nests were bite-size and easy to pop into your mouth. It reminded me of baked cheesecakes. It was a very interesting combination of ingredients but in the end it just tasted like cheesecake with jam on top.

The recipe is on the Food Network website here.

In episode 6 of Recipe to Riches on Food Network Canada, they feature Don Harquail of Burnaby, British Columbia! He battles a few others in the Candies and Chocolate Category. My mom was pretty excited about going to Superstore to pick up this product because we live in Burnaby too, she’s a little bit silly sometimes.

Don Harquail is a charming man from Burnaby, British Columbia with a kind heart, a green thumb and a new lease on life. After suddenly falling ill several years ago, Don used baking as a form of therapy on his long road to recovery. Today, along with tending to his backyard greenhouse of prize orchids, Don takes great joy in treating his many friends to his delectable baked creations.

This product can be found at any Presidents Choice stores across Canada for $5.99. It comes ready to eat out of the box and there’s no cooking required.

With the chocolates laid out like that, you should cut it into 8 potions. I took it out of the tray and put it on a cutting board to slice it up.

The triple toffee nut contains almonds, cashews, pine nuts and sesame seeds topped with buttery toffee and milk chocolate buttons on a graham cracker crust.

At first glance, it looked super sweet, but it isn’t! My whole family enjoyed it. It was like peanut brittle on top of graham cracker crust.

Unfortunately, we broke the rest by accident. We used a sharp butcher knife too, so we have no idea what went wrong. If you get these too, make sure you have a super duper sharp knife or some sort of cool cutting technique.

If you find a good cutting technique let me know!

The recipe is on their website here.

Charlie Brown Cafe is every child’s dream! Or at least my dream since I grew up watching the cartoon and reading the comics. This location is their flagship store. When I passed by, I had to stop and go here. It wasn’t our plan to go here, but my sister and I couldn’t resist.

We walked up the stairs and everything is Charlie Brown!!

It’s a great place to chill with friends too. Lots of seats!

When you walk to the counter, there are so many cakes!

So many cute things!

There are even cakes shaped like their heads!

3D Lucy ($500 HKD or $70 CDN) Crazy expensive cake, but I am sure someone bought it.

Soy matcha Frappe tasted OK. It was a bit thick and icy.

Latte was so cute! You get to choose what character on top. I just chose Charlie Brown because its iconic. It also tasted great!

Tiramisu was way too cute to eat.

But, I knew I couldn’t stare at it all day, so I eventually ate it. Really good!

Woodstock Mango Mousse was also super cute. Trust me, I took a lot of pictures!

But, we also had to eat it! The mango mousse is on the outside and there is a gelatine puree inside. It tasted good too.

Their lights are very cute on the ceiling! Don’t you love Linus?

Overall, the desserts are good and its a great place to go to if you are a Charlie Brown fan. Theres lots of merchandise to purchase and lots of food to eat. They also have sandwiches and set meals, so you aren’t just limited to drinks and desserts.

Have you been here before?

We Rate Charlie Brown Cafe:

Address:
G/F-1/F, Kok Pah Mansion, 58-60 Cameron Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Website:
http://www.charliebrowncafe.com/

[googlemap width=”620″ height=”480″ src=”https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=Kok+Pah+Mansion,+58-60+Cameron+Road,+Tsim+Sha+Tsui&hl=en&hnear=Kok+Pah+Mansion,+58-60+Cameron+Rd,+Hong+Kong&t=m&z=16″]

Mangosteen is a tropical fruit found in South East Asia.It is only in season for 6 to 10 weeks of the year. You can usually find really nice ripe ones from July to September.

When I was in Hong Kong in August, it was very hard to find at the supermarket or on the streets. My grandpa knew I was looking very hard for these for a few weeks. One morning, he left early to go to the market and brings back a whole bowl full of mangosteen. They looked very fresh and I was in awe.

We cracked open the leathery tough skin to find the delicious white fruit inside. It kinda tastes like a grape or lychee. At least one of the pieces inside have a seed, so better not eat it. Nothing bad will happen to you, but it’s always weird eating seeds by accident.

It is very hard to get a hold of mangosteen in Vancouver or North America because it doesn’t ship very well. It will definitely be very hard to find any mangosteen that look this fresh and plump. Plus, very expensive.

My sister found a few mangosteen from T&T, but they look horrible and was very tiny. Nothing comparable to anything you can find in Asia. If you ever have a chance to go to the Asian countries, remember to try some of this delicious fruit.

Have you ever had mangosteen before? How did it taste?

Wandering around Myeong-Dong in the middle of a monsoon was not a smart idea, you get really soaked from the rain even if you have an umbrella. It’s a great area to find face masks, dirt cheap jewelry and awesome food. In the middle of Myeong-Dong, there is an area with a small ice cream stand under the Matching Mole pub. They have a tall 32 cm ice cream for 2,000 won ($2 CDN).

I passed by it with Kirsty and I had to go back later in the evening to have a snack.

Chocolate and Strawberry Twist Cone was definitely cool! It wasn’t too sweet and the flavours blended well together. What sucked about it was that the cone was kinda stale. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed it because I’ve never had anything like it!

Overall, if I was to get a 32cm ice cream cone, I would still do it even if the cone is stale. I get excited by new things too easily. There are various locations in Seoul where you can find this. The price can also differ too.

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When I went to Hong Kong from Vancouver through Air Canada, this 13 hr plane ride was accompanied with dinner and drink service throughout the flight. My family and I were all seated in Economy class and had a total of 3 meals. Each meal, you could choose your own drink to go with the meal.

We boarded the plane at in the early afternoon and then arrived near dinner time in Hong Kong.

Our first dinner meal was a choice of chicken and pasta or Rice and Beef Stirfry. Each set contained a brownie, bread, salad, water and your choice of entree.

I chose the chicken and pasta and it tasted good. It wasn’t amazing good, but the texture from the tiny balls of pasta and the chicken worked well together. It was a decent first meal.

My mom ordered the rice and beef stirfry. It wasn’t as appealing as the chicken and pasta. The sauce was a bit salty and the rice  was just rice.

Four hours later, they present you with another meal. This time there are less side dishes, but fruit and bread with the entree. You had the choice between pasta with meat sauce or rice and chicken.

I love chicken, so I chose the rice and chicken option. It was very similar to the rice and beef stirfry from earlier, but with chicken instead. I really didn’t like it.

My little sister loves pasta, so she got the pasta with meat sauce. I tried a bit of it and it was really good. Not restaurant worthy, but good food considering it was on a plane. There was just enough sauce to cover all the penne pasta.

Another 4 hours later, they provided us with cup noodles and a half a turkey sandwich. I actually hate cup noodles, but I just ate it anyways. Not my favorite meal, but you have to eat in order to not starve yourself. At this point in the meal, I am pretty sure everyone on the plane just wanted to sleep.

I also noticed there was a lot of carbs hahaha. My little sister is mildly allergic to gluten, so she had to pick wisely what to eat.

Besides eating and sleeping on the plane, most of the time was spent with my sister rewatching old episodes of Adventure Time. If you don’t know what Adventure Time is about, please watch it! It’s my most favorite cartoon at the moment!

What is also super cool about the airplanes is that it has a usb charger and a socket charger. It’s pretty awesome if you are on your laptop or any electronic device. None of the programming on the plane interested me, so I didn’t even watch any movies on the plane. I spent most of my time on my laptop.

I told you I love fast food. Wendy’s in my opinion is the best when it comes to bacon. Plus, their bacon looks so much better than McDonalds or any other fast food chain. M and I came here one night because he really wanted to try the chili cheese fries.

We chose to dine in, but its always very depressing. Empty and with super outdated furniture. I always hate eating in the restaurant. I prefer eating it in the car hahahahahahaaha. Yes, I can be quite a slob sometimes too.

The ‘W’ Sandwich has 2 beef patties, two slices of cheese, thick-sliced tomato, and sauce in a bun. M enjoyed all that meaty goodness.

Asiago Ranch Chicken Sandwich has white meat chicken breasts topped with smoked bacon, asiago cheese, ranch sauce, lettuce, and tomatoes. It tasted ok, but the chicken breast had way too much pepper. The bacon inside this was very good!!

Chili Cheese Fries contain sea salt, meaty chili, melted cheese, and shredded cheese. It tasted alright, but it could have had more cheese. M enjoyed it. I kinda dislike beans, so I didn’t like it very much. I probably wouldn’t order it again.

Overall, the experience this time was alright. I would just stick with getting any burger with bacon. If you don’t get bacon, you’ll be sorry. Get the Baconator or the Jr. bacon cheese burger!!

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