Check Out Friday

This is //
FOCO 100% Pure Coconut Water with a Splash of Tropical Fruit Flavors

Why I like it //
Ever since I had my c-section and lost a lot of blood, I've been on a green smoothie kick  with coconut water.  After living in Bahia Brazil and drinking fresh coconut water every day I can barely stand the boxed up kind. I put it in my smoothie because I know it's good for me but I hate the taste. I don't know how FOCO does but their coconut water is different from the other ones I have tried, FOCO tastes fresh. The tropical flavors help sweeten my green smoothie, and bonus - it's sugar free!

I would change //
I would love to have an Açai flavored FOCO. Yum!

Where can you get it //
Right now you can only purchase unflavored FOCO coconut water, starting in March you'll be able to get the flavored kind. Make sure you try the lychee and the pink guava. Those two were my favorite. To check if your local supermarket carries FOCO go here.

This is //
Nature Box, a subscription service where you get a box with 5 healthy snacks delivered to you for  $19.95 a month.

Why I like it //
If you like carrot chips, country ranch peas, and chipotle maple almonds, this subscription service is for you. I like how diverse the snacks are. I like how all of the ingredients are natural, with no trans fats, no artificial sweeteners, no artificial flavors or colors. These are the kinds of snacks I like feeding my kids.

I would change //
The price. I don't think $19.95 is necessarily a bad deal, but it feels like a luxury to spend almost twenty bucks on snacks when you have a family of 5. On that note, I could see this as a treat my kids would enjoy, specially the surprise aspect of it. If I told them every month we would get a new surprise box with snacks inside they would be all over it. Less money going towards goldfish crackers and more money going towards dried pears - it could happen.

Where can you get it //
You can subscribe online here.  You can also give a subscription to someone as a gift. Shipping is free.

This is //
FarFaria, an iPad app with over 300 stories, 5 new stories added weekly, and all with the read-to-me feature for $3.99 a month.

Why I like it //
I don't like it, I love it! Since we don't have a TV we let the kids use the iPad for entertainment. Enzo and Maria each get 30 minutes a day to play or watch something on the iPad. Normally they go straight to Netflix and watch an episode of My Little Pony. These days they've been going straight to FarFaria. The app is beautifully illustrated and very intuitive. The read-to-me feature is great for little Maria who is still learning how to read. Also, there are some super cute foodie stories, my fave!

I would change //
I would love to see some stories in Spanish.

Where can you get it //
Get a subscription here. If you'd like to give it as a Valentine's gift go here.

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Some other fun things to check out

// Instagram for Chrome, my new favorite way to check out my Instagram feed.
// Superbowl recipes with the Foodie app.
// This great interview with Mrs. Patmore from Downton Abbey about life in that TV kitchen.
// This super cute blog and this super cute blog too.

Have a great weekend. We're off to Santa Barbara to celebrate our nieces first birthday. We're excited to be with family again.

xoxo, Da

ps- Some of the products mentioned in this post were sent to me for reviewing purposes. I was not compensated to write this post. Opinions expressed on my blog are always my own.

In case you were wondering, deep fryers are the bomb.

The kids were eating deep fried mandioca (yucca, cassava, manioc, tapioca root ... any other names I don't know of?) for their afternoon snack.

Have you ever had fried mandioca? If the answer is no I will gladly come to your house with some cassava root in hand and my new kitchen toy, the Breville Deep Fryer from Williams-Sonoma and I will personally make you some.

It's no secret that I've ALWAYS wanted a deep fryer. I asked Christian to get me one for our anniversary last year (romantic, no?) and when he didn't I wrote about it in the news paper which made it's way to the Family Student Housing newsletter on campus where we live. Christian was so busted.

Back then I didn't even know about the Breville deep fryer. Now I own one. Williams-Sonoma sent me one for review. When the deep fryer arrived in the mail I  turned to Christian and said "my dream came true" and he's all like, "no, my dream came true because I didn't even have to buy it for you" and then Gabriel is like "no, my dream came true because I get to eat crispy mandioca and I'm not even in Brazil."

Magimix 4200XL 14-Cup Food Processor Giveaway

Merry Christmas.

I hope Santa was kind to you.

I am taking next week off to enjoy the rest of my time in Hawaii and then transition back to coldy Santa Cruz. I'll see you back here on New Years day but before I go can I give you a little something-something? I don't want to leave without giving you a gift, that would be so unChristmas of me.

I have been thinking for a while - if I could give my readers something that has simplified my cooking what would it be? Food processors are it. They make my life so much easier, and by they I mean three. I have three food processors, a mini chopper a medium sized and a large 14 cup one. I can't give you three and truthfully you don't want three separate food processors. So, today I'm giving away this Magimix Food Processor in chrome sponsored by the ever so lovely Williams-Sonoma.

Why Magimix?

Because it has three different bowl sizes so that you don't have to be all cluttered like me and have three separate food processors. Also because Magimix is developed by Robot-Coup, the French company that developed the first food processor so you know they know that we know that they're good. The whole thing is made and assembled in France. Chic, no?! Also, because they pinky promised that their bowls are easy to clean and the motor is supposed to be like a beautiful soft whisper.

Yes, I care about these things.

Also, after reading the reviews I realized people were really really really happy with Magimix more so than other top selling brands. The bowls are microwave safe which makes it easy to make baby food. It's supposed to knead amazing bread dough. Heck, this thing crushes ice.

 

There you go, a $400 Magimix 14-Cup Food Processor in Chrome just for you.

I hope you win.

To Enter: You have to be a Kitchen Corners follower. The follow button is on the sidebar. If you're already a follower leave a comment saying hi. If you're a new follower leave a comment introducing yourself and if you have a blog and would like to leave your url please do so. I enjoy meeting my readers! Please make sure your comments link back to an e-mail address so I can contact you if you win.

+1 more comment: You can get more entries by subscribing via RSS or e-mail to Kitchen Corner's feeds. 

+1 more comment: Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter.

+1 more comment: Share this giveaway! Sharing buttons are right below this post. Just leave a comment telling me how you shared.

Giveaway closes: Midnight PST Friday December 31stth. The winner will be contacted via e-mail and announced next Saturday.

Merry Christmas

We're off to find the hidden present Santa left for Enzo and the rest of the cousins.
Fun!

post-edit: Thanks everyone for participating. 

Number 140 you are as lucky as can be.

Peas For Prosperity

Today is Christmas Adam. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. And then Christmas! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas with minimal disappointments. If you haven't gotten that last minute gift then forget about it, because feeling swamped is no fun. Just remember that there is New Years and Christian's Birthday all in the same day. Oh wait, that's just me only a week after Christmas.

I'm a huge fat fan of celebrating new beginnings.

I make New Years resolutions

and then

I break then immediately.

I don't mind. I love making plans and setting goals. I'm at a point in my life where I focus more on the process than on the finish line, specially because the finish line seems to change and become abstract the more children I have, the more opportunities we're presented with, the more I just live.

If you are looking for a New Years gift or in my case a New Years/Birthday gift look no further. Peas for Prosperity is a perfect affordable significant foodie gift. Inspired by the Southern tradition to eat Peas on New Year’s Day for Good Luck and Prosperity, Peas for Prosperity offers dried black-eyed peas in stylish, eco-inspired, gift packaging.  Best part - a portion of the proceeds is donated to the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

I've been reading about the founder of Peas for Prosperity, Christy and her journey leaving Corporate America and finding her true passion. It's so inspiring, specially as I embark in a new phase of my life. Did I tell you I won't be teaching this next quarter and will solely focus on this here blog? Becoming a professional blogger has been a dream that I've recently started to take seriously. If it wasn't for blogging I wouldn't have even heard about Peas for Prosperity and read Christy's story. I now feel inspired.

I will need all the luck I can find for this new phase and if eating peas will bring me luck then bring it. I do love me some black eye peas.

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This is a sponsored review post. 

I received the product for free and a small stipend for reviewing it.

 

Keys To Good Cooking by Harold McGee {book review}

Harold McGee is America's foremost expert on the science of food and cooking. He writes a wonderful and engaging column for the New York Times called "Curious Cook"  and has recently come out with his new book Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes. 

I was invited by Penguin Press to review this book. As soon as I got it I turned to the Cooking Safely section. As someone who has a tiny kitchen and two tiny kids always in my kitchen I am constantly worried about burns and cuts. It was a good section.

Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes is filled with good sections. Resources to help you, I mean us, navigate our kitchens better. Something to guide you when you're trying to select fresh fruits and vegetables, which cuts of meat to buy, how to store and cook with dairy, among other things. 

His writing has me hooked and I finally feel like I understand science a little better through his explanations of why certain foods heat a certain way, are squeezed a certain way, are cooled a certain way, and the overall chemistry of food. I wish he had been my high school chemistry teacher. It probably would of made for a much less miserable sophomore year.

If you live in Santa Cruz, California come hang out with me tonight at Bookshop Santa Cruz. Harold McGee will be here for a book talk, signing, and Q&A. Plus, I heard that there will some yummy food.

If you can't make it I highly recommend watching the first lecture from the Harvard University Science and Cooking Public Lecture series. It's simply phenomenal. 

Smiling Planet- Earth Friendly plates+bowls

Smiling Planet sent baby Maria and Enzo a package of beautiful goodies. Baby Maria has been wanting to use plates. She sees us using plates, she sees her big bro using plates and she points her chubby fingers and screams. Smiling Planet's plates are perfect, they are tall enough so that her food won't slip off and they are absolutely gorgeous.

Enzo loved the bowl, he calls it the apple sauce bowl. He asks me to put apple sauce in it enough to cover up the picture and then as he eats away the illustration in the bottom appears. For a 4 year old this is pure magic. Even though the package was for the kiddies I feel like I got a treat with the coloring book everyone dreams of peace even when they don't which features the same illustrations that are on their plates and bowls and helps to keep the babes occupied while I put the finishing touches on dinner. Cool products that help make meal time fun makes me smile big smiles.

Superior Servers

Today I made corn, roast chicken, and cucumber salad for lunch. The yellow corn and green cumbers with the golden chicken was wonderful to look at. I think these superior servers from ladies and Gentlemen are equally wonderful to look at.

A plate full of colorful food is so pleasing to the eye I'm convinced that colorful servers would be just as awesome. If not more so.

Testing out Alaska Seafood Cod {and a cooking video, oh my}

It's not everyday we get to eat

sustainable seafood from Alaska.

But this week we did! I was so fortunate to have Alaska Seafood ship frozen cod right to my doorstep along with a beautiful seafood recipe book, recipe cards, and material on their work. I was so excited about the recipe cards and even more stoked that it was cold. It had come in the same cooler as the frozen fish so the recipe cards felt like paper thin ice cubes. It made me grin big.

Alaska Seafood represents all of Alaska's sustainable seafood industry. Their work is incredible and their fish is pure quality. 

Alaska teamed up with Foodbuzz to send food bloggers frozen fish so that we could test out the COOK IT FROZEN! technique. We received the fish for free (who's your lucky gal?!) and then proceded to cook the fish using our own recipes along with the COOK IT FROZEN! technique.

It was a great combo. 

My tried and true fish recipe is tilapia with pesto cooked in grape juice. It's so easy and so fast. Let's be honest, though, cod is a better fish but I'm usually scared to saute it in a pan because of it's thickness it would just take too long. So whenever I make cod I usually just bake it.

But the folks at Alaska Seafood coached me through the process of making my favorite fish recipe with my favorite fish; pan seared cod in pesto sauce. Their printed material and pan searing video was key to making this dish a success.

And it was!

Want to see?

and a special thanks to Foodbuzz, Alaska Seafood, and my friend Drew for his videography skills.
Go team go!

star wars lunch box

The ship has landed.

Actually, it was just the UPS truck

but it brought THIS

This, my friend, is a vintage style Star Wars lunch box, and if that wasn't enough it has sandwich cutters inside. Enzo will be eating Darth Vadar shaped sandwiches for school lunch which seriously has to be the coolest thing around.

What did you bring for lunch today Enzo?

"an apple, a string cheese, Darth Vadar and Millennium Falcon"

My kid is going to be rockin' the preschool scene!

My husband initiated me into Star Wars when I was pregnant with Enzo. We watched them all. It was destiny for Enzo to have this lunchbox. Thank you Williams-Sonoma for sending this to Enzo and thinking of him as he embarks into every day school.You guys are gems!

* No I had not watched Star Wars before I met Christian. Excuse me for being Brazilian and occupying my screen time with soap-operas. I have, since then, repented.

**If Star Wars isn't your thing, fear not! I am super excited for tomorrow's lunch bag giveaway.

stay put bowls

are my favorite!

This stay put bowl and cutlery set was such a good idea.

Baby girl wants to be a big girl. She wants the spoon when we try to feed her so we give her an extra to hold, which inevitably leads to the game. The one game where parents always loose. You know, the one where they drop something and you pick it up, and they drop it again and squeal in delight and you pick it up, and they drop it again and you bump your head on their high chair as you're bending down for the 14th time. I've played that game before with my first child and now with the second I'm just not in the mood. 

I'm liking the new game a lot more. It's called sticking the stay put bowl and cutlery sets on the table and watching baby Maria enjoy her food. 

Smart products make me happy.

Beaba Babycook {product review}

It's baby food.

It's not supposed to look very appetizing
 just wholesome and healthy and mushy.

Ever since I wrote the post about feeding my baby I've been on a baby food kick. I recently had the opportunity to try out the Beaba Babycook sent to me by the kind folks at Scandanavian Child, which by the way have the high chair of my dreams but I'll leave that for another post.

I used the Beaba Babycook to make some butternut squash puree with cheese. I was going for simple and easy just to test the efficiency of this appliance. Simultaneously I steamed some cubed butternut squash on my stove top. The Beaba Babybook is interesting because it steams, purees, defrosts, and warms up food all in one and even though stove top was faster I was happier with the steamed butternut squash made in the babycook.

In the past I made all of Enzo's baby food using my stove and because I was cooking in large batches and freezing I ended up throwing away a lot of food. I realized that frozen puree is not the same as fresh puree and after a couple weeks it always gets freezer burn. The Beaba has a little basket where you put your food in to steam. The size of the basket makes it so that it's impossible do do large batches. You still get left overs but it's not excessive. Also, because of the convenience of not having to worry whether your veggies are burning or whether you have enough water to steam them, it makes it so that it's easy to have fresh puree every day or at least every other day.

I also liked how the appliance kept the water that was used for steaming the butternut squash. It became a good broth that I later used for other foods.

Before pureeing I added a handful of cheese, just to add a little more flavor. The puree button allows you to control how thick to make your baby food.

Here is the thing, Maria is now a finger food baby and usually does not let us spoon feed her anymore. However, She really loved that mushy orange stuff on top and even went back for seconds. Fresh baby food is not the same as baby food in a jar. It's just not. I'm not condemning the jars, I use them frequently, but fresh purees has so much more flavor and texture. There really is no comparison.

Overall I was very impressed with the Beaba Babycook. At first I was a little skeptical but now I'm a fan. It's definitely easy to use. I'm excited to try new babycook recipes as well.

A shout out to Scandanavian Child. Your site is lovely. Your service is great. Your products are oh-so- tempting. Thanks for letting me try out the babybook.

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This was not a paid post. 
I did receive the Beaba Babycook for free.

Schade Pops {fun with popsicles}

in honor of Karla Schade

who gave me the best idea on what to do with my mismatched ingredients.

I mean, all the ideas were good. Banana bread had already been done and the banofee pie seems great except that it takes more than 10 minutes to make, same as pudding. I needed something quick and easy for dessert and ice-cream was it, especially since I have a Zoku that makes popsicles in less than 10 minutes.  I don't normally suggest getting expsenive kitchen gadgets but I suggest getting a Zoku. We're having so much fun with ours.

Enzo's popsicle was not as pretty as Christian's (I made it, blame me) but still totally delicious

Schade Pops

• 1/2 cup greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup mashed bananas
• 2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 cup melted chocolate

1. In a blender mix the yogurt, bananas, and sweetened condensed milk.
2. Pour a little of the melted chocolate in the Zoku. Christian successfully made his chocolate stay in the middle.
3. Pour the banana mixture and let freeze (between 5-7 minutes)

If the Zoku is outside of your budget then consider spending a little bit more on good pop molds. Last year I got mine at the dollar store and after one use I had to throw it away, total junk. Then I spend $5 on one at Target which was better but the handle was pocky and Enzo never wanted to use it.

Here are better ones for less than $20. Click on the individual pictures for prices and descriptions.
 

{product review} Victorinox Swiss Army Ceramic Cutlery

First a product review and then a recipe, ok? 

ok. 

First, if you don't think you like to cook than you need to get yourself a good knife. Second, if you think you do like to cook but you don't have a good knife then you're passion for cooking will increase ten fold when you do have a good knife. 

Third, this chef's knife is in fact all that. Swiss Army Knives are famous for their quality, durability, and design. Their new line of ceramic cutlery meets all of these standards no problem. 

Here is a tidbit from their website

Advantages of Ceramic Knives:

•  Resistant to corrosion and acids
• Lightweight, weighing half as much as steel
• Durable and extremely sharp
• Does not transfer taste or odor
• Low maintenance
• Lifetime warranty against manufacturer's defects in material and workmanship
• Precision inspected in Switzerland
• Ergonomical Fibrox designed handle
• The edge is proven to last 5 times longer and the blade has 3 times more flexibility than a sampling of other ceramic knives

And here is a tidbit from my kitchen,

I love this knife. Yes, I know that's an over simplified statement but I do love it. I love good knives and this is a very good knife. I was cutting bok choy which is all hard and fibery and it felt like I was cutting butter. 

pre cutting...look at those hard stems...

no problem.

Then I deep fried it super quick so that it was crispy like seaweed 

and seasoned with Furikake (JFC - Nori Fumi Furikake (Rice Seasoning) 1.7 Oz.) 

It is super good and simple to make but seriously only works if you have a nice sharp knife, otherwise it will bruise the leaves and you'll never be able to cut the bok choy into thin strips. 

The End.

I received the knife for free from Victorinox Swiss Army. This was not a paid post and the views expressed here are my own. 

Zoku Quick Pop Maker

(Williams-Sonoma)

Have you heard of the Zoku? It has the same cold base as an ice-cream maker so that you can make popsicles in a matter of minutes.

(Williams-Sonoma)

My friend Mariko told me all about it last Christmas when we were in Hawaii. Williams-Sonoma was so generous and sent us each one to try out, just in time for summer. I haven't used mine yet but Mariko used hers and now I'm inspired.

(The Little Foodie)

That mango lassi popsicle looks so good. Feed me!

Mariko wrote up a whole product review complete with recipes on how to make watermelon ginger popsicles, strawberry orange popsicles, and that delicious looking mango lassi popsicle.

It's not really fair that Mariko has a mango tree right in her back yard. Can you imagine what that popsicle must taste like with fresh mangoes? Heaven.

If you had a Zoku what flavors would you experiment with? I need some ideas.