Erika Waz, Tummy Treasures and Kids Cuisine ~ Peanut butter is one of our household’s favorite staples. We love peanut butter as a sandwich spread, dip, cracker spread, or occasionally in a sweet treat. Shoot, we’ve all been known to just dip in a spoon and eat the peanut butter straight up. More recently, though, I started wondering how it would work to change up our plain peanut butter for something a little more exotic. We’ve been to a sandwich shop that sells peanut butter in fun flavors like white-chocolate raspberry and honey-ginger, so we decided that playing with peanut butter was more than possible. With a few scoops of this and a few pinches of that, we quickly came up with an all-purpose peanut butter that will last for several weeks, although we have yet to have it last more than a few minutes ...

Cate O'Malley, Paper Palate ~ “Is there any more? The rice was really good.” Coming from The Husband, this is high praise indeed.  He thinks he makes better rice than I do. He probably does, but geez, it takes him f-o-r-e-v-e-r. So I was pretty happy to be getting rice praise from him on this new recipe. It comes from the newest (May) issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray, the celeb cook’s monthly magazine. A recipe created by Rachael’s “pal,” Daisy Martinez, it’s definitely one of those “everything but the kitchen sink” recipes. Have green pepper to use up?  Throw it in. A little bit of chopped ham? Why not? 

Alisa Fleming, www.GoDairyFree.org ~ To be honest, I had quite the pessimistic attitude when I first came upon these little pouches of fruit by Peeled Snacks.  Packaged dried fruit, so what is new? It is just dried fruit, so simple, no wow factor … but to my complete surprise so [counter] revolutionary. I used to be an avid dried fruit snacker, but with all of the added sugars and sulfur dioxide, I reasoned that fresh fruit was probably the only way to go.  But Peeled Snacks has taken a step back in time, serving up dried fruit without the preservatives and sugar.  That’s right, just fruit.  As I unfortunately discovered in a prior Peeled Snacks taste test, this means a shorter shelf-life.  But as long as you don’t hold onto these babies for several months, they are still pretty shelf-stable ...

Alisa Fleming, www.GoDairyFree.org ~ I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate food allergy awareness week then to write about the wonderful food products now available for food sensitivities.  I say food sensitivities, because if you have a severe or highly sensitive food allergy, you should contact the manufacturer prior to consumption of any processed food to ensure that there are no potential cross-contamination issues that might render the food unsafe for you.  That being disclaimed, one of the new products that has me the most excited is the new Purely Decadent Frozen Dessert Pints (aka "ice cream").  They are made with coconut milk, and consequently they are dairy-free, egg-free, and soy-free.  That's right, dairy-free AND soy-free.  Last week I had the opportunity to taste test three flavors of this new "ice cream" product, and I was floored with its luxuriousness, and downright healthy ingredient list.  Please do enjoy my full Purely Decadent Coconut Milk "Ice Cream" Review.

Hannak Kaminsky, My Sweet Vegan ~ When is a brownie not a brownie? Sounds like a stupid question, but I might argue that the color is generally the key, and perhaps the richest, darkest brownies of them all should actually be “blackies.” However, there’s a different reason entirely why I might suggest that these humble bar cookies above get a new name. You would never guess from looking at them, or even tasting them, but these are indeed the infamous black bean brownies that everyone was talking about ages ago. Upon first seeing this creation, I reacted in the same way that I would imagine most of you are right now; shock and horror. Beans, in sweet baked goods?! What horror, what torture!  Flicking quickly away from the recipe, I tried to cleanse my mind of the idea. How could it possibly be any good, after all? Those poor, misguided food bloggers…

Alisa Fleming, www.GoDairyFree.org ~ There is chocolate … and then there is chocolate.  Comparing in no way to those ordinary drugstore bars, a few select manufacturers, excuse me … artisans (a rightfully deserved title), craft the purest, deepest, darkest chocolate into bars that easily warrant the title of ‘premium.’  Amano ranks among this select group of artisans, and I was honored when three of their dark chocolate bars arrived in a beautiful package on my doorstep.  Honestly, I have always been a simple chocolate nibbler, giving bars the thumbs up or thumbs down, with no real tasting notes or rankings.  However, Amano prompted me to really taste the difference ...