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| Fish with sautéed potatoes |
Food Diary (February 02.2012)
Breakfast: Rolled oats with kiwifruit, sunflower seeds and flax seeds
Lunch: Fish with sautéed potatoes
Dinner: Vegetable stew and pasta
Baking/sweets: Chocolates
I don’t normally get excited about tomato sauce. As a matter of fact the last time I bought tomato sauce might have been years ago. I don’t dislike it, I just don’t buy it for some unknown reason. But that changed today when I saw very reasonably priced bottles of “Heinz Limited Edition Tomato Ketchup First Harvest”. With a name like that wouldn’t you get excited? Its limited edition, and first harvest. If the bottle had wings it would fly.
On the bottle it says “in 2011 Heinz harvested its first sun-ripened tomatoes of the year and bottled them straight from the vine. These tomatoes are grown from Heinz’s own seeds and have a light fresher flavor”.
This super sauce has its own impressive website where you can track the growth of the plant and connect "live" with the plant fields in Portugal. The website shows the weather conditions, updated realtime. Wouldn’t you want to know the weather conditions that the tomatoes are enduring in Portugal as you slather some sauce on your burgers?
This super sauce tasted like tomato sauce but I am no tomato sauce connoisseur. However I’m excited and can’t wait to use it again, the marketing and special price seems to have worked miracles. I was so easily swayed in this instance!
There is something positive. This super sauce has 75% tomato puree whereas the regular stuff has 50-55% tomato puree. Now that I’ve got you excited, time for some bad news. This super sauce has been launched in just 6 European countries.
Heinz did not pay me to write this. Today I had some spare time on my hands, and it was Heinz’s lucky day.
Today's Favourite Photo
Waxed meats: its real meat by the way, no waxes involved
Today’s Favourite Blog
Useful information on whether it’s better to eat raw or cooked garlic. To maintain the anti-cancer effects of garlic it is better to either eat it raw or to crush the garlic first, wait ten minutes, and then cook it.
To explain why, imagine chemical flares which when bent results in two chemicals getting mixed, producing a light-emitting reaction. Same thing with garlic. Floating around in the cytoplasm of garlic cells is a compound called alliin, and packed away in tiny intracellular storage compartments (called vacuoles) is an enzyme called alliinase. When the garlic tissues are crushed, the two mix and the alliinase enzyme turns alliin into allicin, the phytonutrient thought to be responsible for many of garlic’s health benefits.
Cooking destroys the enzyme, so if you crush your garlic and immediately throw it into the pan, little allicin may be produced. But since allicin is relatively heat stable, you can chop your garlic, wait 10 minutes for the allicin to be formed, and then cook it, presumably maintaining many of the benefits.
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Thanks for the great garlic tip! I can always count on you for useful information like this.
ReplyDeleteI haven't bought tomato ketchup in ages and now you've got me intrigued about it too!
I think its not available in the UK
DeleteI am sorry to know that garlic doesn't have as many good qualities when it is cooked. That's the only way I eat it. Your fish and potatoes look wonderful. It's been too long since I have had fish.
ReplyDeleteMe too, raw garlic is a bit 'rough'.
DeleteInteresting about the garlic...now if I could just plan to smash it in advance....
ReplyDeletePS...back to decadence on Saturday with my first pre-Valentine's day post :)
Thats true, takes a bit of planning and waiting.
DeleteLooking forward to the Sat post.
My mother in law thinks that everything is best raw-she brought up my husband on raw food for his childhood.
ReplyDeleteYour fish with sauteed potatoes looks tasty!
ReplyDeleteThank you, it was tasty
DeleteWow, I'm sold on the tomato sauce :) Marketing at it's best.
ReplyDeleteTake care...
It is great marketing, pretty impressive. Working miracles!
DeleteHeinz is the only brand of ketchup I appreciate, so I can imagine how exceptional this sauce can be. If I were you, I would buy several bottles... I will check if it exists in France. (No chance in Switzerland I think)
ReplyDeleteI love garlic and when I was a child I loved bread with butter, with slices of raw garlic, everything sprinkled with salt. (Imagine my breath after several slices!). Actually I think onion and garlic are the only vegetables I couldn't cook without. (It would be difficult without ginger too)
I am now thinking I should have bought more bottles...I might just do that:)
DeleteThats a twist to garlic bread, using raw instead of cooked garlic.
That is what I do when I find parsley root (very difficult to get here). I buy lots of it because I never know when I will see it again. Then I dry it and freeze it. The big advantage of the sauce is you can probably keep it for years without freezing.
DeleteTalking about open sandwiches from my childhood: I had this weird habit of putting halved sweet cherries on buttered bread. Weird, I know...
I have never come across parsley root, I will look for it, seems like a special product.
DeleteThe best before date on the sauce is May 2012. I guess it can be kept for much longer than that.
Cherries on buttered bread - well...interesting:) I have never tried this innovative sandwich:)
Maybe the extra tomato puree makes the tomato sauce more...tomato-y? I haven't seen this in my supermarket but they also didn't have spinach yesterday, so that doesn't surprise me.
ReplyDeleteI would hope so, I need to compare with a regular tomato sauce, side by side.
DeleteAnother victim for advertising :D
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I'm always thinking there's some flavor enhancers in canned stuff.
This may sound weird but this is how I make quick garlic bread .... rubbing a peeled clove of garlic on toast.
I am not sure which had more influence - advertising or special price. The latter I think:)
DeleteI checked the ingredients, there is no additional stuff, but then its bottled, not canned. Lame joke, sorry
I've tried that method for garlic bread, its great, you don't get chunky bits, mainly garlic juices.
I would try it. Normally I go for Muir Glen or Hunts when it comes to tomato sauces. I'll look for it at the supermarket.
ReplyDeleteI am not familiar with those brands, guess they are US brands
DeleteI do love garlic and always thought it was so healthy!
ReplyDeleteThats nice to know about garlic, I never knew the benefits of it changes on the way you handle them
ReplyDelete