I was recently asked to try Opal Apples as part of a Bzz Campaign by BzzAgent. I was skeptical because hey, it's an apple, but I was blown away.

Surprisingly delightful and delicious! Opal apples are plentiful in my local Stop & Shop, which surprised me for December. Apple season here is usually earlier in the Fall. I had never heard of Opal Apples before joining the Bzz campaign and I was very glad to see a nice display of them in the store.

I really loved the appearance of these apples. They're a very pretty, strong yellow with some freckling, very appealing to the eye. I am not a big Golden Delicious apple fan, and neither is my husband, so I wasn't sure how we would like the taste of one of these offspring (Golden Delicious crossed with Topaz). However, they were really great! Crisp, the perfect apple blend of sweet & tart, with a slightly citrusy undertone.

Once you've bitten into the apple the aroma wafts up, gently letting you know that this is one really great apple. I thought my husband was going to be a hard sell on this, but he was intrigued and thought that the non-GMO aspect of the fruit was decidedly in its favor. I decided to test the non-browning theory and gave my daughter some cut apple slices to bring with her to Color Guard practice. She said they stayed fresh, crisp and she loved them.

I bought a large quantity of the apples and made some into an apple pie. They cook up wonderfully. I usually use a combination of apples when I bake a pie, but the pie made entirely of Opal apples was loved by the family.

So far I've shared these apples with my co-workers, fellow volunteers at the animal shelter, my family, and some friends. Everyone has been extremely positive about the taste, the texture, and they are impressed that they are organic. They are also impressed when I tell them how Opal supports the community through their Youth Makes a Difference grants, which support youth-led non-profits involving food, nutrition and agriculture. We re big on that around here, what with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension helping youth to become active in agricultural subjects and activities. 

Summation: Positives: Delicious, Able to get them later than the regular northeast growing season, organic, non-GMO, doesn't brown when cut, great for both eating and baking, they give back to the community via the Youth Makes a Difference Grants

Negatives: can't get them year-round, but it's always worth it to wait for a good thing.

Rubbermaid Shaker Bottle, a great find!

I had weight loss surgery in 2003, and I've kept off most of the weight. It's always a challenge, but the biggest challenge is nutrition. We're told to take in 120 grams of protein a day but that can be hard without protein shakes. Let's face it, protein shakes aren't convenient. Either you spend a fortune and buy the pre-made shakes, or you buy the powders and hope for the best. Recently BzzAgent asked me to try the Rubbermaid Shaker Bottle, so I figured I'd give it a go.

Using a blender is a pain because you have to take the blender pieces apart to wash it. Using a blender stick is a pain, too, and let's face it, it's not convenient for travel. You can't take those things to work with you every day.

I will say that I was initially skeptical about this. I've used other blending devices and they were either inconvenient to clean or they developed bad odors. Some just didn't work at all. However, I like Rubbermaid, and I wanted to give it a try. Boy, am I glad I did!

What I love about this is that there are convenient markings on the sides of the bottle, so you know how much water (or other liquid) to add to get things perfect. I can put in a scoop of protein powder before I leave for work and add water at work mid-morning to get in enough protein for the first half of the day.

I love the wide necked opening. This bottle is extremely easy to clean, which is a plus. I don't have a dishwasher so I can't comment on that, but it says dishwasher safe. What I like is that it's wide enough so that I can clean it manually without any problems.

After a few weeks of use I can safely say that this bottle has remained odor-free. That's a great feature. I'm very happy that it's BPA-free, too. I try not to use products with BPA in the lining. The bottle is durable so you can take it anywhere. It bounces around in my car, goes all over the place with me. I like the finger loop - I thread my fanny pack belt through it and wear it when I'm out exercising. Then when I stop for a drink, I can take in protein. It works well!

My protein powder mixes up like a charm. I'm thrilled! I will be trying it with some other recipes. My daughter wants me to get her a bottle of her own so she can mix up some smoothies in it. I think Rubbermaid has a winner with this bottle. They'd be smart to attend the large Weight Loss Surgery conventions and set up a table, demonstrating this bottle. Everyone would want one.



Pros: Cleans Easily
Mixes effortlessly
Measurement markings on the bottle make adding liquid a snap
Bottle closes tightly for safe shaking
Finger loop can be placed on a belt or purse strap for carrying when exercising
Odor-free
Made from durable materials
#GotItFree (couldn't resist adding that as a plus)

Cons: can't find any cons!
I'd love to see more colors, but the two featured are nice.

eSalon, yay or nay?

Recently I was asked to try eSalon by BzzAgent. I love most Bzz campaigns and look forward to trying new things.

I have been coloring my hair since I was 16, and I've used a variety of brands. I rarely go to a salon and choose to color at home instead, mostly because of the time factor. That said, I think I have a lot of experience with 30+ years of hair coloring. I jumped at the chance to join the eSalon campaign because I was intrigued by the idea of custom coloring. I signed up, put up my picture, did all that I had to do, and had no issues whatsoever with getting the kit from eSalon. That part was very easy.

My kit arrived in an impressive box, with custom bottles and a boat load of instructions. The extra free products were a nice bonus, too. First impression of the kit: this is very professional. First impression of the instructions: this is going to be a lot of work. I get the stain guard, but seriously, doesn't everyone know to use petroleum jelly at this point? I also use baby wipes to clean up any minor skin staining, so the stain wipes seemed to be a bit of overkill.

The eSalon Kit

They gave me some additional products for free, so I received a bottle of conditioner and a tube of leave-in conditioner. Both are thinner than the products I currently use.

I decided to try everything out last night. The first thing I noticed is that the scent is very strong. I wasn't pleased with that. It was much too strong. I've used salon dyes that I get at the beauty supply store, and I've had my hair dyed in salons. I don't strip my hair so that strong of a scent worried me.

The process was a bit more complicated than a regular home dye kit. You mix up bottle one, do your roots, then do your hair, then mix up the glosser and put that on. You can use the stain guard on your skin and use the stain wiping cloth if anything bleeds. I suggest using them because this is a very liquid dye, not creamy at all, and it runs. This dye stains heavily. I get that you want saturated coverage, but this was too much. I normally dye my hair red or reddish blonde. I have naturally light brown hair which turns red when it lightens, and I have about 10% gray hair at this point. I try for even coverage with a natural-looking color result.

As soon as I put it on my hair turned Bozo the Clown orange, and I was a bit scared that the color wouldn't be what I wanted. As I said, the dye is very liquid and it does run, so be careful of your surroundings. I had just painted my bathroom last weekend and didn't want any mistakes. I set the timer and waited. Then it was time to rinse. They suggest rinsing in the shower rather than in the sink because it takes a lot to rinse this out. I was annoyed by how long it took to rinse, and I was wishing I had a high-powered sprayer to help it along. They give you Shampoo and Conditioner to use when cleaning it out, and I found that surprising because you usually can lather and rinse the dye and then just condition it.

Speaking of the shampoo and conditioner, I think they fell down on their salon job when supplying those. I have dry, curly hair and indicated that. The shampoo and conditioner that were sent had alcohol listed as the second ingredient. No salon worth their salt will use anything with alcohol. Even Supercuts told my kid to stop using alcohol based shampoos because they strip the hair.

I shampooed, conditioned, and towel-dried my hair. My hair didn't feel as sleek as it does when I use one of my favorite home dye kits. It was dry and didn't detangle as easily. The color was very, very red. Too vibrant, too false for my liking. I use some pretty torrid reds (I love L'Oreal's reds) but this was a bit much.

Close Up of Root area

At work, color is brighter than this, but the lighting is bad

I put in my leave-in conditioner and let it air dry, and noticed it didn't curl as much as it usually does. I got up this morning and washed my hair again, this time using my own shampoo and conditioner. More color came out, even though I had rinsed for an extremely long time the night before and did wait for the water to run clear. It wasn't much but there was a definite red tint to the water. I used my leave-in conditioner again and came to work. When I got to work I took a picture of the completed result. It's not bad. Slightly more red than I would have liked, and the color didn't hold well at the temples. Still, I've received compliments on it here at work.

My summation:

Pros: Great variety of color
Helpful customer service
Very quick shipping
personalized service
hair color is vibrant

Cons:
Too liquid for my taste, I prefer a creme to prevent running,
I felt this was messy
Scent was too strong
Having to mix two different bottles took extra time.
The shampoo and conditioner contained alcohol, which dries out hair.
The dye was very hard to rinse out.

Verdict: I am getting compliments on the color at work, and I loved the personalized service but I think this would be an optional purchase.

Tru Moo Flavored Milk - Fun for your Halloween Parties, if you can find it

BzzAgent asked me to try TruMoo chocolate milk.  I was happy to be asked to the TruMoo campaign because I thought that it would be something my daughter would enjoy. She likes flavored milk, and gets chocolate milk with lunch in school every day.

 One thing I noticed first: I went to the Tru Moo website and put in my zip code, only to be told that there was nothing locally. Wrong. I know I've seen it in my local stores. Turns out it's licensed to different dairies depending upon where you live. For us, it's Tuscan. If you go to the "My Dairy" link on the website it now tells you who your local dairy supplier will be.

My ShopRite and Stop & Shop both carry Tru Moo but I haven't been able to find the Vanilla variety, either plain or orange for Halloween. Too bad, it would have been a nice thing to try.

 I picked up a gallon of the Tru Moo chocolate milk for Haley. Sadly, it wasn't her favorite. She said she prefers the chocolate milk that they serve in school. Both are low-fat (she prefers low-fat milk) and both have similar nutritional labels, but she wasn't sold on the taste of Tru Moo and asked me to buy some powder to put in her milk instead.

So, now I had nearly a gallon of Tru Moo to use and she really didn't want to drink it. I'm not a chocolate milk kind of person, I'm a coffee hound, and my husband wasn't about to drink it. So, I did what I always do, I baked!

 I used recipes from the Cake Mix Doctor book by Anne Byrn, and where it would call for milk, I would add the chocolate milk. I figured it would give an extra chocolate kick to the recipe. This worked really well! My daughter and I made red velvet cupcakes using 1 cup of chocolate milk, and we added 1 cup of chocolate milk to the batter of my son's mocha birthday cake. In addition, I used chocolate milk to thin my chocolate buttercream frosting for spreading. So, this was definitely used and tasted good as part of those projects.

Enter to win a Goosebumps Haunted Hollywood Vacation and instantly get a $2-off coupon for any Goosebumps DVD with your next TruMoo^® purchase

Pros: seems to be locally available available in both fat-free and low-fat varieties
available in half and full gallon sizes
less sugar than soft drinks
They're having a Goosebumps sweepstakes, so enter

Cons:
My kid didn't like it as much as another brand
No matter how they sell it, it's still extra sugar in the diet.
Other flavor varieties (vanilla, orange-tinted vanilla, strawberry) weren't available locally
Price (cheaper to buy regular milk & add chocolate milk mix)

Kashi Hummus Crisps - Yay or Nay?

BzzAgent asked me to try Kashi's new Hummus Crisps. I was intrigued.

I loved the Kashi Hummus Crisps. Truly. I would be buying them if I could find them. They are fantastic. I thought that the Sea Salt & Olive Oil is great. These are good, healthy snacks, they taste great, and go with a variety of dips. I like to use healthier dips like Tzatziki sauce or a nice Fage Yogurt dip, in order to keep things healthy.

The protein in the Kashi Hummus Crisps is a huge positive to me. As someone who lost weight with weight-loss surgery 10 years ago, I strive to eat healthy and to incorporate protein into my diet in as many ways as possible. I have talked about this online with friends, and have told friends near and far that the Kashi Hummus Crisps are great and a good food for those of us who have had weight loss surgery. So, here's my dilemma: where the heck do I find them? I have asked every supermarket in my area (ShopRite, Stop & Shop, Pathmark, Whole Foods) to carry them and they can't get them from their distributors. I have used the product locator and have not come up with a single place that has them. I tried 60 miles away in each direction, since I travel down to south Jersey to visit relatives and up to Westchester to visit friends. NOTHING! I can't find them anywhere. I have a stack of coupons to hand out that I can't give away because no one can find these Hummus Crisps. I am very disappointed that this campaign was launched before the product distribution went national. My Stop & Shop has half an aisle devoted to Kashi products, but they don't have these, and from the looks of things, they won't any time soon. It's quite sad.

I would love to blog about these and try the other varieties, but without having the product (and I am not ordering from Amazon or ebay at inflated prices) I won't be able to do it. Pros: Great nutritional snack, guilt-free eating, adds to your protein count. Cons: Can't find them in the northeast! New York, NJ, PA - no.

Fage Yogurt - A staple in my house

Bzz Agent asked me to try Fage (pronounce it Fa-yeh).  That's like asking a chocoholic to try chocolate! I eat Fage all the time. It's a great way to get in protein and natural probiotics. As a matter of fact, this is my drawer in the fridge at work:

What BzzAgent wanted, though, was for people to try Fage in their recipes. Not a problem! I love the idea of cooking with yogurt, since it goes with so many things. I have bought the large tubs of Fage in the past to use in cooking. I made a killer Tzatziki sauce a couple of years ago for a barbecue and people are still talking about it.

My Bzz Kit contained three coupons. One for me, two to give away.  I, uh, used two. Couldn't help it. I gave my cooking buddy, Yvon, coupon #3.

You know what I love about Fage? It's a great way to get calcium and protein into my diet. I need large quantities of both, and Fage helps me get it. By adding Fage to different foods, I'm adding good-quality protein, and no artificial ingredients. Fage is 100% natural, and has been for well over 80 years. That's good! What's in it? Milk and live active cultures or milk, live active cultures and cream. Perfect! No additives, no corn syrup, nothing to take away from the deliciousness of this yogurt. It's the #1 selling yogurt brand in Greece, so almost 11 million Greeks can't be wrong! Fage is smooth, creamy, delicious, and it really is a staple of my daily diet. I use it on baked potatoes and pierogis in place of sour cream.

Yogurt is good for you. You don't have to buy gimmicky yogurt to get the benefit of the probiotics. Eat Fage and you'll be regular without having to ingest silly additives.

My only quibble with Fage, or more likely with my local supermarkets: They don't like to carry the Fage Total. I like fat. Fat tastes good. I am also one of the people who believes (and I've read the studies that back it up) that fat doesn't make you fat, carbohydrates/sugars do. I won't go on and on with the low-carb lecture and I won't bore you with my low cholesterol numbers, but I do indeed like the full fat version and it's hard to find! Shop-Rite never carries it, Stop & Shop used to carry it but lately they haven't stocked anything except the 0% & 2%, and it takes some work to uncover the good stuff. Luckily I found it at Jack's Foodtown in Caldwell, NJ, near my place of employment.

So, what did I whip up with my Fage?

First, my friend Linda wanted to come over and make dinner with me. She had a kebab recipe she wanted to try, and it sounded good. I told her I'd make the side dishes.  She mixed up her meat and it was very spicy!

You can see the hot pepper flakes in the meat

Linda frying up her kebab patties

So what did I whip up to go with this? Raita! 

• 1 cup Fage Greek Yogurt
• 1/2 cup chopped & seeded cucumber
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• Salt to taste

I love raita, and it's the perfect way to top off an especially spicy dish.   It's so easy to make, and it can complement a variety of meals. Try it!  You can cut the recipe in half if you only want a small amount.  Dinner went very well that evening, everyone enjoyed it, although the kebabs were a bit spicier than I would have liked (and I like spicy food!).

Next up: My husband is a big fan of polenta. I decided to make polenta for the family using Fage, since my husband was making chicken cacciatore. My son, my daughter, and my son's friend Neo were joining us for dinner, so it was a great time to experiment.

Polenta:

• 2 cups water 
• 1/2 cup quick polenta or quick cornmeal
• 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese 
• 1/4 cup Fage Total 
• Salt & pepper to taste 

Bring water to a boil, then slowly stir in cornmeal with a wire whisk. Reduce heat to the lowest setting you can manage. Stirring constantly, continue to cook for 5 minutes. Turn heat off and add cheese and Fage. Season with salt & pepper and serve.

They all loved it! My husband was dying to know what I'd done differently, so I told him: I used Fage with parmesan cheese to make the polenta. My son and his friend really liked it as well. Neo said I should open a restaurant he liked it so much. Good to hear, and since it's easy to make, it's now going to be part of our rotation. If you have anyone in your home who needs to be gluten-free, this recipe fits right in.


Third item: Cake!

I like to bake and decorate cakes for my family & friends. I haven't taken any of the classes, but when I find the time I will.  If you are pressed for time making a cake and you're going to use a box mix, ignore the instructions on the box and use the recipes in Ann Byrn's Cake Mix Doctor books. They come out so much better and people love them. Shameless library plug: get them at your local library. If your library doesn't have them, ask them to get them for you via inter-library loan.

Many of Ms. Byrn's recipes call for sour cream. I made a basic chocolate cake for my son's friend's child. I substituted Fage for the sour cream.

1  package devil's food cake mix
1  box instant chocolate pudding mix
1 Fage yogurt
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs

I used the Wilton Spider-Man pan, so I followed the baking directions for the pan, 25 minutes at 350.  

The finished product:

Brian loved the cake, as did his guests, and I enjoyed making it for him.

My next idea is to use Fage in my cream cheese buttercream frosting that I use when I make red velvet cake. My daughter's birthday is coming up on June 8th, and she loves red velvet, so I just may try it.

Like I said before, I eat Fage on a daily basis. If I buy a large tub of the plain, I sometimes mix my own jams into it. I usually stock up on the individual sizes for work, and I love how easy it is to use Fage in recipes. I think it'll work great in any recipe that calls for sour cream and will continue to try it. I look forward to trying more of the recipes I've seen on the Fage website.

You can find Fage at http://www.fageusa.com/ and there you'll find nutritional info, great recipes, and a product locator.

The Four Musketeers Need Your Help!

 Ad hoc communities spring up all the time, and we become close to people via those communities. I belong to a few different groups of people, and one of the best started on the site Obesity Help, but quickly moved over to Facebook. It was there that I met Georgina, a wonderful woman and great mother, who spoke in glowing terms about her family. I looked forward to updates from her about her daughter and her nieces, and the kittens she recently adopted.  I was horrified to see that tragedy struck this happy family: Geo's sister, the lovely Penelope Stephanie Sanchez, was brutally murdered.

Three lovely little girls are now left without their mother. Georgina is left without a sister, and Clara is left without her aunt.

Our online community was just as stunned as if we were local. This horrific tragedy means that the surviving family needs to band together to raise these girls in a household filled with love. Some really great ladies, Kristin and Nicole, set up this donation site via indigogo in order to raise money to help the family. The grandparents need a van to transport all these children. Georgina's parents will be moving closer to create a solid family environment where the sisters and their cousin can be raised together, with help from Georgina and her husband.

Life is unfair. Violence is evil, but love is more powerful than all of those things. Please consider donating to this family and let's show them that love does indeed conquer all.

Let's also hope that they catch the responsible party and that justice is swift.

Please, give and share. Thank you.