When my mom told me that Kashi had an advertised offer for a free cereal sample, I signed up immediately. I guess it's a similar advertising strategy as their granola bar campaign. The only difference was that for the granola bars, you were mailed a coupon for a free box of granola bars. For this cereal, you were mailed a small sample-sized box of cereal. There were two flavours to choose from: Honey Almond Flax and Toasted Berry Crisp. There was a limit of one box per household, and the one I mailed to my address here in London never came (I blame the mailperson), so we only ended up with one box of cereal.
It's a generous sample size, and it came packed in a box within a box (a mini cereal box was packaged in a slightly bigger mailing box). It also came with a $2.00 off coupon for your next purchase of either flavour of the showcased Kashi cereal.
The cereal is advertised as a "protein and fibre cereal," with "naturally sweetened multigrain clusters." I liked how there were pretty big clusters that stuck together, but inevitably, there were those little broken bits at the bottom of the bag, which I didn't mind too much. The cereal was unusually crunchy, and I think it would hurt your jaw a bit if you weren't used to it. Mind you, I ate this cereal dry, which is the way I like eating my cereal. With that said, it would probably become appropriately crunchy once milk was added. I don't know why, but I don't like eating cereal with milk. It gets soggy too fast, and then I feel like I have to wolf down my bowl of cereal. So I imagine if this cereal was eaten with milk, it would stay crunchy for a while.
It was nicely sweetened, not overpowering. I especially liked the puffed rice that was included in the mix. The almond slivers kept a nice toasted flavour too. I find that most of the almonds found in cereals have no toasted flavour, and some are on the verge of exuding their natural almond oils (does anybody get what I mean by that?).
I would recommend this to anybody looking for a new cereal to try for breakfast or otherwise (i.e. for snacking). It is loaded with lots of fibre and protein per serving, so I think it would also benefit anyone looking to up their fibre and/or protein intake.
Isn't this cake pretty? Dusted with icing sugar, with decorative cutouts of snowflakes, nothing reflects the winter season more. Plus, the lemony flavour reflects the fact that January is citrus season!
The reason behind making this cake was because of two ingredients that I wanted to use up--plain yogurt and lemons. So...what does one do? Go to your trusty friend, Ina Garten, who has never let you down. This is one of her "lighter" recipes, in the sense that it doesn't include any butter. However, it does include a fair amount of oil, which I cut back by half and still ended up with a dense, moist, lemony cake. I think I should have added a bit more lemon zest, because it wasn't lemony enough for me.
The recipe originally calls for a lemon glaze to be poured over the top, but it was snowing the day I baked this, and that's how the icing sugar snowflake topping was born. I traced out snowflake shapes from one of my cookie cutters, placed the cutouts on the surface of the baked yogurt cake, and dusted away...
I highly recommend this recipe, especially if you happen to find yourself with an excess of lemons and plain yogurt. Or make it just because the Barefoot Contessa is awesome.
I know...red and green? Is this deja vu? Surely Christmas must have already passed! I did make these chocolate cupcakes before Christmas; my post is just a wee bit late...
I made these cupcakes for a Secret Santa exchange, and I think they just looked so pretty with their red-and-green-flecked tops. Put sprinkles on anything, and it just makes everything look so much more fun.
I mixed and matched recipes from two sources: the cupcake recipe was from
Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, which is a book that I've had for almost a year now (I got it last year as a Christmas gift), but have not used nearly enough as I would have liked. The cream cheese frosting was from
The New York Times Dessert Cookbook, which I never grow tired of flipping through. It seems as if each time I peruse this book, I always find a new recipe or story. It's an awesome collection of recipes, which I'm glad to have found for only $8 (at Borders, in the U.S.A. These are the kind of sales that I love!).
First, the cupcakes. The original recipe was for a red velvet cupcake, but I decided to forego the "red" part. As a result, the batter and the final cupcakes took on a weird, brown-greyish hue, which looked quite unappealing (or at least to me, it did). Nevertheless, I baked them off and was pleasantly surprised to find that they rose pretty evenly. I always find that whenever I make cupcakes or muffins, they always have a domed top, which was not the case here. While they were cooling, I made the cream cheese frosting. No matter how long I let the cream cheese sit out at room temperature, or how many times I sift the powdered sugar, I always manage to end up having lumps in my cream cheese icing. How do I make it perfectly smooth? Any suggestions to help a fellow human out? I disliked the lumps, but after much whisking and smushing and beating, those lumps still remained. So I frosted the cupcakes anyways. And nobody mentioned anything about the lumps. Or maybe everyone was just being polite.
I baked these on the first day I came back home from school, and it felt awesome. I have to say I've missed baking in my own kitchen.
When my mom told me that Kashi had an advertised offer for a free cereal sample, I signed up immediately. I guess it's a similar advertising strategy as their granola bar campaign. The only difference was that for the granola bars, you were mailed a coupon for a free box of granola bars. For this cereal, you were mailed a small sample-sized box of cereal. There were two flavours to choose from: Honey Almond Flax and Toasted Berry Crisp. There was a limit of one box per household, and the one I mailed to my address here in London never came (I blame the mailperson), so we only ended up with one box of cereal. 
