Diet’s SUCK

Let’s not try and tell anyone that they are fun. Because they aren’t and for a foodie like myself who loves good the rich tasting things in life – Diet’s SUCK. Bottom line. But on a positive note; I am getting married in April therefore I must look my best.

A long time away.

I stepped away from this site over a year ago. And I feel that now is a perfect time to reacquaint myself.  Howdy.

Bread Pudding

Holy Awesomness!

I love bread pudding. There’s nothing quite like it. Especially when there’s chocolate involved.

Today I found myself with a loaf of 2-day old pugliese Italian bread that we really had no use for. I’ve only ever used soft breads for bread pudding, you know, brioche, that light fluffy white Italian bread from the grocery store bakery section, croissants, etc. Recipes always called for that kind of bread and some of them even said things like “cut the crust off.” So it comes as no surprise that I was always scared to try making bread pudding with a more rustic, crusty bread. And that fear has been the waste of several decent loaves of stale bread because….

That crusty, rustic pugliese worked GREAT in bread pudding. That’s right, I took the plunge. And the water felt good, people. Don’t be scared, use that crusty bread!

I did slice off the pointy crusty top from the loaf, and, after I cut the bread into 1″ – 2″ slices, I cut the bottom crust off each piece. The rest of the crust I left on. I liked having varying textures in the pudding, and the crusty parts absorbed the custard and cooked beautifully.

I am so glad I experimented with that bread today. Because, turns out, chocolatey bread pudding makes a mighty tasty lunch. Nutritious, too.

Bread Pudding
My creation after reading through a whole bunch of recipes and picking what I liked best
– 3 eggs
– 2/3 cup sugar
– 1 tsp vanilla
– 1/2 tsp cinnamon (more if you use raisins or fruit as the mix-in)
– 4 Tbsp. butter, melted
– 3 C milk
– 1/4 tsp salt
– 16 oz loaf of white bread (brioche, Italian, whatever you have on hand)
– Chocolate (chips or chopped) OR raisins, optional. If you don’t add anything at this point, it will be delicious topped with fresh fruit upon serving.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place a tea towel or cloth flatly in a 9″ x 13″ baking pan. Butter an 8″ x 8″ baking dish (I actually forgot to butter the dish, and everything was fine). Get a bunch of hot water ready for when the pudding is ready for the oven (I just filled my tea kettle and turned the heat on so it would be hot when I was ready for it).

Cut off the ends of the bread and slice the bread into 1″ – 3″ cubes – no need to be exact. Cut off any particularly thick or crusty pieces of crust. Place bread pieces in the 8″ x 8″ dish, being sure not to overcrowd.

If you are adding a raisins or chocolate, do so now just by sprinkling over the bread.

Beat eggs, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and salt with a hand mixer or in your stand mixer until it’s that pretty light yellow color. Stir in the milk and butter then pour the mixture over the bread. Dunk the pieces of bread down into the egg mixture with your fingers so all the pieces have been soaked. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Place dish in the prepared 9″ x 13″ pan, laying 8″ x 8″ pan on top of the cloth. Place both pans in the oven. Pour hot water into the 9″ x 13″ pan until the level is about halfway up the side of the 8″ x 8″ dish.

Bake around an hour. Mine was done at exactly 65 minutes. You can tell it’s done when you poke around in the middle and the custard is mostly set. There may be a little bit of liquid left, but not a lot.

Serve cold or warm, with whipped cream or not. I love it a few minutes after baking because the tops are still crispy. YUM! Keeps in the fridge for several days.

Via Jane Maynard

Back…

Back after a few months off. New post to follow shortly.

Welcome to Moe’s

Well not really a welcome. Moe’s has a new promo after 3pm that any burrito is $5.99 with chips and a drink. Here’s the issue – what if you get a Art Vandelay for $5.59? Glad you asked because you’ll be paying for the $5.99 meal deal whether you like it or not.

This is a sure fire way to piss off your brand loyalist and even new users. Having been to Moe’s a few times in my life I know what the Art Vandelay cost and the below receipt isn’t it. My problem isn’t that they charged me $6.35. My problem is their explanation which was, “It doesn’t matter what you get. We charge you for the $5.99 meal”. My response – “So, I don’t want a drink because soda makes me want to puke and my meal burrito is $5.59 – so you’re charging me for the $5.99 meal?” It seems like such a small thing to be upset about, but right now in our uber transparent society one mistake and i’ve already moved on another local Mexican joint.  Sometimes things don’t add up – I get that, but at least have a good explanation for it. It’s actually going to hurt them when they audit themselves and their food cost are all over the place. Hopefully it’s just a local store anomaly, but most likely not. 

Been away

Been away getting ready for the new year. Sorry for not posting. Stay tuned as being on the road always brings some interesting insights.

Dunkin’ In The Bahamas?

Dunkin’ Donuts, a US-based coffee and baked goods chain, has opened a new restaurant in The Bahamas. The company’s newest international restaurant, owned and operated by Dunkin’ Donuts’s franchise partner, Bahamas QSR, a member of The Myers Group of companies, opened in downtown Nassau.

Could this be why William Kussell will step down from his posts as president and chief brand officer? Okay probably not, but they do have some issues at the DD.
Read more: http://www.nrn.com/peopleonmove.aspx?coll_id=664&menu_id=1410#ixzz0T47fIM3Y

Jamba Juice

Jamba Juice, a restaurant retailer of food and beverage offerings, has added Grab-n-Go food, California Flatbreads and Fruit Tea Infusions to its menu. The new menu items are available in 18 locations in Chicago.

A little perky jerky

It all started with coffee, then energy drinks. Later arrived everything from caffeinated potato chips to donuts. Now Perky Jerky, the caffeinated beef jerky, is here, stopping meat cravings and drowsiness in one savory snack. Made with guarana, each Perky Jerky bag contains 150mg of caffeine, or almost two cans of Red Bull (80mg each). The guys at Perky aren’t just jerky jerky pushers — from crowdsourcing sponsorship options to a Newman’s Own-inspired cause partnership, they’re all business. 

Found: iconoculture

I wore my Dunkin’ t-shirt the other day

And got a free donut. That’s not too bad seeing that I completely forgot and it was an unsuspected surprise. It’s all about surprising the consumer these days, or in my case, reminding them of what they get.

Ambient Ice Cream

Unilever, the company behind Magnum ice cream. is developing an ambient ice cream in an attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The low-carbon product, which is being designed with Cambridge University, would be sold at room temperature but then frozen at home – saving the energy normally used to store, freeze and transport ice cream. 

Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about picking up ice cream and then refreezing it. There is something that is so un-nostalgic about it.

Justifying Nutella

for breakfast

Ingredients easily pronounced.

Adds European flair to start of day.

Tastes good on a bagel. 

Adding sliced strawberries makes it seem healthy

Source: Chris Glass

In the future…

From USA Today

Great little piece from USA today which ask, – How many times a week do you choose fast food as a dining option for your family?

63.2% chose 1-3 times per week which amazes me.

Source: USA Today

Does mixing brands and politics go too far?

The very popular Ben & Jerry’s flavor Chubby Hubby has been renamed, temporarily, Hubby Hubby in support of Vermont’s new law legalizing same-sex marriage. The packaging features a wedding cake with two happy grooms perched on top. A campaign supporting the renaming says: “Now more than ever, Vermont is for lovers…and for lovers of marriage equality.”

Do some brands risk losing customers by going too far, although Ben and Jerry’s has been going political for years – are they the only brand that can do it?

Has the lapsed and rejecter user changed?

Industry data points to lapsed being 6 months and rejecter being 12 or more months. Yet, in this economy consumers are staying home more and spending less time at these restaurants. We know they aren’t trading down full time for FC’s for the most part they are now just going less.

The below data points are what the industry has been using for years, and we were having a discussion for a bit on the fact that the lapsed user spec has been around for years at 6 months without taking into account the assault that FSR’s are getting from FC’s, or the new frugle consumer of the last year or so.

Lapsed user is 6 months out
Rejecter is 12-24 months

It would be interesting to see if 18-24 months is the new rejecter. Are they TRUE rejecters at more than 18 months and still hitting lapsed at the 12-16ish month mark (due to financial strains/competitive sets/etc.) ?

Say it ain’t so…

The Atlantic – Food Wire looks at The Death of the Cupcake

Bad news for fans of single-serving desserts: Slate ran an article this week predicting the burst of what it calls the “Cupcake Bubble.” The piece offers a host of reasons for why the cupcake trend its on its last legs: 

    • There are too many stores selling them, and the market is oversaturated;

    • Cupcakes are a relatively inexpensive recession food, and when the economy improves, interest in the desserts will decline; 

    • Actually, cupcakes are actually pretty expensive, and consumers will soon wise up and use their $3 on a latte instead of a sugary treat; 

    • The industry isn’t scalable–if the homey bakeries that currently sell cupcakes cut costs by making their goods at a central location instead of onsite, they’ll pay the price in staleness. 

But the Slate article misses the most damning piece of evidence that cupcakes are on the way out: the House of Representatives’ Capitol Hill cafeteria just added a cupcake bar to its offerings. The Hill saw the news as a death knell for the cupcake business:

The only downside of the new bar may lie in what the cafeteria-izing of cupcakes means for the fancy cupcake industry itself: after all, there was a time when ice cream toppings were an expensive novelty, too.

 

Eating Local

In the last few years, much has been said about the environmental benefits of eating local food. There’s so much talk about local food, in fact, that the term “locavore” was coined in 2005 and two years later the New Oxford American Dictionary named it the word of the year.

Some locavores devote themselves to CSAs and farmers’ markets. Others (including the Obamas) go one step further, planting backyard, roof, and community gardens. But, in the wake of all this fuss over food miles, some folks, including Just Food author James McWilliams, are starting to question the notion that eating local can really solve all our food-related problems.

It’s not just about eating local – it’s producing local as well – personally have a hard time believing Chipotle locavore claims.  Locavore – if you don’t know is sustainable food production, processing, distribution all within a max of 150 miles of that location ultimately to provide a sustainable and self reliant food economy for the area. For Chipotle it just doesn’t seem profitable, but I may be missing something. 

Kids Menu Upgrades

According to Nutrition Unplugged and Technomic it looks like things are beginning to change, according to the Kids and Moms Consumer Trend Report by Technomic. This restaurant consultant asked 1,200 kids ages 6 to 12 about their dining habits.  About 80% of the children surveyed said they have tried to eat more fruit in the past 6 months, and 77% said they tried to eat more vegetables.  In fact, it looks like older children are skipping the chicken fingers and opting for healthier items from the adult menu.

Carolyn O’Neil wrote about the new dining-out data in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She interviewed registered dietitian and blogger Janice Bissex, co-author of The Moms Guide to Meal Makeovers.  ”If eating out is a frequent occurrence, some ground rules should be set,” she said.  She recommends limiting soft drink consumption and encouraging water, lowfat milk or juice as healthier beverage options.  But what concerns Bissex most is not offered on kids’ menus.  ”I’d like to see more whole-wheat bread for sandwiches, cut up fruit and baby carrots.  And instead of pasta in butter, I’d prefer to see pasta and marinara sauce with broccoli.”

Fortunately, some restaurants are beginning to introduce better-for-you kids’ options. That’s great to see. But even so, don’t feel limited to “kid food.”  Don’t let the restaurant define what’s appealing and appropriate for kids.  Consider asking for half portions from the adult side of the menu and encourage your kids to try new foods — going beyond the chicken fingers and fries.  It’s a topic I addressed recently in the Chicago Tribune.

Lame excuse for a contest

For the most part the majority of people who listen to pandora stream from their office. With the average of about 25 minutes for lunch these days do game codes really matter? Consumers want something that gets them in and out – value isn’t in a game, or even prizes right now. I have a bit of trouble on the media buy/placement of this Subway piece, especially because it came across my screen at 8:30am (not really thinking Subway; coffee yes – Subway not really). I want someone to tell me the ROI on games? Is it awareness or does it really incite repeat visits? And what if the prizes are always the same (there are only so many large Coke’s you can get with a purcahse)?