Tag Archives: recipe

Plant Milk Goodness with Hope & Sesame

During the pandemic, I can safely say I’ve been trying out new and wonderful recipes, which I will share more of in the blog posts to come. I recently had the pleasure of trying out something new for me: a couple of cartons from Hope & Sesame, a protein rich Plant Milk made from sesame.

Of the five flavors, I got the chance to try Chocolate and Original. I tried the Original flavor one morning and I was surprised as how great it tasted with my favorite cereal! But what I loved even more was making my version of their “Mocha Truffle Latte”!

I love espresso, especially with just stevia as I love to savor the bold and strong flavor of the coffee. So rather than two packets of instant coffee, I made two shots of my favorite espresso and warmed eight ounces of the Chocolate SesameMilk and added a packet of stevia rather than sugar. The result was so rich and flavorful, great for mornings before work, and even better on cold nights with a warm blanket!

Thank you again Hope & Sesame for sending me your delicious SesameMilk, cheers!

Some great information from Hope & Sesame:
All our products are gluten-free, lactose-free and completely vegan, made with zero animal byproducts.
Hope & Sesame is free of the top 8 most-common allergens (milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy and wheat).
Each 8-ounce serving of Hope & Sesame sesamemilk contains:
All 9 essential amino acids
8g of complete plant-based protein (you’d have to drink 8 glasses of almond milk to get that much protein)
Twice the Vitamin D of dairy milk
30% less sugar than chocolate dairy milk

FTC Disclosure: I received the product for free, but not exclusively for a product review. Although I did receive product, the opinions in this post are strictly my own.

Food For “The Big Game” From Allrecipes.com

If you’ve been following my blog, you know just how big of a football fan I am. Although my San Diego Chargers didn’t make it all they way through the playoffs this year, I’ll still be watching the Superbowl because it’s the final football game until the new season in August. My husband is big on preparing great food for any sporting event, so I’m glad to share with Any Second Now readers some awesome recipes for your Game Day get together through this fantastic graphic from Allrecipes.com, in partnership with Tabuleau Software. After you click on the picture above, it will take you to the graphic where you can use the circular icons to filter recipes by type, which will update the map to show you the top recipes for that type by state. If you would like to see all of the recipes available regardless of state, the list on the lower right hand side will also update by type as well.

I’m going to spend some time clicking through all of the great recipes in the graphic to help my hubby create our final menu to enjoy while we watch the Seattle Seahawks play the Denver Broncos. Cheers and enjoy “The Big Game” on Sunday!

Allrecipes.com, the world’s largest digital food site with more than 1 billion visits each year, partnered with Tableau Software to share a state-by-state look at America’s Super Bowl game day favorites, including chili, dips, drinks, sandwiches, snacks and wings. Using a massive amount of data from nearly 95 million visits, Tableau has created an interactive graphic that can be viewed here (or by clicking on the graphic above). Some interesting findings include:

– When it comes to snack recipes, we are a nation divided. Depending on where you are, Americans appear to have a strong preference for Little Smokies recipes, nachos or meatballs as their gameday snack of champions. Note that in both Washington and Colorado, the top snacks recipe is Mexican Potato Nachos. However, in New York/New Jersey, the top snacks recipes is The Best Meatballs.

– New York stands alone as the only state whose favorite chili recipe is turkey over beef.

– Two dip recipes stand out as head and shoulders above the rest – the recipe for Seven Layer Taco Dip dominates much of the Western part of the country (including California) and the Northeast and Southeastern states have a preference for Buffalo Chicken Dip.

– The one thing all Americans agree on is wings. The recipes for Baked Buffalo Wings is tops in all 50 states.

Row one: 1. Baked Buffalo Wings; 2. Buffalo Chicken Dip; 3. Mexican Potato Nachos

Row two: 4. Seven Layer Taco Dip; 5. Simple Turkey Chili; 6. Slow Cooker Chili II

Row three: 7. Slow Cooker Pulled Pork; 8. The Best Meatballs; 9. The Real Mojito

The picture above is of the Slow Cooker Pulled Pork my husband made last year, using the exact recipe from Allrecipes.com (we had the barbecue sauce on the side). SO. GOOD!

FTC Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.

Honey, I Love This Toast!

I have a few food obsessions that I’ll be posting about in the next few weeks. One of them is something I have been seeing everywhere, yet never had the pleasure of indulging in until very recently. My husband and I had our first taste of honey toast at the Up 2 You Café in the Kearny Mesa area. The picture above is what I ordered at the cafe, topped with custard, strawberries and vanilla ice cream. The honey toast itself is such sweet, crunchy and buttery goodness, my hubby knew I was instantly hooked. After we arrived home, I sat down at my computer and looked up several recipes on how to make this marvelous dessert, and found three that I liked from these tasty blogs and basically combined them: A Taste of Koko, Notions and Notations of a Novice Cook, and Kirbie’s Cravings (from San Diego). Below is a step by step pictorial of how I made my version of honey toast, and it’s so very easy to make. I emulated what I had at Up 2 You Café, minus the custard (it would have taken a little too long). The result is better than you could imagine. Let me know if you’ve tried this tasty Asian delight, and if you’ve to make it yourself. Enjoy!

Originally, I wanted to use a thicker cut bread, but we couldn’t find any loaves in the grocery stores close by. I know you can use basically any bread, but I thought a sweet bread would work best, like Hawaiian sweet bread.

I used three pieces of bread: one was the base, and the other two were the “bowl”. Take a sharp knife and cut the center out of two of the pieces of bread, then cut those pieces into cubes.

Melt two tablespoons of butter and brush the bottom slice, then set the other two pieces of toast on top and brush those as well (be sure to brush all sides). Butter the cubes and toss them in a bowl, then sprinkle about two tablespoons of granulated sugar on the bread “bowl” and the bread cubes. I placed them in our countertop oven and heated at 300 degrees for 10 minutes, or until golden brown (be sure to turn the cubes so that all of the sides are toasted). Replace the cubes into the bowl, and drizzle generously with honey. Very. Generously.

This is the best part: Whilst still warm, add your favorite toppings. The result? Honey toast heaven.

Very Berry Blueberry!

Tonight, I am going to try the recipe for Blueberry Crumb Bars from Smitten Kitchen. They looked so crumbly and juicy when I saw the recipe on Cupcakes and Cashmere that I had to check it out for myself. We have a breakfast potluck at work tomorrow, so I’m going to try my hand at this delicious looking creation while the hubby keeps our son occupied.

Note: We went to 4 stores to find fresh blueberries today and we finally ended up at Costco. They are Northwest Blueberries from Curry and Company and look absolutely delectable! Stay tuned for the results!

Update: My whole kitchen smells like blueberries. This is by far one of the best smelling recipes I have tried in a long time!

Update 2: I decided to change the picture to the finished product (click the link to see the original picture from Smitten Kitchen). They taste as good as they look, trust me.

By request, here is the recipe from Smitten Kitchen:

Blueberry Crumb Bars
Adapted from AllRecipes.com

Recipes like this make me wonder why I don’t use AllRecipes.com more. After seeing a blueberry crumb bar on another site, I immediately wanted to make them but the first recipe seemed overly fussy. I knew there was a simpler way to do it, and lo and behold, All Recipes had it. Once I swapped the shortening for butter–of course–and dolled it up with some lemon juice and lemon zest, they were just as heavenly as the 176 commenters promised they’d be.

I could imagine easily swapping another fruit or berry for the blueberries–I’m especially thinking something tart like sour cherries or cranberries in the fall (I’d use orange instead of lemon with cranberries). But if you have blueberries on hand, do not miss a chance to make these.

These are easiest to cut once chilled, and store even better in the fridge than they do at room temperature–something unusual for cookies!

Yield: I cut these into 36 smallish rectangles

1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cold unsalted butter (2 sticks or 8 ounces)
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest and juice of one lemon
4 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup white sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9×13 inch pan.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.

3. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. (This took an extra 10 to 15 minutes in my oven.) Cool completely before cutting into squares.

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