A friendly reminder!

by Mardi@eatlivetravelwrite on February 25, 2010

in Miscellaneous

A reminder that if you subscribed to the RSS feed of ELTW, you will need to resubscribe in order to get updates.  The feed is different since I moved  to WordPress.  Just to the right of this post, you will see the link to re-subscribe there!  Thanks!

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Exciting times!

by Mardi@eatlivetravelwrite on March 11, 2010 · 28 comments

in Food Network Canada, blogging, write

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Remember this post?

Well for those of you who do not follow me on Twitter where I was excitedly tweeting about this yesterday, I heard back from Catherine Jheon (who actually commented on my letter/post) to let me know that Food Network Canada would love to have me blog for them on a freelance basis!

I am over the moon ecstatic!

My first posts will appear on the site sometime in April so I am off to start working away at them.  Thank you all for your support and I hope you will also enjoy my writing over at FoodNetworkCA online!  Stay tuned…

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Hall’s Kitchen soups

by Mardi@eatlivetravelwrite on March 10, 2010 · 10 comments

in eat, sample products, soup

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Ah soup. I could live on soup and sandwiches in the winter.  When I am organised, I make my own – a big batch of whatever on Sunday and bring it in to work for the rest of the week for my lunches.  Sometimes I don’t have time though  and it’s a real challenge to find something that fits my list of requirements:

  1. Must not contain 40% of my sodium intake for the day in one cup;
  2. Must contain a healthy amount of fibre;
  3. Must not contain excessive amounts of sugar;
  4. Must TASTE GREAT; and
  5. May be able to be used at a pinch for a dinner party since it appears to be homemade

Sound like Mission Impossible?  Uh huh.

Hence why I was overjoyed last week when Mary Luz Meija contacted me to ask if I would be interested in receiving some samples of Hall’s Kitchen soups.  Since I am happy to review products that I would be purchasing myself anyway, I went over to their website to see what they were all about, having not heard of them before.

You can imagine my excitement when I read their mission statement:

At Hall’s Kitchen we believe in healthy, handcrafted vegetarian foods that are made with fresh, wholesome ingredients of the highest quality and prepared without the use of chemicals, preservatives or additives. All of our soups, stews and side dishes are vegetarian, genetically modified organism (GMO) free and trans fat free. All of our soups and stews are also vegan and are made without gluten, dairy, or yeast.

They are an environmentally-conscious, local company using local ingredients making what sound like fab products…  I was in!

Mary Luz arranged to have two samples sent to me – the Rockin’ Moroccan Stew (and since we all know my love for Morocco, I couldn’t resist!) and the Bangkok Curry Coconut & Lime Soup.  You can see the complete product range (soups, stews and side dishes) here.

The Moroccan Stew look amazing even jus out of the jar.  It *looks* homemade.  I jazzed it up with some leftover chicken and some herbs for a more substantial meal:

And voilà:

I loved this – the combination of the Moroccan herbs and spices, vegetables, beans, peanuts and currants tasted exactly like a stew should taste.  It was hearty and warming. At 210 calories, 8g fat, 160mg sodium, 7g fibre and 7g protein per cup, it’s a pretty perfect lunch in my opinion.

Next up, the Bangkok curry soup.  Neil is often leery of products that claim to be “curry” as they are not hot enough for him (remember this is the man who annoyingly will put hot sauce on something I serve him sometimes without even tasting it – grrr – but I digress…) so I was interested to see how this soup would fare.

We added some shrimp and rice noodles to make a dinner out of it and it was pretty darned good…

With enough spice to taste but not overpower the rest of the flavours, this soup is just begging to be paired with chicken or shrimp and noodles for a fast and much healthier option than the local takeaway…  This one had more sodium than the stew – 390mg per 1 cup – but still nearly half of canned or package soups.

Will I buy these products? Yes I will.  The line is being carried for now in smaller, natural and health food stores as well as places like Fiesta Farms.  The full list of stores carrying the line can be found here.

Thanks Mary Luz and Hall’s Kitchen for some wonderful meal solutions this week!

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Guernsey Girl Cheese recipe challenge cook off!

March 10, 2010
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I was very excited to receive an invitation to the Guernsey Girl Cheese Chef “Cook Off” on Monday night at The Cheese Boutique in Toronto.  Upper Canada Cheese Company recently launched a new cheese – Guernsey Girl – and held a competition for 14 Toronto chefs to use the cheese in the most creative way [...]

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Old World Wine dinner (guest post by Neil)

March 9, 2010
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Well what to do when Mardi is away?  No one to cook, nothing to eat, Cleo and Neil waste away…  HARDLY.  To prove that cooking can still continue without Mardi (Editor’s note – I never said that…), an impromptu dinner gathering was planned.
Last weekend was the final exam for my Old World Wines course at [...]

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Hell’s Kitchen (Minneapolis)

March 8, 2010
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I love meeting other bloggers in person (though sometimes it does smack a little of blind dates… It’s weird meeting people you *think* you know from reading their blogs.  Remember when I met all those fabulous bloggers at the Foodbuzz First Annual Blogger Festival last year, or when I met Evelyne in Montreal or Véronique [...]

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