Off the Beaten Aisle

Another year has past with very little to update on off the beaten aisle. I loved putting this site up and loved the fun of shopping for strange foods and reviewing them. I hope to get back to it before another year has passed. I am not giving up.

My profession like many others has become ultra-demanding both because of the economy and because of change in general. Still, I will continue to pay the hosting fees and domain registration for this site in the hope I will return to posts and reviews.

To me 3.5 subscribers hello and happy almost autumn.

My efforts to put more time into this great little site have failed recently. My work demands have increased 2-3X over the last year or so, but never fear the site will remain up and at some point, receive updates. I have a lot of interesting products in mind.

There is a great site out there, where an individual posted on his quest to get a real meal out of things purchased from a dollar store. I can't find the link at present but here is a reporter that ate from a dollar store for a week;

http://www.jameslogancourier.org/index.php?itemid=3901

A pretty interesting read.

Today my son and took a trip to one of our local dollar retailers. The Dollar Tree here in Corvallis. A little while later we walked out with a couple of interesting food items, both of which I will review here.

The dollar store is an interesting retail environment for sure. The food items sold include plenty of brand name items but usually only a very limited amount of their product line. Find a brand such as Del Monte and you may online find a little purchased item here, when compared to another store. Today for instance it was Del Monte canned spaghetti sauce in both mushroom and meat flavors ( I really wish that whenever someone calls something meat flavor they would readily display which meat, but I could be overly sensitive)

The items purchased today include an interesting pickled vegetable medley by "Seres Gourmet" and some crisp bread rounds with oregano. 

The dollar store has some really interesting foods and snacks to be sure, with some very interesting brand names. My vegatables are a product of Turkey and the "Bruschettine con Origano " are a product of Italy of course. Both brand names I have never seen before, so it will be interesting to see how they taste.

Well more to follow, but until then here are a couple of pictures.

For my next postings and podcast we are going to look at the different and wonderful world of food from the dollar store. That place could keep me in material for years. With any luck, I will make it there this weekend and have a podcast up next week. 

In episode five we examine buckwheat pancake mix from Hodgson Mill. 

Buckwheat is an ancient crop that once had many more cultivated acres dedicated to it, compared to today. You can read all about Buckwheat here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat

We prepared classic buckwheat pancakes on the electric griddle (the mix is also a waffle mix) and they were good! Served with just butter and maple syrup with a little Apple Sauce on the side. Awesome product and something we would definitely buy again. 

Have a listen as I talk about this very interesting and somewhat uncommon form of pancake mix.

The jar is round. Why didn't they call it "Roundtine"? (my compliments to the writers of the Jerry Seinfeld Show). This week we look at an old favorite. In the same aisle as most of the other drink mixes, we find two flavors of Ovaltine. This what we talk about this week, not really an incredibly rare or obscure product but an old one. 

Apparently this stuff existed as early as the 1930s, and possibly predated a lot of today's options for chocolate drink mix. One of America's most endearing movies " A Christmas Story" (also one of my favorite movies) has a nice role for Ovaltine in it. In the movie we learn that even in the golden age of radio, marketing gimmicks ran wild, when Ralphie finds that his" secret decoder ring " that he waited so long for is really just a vehicle for an Ovaltine marketing campaign.

Ovaltine has been around for a while and it's good. I think this is one of this products that should make a larger comeback. I certainly think the flavor is as good as Hershey's Syrup or Nestle Quik (Ovaltine is also a Nestle brand). Also, there are vitamins! That's right Ovaltine is chocked full of stuff like B1 and B2. A serving of the mix without the milk gives you about 60% of your B1 requirement for the day.

Here is the web site of Ovaltine, check it out. You can even take a survey and get yourself a couple of coupons worth over a buck.

Enjoy it hot or cold. Rich Chocolately Ovaltine.

Now this really isn't a cooking web site (at least at this point). From time to time I do like to leave my busy life behind and get into the kitchen. Lately I have been interested in baking. I made an " ephipany cake" in January as an example. 

Typically I will just go to cooks.com find a recipe that sounds interesting and give it a try. Yesterday I was interested in an "Orange Cake". So out came the cake flour, eggs, oranges and more. I have not yet tasted it but it looks interesting. Oranges and a kind of orange-caramel frosting. Unfortunately the top layer broke while removing it from the pan.

Oh well. We are still having orange cake.

Here is a great looking coconut cake recipe courtesy of slashfood. Coconut desserts seem to be less common these days. I love coconut, so here is the recipe via bigcitylittlekitchen.com;

http://www.bigcitylittlekitchen.com/2008/02/11/coconut-cake-a-southern-classic/