Lemon Tea/Blueberry/Cucumber Potato Crisps

Here's something that people who blog about food probably haven't encountered before, and something one can only obtain via connections. No, not some review from a 5-star restaurant (with over 9000 reservations and counting). Not truffle-and-caviar-and-saffron-and-OhMyGoshDon'tForgetTheGoldLeaf-pasta. I'm talking about interestingly-flavoured potato crisps/chips! My uncle bought these for me and they got transported to the U.S by my dad when he went to China. I kind of want to go to China (haven't been in 5 years), or at least, Hong Kong, mainly for the food. Actually, I'm not really sure that I'd feel that comfortable going to China, and I suppose going to London would be cooler since I've never been. Anyway, here are 5 different flavours, spelled with American English, made by the Lay's company, and sold only in China (as far as I know).

1. Little Tomato Flavor

2. Tomato Flavor

3. Lemon Tea Flavor

4. Breezy Blueberry Flavor

5. Green Cucumber Flavor

 The "Cool & Refreshing" flavours (all of them, except for "Tomato Flavor") definitely have some menthol in it, even though the ingredients don't say that.

 Little Tomato Flavor... was slightly tomato-y and sweet. A lot of menthol, so it's slightly overwhelming.

Tomato Flavor tasted more like tomato, was slightly savory (a bit sweet), and had a toasted taste. Much more preferable than the Little Tomato Flavor because it's less sweet and lacks menthol.

 The Lemon Tea canister didn't smell like tea (or anything, really), and had a faint tea/bittery taste. It was sweet, and while chewing, tasted a bit like a light lemon candy that I've had at some point in the past, but I can't figure out what it is. There's a tiny hint of menthol, which is alright.

 The Breezy Blueberry canister smelled slightly sweet, but after licking off the flavouring, the chip was definitely plain potato -- so in theory, I could make vanilla potato crisps if I sprinkled vanilla sugar onto plain potato crisps. This flavouring was salty and sweet (you could see the grains), and tasted like VERY artificial blueberry flavour (the kind in low-quality/unhealthy/electric-blue-coloured blueberry yoghurt, cereal, and granola bars). The menthol is way too overpowering. I don't particularly like this combination.

My favourite flavour was Green Cucumber! The canister SMELLED JUST LIKE CUCUMBER. My first reaction to licking the seasoning was, "Wow, nori." (did you know that I LOVE nori?) The cucumber taste is a little less pronounced, as is the menthol. It's savoury, delicious, and after chewing many crisps, this whole product started tasting a little bit like butter cookies (Not sure why, or whether it's just this flavour).

Also, note that the canisters are much smaller than American stack chip containers...each crisp was about 5 x 7 cm (well, most of them were crushed due to travelling).

Other seasonings on corn or potato chips that I'd want to try (that may/may not exist) include:

1. Pudding

2. Peanut Butter

3. Avocado

4. Marshmallow

5. Noodle

6. Spaghetti Sauce

7. Whole-Wheat Bread

Lentil Chips!

One thing that really irks me after learning about celiac disease is that "gluten free" is not "healthier" than a normal diet. Celiac disease is when your body can not break down gluten; celiacs lack the enzyme. This does not mean that gluten is bad for you. GLUTEN IS DELICIOUS. It is a protein found in bread! "Gluten-free" food does not mean it's somehow more salubrious, or more "natural". Gluten-free wheat bread is well... not really "natural" [although I'm starting to despise that marketing gimmick too]. Yet, "Gluten Free" appears right under "Trans Fat Free!" and "No Cholesterol!" Now, I know that the Mediterranean Snack Foods company is not the only company that does this [Pirate's Booty is another], but in general, this practice is like labeling an apple as "No Cholesterol!", or water as "Calorie Free!". It's stating the obvious to appeal to the public, because advertising and journalism tell the public that "x-Free!" = healthy.

A diet for celiacs is not deemed healthy, since many of the foods aren't fortified with vitamin B12 and folate, whereas most grain/gluten-containing foods have fortified vitamins/minerals from some law in the 1970s [in the U.S., at least]. Going on a "gluten free" diet as a non-celiac is like going on a "peanut free diet because some other people are allergic to peanuts".

How many people do you know are true celiacs? I know one. Apparently it is 1% of the population, although this doesn't state much since Graves' disease is also 1% of the population and I know 3 other people with it [not including myself].

Anyway, I had to put this out there because I'm getting sick of hearing people/girls [yes, sexist generalisation, but I believe more girls do this than guys] talking about their salad and their complete abstinence from bread and cool foods, not that salad isn't cool.

I got these Lentil Cucumber Dill chips [no packaging image, but here is the shiny image for the website] because there was a rather high protein content compared to potato/corn chips, and cucumber dill seemed like an amazing combination! I was thinking that it'd taste something like dill pickles. That would've been amazing; imagine a sour, watery, crispy chip like that! Speaking of which... are there burger flavoured chips out there?

Unfortunately, I was really upset with the quality and taste of these chips. Firstly, there was an overwhelming amount of saltiness. I just checked the sodium content: 260 mg/serving. In comparison, Lay's Original Potato Chips has 180 mg sodium/serving, and I think those are salty already... So, I believe there is 44% more sodium in the lentil chips. Uh, bleh.

The second part that I was highly discontent with was that it tasted like there was sour cream powder smothered over it, but it wasn't even fresh sour cream. It was like... salty, garlicky, pungent sour cream.

No cucumber taste.

Some dried dill flakes.

No lentil taste.

Super crunchy, though.

In other words, stay away. They're also kind of very expensive [probably due to the high markup. I'm telling you, a Dining Dollar equals at least 2 real dollars...].

Lasagne.

UPDATE: Here is another picture. It is still rather mixed up and the layers are a bit hard to see. There were three layers...

I am exhausted from packing and studying chem and blah. I don't even know how I had the brain capacity to drag myself into the kitchen this morning and make lasagne.

Vegetable lasagne with cucumber, carrot, onion [lots!], and red bell pepper. We unfortunately didn't have any spinach...

I added some couscous for texture variation, and breadcrumbs on top, even though they turned out too soggy because I put way too much sauce on top, instead of just leaving it cheesy...

We didn't have shredded cheese... so I used the handy pre-sliced cheese! There were swiss, cheddar and monterey jack slices.

Apparently the lasagne sheets could make two pans of lasagne... which was a lot more than I had expected. All I wanted to do was use up the box of sheets since no one else knows or wants to cook lasagne in this house, so I had to get it done before I go to college. Actually, I've been wanting to make lasagne for ages but I never remembered. Or felt like it.

MORE CHEESE! This was before I started dumping bread crumbs on top. In retrospect, the lasagne lacked enough cheese. Next time, I will literally smother the top with cheese, so that it looks more like a cuboidal cheese wheel than a lasagne.

Lasagne after baking, before the lasagne noodles had a chance to soak in all the sauce.

Same pan of lasagne; I never got around to taking a picture of the other pan... I got busy with studying... so tomorrow I'll upload some more pictures.

Beautiful.

Also, I learned that DRY PLAIN LASAGNE NOODLES DO COOK IN THE OVEN. Honestly, precooking them is definitely unnecessary [Good thing I didn't precook them.] A simple 40 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees F solves everything. Especially if you feel like leaving the lasagne in the oven for another 10 minutes.

After taking the lasagne out, it is definitely necessary to wait for approximately 20 minutes for the lasagne noodles to sponge up the watery sauce that was emitted by the tomato sauce and vegetables. I didn't wait... and ended up with lasagne soup for the first serving. Above and below are the images of the non-soaked-lasagne noodles. I never got around to taking a picture of the lasagne after "actually" done, though. Tomorrow... I shall post them. However, later on I was looking at the lasagne and the sauce/cheese/noodle ratio wasn't defined clearly :( However... this isn't terrible since this is the second time I've made lasagne in my life. I should definitely make it more often.

Samurai Sushi

I lacked a camera.

My mum took both my camera and phone to NYC today, so I couldn't take pictures of the food that I consumed. I can, however, describe the sushi with such utter detail that your keyboard will break down due to drool.

Or not, since it wasn't that big of a deal. The only reason we went to Samurai Sushi for dinner is that my sister wanted to eat sushi rice. Oh, and I suppose, also that my dad thinks that cooking is for females.

So, my sister consumed maybe 50ml of Sprite, two pieces of raw salmon, half a piece of another fish, too much soy sauce, and half a bowl of rice. My dad got this plate of sashimi, which came with some miso soup and some salad with ginger dressing. I distinctly remember there being one cherry tomato in the salad, last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. I suppose the staff decided that tomatoes aren't important to their restaurant menu, since the only thing WITH cherry tomatoes was the salad. I suppose this is a wise choice, even though I now have an empty space in my expandable stomach, shaped just like a cherry tomato.

Since I don't consume fish, I got this vegetable sushi. It was a lot of pieces of pickled radish [which I don't really like], pickled carrot [eh, okay], raw sprouts [not enough], raw cucumber [awesome!] and one piece of avocado, wrapped in rice and a piece of nori. I was pretty devastated [okay, overstatement] by the fact that there was only one piece of avocado in each piece of sushi [there were 5 pieces of sushi]. I LOVE AVOCADO! Why give me two pieces of pickled radish per piece of sushi, yet only leave me one meagre chunk of avocado?

The raw sprouts were cool, though, since my mum has never let me eat sprouts raw before. Actually, she never used to let me eat peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, or spinach raw, until I read recipe books and realised that these plants aren't toxic fresh out of the earth.

In conclusion, I lacked a lot of protein in this meal. I think that I should invent gluten/soy salmon sashimi substitute, although I personally don't miss the taste of fish anymore... [but this may be a different story in HK].