"real simple" news and stories

Sarah recently posted about the fact that sales of spaghetti are down at the leading supermarket chain in England because "younger British diners lack the same culinary skills their parents have." That doesn't hold true in the US, where long, thin spaghetti is still the best selling pasta shape. Since most people buy their spaghetti premade and dried (even restaurants, according to Waiter), Real Simple magazine took the opportunity to taste test fifteen common store brands and pick out their favorites. They judged the pasta on flavor and texture, looking for a slight nuttiness and noodles that didn't get mushy after cooking. Dressed in simply olive oil and salt, the spaghetti went to a tasting panel and they picked out their top three: (1) De Cecco 12, (2) Barilla,  (3) Colavita. De Cecco is twice as expensive ($2/pound vs. $1/pound) as the other brands, but tasters thought it was clearly the best choice, with great flavor and texture.

Maybe if they switched to one of these brands, the spaghetti-challenged diners wouldn't mind a chance to practice their fork-twirling skills.

Source

 This recipe from Real Simple turned out cookies that had only a minimal resemblance to the ones in their photograph. I wanted to make them because "Raspberry Puffs" sounded as though the cookies would be soft and fluffy, rather like angel food cake. They turned out to be quite crisp and much more similar to a wafer type of cookie than to any sort of cake. I was pleased to find, however, that the cookies still tasted delicious, especially once I had replaced the sour cream filling called for in the original recipe with ice cream. The result of this substitution was a finger food that tasted like a little ice cream sundae with raspberry topping.

Frankly, it would be easier to simply buy a package of vanilla wafers to make these, which is what I'll do next time. If you pick up jam, ice cream and a package of cookies, you can easily put together these last-minute munchies for your Valentine today.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

In the newest issue of Real Simple, the magazine's taste-testers turned their taste buds to hot chocolate mixes. They compared over 40 varieties of hot cocoas and hot chocolates. Hot chocolates typically have real pieces of chocolate in addition to cocoa powder in them, while hot cocoas are sweetened cocoa. They broke the competitors down into categories by price and picked their winners.

In the under $5 category, the milk chocolaty Land o'Lakes Classics Supreme was the top choice, followed by Swiss Miss Chocolate Sensation, both of which you should be able to find at your local supermarket. In the $10-15 dollar range, Godiva's Dark Chocolate Truffle ranked supreme, followed by the dark and intense Schokinag Extreme Dark. For the bigger spenders, Jacques Torres Wicked, a spicy mixture with chocolate, ancho and chipotle peppers, ranked highest in the over $15 category, followed by Mariebelle Aztec.

Now, if only they'd have a marshmallow testing.