THIS JUST IN!

Peanut Butter & Co., the once cozy little sandwich shop in Greenwich Village, has introduced Mighty Nut – the delicious peanut butter taste people love, with added protein, less fat, and fewer calories. Peanut Butter & Co. is the first natural peanut butter brand to enter the powdered peanut butter segment, which is the fastest growing segment in the peanut butter category.

To create each batch of Mighty Nut, Peanut Butter & Co. starts with quality USA grown peanuts, roasts them, and presses them to remove most of the fat. What remains is protein, fiber, and delicious peanut buttery taste. Each serving of Mighty Nut has 85% fewer fat calories than traditional peanut butter, and with five to six grams of protein per serving, Mighty Nut powdered peanut butter is an easy and tasty way to add protein to any meal or snack. Mighty Nut can be rehydrated and used as a spread or dip, or as an ingredient in baking, cooking, or smoothies. It is available in four delightful varieties: Original, Chocolate, Vanilla, and Flax and Chia. Vanilla and Flax & Chia are both new flavors to the category. Mighty Nut products are Non-GMO Project verified, gluten free, certified vegan, and kosher.

“Peanut butter is a delicious food that is beloved by so many people,” said Lee Zalben, Founder & President of Peanut Butter & Co.  “We’re so glad to be able to offer the delicious flavor of peanut butter with a fraction of the calories.”

I have rehydrated the chocolate and spread on Dave’s Killer White Bread. Need to find some cherry preserves to compliment. Otherwise, it was fine as is. Kind of like having a Reese’s cup spread on bread. Was cooking up some chicken thighs with ginger and scallions. Rehydrated original to a more watery consistency and threw it in. Yummy! Smoothie time! Flax and chia used with Ronnybrook Farms yogurt and a bit of Ronnybrook Farms Creamline milk. I later tried the chocolate powdered peanut butter with some of the Ronnybrook Crème Fraiche as a dessert. Froze it!  OMG! Okay, I just mixed some of the chocolate one into their chocolate chip ice cream.  Hey, it’s vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips and I need my chocolate fix! www.ilovepeanutbutter.com 

I saw a few screeners, one of which was The Big Sky.  Hazel (Bella Thorne), a teenage girl, suffers from a crippling case of agoraphobia. Open spaces to be exact.  So much so that it causes a rift between her and her mother, Dee (Kyra Sedgwick). Hazel and her mother decide to go on a road trip to a desert located treatment facility to help Hazel deal with her fear.  On the way, masked gunmen and brothers Jesse (Frank Grillo) and Pru (Aaron Tveit) attack everyone in the van.  Jesse is donned in a Sheriff outfit.  However, Hazel has been riding in what appears to be a cage.  Hazel now has to battle her fears so she and her mother can survive.  

One of the other female passengers is kidnapped by the gunmen, who later realize that they have not killed everyone.  You now have a time battle between Hazel finding help and the gunmen finding Hazel. 

There certainly is a lot of action and mystery.  It probably does better on the big screen. I found that too many things were predictable.  Pru portrays a typical young brother taking cues and scolding from the elder brother.  Why is it that, in movies, every time a female runs, she trips and falls?  The kidnapping of the girl is being coordinated by someone who kept communicating with Jesse, although I was never clear at the end, who it was.  Although Kyra Sedgewick was great, I did not find her character to be believable with her being shot, heavily bleeding. The movie will not be out until next month. 

Another movie opening this month, the other screener, Frank the Bastard. Synopsis. The film centers around Clair Defina (Rachel Miner), a 33-year old New Yorker who returns to the childhood home she and her father fled after her mother’s tragic and mysterious death.  Arriving in the seemingly quaint town in Maine, Clair encounters and undercurrent of secrecy and hostility, most of it linked to the local bigwig, Cyrus Gast (William Sadler), whose latest land development scheme promises to revitalize the community but is not what it appears to be. 

Most of the town is intimidated by Cyrus, and when Clair starts delving into events, both present and past, she finds herself in jeopardy. As she comes face to face with a dark legacy that has been buried, literally and figuratively, for decades, she also has a series of strange encounters with the enigmatic Frank Byron (Andy Comeau), Cyrus’ bastard son.  In Frank, Clair ultimately finds her only ally in a battle to redeem the crimes of the past.

I found that it took a great deal for me to figure out who is who and who did what to whom.  Gripping, mysterious, and full of action.  OMG…Clair is running through the woods and guess what?  I went hysterical!  The movie is written and directed by Brad Coley. Get a grip, Brad!  This is becoming more than a cliché.  Good ending.  See it on the big screen. 

FOOD FINDS FOR FLAVOR AND FUN

Man CAN live by bread alone when you buy Dave’s Killer Bread.   First let me say that I never buy bread as I thought it waste of calories and its use is so that you don’t slap the cream cheese and jelly on the palm of your hand and lick it off.  The problem is now that I have sampled Dave’s Killer Bread I keep seeking out whatever I can make a sandwich of.  Why?

It’s bread with boom! Dave, a former rock star introduced what is now the best-selling organic bread in the US.  No kidding.  Most breads are pretty boring when it comes to both taste and texture.  Then there are the artificial preservatives, fructose corn syrup and dough fillers. 

What have they got? Let’s start with the 21 whole grains and seeds.  Here are the ingredients. Organic whole wheat (organic whole wheat flour, organic cracked whole wheat), water, 21 Whole Grains and Seeds Mix (organic whole flax seeds, organic sunflower seeds, organic ground whole flax seeds, organic un-hulled brown sesame seeds, organic rolled oats, organic triticale, organic pumpkin seeds, organic un-hulled black sesame seeds, organic rolled spelt, organic millet, organic rolled barley, organic rolled rye, organic blue cornmeal, organic brown rice flour, organic yellow cornmeal, organic quinoa, organic rolled KAMUT® Khorasan wheat, organic amaranth flour, organic rolled whole wheat, organic buckwheat flour, organic sorghum flour, organic poppy seeds), organic dried cane syrup (sugar), organic wheat gluten, organic oat fiber, organic molasses, sea salt, organic cultured whole wheat, yeast.  

Now you have an idea of what to expect and NOT expect.  I have found that the breads with seeds are not annoying to my mouth or my tummy.  Here are those: Good Seed; Blues Bread (that uses blue cornmeal); Power Seed (using fruit juices instead of sugar); Seeded Honey Wheat; Rockin Rye (with caraway seeds, of course); Sprouted Wheat; and Spelt.  This is a loaf that you would not want to toss the ends, especially with all of the seeds and grains that they contain. I, who never eats “ends” did so and go glad I did! 

You can always opt for Whole Wheat or even a plain old White Bread called White Done Right with 10 g of whole grains.  Now that would be perfect for a Grilled Cheese, French Toast or a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich (I prefer cream cheese and jelly and a fried egg).  I’m also thinking a corned beef sandwich on the rye with cole slaw. 

There are so many sandwich ideas that you can come up with just to be healthy.  Think sushi rolls using the white bread totally flattened and filled…smoked salmon, cream cheese and scallions.  How about shrimp, avocado, cucumber and mayo?  Add the crunch using breads with the seeds. 

It just so happens that Fairway Market has their line of bread. Maybe not all of them.  I hear that the store in Douglaston has some. 

If you have been following articles and blog, you know how passionate I am about Fairytale Brownies.  I have even “carved” and decorated them for the upcoming Easter Holiday.  I then realized how soft they were and molded pieces into an egg shape as if you were having a chocolate Easter egg.  The absolute joy of having these brownies came to be even more joyous when I came across the perfect milk. 

The company is called Ronnybrook Farms, where the milk is not homogenized.  If you recall getting a bottle of milk delivered with the cream at the top, this is even better.  You really have to shake it up as there is more than just a thin layer of cream.  That’s the whole milk.  They have with less fat and a whole line of other products, like ice cream with 18% butter fat (just don’t eat a lot at one time if you’re concerned), butter (one is called  Cinnamon Toast), crème fraiche, and yogurt….both the kind you spoon out and ones that you drink down (I loved the strawberry one….real strawberries).  

I was checking out Fresh Direct and saw that they had their products.  I will write about Fresh Direct at another time to compare them with Peapod.  One plus for Fresh Direct is that you can go to their plant in Long Island City and pick up your order although in neither case can you pick out what you want relying on whoever does the picking and packaging.