Adventures in food

Matt and I have been doing a lot of cooking lately. Well, okay, Matt's been cooking. I've mostly been eating and washing a few dishes.

This dish is cod baked in parchment paper with fresh herbs and lemons, accompanied by jasmine rice and perfectly salted edamame. Delicious.

The above is a giant Chilean sandwich called a chacarero (I think that's spelled right). This one was divided between 6 people, and contains marinated beef, muenster cheese, tomatoes, green beans and an avocado spread. In my opinion, this is one of the best things that Matt makes. A chacarero sandwich always brightens my day.

Now this is something entirely different. I have been trying to learn to eat more generic foods, so long as I feel they don't taste much different than my favorite name brands. For example, I'm now willing to eat Kroger brand cheese over Kraft, and Kroger brand Rice and Corn Squares over Chex. However, I've always held out in peanut butter, insisting that I will eat Jif and only creamy, full-sugared Jif.

Recently, I started to feel like I should try to adapt. On a whim, I bought Kroger brand peanut butter. Well, it wasn't so much of a whim as it was on sale for $1.00. Hard to resist. Matt and I decided to set up a blind taste test to see if I could tell the difference between the two. Though I felt loyal to my classic Jif, I was hoping that I'd see there was no difference and I'd be satisfied with the much cheaper store brand.

The results of the blind taste test were not totally conclusive. In two of the rows, I couldn't taste the difference between the peanut butters, and assumed they were the same though they werent. However, in the other two rows, I was able to pick one as good and one as bad - both times, the "good' peanut butter was Jif.

What does this mean? I have no clue. But that taste test finished off the jar of Jif, and only cracked the surface of the brand new store brand jar. I'll work on it for awhile and see if I grow into it. :)