Put to the "Challenge" with Butter!

A while back the nice people at Challenge Dairy asked me if I'd be interested in tasting their butter and using it in a side dish recipe. Butter! As if I'd say no. Did I mention... butter? *slurp* Okay so right off the bat, I'm going to say that Challenge Dairy needs to start shipping their products across the country so us dwellers of the "Armpit of the Midwest" (Ohioans) can purchase at our local stores. This is NOT FAIR that we cannot at this time. That's right, Challenge Dairy.. you've been called out. Now ship me a truckload of this stuff because we fakkin' loved it. :) The salted butter that is. I have to be honest, I haven't even opened the "spreadable butter" yet. It's not you, Challenge Dairy, it's me. You see, I've got this thing about butter being called butter when it's made with oil. And frankly, if ya'll (and by ya'll, I mean those of you who buy "spreadable butter" to use right from the fridge) can't think ahead a few minutes and take your REAL CREAM butter outta the fridge to allow it to soften before you need it.. well, dammit you aren't true butter lovers. By God, I think Paula Deen just fainted at the thought of spreadable butter. Anyhoo.. I will try to get over my mental thing (1 of many) and give it a shot, and I'm sure it'll taste just fine.. but well.. oil. squick! Along with a pound of their salted butter and a container of the spreadable butter, Challenge Dairy also sent me some nice surprises! I received a bottle of dill weed and smoked paprika from Spice Islands along with a very cool OXO Spice Keeper. And to make my cooking efforts a little easier, they were also kind enough to send me a whisk - how did they know?? I've got a big balloon whisk that I love, but it's big - I've been looking for a smaller version and this one is perfect - thank you Challenge Dairy, Spice Islands and OXO! :) So what did I do with all of these items? Actually asking me what I didn't do with them would be an easier question. But I goofed big time in not photographing most of it, mainly because I used them for my Thanksgiving dinner. Between 14 recipes, and cleaning the house for guests.. well, my camera was put away after the first dish and I only photographed it because it was new. But that's okay because I've blogged about some of the recipes before. I used the butter in my stuffing, the gooey pumpkin butter cake (just in the crust where you could taste it), my sweet potatoes, a new cauliflower dish. But the true test was the table butter that we used for our bread. Let me tell you, that was my favorite usage of this butter. Spread thickly (of course!) on a slice of fresh baked Italian bread and the rest of the meal wasn't as appetizing. I could have ate that whole damn loaf smothered in butter and been quite thankful for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Seriously. This butter is very creamy, has just the right amount of salt and is basically The Bomb. Have I mentioned how cheated I feel that I can't buy this butter in my local grocery store? *sigh* The new cauliflower dish I tried was based on a recipe found on Recipezaar, called Roasted Parmesan Garlic Cauliflower by Marie. Of course I tweaked it towards my own tastes and the final dish was quite delicious. We'll be having this again. Roasted Romano Garlic Cauliflower 1.5 TBS mashed roasted garlic 1.5 TBS olive oil 1/2 head cauliflower, separated in florets 1/3 c. grated Locatelli Romano cheese, divided salt and black pepper 1/3 c. Panko 1/4 c. butter, softened 1 tsp. smoked paprika Preheat oven to 450º F. Fill a 3 quart pot with water, bring to a boil and then salt the water. Add the florets and cook for 5 minutes until they are JUST fork tender (try not to overcook) Grease small 8" x 8" Pyrex baking dish. Mix Panko crumbs and remaining Romano cheese together in small bowl, set aside. Place olive oil, roasted garlic paste and 1/3 of the Romano cheese in large resealable bag. Add cauliflower and shake to mix. Pour into prepared baking dish. Season with salt and pepper, top with Panko & Romano mixture. Place dabs of butter all over top. Sprinkle with smoked paprika. Bake for 20 minutes. xoxo

The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook

Recently Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen published her first cookbook and I'm tickled pink to be able to share with ya'll how wonderful this book is. :) I received it a few weeks ago and have since made 5 recipes from it. Out of the 5 there was only 1 that didn't thrill us, but other than the Cooking Light cookbooks that I constantly cooked out of a few years back, and Dorie's Baking: From My Home to Yours, no other cookbook has given me consistent results until I started cooking from The Steamy Kitchen cookbook. Seriously. Jaden's recipes are easy to follow, and for people like us, who live in a pretty metro area, ingredients are not hard to find. I can see a few being hard to find for those who aren't lucky enough to have an Asian grocery near-by, but honestly most ingredients you can find in the ethnic aisles of your local mega-mart. Regardless though, those extra hard to find ingredients can be left out or substituted and I'm sure you'll still get great results. The photography is phenomenal. Each dish is styled so perfectly and makes you not only "want" to cook the recipe, but makes you NEED to cook it. The biggest bonus is each recipe, although looking and tasting as if you have to spend hours preparing it, can all be made in less than 1 hour. Again, for people like us, who are more than exhausted after each day of work, these recipes are a Godsend. I'll start off with my absolute favorites and those were the Asian Style Brussels Sprouts on page 123. Holy Christmas. I could eat this side dish every day. Hubbs agreed. This simple dish was super easy to make, and it was like fancy for us! Who ever would have thought to shred wee Brussels spouts?? I felt like a giant grating huge heads of cabbage. :P No seriously, the flavor is amazing.. TRY IT! Secondly is her Crab and Pork Wonton Noodle Soup on pgs. 60 & 61. Easily and unarguably my most favorite Wonton soup EVER. Hey, I'm an Italian who loves Asian food.. add extra noodles to an Asian dish and well, we've got a winner. The wontons were super easy to make.. they take a lil time, but once you make a whole batch, there are plenty left over to freeze. So the next time you've got a hankerin' for the stuff, all you have to do is drop them in the hot broth and cook until they're done. Another great thing, and this is just specifically for us because we have a great Asian grocery store not too far away - is that the egg noodles are sold in their freezer section and they are packaged into little "nests" about 5 to a bag.. so all I need to do is take out two noodle nests and drop them into the hot broth as well. The baby bok choy is another favorite. I think I like this green leafy vegetable in a soup even better than spinach. Add the green onions and yeah, the best wonton soup you can imagine. I just served this again to friends this past weekend at my sushi party and they LOVED it. Taking third place was Mom's Famous Crispy Eggrolls on pgs. 50 & 51. These are the exact kind of eggrolls that I enjoy the most. Not too fat, not too thin and crispedy with just a tiny chew towards the center when you bite into one. I fried and baked these eggrolls and they were equally delicious. Fourth was the popular Garlic Butter Noodles on page 134. I didn't make this dish, my husband did. He decided to follow Jaden's suggestion of turning this simple side dish into a main course by adding shrimp. He did a great job cooking it and it was just what I needed that night (I had the sniffles). The garlic really came through, and it had that sweet/salty flavor that I love. For such a quick preparation for the shrimp - first you fry in butter, then take them out leaving as much butter as you can in the wok, then using that butter to saute the onions, garlic and noodles before adding the shrimp back in - the shrimp really took on the garlicky flavor and I thought were the perfect addition to an amazing noodle dish. Finally, our least favorite was the Grilled Steak with Balsamic Teriyaki on page 90. First off we didn't have steak in the house that day. Instead of running out to buy one, I decided to try it on thick pork chops. I know pork is great with both balsamic and teriyaki, so I figured they'd be great in this sauce. We felt the sauce needed something else. Not sure exactly what.. maybe more garlic? Maybe rosemary or thyme? Something to give the sauce more oomph. The glaze was nice and thick and covered the meat well. We got the char on the chops that we love.. it was good, just not great. Course I served it with the Asian Style Brussels Sprouts, so I was still more than happy with the meal when it was all said and done. ;) A couple other features of the book I think should be mentioned is that Jaden took the time to add a Tools section. Each tool is given a description of why it's important to Asian cooking and just gave me another excuse to add gadgets onto my already long list of "must-haves". ;) The other section that I think is just brilliant, is "The Basics". Full of recipes for basic sauces, salts, pestos, pickles, and stock. She also includes step by step photo tutorials in this section, as well as a tutorial here and there in each recipe page throughout the book. Very helpful when you are so dang tired that text just isn't seeping through to your brain matter, if yanno what I mean? :) One last thing I want to mention is this.. the night I was sick, when Hubbs made the Garlic Shrimp Noodles? He told me that he had book marked about 20 recipes he wants to try. Did you hear that people? I'm going to be on the receiving end of 20 recipes in the near future. That means I won't be lifting a finger. Hello? Now that's the mark of a great cookbook. ;) In a nutshell, if you buy this book and give it a good run through, sure you're going to end up running into a recipe here or there that doesn't do it for you. That's not unusual. What's unusual is finding so many recipes that are appealing, that you really, really like. And all of them are fast enough to make after a grueling day in the dungeon.. or with the kids.. or on the crew.. or even after a day of being lazy when even making dinner sounds like too much effort. Open this book and you'll find something that's quick, easy and delicious. xoxo

Pineapple Jerky??

Yes.. you read that correctly. Pineapple jerky. I was approached by a nice man by the name of Douglas. Douglas runs Jerky.com - your one stop shopping site for all things JERKY! :) Douglas asked me if I'd be interested in trying a couple samples of some of their products. Normally, I don't respond to these emails. Honestly? I'm afraid of saying yes, then receiving the product and HATING IT. Then what? I have to waste my time (and theirs) by writing a bad review. Remember my last bad review? It felt good to write that, but all I really accomplished was giving that GOD AWFUL PIECE OF CRAP EMBARRASSMENT of a movie some extra advertising. Gah. So yeah.. product reviews scare me. With that said.. I was pleasantly surprised when the shipment of 5 slices of Pineapple Jerky was delivered to my house. The first thing I noticed was that the packaging was cute and that the pineapple inside looked moist. I've had many slices of dehydrated pineapple in my life - I love it actually.. but it's usually tough to chew and sometimes downright hard - crispy if you will. This wasn't. This pineapple jerky was so soft and moist.. it practically melted in my mouth. Hubbs tried some and he agreed it was the best dehydrated pineapple he'd ever had too. And he's not big on dehydrated fruit, he prefers beef jerky. He makes his own and it's pretty tasty, so it was a nice surprise to hear him say that. I've got one package left (1 slice) and I'm saving it. hahaa! It's a great snack in the afternoon between lunch and quitting time - gives me a lil burst of energy that I don't have to feel guilty about (like I would, say, if I opened up that bag of peanut butter MnM's that one of the guys at work gave me). The only thing that bothers me.. is the price. One-quarter pound is $9.99 - which is like almost $5.00 cheaper on Jerky.com than anywhere else, but still at $40 per pound, uhh.. yeah, that's not very affordable on our income. But the saying is true in this case.. "You get what you pay for" meaning this product is well worth an expensive splurge once in a while, because you are paying top price for a top of the line product. xoxo

A Long Overdue Book Review, My Life in Hell and a Kick Ass Video! Pt. I

I decided to break this post up in two parts.. was rather long all schlumped together. :) I need to start this off by apologizing to both our lovely Hannah, the very talented author of her new cookbook of vegan desserts called My Sweet Vegan and her popular blog, Bittersweet as well as her publisher Alisa Fleming of Fleming Ink and Go Dairy Free. I did not intend to wait so long in getting this post up.. life just was not as cooperative as I would have preferred. I hope you gals didn't think I was forgetting about Hannah's book!! I'm so sorry! So without further ado, let's get on with it, yes? :) My Sweet Vegan - yes. Vegan. I am not Vegan. So what the heck am I doing reviewing this book? How can I give a worthy opinion on how some of these recipes taste if I've never tasted things like soy milk, soy yogurt and tofu before? Well, I'm not exactly sure.. I really don't know if my opinions on Hannah's gorgeous book will be very valuable to the people out there that this book was meant for. But I was asked by Hannah to give it a go, so that's all that matters to me. Hannah's Black Bottomed Brownies.. VERY black bottomed - as I read the recipe wrong and ended up with a thick chocolate base brownie. *blush* I credit this mishap to my inner chocolate addict. :P I will not lie and say that the recipes I tried tasted exactly like dessert recipes using butter and cow's milk, cream or yogurt. For those of us who are not vegan, vegetarian, or lactose intolerant, you will be able to tell the difference right off the bat. So, did I run shrieking from my kitchen with an uncontrollable urge to suck on a stick of butter? No. Not at all. Both recipes I tried were delicious, just different. Would I recommend this book to my vegan, vegetarian, lactose intolerant and gluten-free friends? In a heartbeat. For what this book is about, it's outstanding. I can also honestly say that I've often felt sorry for a couple of my friends who have developed digestive problems and have become lactose intolerant. They've had to give up so many foods they've loved all their lives and it's just pitiful to see the look on one gal's face when she's up visiting and sees I've baked or cooked something sweet that contains milk or cream. Now though, NOW I can bake things for her that she'll love and be able to eat without problems. For that I am a happy camper! Hannah's Chocolate Glazed Peanut Butter Scones.. hey we all know this is me.. I hadda change up something, right? (no, not because I read this recipe wrong too. :P) Instead of the chocolate glaze, I had a bag of chocolate and peanut butter chips that needed to be used so I gilded the lily a bit here and threw a couple handfuls in. :D Now let's talk about the book itself. Simply gorgeous. Hannah, your photographs are amazing and the layout of the book is a recipe looker-upper's dream. :) Starting out with an ingredient guide section where Hannah explains the different ingredients called for in her recipes. From vanilla extract to chocolate sandwich cookies to Ricemellow Creme and Textured Vegetable Protein. She's got them all listed and she explains what the are in very easy to understand terms as well as tips on where to find some of the less common items. The recipes that follow are catagorized as: Sweet Starts - From strawberry, cranberry and banana muffins, to peanut butter and graham fig scones.. there's sweet focaccia, granola and even donuts! Cookies and Bars - Just about any flavor and type of cookie or bar you could want! There are biscotti, blondies, brownies, peanut butter cookies, maple pistachio cremes, shortbread and whoopie pies! (and that's just the tip of the iceberg, kids. ;) Cakes and Cupcakes - Sinfully decadent or light and fluffy, she's got them all in this section. Bananas Foster cake, anyone? How about the Mocha Devastation cake? Exotic cupcakes such as Lychee Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting and Pomegranate Ginger Cupcakes! Pies and Tarts - Here is where you'll find Cashew Creme Pear Tart and Pumpkin Pecan Pie (just to name a couple) to start drooling over. Miscellaneous Morsels and Desserts - Holy cow.. Sesame Chews, Hazelnut Ravioli, and a Five Minute Coconut Fudge among many, many more recipes for deliciousness. :) Did I mention Hannah's photographs? Every single recipe features it's own beautiful photograph so you'll always have an idea of what your finished product should look like. Sweet! The recipes themselves are very well written. The instructions are to the point but not text book sounding, if you know what I mean. Hannah's personality shines through in each paragraph. And the bestest part for me.. there are two indexes. One is an index of the recipes categorized into which food allergy/lifestyle they relate to. And the other is an ingredient index. Oh how I wish every cookbook had an ingredient index. So I say to you, Hannah, you've done a beautiful job and I can only imagine how fabulous your future books will be! And to all of you "alternative bakers" and those of you who have people with special dietary needs in your life, this is a terrific book to keep on your bookshelf closest to your kitchen. :)

A Long Overdue Book Review, My Life in Hell and a Kick Ass Video! Pt. II

As per the title to this post, I'm going to leave ya'll with a lil taste of what we've been dealing with here the past couple days.. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate winter? Apparently I have and my sweet friend Kelly thinks I brought this on myself in doing so.. it wouldn't shock me if that were true. Mother Nature dislikes me. Gah. I thought this was bad a couple weeks ago... Today. The Blizzard of 2008. Gah. WTF? Are you fakking kidding me? Guess we won't be grilling tonight, eh? :P Yes, you ARE looking at a 3 foot drift right outside our slider. Ugh. And FINALLY - DEAR SWEET JEBUS IT'S FINALLY OVER - a friend sent me this tonight and gosh darn if it didn't cheer me right the f*ck up! Enjoy!! Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis Uploaded by Hanvak xoxo

Round Table Review :: Where Flavor was Born

A little while back I was asked by one of my most favorite people in all the world, Sara, if I'd like to review a cookbook. "Hell yes I'd like to.. I love cookbooks!" Shortly after, I received one of the most gorgeous cookbooks I'd ever seen. Where Flavor was Born: Recipes and Culinary Travels Along the Indian Ocean Spice Route by Andreas Viestad. I loved the layout of this book.. I liked how Andreas categorized recipes by their prominent spice usage and by country they relate to. I also love how there are sweet and savory recipes for most of the spices. The deal was.. we were all to pick a few recipes that we wanted to try, hand 'em in to Sara and she'd pick 6 recipes from the bunch that we'd all make. She chose "Fresh Yogurt-Cucumber Soup with Coriander and Cumin", "Entrecote (steak) with Onion, Ginger and Tamarind", "Grilled Green Fish with Red Rice", "Stuffed Onions with Ginger and Lamb", "Bananas with Coconut and Cardamom", and finally, "Coconut Curry Cake". Well right off the bat, I knew I'd first be trying the steak, the bananas and the coconut cake. Followed by the stuffed onions, fish and finally the soup. The first was the steak.. the recipe called for Tamarind. I'd never heard of Tamarind before so I had to go in search of it.. three grocery stores later, I could not find it.. so my Entrecote with Onion, Ginger and Tamarind was missing the Tamarind. After reading about everyone's trials and tribulations with this recipe, I can confidently say it's a winner by all. The trick, it seemed, was to cut back on the tamarind a bit. I can't really say for sure.. I mean, my steak with the onions and ginger was heavenly, but I don't know how I'd like it with the Tamarind since I couldn't find it. Unfortunately, I slipped into a mild loss of mind, as we actually ate these steaks without photos being taken. I know!!! What the hell? Second on my list was the bananas.. ohh Lordie I do loves me my bananas.. AND I love coconut. This recipe is super easy, with only 5 ingredients and it all comes together in one pan.. how could this go wrong? Let us not forget who writes this blog, shant we? I have never cooked with coconut milk before. But I obviously had planned on trying it as I had 3 cans of it in my pantry. One was "light" coconut milk, so I quickly decided not to use it. The other two weren't light but they were made by different companies. I decided to go with the company I was more familiar with. Again.. I've never used coconut milk before. I get my ingredients out on my counter, smoosh my cardamom pods like the recipe says and then I open up my can of coconut "milk". Uhhh.. milk she was not. I believe they should have labeled the can coconut "lard". This stuff was solid. And creamy-like. Like Crisco! But it smelled better. Well having never used the stuff before, I just figured that's the way it came. So I scooped out what was needed and flopped it into my pan along with the cardamom pods. Immediately it started to melt, so I figured this is where the "milk" comes into play.. now it actually looked like milk! I let my lil green cardamom pods steep in the "milk" for a bit then I added my nanners and some brown sugar. Everything was going swimmingly! The mixture started bubbling around the nanners and it was smelling pretty nice.. I poured the whole thing into a bowl and let it cool for a bit before I took my first bite. Remember how I said I loved me my nanners and coconut? So it shouldn't be surprising that my first bite was a big one.. oh yeah baby, I filled these lips with warm banana and... ass juice?? *spit* *cough* *sputter* *wipe tongue off with dish towel* *spit* *make awkward face* *wonder just what the hell I did to deserve that kind of punishment??* Needless to say that horrible dish of Satan, was promptly poured into the bin. I couldn't understand it.. I didn't think it could have been the recipe.. the recipe also called for cloves, but they give me the hives, so I left them out - but dear sweet baby jebus, they certainly couldn't have helped what was created on my stovetop! I re-read the recipe and knew I had followed it's easy instructions to the T.. so what the freeg? I wrote to Sara next.. "Uhhh.. is coconut "milk" suppose to be solid and more like coconut "lard"?? "Does coconut "milk" smell really good but tastes like ass?" To which she replied, "Well no, it's not suppose to be entirely solid.. the cream rises to the top like regular milk, but below should be liquid." 'kay well I checked the remaining contents of that can and it was solid through and through. I had myself some bad coconut milk!!! Unforch, the experience was a lil too traumatic for me to retry the recipe with the other can of coconut milk I had. But today, today we went to our favorite Asian market and I purchased coconut milk that, when shaken, sounded liquidy! AND I bought coconut cream.. and it sounded liquidy too.. so this recipe will be tried again and I have a feeling that I'll love it. Finally, no.. sadly, my last recipe that I tried was the Coconut Curry Cake. (I say sadly because that fish and red rice truly called out to me. I wish I could have made it in time for this review.) The first thing I noticed about the cake was that it was mild. Chock full of cinnamon, cardamom, star anise, nutmeg and ginger you'd think that it'd pack more of a spicy punch. I used a coarsely grated coconut so I could really taste it, where the others could not. Also, my cake came out almost underdone, so it was quite moist. I did top this cake with a quick cream cheese frosting, but only because W won't let cake touch his lips unless there is frosting on it. *sigh* I'd make this cake again, for sure, but I'd double those spice amounts and I'd add even a lil more coconut. I think this cake has lots of possibilities as well.. canned pineapple chunks would be great it in.. smooshed bananas would be heavenly.. a good sprinkle of powdered sugar on top would suffice if you needed a lil more oomph on your cake - but the cream cheese frosting was also a nice compliment. Sorry for such badly lit photos.. night time comes way too soon this time of year. :( I can sincerely say, Where Flavor was Born, is one of my new favorite books. The recipes that I tried, and have bookmarked to try in the future, are written cleanly with easy to follow instructions. The photos, by Mette Randem, were simply breath taking and the "extras" such as the section labeled: "The Spices of the Indian Ocean at a Glance" was very helpful and I learned quite a bit from reading though them. And even though I only made 3 recipes, 1 of which was missing a main ingredient and the other a tangent into the depths of hell because I had coconut milk gone way wrong, I can still say, genuinely, that this is a great cookbook for the novice to expert cook. For me, what I got from this book more than anything else, is a little more confidence in trying recipes with spices that I'm not use to, and learning about the foods of cultures that I really don't know much about. It's made me think. :) Thank you Sara! Thanks for thinking of me for this project! Thanks very much to Andreas and Mette for a gorgeous book! Thanks to Sia and The Lisa Ekus Group for sending the book (with such a nice note attached, thank you!) to me! And finally, thanks to Mike, Deborah and Mary for keeping me quite entertained this last week or so of constant banter through email. :) If you'd like to try a few of the recipes that we tried, head on over to Sara's i like to cook where she will post them a little later today. :D xoxo

My First Product Review!

About a month and a half ago, a very nice man, Daniel DeMoss of the PR firm Manning, Selvage & Lee, contacted me asking if I’d like to test a product from one of their clients. Specifically, parchment paper made by Reynolds. I was very interested so I sent him my address and waited patiently for my package of Reynolds’ parchment paper to arrive. 'kay so remember how I said things were a bit chaotic back in November-December? Well, I realized at that time that I did, indeed, own a brain. But I only realized that lil gem after I had misplaced said brain so many times. Gah. And one of those times would be right after I ripped open the box – I forgot to take photos. AND I pretty much forgot to take photos through my whole cookie baking experience.. go me! But what arrived was a rather large round cookie tin. Inside was the sample of pre-cut sheets of the parchment paper as well as a few cookie recipes. My first impression when I saw the sample paper was this: “Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Yeah, I know.. it doesn’t take much. But I really was quite excited, because the answer to my parchment paper prayers had finally come true! Pre-cut sheets! No more trying to slice a sheet off the roll that comes in those flimsy boxes! Truly, that is my biggest pet peeve when I’m baking.. knowing I'll have to wrestle the box to get the paper out. Drives me cah-rassseeeee! At that point, I decided to e-mail Daniel and ask if this is the way Reynolds was going to market their paper. Alas, he said no. :( It was just pre-cut for the sample, but I'd have to continue buying the roll from my supermarket. Bummer. Well, I managed to find time to bake my cookies a couple days later (and by a couple, I mean 2 weeks later) and although I did not bake the cookie recipes that came with the parchment paper sample, I did bake for 2 days straight and I did use the heck out of that paper. I remember back before I discovered parchment paper and how amazed I was once I used it the first time. Not one cookie spot-welded to the cookie sheet. Now that was a beautiful sight. Benne wafers awaiting the oven So yeah, this wasn't my first rodeo with Reynolds' parchment paper. It's the parchment paper I have been buying for years. I love this paper and won't bake without it. But that's kinda boring and there IS something I wish would change to make this awesome product even better and that's… The packaging is not a good thing, as my idol The Martha, would say. The box is too flimsy to be able to get a clean cut easily. I understand that the paper needs to come in rolls for there are some uses when you need a lot of it.. but cookie baking is a HUGE part of the home baker's repertoire and I know I'd be VERY GRATEFUL for pre-cut sheets that I could just slap on my cookie sheets without having to wrestle the box, nicking my finger in the process. I also think pre-cut common sized rounds of the paper for cake pans would also be fabulous as well. So if I'm thinking this, then there MUST be other home bakers who feel the same way, yes? No? Is it just me and my ease in finding something wrong with just about everything? Nah.. there are plenty of things I think are just perfect they way they are. So here's where you come in, friends! Leave a comment about how you feel about Reynolds' parchment paper if you've used it. If you haven't used it yet.. run out and get yourself some, whip up some chocolate chip cookies (I can send my address if you want to get rid of them) and then chime in! It doesn't have to be about the packaging.. it doesn't have to be about something you dislike or wish that could be better.. it can be a big sloppy wet kiss because you love Reynolds and their rascally paper. :D Or not.. whot-evah, kids. What's important is that your opinion counts and Mr. DeMoss and his firm want to hear what you've got to say. So let's hear it! A great big THANK YOU! to Daniel and MS & L for asking me to participate in this review. I enjoyed it and honestly am happy I could share my opinion. :) xoxo