Sunday (October 13th) was the Good Food Gathering hosted by Door to Door Organics in Plymouth. I went and tried many samples of food that can be ordered off of their website. It was great to be able to sample some of the products they have on there before buying them online. 

I think my favorite sample there was Mitten Munch's berry lemonade trail mix bar. These bars do have some sugar in them, but I think they are great for a once and awhile convenient treat. Here are the ingredients listed on my package:

"organic rolled oats, organic tapioca syrup, almonds, apple juice concentrate, pistachios, dried fruit (blueberries, raspberries, cane sugar, sunflower oil), organic coconut flour, chia seed, organic flax seed, cold pressed coconut oil, organic sunflower oil, organic lemon oil, freeze dried lemons, organic vanilla powder (vanilla bean, maltodextrin)"

I am kind of concerned with the maltodextrin, though, and would like to know their source. 

Speaking of being concerned.. there were two other products I received in my grocery box this week that I wish I would have known the ingredients for before ordering. 

First was the Avalon 313 bread. Ingredients: "water, organic wheat flour, organic whole wheat flour, sugar, canola oil, sea salt, yeast"

The second was the Great Lakes Potato Chip Co.'s barbecue flavored chips. Ingredients: "potatoes, sunflower and/or canola oil, sugar, salt, paprika, spice, garlic powder, smoke flavor (maltodextrin, natural hickory smoke flavor), less than 2% silicon dioxide added to prevent caking"

I was really concerned about the canola oils, maltodextrin and the silicon dioxide.

I really love Door to Door, they are a great company. They have awesome produce, great customer service and they are really convenient. I do wish that they had stricter guidelines when it came to the other food they sell, though. It seems that they like to sell local food -- even if it's not really the best quality. I'll still be ordering from them for things like produce and eggs.. but buy my other things at the grocery store or health food store. 

I love hard boiled eggs.. but there's nothing worse than an overcooked egg with a green/grayish yolk. Sick!
Awhile ago, I stumbled across a tutorial on Pinterest for hard boiling eggs. The eggs are always cooked to perfection, with beautiful yellow fluffy yolks. The only problem I was having was peeling the shell off.

The original tutorial says to use a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of vegetable oil. I don't keep or use vegetable oil in my pantry (read this and this), so I always try the method with just salt. Sometimes the eggs will peel okay, most of the time it's a messy disaster.

Last night I was making a batch of hard boiled eggs and thought.. why not use coconut oil?? It's usually a good answer for anything. I plopped just a little under a teaspoon of some coconut oil along with the salt to my water, boiled the eggs.. and voila! Those shells slid right off with minimal effort. There were no tears in my egg and I didn't lose any egg white.. success! I just tried this out a couple hours ago with another batch and the results were the same.

Here's the tutorial, with my modification:

1. Place your eggs (preferably eggs that are not fresh out of the hen.. and at room temp.) in a pot and cover with cold water. Add a pinch of salt and a little less than a teaspoon of coconut oil. (Original tutorial says to cover. I've done a batch with a lid over and without one, both turned out just fine.)
2. Bring water to a boil (I use a medium heat), then boil for 10 minutes.
3. Remove pot from heat, and immediately transfer eggs to cold water. Keep an eye on the water temperature by feel.. when it starts to warm up, dump water and fill with cold water. Repeat as many times as necessary.
4. Eat all the eggs. Or put them in the fridge for later. :)

(To peel, I tap the egg on the counter a little.. squeeze the egg very gently, then peel the shell off. Some of it comes off in big chunks.. some are smaller. Next time, I might try this method).

Original tutorial from Lil Luna.