Ahh, the paleo diet. It’s an admirable regimen incorporating the simple foods the cavemen and women who went before us decided to place between their ancient incisors: fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, meat, eggs, and…crackers? Yep, peeps, you heard correctly – the cracker for the modern-day caveperson is finally here. The homo sapiens at Snackin Free have come up with Paleo Crackers for when you want your neolithic diet with the crunch and convenience of modern, packaged snack food. With only 16 grams of carbs, eight different varieties including Cinnamon Graham, Toasted Onion, and Cheddar N’ Chives, and tasty ingredients like tapioca flour, jalapeno powder, and Himalayan pink salt, there’s something for everyone to love – Neanderthal wannabes and otherwise.
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Top 5 Canned Tomatoes for Sunday Sauce
This story will end your hunt for the perfect tomato. Here’s my slightly quirky yet educated guide on these famed fruits. While San Marzano tomatoes may be hyped up, the best canned tomatoes are the ones that you can easily find in your neighborhood. This guide features my top 5 canned tomato selections, all plum tomatoes, with a focus on use in Italian recipes.
Top 5 Canned Tomatoes
Caluccio
This Italian plum tomato comes from the San Marzano area near Salerno and has the official D.O.P. designation. The ingredients are simply Italian plum peeled tomatoes, tomato puree, citric acid, and salt.
Marco LaBella San Marzano
Also from the San Marzano area, these plum tomatoes have been grown by the Visconti family since 1957. The label is charming, and the lack of added salt is a plus.
Mutti
Although not grown in the San Marzano area, these plum tomatoes from Parma are a go-to for me because they have the least amount of ingredients. It’s just plum tomatoes and a little tomato juice.
San Marzano Brand
Despite the confusing branding, this canned tomato produced and packaged in America is a delicious option. Ingredients include citric acid and sodium chloride but no basil leaf, which can be added separately.
Bianco de Napoli
Canned by chef Chris Bianco in California, these plum tomatoes are my new obsession due to their intense, rich flavor.
Watch this video to dive a little deeper and hear my favorite.
These top 5 canned tomatoes have got you covered, whether you’re making sauce, gravy, pizzas, lasagnas, and more. Don’t let the hype of San Marzano tomatoes fool you. The best canned tomatoes are the ones you can easily find in your local grocery with the least added ingredients.
Rice’s Red Snapper Frankfurts
They make these RED hot dogs in Maine. Locally they are called red snappers and are what everyone from Kittery to Caswell uses in their summer backyard BBQ’s. We picked up a pack of Rice’s (one of two OG competing makers) before we left the state to try the red dye, natural casing snap for ourselves. There are two bits of folklore important in this maker story. One, sometime in the late 18th century, the red dye was added as a marketing gimmick to have their dogs standout amongst the 30 other competing butchers. Two, after World War II, Rice headed down to NYC where he heard a few German sausage makers, turned soldiers, turned POW’s were being held. He interviewed them and hired one to create his hot dog spice mixture. Kidder & Rice, the companies original name, was sold to a few larger industrial meat purveyors over the years until W.A. Bean and Sons, Rice’s original competitor in 1898, bought the Rice name back from Tyson Foods. Today W.A. Bean and Sons pump out 500,000 pounds a year of Rice’s original recipe. With all that history we were intrigued what a naturally cased, steamed Red #40 food dye, pork and beef dog would taste like. The snap lived up to the legend. The taste was on par with the Nathan’s of the world but the marketing trick was what hit the home run for me. The contrast of the red dog, yellow mustard and green relish just makes it stand out and create conversation. Just like when you repeat this story to your pals when you try one. What’s still confusing is W.A. Bean and Sons also makes a red snapper. How they both “stood out” with the same marketing trick is unclear as is who was first. Regardless W.A. Bean and Sons now make both recipes so I suppose that origins moment is moot.
BurgaBox
If you know us, you know burgers are something of a perfected item in our purview. When we discovered the Burgabox we danced a ground meat jig and hollered to the burger gods. We’ve written about box concepts in the past. We love the idea that our on-demand world can now summon boxes of quality food to our door from a few swipes of a smartphone. The thing Chuck and his cofounders at Boston Burger Company didn’t like was how healthy the contents of most box delivery companies tended to be. Having made their way into the restaurant biz with 28 over the top burger concepts, they thought dropping the ingredients into a box so people, not in Boston, their home turf, could try their amazing product was genius. We agree. We we’re so intrigued that this ex-postal worker, ex-real estate guy and ex-bartender started a phenom restaurant dynasty we dug deeper. Read the burger names and tell me you don’t want to hop an Amtrak to Cambridge this afternoon. Some of our stand out favs, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, KILLER BEE and VERMONSTER. That last one is offered in box form and boasts sautéed apples & red onion, bacon, maple mayo, sharp cheddar on top of an 8oz patty. In the box you get two or four burgers (depending on the pkg you choose) along with 2lb Pulled pork mac & cheese, 1lb Chili wedge fries, 1lb Chili wedge fries, 8oz side of Boston baked beans and 8oz side of homemade cole slaw. In case math isn’t your strong suit, that’s 6lbs of food goodness ding donging on your front stoop. We’ve already ordered two subscriptions just in time for the grill season kick off.
Sfoglini Pasta of the Month
This is a bunch of Brooklyn guys who decided to reinvent dried pasta. To do so they brought back some rare shapes and even made up a few new ones. They also bucked the flour norm and add some unique flavors to the mix. Mint, ramp, nettles even cocoa find their way into these unique shapes. To boot the guys are awesome. On a recent trip to the market I couldn’t find their zucca (a pumpkin like globe shaped pasta). I gave a call to see where I could find some. After they spent 10 minutes diligently tracking it down, they told me to just pop down to the factory and they’d give me some. You got to love that real Italian hospitality. So, when I heard they has a Sfoglini Pasta of the Month Club, it was an instant join. We opted for the 12-Month plan. You can never have enough pasta on hand.