Experiment #1: The Krispie Khronicals

If you eat Rice Krispies with chocolate milk, would it taste the same as eating Cocoa Pebbles with regular milk?

Good question!  Let's find out, shall we?

Yeah, I get bored easily.

In order to be all 'scientifical' and stuff, I will require no fewer than three objective test subjects.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller? (Yeah, you could see that setup a mile away, couldn't ya?)

Well then, while I yank three unsuspecting, er...I mean willing volunteers from my living room audience, let's take a moment to consider the full scope of this experiment....

Someone has to conduct, hypothesize and document this whole bru-ha-ha. I nominate myself, but I feel I should explain exactly why I not only want to find out the answer to this burning need-to-know question, but why I can not simply be the said 'tester' myself.

I want to know the answer to this question because:

A)  I'm bored out of my skull and it's something fun to do with the family.
B)  If I am ever on a trivia-genre game show, I am certain this would be the question between me and that case of Turtle Wax (not to mention a copy of their home game!)
C)  Questions much like this one pop into my oxygen deprived brain all the time and I rarely get the opportunity to follow through with finding the answer.

As for why I can't be the test subject? Well, there is something rather shocking you need to know about me.

Yes, I love food. All kinds. But, like most of you eaters out there, there is a small percentage of things I am not fond of and won't eat very often or at all.

Sugar cereal is one of those "things". Ick.

In fact, I really don't care for cereal of any kind at all. If I had to eat it, it would be granola, Grape Nuts, or Shredded Wheat. Yeah, I can hear you all now: "Booooring!" I know. Believe me, I've tried the sugary stuff, and I'm just not into them. I didn't even really like them when I was a kid. I did like Quisp and King Vitamin though. In the third grade, my teacher used to pass out "Mouse Cookies" as a treat or reward for good scores or good behavior in class. I was all kinds of excited to receive my first Mouse Cookie! I could imagine the mice, all decked out in chef gear making cookies, just like the Keebler Elves!!  I ate one and spit it right back out. They turned out to be Cookie Crisp, and I promptly handed them back to the teacher and told her she lied to me and I didn't appreciate that one bit. I then spent some quality time in the chair in the corner.

I also have an aversion to milk, which doesn't help my cereal dislike. I'm not allergic or lactose intolerant; I just don't like the taste of milk. This goes for all varieties, flavors and brands. I am totally fine with milk being  incorporated into a recipe though.

However, I will let you in on a little known secret.  Once, maybe twice a year or so, I can be found late, late at night in the dark sitting on the couch with a bowl of Rice Krispies with a few tablespoons of sugar and very little milk (enough to get them wet).  I have also been spotted once or three times with a bowl of Corn Pops, sans milk, eating them like popcorn. But I will deny it if you call me on it.

Actually, for being such an adventurous eater, I have more food hang-ups than I probably should. To name a few, I despise (most) pizza and am extremely picky with how I will eat it, I can't stand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and (sit down! you may not like this one...) I can, in fact, live and even survive quite well without chocolate.  Those will all probably be addressed/discussed in future posts.

The Krispies are calling...let's begin!

We have Exhibit A - one 12 ounce box of Rice Krispies, and Exhibit B - one 15 ounce box of Cocoa Pebbles. 

We have Exhibit C - Chocolate Milk, and Exhibit D - regular 'ol milk. And yes, that milk is powdered milk we make, hence the pitcher.

I can hear what you're saying right now, you know.

"Well, doofus, no wonder you don't like milk! That powdered stuff is GUH-ROSS!"

I would agree with you there, but only because I think milk, powdered or not, is indeed gross.  Papa Bear, Drama Queen and Little Lawyer are religious milk drinkers, and they say it's fine and it tastes just like the almost four dollar a gallon stuff at the grocery store.  About 7 or 8 years ago we started buying the big boxes of instant non-fat dry milk that makes 80 one cup servings per box because I wasn't kidding in the least when I said they were religious (think Hare Krishnas at the airport with glasses of milk instead of flowers, ok? If you have ever seen the movie Airplane! you know what I am talking about.) milk drinkers. Plus, it's way cheaper, too. And if the Milk Mafia in my house says it tastes okay, I take their word for it and don't ask questions...

Because I wanted to be as scientific as one could be (um, okay...) I noted the suggested serving size on each cereal boxes.

One serving of Rice Krispies is 1-1/4 cups....

....but Cocoa Pebbles are only a 3/4 cup serving?? Maybe because these are more calorie laden?

Ah, but for once we are not interested in calories! In fairness for our experiment, I decide to use approximately one cup of cereal per bowl instead of the suggested serving size.

There was the same serving size dilemma with the milk, so all three of my 'testers' voted to an even ratio all the way around.  One cup of cereal to one cup of milk it was!

We began with creating our testing bowls: One bowl with one cup of Rice Krispies and one cup chocolate milk, one bowl with one cup of Cocoa Pebbles and one cup regular milk, and just for the fun of it, one bowl with 1/2 cup each of both cereals that we plan on putting 1/2 cup of each milk into as well.

....and set the timer for one minute for thorough milk and cereal "fusion".

Little Lawyer waits oh-so-patiently for that minute to be up...

I will, in the interest of...well, interest of too much information, leave out the play-by-play, sound effects and whatnot of the consumption of the cereal bowls. Each tester tried a few bites out of each bowl and were asked to rate:

A)  The Taste (with 1 being Yuck and 5 being Yay)
B)  The Chocolaty-ness (same scale as Taste)
C)  The Favorite of the Three
D)  The Least Favorite of the Three

The testers were very cooperative, hungry and willing to finish all the bowls. However, I will share with you that they did have an American Idol moment. When they realized there were three of them and there were three judges on American Idol, hilarity ensued. The phrases "Dawg!", "But you're soooo pretty!" and "That was a complete and utter nightmare." were thrown about, and I'm fairly certain no Krispie or Pebble in any of the bowls will move on to Hollywood, baby! Those are the brakes, I suppose.

Here's what we've all been waiting for....the results are in!! Let's Snap Crackle & Pop our way to it, shall we?

Results For Bowl #1 - Rice Krispies with Chocolate Milk

Unanimously Voted 'Least Favorite'

Taste/Chocolaty-ness Scale:  PB gave it a 2, DQ gave it a 2.5, LL gave it a 1

Results For Bowl #2 - Cocoa Pebbles with Regular Milk

Not nominated for 'Favorite' or 'Least Favorite'

Taste/Chocolaty-ness Scale:  PB gave it a 3, DQ gave it a 3.5, LL gave it a 3

Results For Bowl #3 (dubbed the Zebra Bowl) - Half of each cereal/Half of each Milk

Unanimously Votes 'Favorite'

Taste/Chocolaty-ness Scale:  All testers gave this bowl a 5 without hesitation

So there you have it folks! The worldwide mystery has been solved, more or less. Run out and get the fixin's for your Zebra Bowl and tell me what you think! Are my taste testers off their rocker or did they nail it head on?

What other kind of weird and wacky food experiments would you like to see?  Leave me some suggestions in the comments and I will see what can be done!

To Wasa-be or not to Wasa-be?

...that is the question. Tonight, anyway...

The kids and Granma are out of town this weekend for a mini Spring Break vacation, so Papa Bear and I are home alone and chillin' in front of the boob tube.  He stumbled upon a show while surfing the channels about hot peppers. We will generally watch a show about food, any food, and so we ended up watching it...and the bonus to this show was that now I know where to order some bhut jolokia ghost pepper seeds so I can grow them myself.

There was a segment specifically on wasabi, which is on my Top 5 Best Condiment list, or it would be if I had one...maybe I'll make one? Wasabi would definitely be number 2 or 3...right behind Crystal hot sauce.

The man in the television set said that real wasabi root was grown in a select few areas in Japan and cost about $100 per pound, so when we (and he meant me, I just know it...the man in the television talks to me all the time!) eat what we think to be wasabi, we are really eating ground/grated horseradish root!

Nooooo!!!! Say it isn't so!!!

Really?

So, being the inquisitive sorts we are, we got up and went into the kitchen.  Lo and behold, we had not only a tube of  wasabi paste in the fridge, but also a jar of wasabi powder! The ingredients on both the paste and the powder were.....

Horseradish!

The powder version also listed 'wasabi leaves' along with the horseradish powder, so does that count? Eh, probably not. We slowly came to the ugly realization that we had indeed never tasted true wasabi root. Depressing.

So then Papa Bear had a thought. An evil, delicious thought. This thought is one of the many reasons that I love this man with what's left of my (now) wasabi-less heart.  He suggested a "heat taste test" between the two wasabi products.

We mixed the powdered wasabi according to the package directions with equal parts water and let the mixture sit for ten minutes. We then plated the powdered wasabi and the prepared wasabi paste in two servings of equal proportions (see below) and prepared to taste.

Papa Bear had another delicious thought...to use a shot (or four...) of sake as a palette cleanser between tastes.  Hey, we didn't have any pickled ginger, okay? Did I mention that I love him?

Now that I see this, do you notice too how nuclear green the prepared wasabi looks compared to the powdered wasabi? Wow.

Here are the opinionated results of our scientifical kitchen-based testing:

Wicked Chef:  "I found the powder based wasabi to have a more intense heat, making my nose hairs singe with delight and my sinuses clear almost immediately, followed by a pleasant mellow flavor.  The prepared wasabi paste tasted a tad sweeter, with not nearly as much heat-packing punch or toe-curling power. The sake was...hic...very good."

Papa Bear: "The powdered wasabi definitely opened up my sinuses!  A much cleaner taste than the stuff in the tube.  Unlike Wicked Chef, I found it to be sweeter of the two, and the prepared wasabi to be a bit on the salty side in comparison."

All in all, it was a fun experiment. We laughed. We cried. (Wasabi is hot, after all...) I stubbed my toe. It hurt. I wanted more fake wasabi.

But I will not forget that I have been misled...nay, lied to! All the years I thought I was consuming large quantities of wasabi, I was really eating a green-dyed version of what I eat on my roast beef. But firmer.

Oh, and if the Daddy Warbucks that I hasn't found me yet wants to buy some real wasabi root to try (and probably love!), then please send it my way....