Bzz Agent Giz Reporting for Duty

Not long ago as I surfed through blogs I came upon one that spoke to sampling a product and creating a Bzz; a review of a product. I was intrigued and followed the path to http://www.bzzagent.com to learn more about this community.

Essentially, BzzAgent is a word-of-mouth media network powered by a half-million people pairing consumers with products and supply digital tools that make widespread opinion-sharing easy.

* We were founded in 2001
* We've run 500+ programs for major brands including Unilever, Kraft and Procter & Gamble
* Our participants have spread word of mouth to 110+ million family and friends
* We've received 1.7 million reports submitted detailing first-hand brand-related conversations.

Products are offered to Bzz Agents in the form of campaigns and you can pick and chose which campaigns you might be interested in participating in. You sign up for a particular campaign, arrange to try the product and then write up a Bzz or report about it by sharing your honest opinion of the product.



When I saw the campaign come out for Nordica Single Serving Cottage Cheese I knew it would be a campaign I would want to participate in. First of all I love cottage cheese. Secondly I already buy Nordica products and thirdly I had never tried the single serve fruit bottom cups. The biggest draw was that it had a health check from the Heart & Stroke foundation so what could be bad (unless you're lactose intolerant of course)

Touted as a healthy snack with substance, Nordica Cottage Cheese comes in six flavours with each containing 10% of your recommended daily calcium, with prebiotics and probiotics to help keep your immune and digestive systems happy. When I signed up I received an envelope with a coupon for a free sample of 4 plus 5 store coupons to save $1.25 on any Nordica single serve cottage cheese (4x113g) to share with others. The catch is that the coupons are good only in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. If you're in any of these provinces in Canada and are interested, please just leave me your email address and I'll make these available (one per comment and if there aren't 5 comments from these provinces I'll just apportion them accordingly)

So, here's my opinion - generally a very tasty product. Kids would love them as a snack at home, after hockey or soccer or even at a sleep over. I found them pretty sweet tasting but there's really only 8g sugar per serving. My one deterrent is the amount of sodium coming in at 13% or 300 mg per serving. I don't think this would stop me from recommending them for lunches and snacks - they really are pretty tasty.

Honey Lemon Salmon With Roast Vegetables

Like Giz said...I also went to a Sugar Bush (aka: cabane à sucre) this weekend and I have a post about it. But...it's not ready.

Instead, I've been busy with wedding stuff. Invitations are about halfway done. We picked up some pretty basic invitations from Michael's and I'm making them from home. I figure it'll cost around $60-70 in total for invitations (not including stamps) and I'm quite content with the way they look.

We got our rings a couple of weeks ago. I'm still getting used to wearing a ring (I have never been a ring-wearer). The other morning I woke up with numb hands, believing that the ring was cutting off my circulation. After reaching a higher level of consciousness, I realized that it wasn't the ring. Just my nightly habit of sleeping with my hands above my head, resulting in a lack of circulation going to my hands.


Next up is to secure our "giveaways" plan (details to follow in another post) and figure out flowers. On-going is "Operation: Look good in this dress" (the rightmost one in peach - mine will be off-white).

I'm also trying to knit a shawl for the wedding using this wool:


and this pattern:



It might be the death of me though...I seem to lack the required focus and patience to knit Victorian Lace-style shawls.

In the meantime, I'm still trying to keep meals interesting. This recipe comes from Dragon's Kitchen.

Honey Lemon Salmon With Roast Vegetables


2 salmon fillets
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon champagne vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 red pepper, chopped into one inch pieces
1 yellow pepper, chopped into one inch pieces
1 small zucchini, chopped into medium size chunks
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
1 tablespoon of olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
3 cups baby spinach
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with some foil.

2. Season the salmon with salt and pepper on both sides.

3. Combine lemon zest, honey, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper.


Reserve 2 tablespoons of dressing and set aside. Marinate the salmon in the dressing for 10 minutes.


4. Combine the red pepper, yellow pepper, zucchini, olive oil, thyme leaves and lemon juice. Season the vegetables with some salt and pepper. Place salmon on the baking sheet and surround it with vegetables. Drizzle a little of the marinade over the salmon. Place the baking sheet in the oven and roast for 12 minutes.

This is Dragon's suggested last step. Instead, I paired the salmon with a cubed sweet potato-red potato mix (leftovers to eat up).
5. Toss the baby spinach with the reserved dressing and divide it equally between two places. Place the roast salmon on top of the spinach and spoon vegetables on top.

The product was very good, although I would probably cook the vegetables longer next time.

This recipe is being sent to Bookmarked Recipes, which is being hosted by Cristie at Edible Antics - Having Fun with Food.



Would you believe that Bookmarked Recipes is currently in its 46th week?!? I'm very excited to be hosting the roundup in a couple of weeks! Bookmarked Recipes is a roundup that features recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show. That pretty much covers most of my recipes.

Canadian Sugar Bush

You know it's spring in Canada when the maple trees are being tapped and the smell of burning wood and maple syrup are in the air. There are Maple Syrup festivals all around us and people are sampling local syrup with their pancake breakfast, in their coffee and in the form of maple shaped fudge and candies, to name only a few.

Psychgrad mentioned that she and "R" were planning a trip to the local sugar bush near her city and I thought it was a fun thing to do so I rounded up some friends and off we went. Psychgrad and I will share our same day experiences in different cities enjoying the same thing. How cool is that?

The place I went to is a very unassuming tree farm, very rustic and no commercial fanfare about the spring festival.



As you can see, although spring is just around the corner, we still have a fair amount of snow in the outer areas of the city.



Admission to the festival was really minimal and you were met by the owner of the farm who was entirely charming and very funny. He escorted us to a tractor that was pulling a flat bed and everyone hopped on to be driven into the syrup making area.

Can you guess what this is?


I'll tell you later in the post (not a bad way to keep you reading ...he he he)

First stop - the maple cabin - this is where they feed you pancakes with copious amounts of maple syrup. As a point of interest - maple syrup starts off being 3% sugar and 97% water. Once it's cooked it reverses to 97% sugar and 3% water. All the kids entering the maple cabin were well behaved. By the time they left, they were a total bunch of raving lunatics. Here...have some more maple syrup kids, I don't have to live with you :).





When you enter the cabin there are many different sizes of maple syrup bottles for sale. Since the whole process is extremely labour intensive, maple syrup is not cheap. The 40 ml size was selling for $6.99.



See the bubbles on the surface - that's how you know when pancakes are ready to turn. In the U.S. I think these are also commonly called flapjacks, not to be confused with the cake like treat in the U.K.


Oh my!!! Could life get any better than this? And look at the maple syrup just swimming on that plate.

.... and then compliment it with a steaming cup of maple coffee.


The pots and stove inside the cabin represented process in days gone by. Not much has changed other than the evolution of the stoves.



Now that we've indulged beyond capability of movement we dragged our sorry butts out for the educational part of the experience. I hope you're able to read the information; it's actually pretty interesting.



In pioneering days, tapping the trees was done with whatever equipment could be made.



and then cooked in large pots over an open flame


Today tapping is a little more sophisticated and sanitary but not a big change








The spiritual connection between native Canadians and the earth shows the meaning of maple syrup to the culture.



One of the most impressive pieces of information was how conservation wise manufacturers of maple syrup really are. They don't tap the tree in the same place twice and give the tree time to heal. The same tree can give sap for literally centuries.



This was my experience - good learning - good food and a fabulous day to enjoy the outdoors. I know that Psychgrad had a similar but different (does that make sense?) day at her local sugar bush. She even went so far as to prepare a wonderful meal with her spoils of the day. I was not quite so ambitious so stay tuned for Psychgrad's experience in the next post.

Well - you've come this far. The picture near the top that I asked you about - if you had any idea what it was? It's a form to put evergreen trees on and tie/wrap them for shipment. Who would have thought?