Kettleman’s Bagels is an Ottawa restaurant that specializes in Montreal-style bagels. There are a three locations in Ottawa, if I’m not mistaken.

Walking into a Kettleman’s you’ll see people working away at the large stone oven and rolling bagels like it’s nobody’s business. They are like machines and usually have headphones on, listening to their music while working away with their hands. It’s pretty cool to watch them go. You can purchase bagels by the dozen, bagels to go, or eat in and be served.

The service is always friendly and quick. One of my main reasons for going to kettlemans besides the delicious bagels, or rather, THE main reason I go there; is for their hot pepper cream cheese spread. I am obsessed with this spread. It is simply fantastic! I always get them to put heaps of it on my bagel because I can’t get enough of it. You can also buy their cream cheese spreads in tubs to bring home, which I’ve obviously done.

The unfortunate thing for me is that bagels are difficult on my digestive system, but I certainly indulge anyway on occasion.

The local Kettleman’s are found at 2177 Carline Avenue, 912 Bank Street, and 1222 Place D’Orléans Blvd. In addition to bagels and cream cheese, they also make a wide variety of bagel sandwiches, and have some additional pastry treats, like knish’s. Mmmm.

~Darleya~

I’m not sure whether the slogans ‘Heat & Eat’ and ‘Brown ‘N Serve’ were what attracted my husband to these sausages. It could have been the fact that they only take 5 minutes in the microwave.

Whatever the case, he bought these Swift Brown ‘N Serve beef sausages for breakfast this weekend. Swift is a line by Maple Leaf Foods.

These beef sausages did indeed take only 5 minutes in the microwave. They were definitely an easy addition to our extravagant Sunday  brunch. The problem I have with them, is that they were REALLY gross!

EEW. They didn’t even taste like beef, I have no words to describe that wannabe meat. They were atrocious, and not myself, my husband, nor my brother-in-law took any enjoyment in them; although my brother-in-law was the only one to finish them. Hopefully he wasn’t doing that just to be polite because I wouldn’t wish these upon anyone.

I just don’t think sausages are meant to be pre-cooked then zapped in the microwave.  Sausages are hard on my stomach anyway, so even though Swift also makes a pork variety of these sausages, I won’t be trying them.

~Darleya~

Stila is a cosmetics company that was started in 1994 by a celebrity makeup artist named Lynn Tilton which produces cosmetics that are delivered in eco-friendly packaging.

This review is for their baked eyeshadows.

Stila’s baked eyeshadow trios are simply stunning. The colors are bright, and go together wonderfully. I purchased the trio called ‘champagne glow’ (pictured)which features soft pink, cool taupe and rich brown shades. It is my absolute favourite shadow. It has a very nice sheen to it, too.

The trio’s represent a base, the crease, and liner, so that you don’t have to think of what colors are needed to create very pretty eye effects. I purchased one for my mother as well, and she just loves it.

Because the eyeshadow is baked, it is much less likely to crumble and break. The baking of the shadows also makes the application much creamier and smoother. I have managed to drop my palette already, and to my luck it has remained intact.

The aluminum compacts are very stylish too. You can purchase these shadows at Sephora among other places, and they cost between $20 and $28 depending on the sheen factor. This is pricey when you compare it to drug store brands, but the difference in quality is very obvious. The shadow can also be applied wet with an eyeshadow liquifier.

The one thing I will note with these shadows is that the pallette tends to spin around in the container, so you have to be careful when you use your brush on it. I use MAC brushes to apply the shadow. You don’t need a lot on your brush as a little goes a long way.

Enjoy!

~Darleya~

I have not written a brand war in quite some time, simply because I haven’t thought of anything that was worthy of comparisons. Then there’s ketchup. I love ketchup. Ketchup goes on my burgers, hot dogs, grilled cheeses, and any meat that is not cooked to my liking.

Since I have been eating ketchup all my life, this brand war is a bit difficult, because the taste of Ketchup is the taste of Heinz Tomato Ketchup.  I’m trying very hard not to discriminate and will solely be describing the flavours.

President’s Choice Tomato Ketchup

This PC ketchup is always around 50 cents cheaper than Heinz when no specials are on. President’s Choice is a Loblaws company brand that typically manages to execute copied recipes very very well. The President’s choice ketchup does not quite hit the mark on taste. Although the ketchup lists the very same ingredients as Heinz, the flavour is a tad more bitter with less sweetness. I am guessing this means less vinegar and more sugar, but there’s some sort of odd after taste that reminds me of cloves for some reason. The exact listed ingredients are: Tomato paste, (made from fresh ripe tomatoes) liquid sugar, white vinegar, salt, seasonings. While the PC ketchup is not horrible, I won’t be buying it again, at 50 cents cheaper than Heinz.

Heinz Tomato Ketchup

The Heinz tomato ketchup seems to have the perfect balance of vinegar and sugar, which makes it quite irresistible to me. Its exact ingredients are: Tomato Concentrate From Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, Onion Powder, Spice, Natural Flavoring. Perhaps it is the added quality of their ingredients, and the fact that Heinz grows its own tomatoes to make its ketchup, but the taste of Heinz is rather imprinted in my taste buds as how ketchup is supposed to taste. Buying the other brands for this brand war has been difficult, because we’ve had to finish the ketchups from the other brands. Also, the Heinz ketchup website has a widget where you can squeeze a ketchup email to a friend. Try it here.

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Great Value tomato Ketchup

Walmart has its very own brand of Ketchup as well. The Great Value Ketchup is the cheapest of the three in this brand war. The Great Value ketchup differs the most in its ingredients: Tomato Concentrate, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Salt, Onion Powder, Spice, Natural Flavoring. It is much less healthy than the other two brands, however, I will say that the Great Value ketchup had a better taste than the President’s choice. I was the most skeptical about this brand, but after tasting it, I am more reluctant to try other ‘great value’ products. The difference for this one, is that it tastes a bit sweeter than the Heinz, which is likely attributable to the high fructose corn syrup. If you’re on a budget, then I’d recommend the great value ketchup since it is so far the closest taste to the real deal.

This brand war is slightly skewed, because I’m comparing the two different brands to the Heinz taste. I will say that the Walmart Great Value ketchup was much better than the president’s choice ketchup, which shocked me. It is much cheaper. Unless I’m on a tight budget I will keep buying Heinz, but it’s nice to know that I have options if the case were otherwise.

What do you put ketchup on?

~Darleya~

Willie and Juan’s is a fairly new restaurant that took the location of Mexicali Rosas at 2401 St-Joseph Blvd here in Orleans.

I was really excited when I first saw it, because hey, the name Juan is an authentic Latin name, this place MUST be good.

Unfortunately, I was highly mislead. Not only is this place  not authentic, but it is way overpriced with horrible service to boot.

The first time we went there, we went for lunch. While the service wasn’t horrible that day and just slow, the food was not good, and again, overpriced. We ordered the Chorizo entrée, and it was very very dry, with little to no flavour. I’ve cooked some mean chorizo sausages before, and this was crap. Handmade my ass!

The second time we went was for a friend’s birthday dinner. We were a large group of people. Some people arrived at varying times, but everyone was ordering drinks and appetizers until everyone got there.

I don’t understand how you can get snotty attitudes from servers and management when you’re spending a lot of money. The two just don’t go together in my eyes. They gave us evil looks like ‘how dare us cause them to work a little harder’. Some of us had to go to the bar to get a drink because they were not coming back. We weren’t even being rowdy. I mean, we were a bunch of 30-year olds, and two very young children that were being well-behaved.

When we finally ordered, they messed up many people’s dishes, and charged extra for things like hot sauce, when in most Mexican places, those things are unanimously free. I do not think that this was a one-time bad experience. I wasn’t one member of the staff, it was all of them.

I will not be going back there ever. Not only do I not recommend this place, but I pray that you do not go there, so we can finally get a decent Mexican place in Orleans. Until then, I will stick to my wonderful Pancho Villa downtown.

(side note- I saw the new Mexican Café on St-Joseph, but I have yet to try it so I’ll keep you posted)

~Darleya~

I have been eyeing the various Smuckers ice cream toppers for quite some time now. I mean, they just scream unhealthy and all, but, who doesn’t want some smooth syrup on their vanilla ice cream?

I went a little nuts and tried three different kinds because they were on sale.

Smucker’s Butterscotch

The Smuckers Butterscotch topping is my favourite out of the three. The sauce is thicker than the syrups. It’s very sweet, and goes very nicely with french vanilla ice cream.

One thing you should not do with this butterscotch topping, it top it on your ice cream cone. It seemed like a good idea at first, but, one little dabble goes a long way…down the side of your cone.

A sticky mess indeed.

I found a recipe that uses this butterscotch off the Smucker’s website that sounds very delicious that I’d love to try. Pumpkin Roll with Butterscotch Cream. Check it out and tell me that doesn’t sound devine.

Smucker’s Strawberry Sundae Syrup

The strawberry syrup was the one I was the most skeptical about, but, I bought it for my husband. I was actually pleasantly surprised by its flavour because I typically don’t like any artificially flavoured strawberry things.

This syrup tastes much closer to your average strawberry jam, which tastes like real strawberries. It was very flavourful, and again, very sweet.

I decided to find a recipe for this as well, and the smuckers website offers a few. They called this one, the Canada Day Strawberry Trifle, but, I think it would be delicious all summer long. It also looks very easy to make! Yummy.

Smucker’s Chocolate Sundae Syrup

The Smuckers chocolate sundae syrup was actually my least favourite of the three. I found that sort of tasted like Neslté’s Quick and perhaps a little too strong and not chocolaty enough.

It’s still better than having nothing on your vanilla ice cream.

The recipes aren’t as enticing either. I think I’ll try their microwaveable hot fudge topper next time.

These three smuckers ice cream toppers are not something that you give to your kids all the time, but, once in a while it’s a great treat to make them happy, or keep them quiet.

Enjoy!

~Darleya~

Grooveshark is an internationally available Internet-based free music provider. You can listen to full albums of streaming music for free simply by performing a search for your favourite artist or song.

The website is very user-friendly, and you don’t need to download anything in order to use their service. You can create and save as many playlists as you like if you create a free user account.
You can even steal your friend’s playlists if you know their usernames.

I like it especially for the office, because I get tired of the music I bring in, so like this, I can continue to be entertained while working by listening to brand new music.

I highly recommend this website, especially if you can listen to music at work, and have access to the Internet. It’s wonderful, and it’s free! There are no lags, you’d think you were listening to the CDs themselves.

For more information about Grooveshark, check out their wiki page here.

You can look up my playlists under username ‘stuffedashes’.

Enjoy!

~Darleya~

When I first tried Eden by PixelJunk on the PS3 I was both baffled and awed. This game is incredibly beautiful, yet at first glance you don’t really know what you have to do.