Over the weekend I invited my friends Emily and Alissa to come over and have a quiet little tasting party of President’s Choice products from their Holiday Insider’s Reports. They were all hot appetizers which I made one by one as we sampled and talked about the products throughout the day.
PC Dim Sum Hors D’oeuvre Collection
We love to go out for Asian food together so I thought the perfect place to start was with the PC Dim Sum Hors D’oeuvre Collection. I had no idea at the time that I started with the most complicated of the appetizers!
You get two trays of 4 Shrimp Sui Mai, Chicken and Shrimp Har Gao dumplings for $7.99 (+800 pts).
You also set a sesame-soy sauce for dipping. To defrost both the dumplings and the sauce you need to submerge the unopened tray and the sauce for around 5 minutes in hot water. The tray kept floating so I had to anchor it down with my big container of salt.
You will also need a steamer to make the dim sum. Kudos to them for being so authentic but what if you do not have a steamer?
I will say the presentation is very elegant and sophisticated. Not bad for dim sum at home with very little work!
We enjoyed the shrimp dumplings but found the chicken (in photo above) was quite chewy, under seasoned and the meat was ground too fine. Too bad considering this is the only one Reg might have tried! I did like the shrimp ones a lot and considering I have not been out for dim sum since a visit to Vancouver over seven years ago? This was a treat. I give this product four out of five wooden spoons. It is not as good as going out but for those who can’t? Definitely a good second choice.
I did not think I was going to be impressed by the PC Coconut Chicken Lollipops. So many times I have tried “coconut” something-or-other and there is so little coconut flavour. I thought to myself, a box of 14 for $9.99 (+1000 pts)? It better be good!
Damn it, they are good! Really good and I can taste the coconut clearly. Not only that, Reg adored these and he had them for dinner one night, LOL. So now of course I have to come up with my own recipe for coconut chicken.
This product is made with chicken breast meat marinated in red Thai curry sauce and is wrapped in a crispy coconut breading. The sweet Thai chili sauce that comes with it worked great with the subtle heat in the chicken. It just pushed it over the edge.
I do have one complaint though. The skewers they are on are very sharp. To have the second piece of meat you have to bite it off sideways or else it is a real health hazard. I personally would not serve these to kids on the skewer. But other than that? They are perfect! I give these four and a half out of five wooden spoons. Safety first people!
I had the PC Sushi Bites at the PC Points Holiday Party last week. I must admit, had I not tried them ahead of time I may not have picked them up for my little party. Cooked sushi? Are they mad?!
In one box you get 12 sushi bites, six scallop and six shrimp. I did not realize until later they are divided up in separate bags so we ended up only taste testing the shrimp bites at the party. A box of 12 is $6.99 (+800 points) which is pretty cheap in comparison to buying a platter of fresh sushi.
You just bake them up and top with the thawed mild wasabi cream that comes in the box.
Crispy hot sushi with creamy wasabi? I was a huge skeptic but OMG, these are delicious! You of course have to be a seafood lover to appreciate this product but let’s just say I ate all the scallops bites for dinner last night with lots of creamy wasabi. I hope they sell these all year. I will eat them… All year.
The crispy breading of the bites contrasted with the moist seafood and the added creamy mild tang of the wasabi make the Sushi Bites unbelievably delicious. This product gets five out of five wooden spoons.
PC Moroccan Cigars Hors D’oeuvres
To continue the exotic flavour tasting we finished with PC Moroccan Cigars Hors D’oeuvres. You get 2 trays of 9 spiced beef pastries for $9.99 (+1000 pts). Hand rolled made with beef, cinnamon and cumin, these are easily prepared in the oven for finger food at your holiday party.
They do not come with a dipping sauce so I used the sweet Thai chili sauce from the chicken which I know, is not half as appropriate than making the pomegranate dipping sauce recipe from their site but I did not have time to do that.
These are unusual and definitely tasty and delicious but I feel a tad over-priced, especially since they are the only item that I tried that did not come with a sauce but obviously should have one. I also really hate the branding of “cigars” (and they are actually way too small to be a cigar so the analogy does not really work) and then eating it. I just think this type of marketing is unappetizing and outdated. I know they are rolled by hand but that is where the similarity stops, thank goodness.
I give this product three out of five wooden spoons.
I want to say thank you to Emily and Alissa for coming and sharing this experience with me! Because of my fibromyalgia, it is rare that I can host anything. Chronic pain and exhaustion just are not good ingredients for being a good host but President’s Choice made that easy for me.
Thank you President’s Choice for helping me feed my guests with your fabulous new products. They were all impressive, exotic and pretty darn fabulous. You have now made me obsessed with sushi even more and you inspired me to come up with my own fantastic coconut chicken. You really made throwing a little party doable for me and for that, I am so grateful.
Mmmm, they all sound good!
They were! A little here and there but overall, as usual, PC impressed us! It was such a fun and delicious day. Could not have done it without some help from the grocery store.