There's a local dairy just up the road from my house, maybe a mile away. In the summer time it's quite a treat to go over there for a refreshing ice cream cone. Delicious stuff. They also, of course, have milk. I've been wanting to start getting my milk from there, for a few reasons. First, they're local and I always prefer to support that. They also don't use hormones and steroids on their cows. I prefer that as well, just like I would choose an organic apple if possible. But, as you can probably guess, their milk is more expensive than my standard Walmart brand milk. Would the switch be worth it? Scientific research to the rescue!

I acquired a gallon of 2% milk from both Reed's Dairy and Walmart. I like my milk as creamy as possible. How can I say no to cream? The answer is, I can't, of course. I poured about 2 ounces of each in small glasses each labeled on the bottom. Due to the opaqueness of the milk, I had no way to see the label. I then had my wife mix them up while I closed my eyes.

Visually I couldn't tell them apart. Both were white and milky, imagine that. They both smelled the same. It really all boiled down to taste, as you would probably expect give the extent the FDA has its fingers in the milk supply. Basically they tasted the same, but one had a creamier and richer flavor. It wasn't strong or overwhelming, but noticable. Unsurprisingly the creamier one was from Reed's Dairy.

I haven't fully contemplated the ramifications of this test. The taste was definitely enough that I could differentiate even on cereal or drinking with dinner. All things being equal, I would prefer the Reed's Dairy milk. The problem I find is that I don't really care to make a separate trip just for milk, especially considering how much milk we consume with 2 little tikes.

The solution might be home delivery. I'm just not sure how much it costs. I've asked each of the last two times I've been in for a price schedule but both times they've only had the out-of-town list, which is no help to me. Their website is a little pathetic in this regard as well. Until I find out just how much that would cost, it's a no-go for me. We'll see when I can finally find time to give a call over there during the day. Maybe Tuesday when I've got the day off. That's a good idea. Thanks, I thought so too. You're so smart. Oh, I know.

This is the first in a new category which you may or may not have noticed, named Taste Tests where I pit two or more products head to head to see which is really the best. I've been doing this off and on for the last few years. My goal is to save money on no-name brands where taste makes no difference but spend the big bucks where it really does. Like when you buy butter instead of margarine, or shiitake mushrooms instead of button mushrooms. On with the show!

Yesterday I tried out a new (to me) recipe for tortilla soup. It turned out quite delicious by the way, despite my initial fears that it was lacking in the seasonings department. The calls for 4 cups of chicken stock or broth. We were at the dreaded Walmart picking up supplies and I couldn't decide whether to get the Swanson's or the Great Value (cheap Walmart brand). Since I needed two 14.5 ounce cans, I grabbed one of each.

To test I poured small amounts (since I needed the rest for the soup) into two small glasses. One had cute flowers on it so they were easy to differentiate. My wife warmed them up in the microwave since generally (always?) chicken broth will be eaten warm. I closed my eyes and she gave me the glasses one at a time.

The first one had a nice round taste. Not too much of anything, and certainly not too salty which was my primary fear. I probably could have enjoyed a bowl of that with some noodles and called it lunch.

The second had some good flavors, don't get me wrong, but my first reaction upon taste was "gimme the other one back". I took a few sips but couldn't identify what it was that I didn't like. It wasn't salt, that would have been too easy. The flavors just didn't marry well. The only way I can think to describe it is with music. Go play a nice C chord. That was the first sample. Now add an F#. That's the second one. You can still pick out the nice sound, but you would much rather it stop.

The result? The second was Great Value. I should have (and did) guess based on the package. Swanson's is just so much more appetizing. And we all know that old story about a book and its cover. "Don't eat a book or its cover. Have some Swanson's chicken broth instead."

You may recall a while back I reviewed Alton Brown's book, Gear For Your Kitchen. There was a great little recipe in there for grilled pizza. Often when I read food books I will skim over the recipes, but never pay them much attention. That's was the case with Ruth Reichel's book (which it appears I never finished reviewing), but not so with AB. I made this one on an electric skillet and it was good.

Then my wife and I watched America's Test Kitchen make their version. It was pretty similar. I mean, how many ways can you drape a dough on a grill and call it pizza? They emphasized that the dough has to be rather thick and chewy to stay afloat on the grate, and that you have to be careful not to overload the pizza with too many toppings, especially wet ones like tomatoes, since the cooking time is so short.

We had some friends over the other day and cooked grilled pizzas for them. This time we got to use the real deal, our new 45,000 BTU grill. It's every boy's dream to cook with real live fire.

The toppings included mozzarella cheese, finely diced tomatoes, garden fresh spinach, and mushrooms. We also made a cheese and pepporoni pizza just for the kids (following Michael Chu's recommendation of microwaving the pepperoni to remove excess grease.

Preparation is simple enough. Roll out the dough. Wait, you need the dough recipe? OK, here's your ingredients. 1 pound flour, 1 package yeast, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 tablespoon sugar. Mix. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 cup hot water. Knead well, rise for an hour and a half.

Now you've got your dough rolled out into oblong shapes (let's face it, who can make round pizzas?). Coat one side with oil (I go cheap and just use canola). Lay oil side down on the grill. Paste on another coat of oil on the top side. Cook until it gets a nice color. Flip. Now add a layer of garlic and olive oil, and then any toppings you want. Chris Kimball says to put the cheese down first, but I found cheese last works better. Because the dough is already cooked and the toppings don't have much moisture, they tend to slide off. The cheese holds them in place nicely.

As I was shopping last week, I needed another meal to fill in an empty spot on our calendar. A cute little pork loin roast struck my eye. Surprisingly my local Walmart carries a nice line of delicious, hormone-free pork products from Salmon Creek Farms out of Twin Falls. I've long been a fan of their ribs, which it appears I also need to post about.

I made up a wet rub of garlic (lots!), brown mustard, brown sugar, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, and thyme. I meant to add some olive oil as well, but I ran out yesterday making pizza (yes, I've got pictures. Hold your horses!). Slathered the rub on and let it site for a few hours. I really should have brined the roast too. I always forget that.

Then I moved it to the grill, seared it on high for a few minutes each side and cooked it at ~300 degrees for an hour and a half. It smelled divine. The meat was somewhat dry, hence the need for brining. It needed some sort of sauce or gravy to accompany it. We ended up using just the brown mustard, which was good I guess. Helped with the dryness.

The accompaniment was a fresh pasta salad. It was hard to stop tossing stuff in. I think we finally settled on grilled kielbasa, ham, hard-boiled egg, mushrooms, spinach (from my garden, no less), green pepper, tomatoes, and colby jack and mozzarella cheese. Topped it with a vinegarette of canola oil (remember, I'm out of olive oil), garlic, parsley, basil, red wine vinegar and cider vinegar. We used to make this stuff out of a box, I think it was "Suddenly Salad". That stuff is crap compared to my salad. And these were all leftovers, so it was quite economical too.

Following the Unified Theory of Cheesecake (don't forget the crust), I put together a nice treat yesterday. Actually it was my birthday cake. It was based off 16oz of cream cheese and I put it in a 9 inch round pie pan. I really like the idea of using a spring form pan, but alas I have no such item in my house.

The only complication was that I forgot to start until way too late. We cut the cake after it had been in the fridge for only 3 hours. It was cool throughout and I didn't notice any problems. It cut just fine and the slices came free of the pan in one beautiful piece.