Cottage Country
When you’re livin’ life on the road, like we are these days, sometimes it’s hard to make healthy food choices. They don’t exactly serve the most nutritious meals in airports or hotels, and when you’re on the go, rushing from point A to point B, it’s pretty easy to “default” to high-fat, high-sugar snack foods. For example, before our appearances at the shopping channel, our snack choices in the waiting room consist of chips (Philly Cheese Steak flavour!), pop, coffee, cookies (the chocolate chip cookies are the BEST!), and sometimes apples or bananas, if you’re quick enough to grab one.
Since I didn’t want to pack on 10 pounds during my 10 days on the road, I decided to clear out the mini bar in my hotel room (I mean empty it, not consume it!) and stock it full of healthy stuff that’ll hold me over between meals. My first purchase? Breakstone’s 2% Small Curd Low-fat Cottage Cheese, a product that I’ve only found in the US* but that I know would FLY off store shelves in Canada if available. Even people who aren’t fans of cottage cheese love the small-curd kind. It’s like a cross between regular cottage cheese and ricotta. Really small little lumps and not lots of the watery goop that I don’t like. It comes in 4-packs of small, yogurt-like containers, or in bigger (1-cup and 2-cup) containers that would be great for lasagna or other recipes. To me, it’s the perfect breakfast along with my daily banana (love bananas!). I like that it’s low-fat (2.5 g), a good source of protein (11 g), and low in carbs (6 g), plus there’s only 90 calories per container.
Breakstone also makes a fabulous “sister” product to the small-curd cottage cheese called Cottage Doubles. Again, a GREAT product that we can’t buy at home. I really think kids would go nuts for Cottage Doubles and they’d be the perfect addition to school lunches. Cottage Doubles come in a shallow, bowl-like container with 80% of the container filled with small-curd cottage cheese, while another separate compartment, about 20% of the container, contains a yummy (somewhat sugary) fruit puree of either blueberries, raspberries, peaches, strawberries, or pineapple. The sugary fruit part is just enough to give the cottage cheese a hit of sweetness and fruit flavour, and the nutritional numbers are excellent, too (about 150 calories, 2.5 g fat, 14 g protein). I say we sign a petition to bring Cottage Doubles and the small-curd cottage cheese to Canada!! They’d be a staple with members of Weight Watchers, for sure. Breakstone is actually a Kraft company, and I’ve attached a link to their Cottage Doubles web page. I’m sending them an e-mail right now!
Here’s the web page: http://www.kraftfoods.com/breakstones/doubles.html
*My sister Janet says that one Loblaws store in Ottawa carries Breakstone cottage cheese in their Kosher department. Why not everywhere else in Canada then?
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Suzanne | May 31, 2006 at 1:29 pm →
I tried cottage cheese once, and it tasted awful! This might’ve been because it was warm and mixed with syrupy, canned fruit. How exactly are you supposed to eat cottage cheese? Alone? Sounds bland. With fruit? Been there. Please help!
Emily | June 8, 2008 at 1:54 am →
Eat it on bread or some flavoured cracker with some sliced tomato, cucumber and some lettuce. It has a mild flavour and its good with sliced apple too. The mixture you mention sounds gross.
Ola S. | June 8, 2008 at 11:06 am →
I also recommend eating with with yummy homemade French toast, instead of putting maple syrup on it. (Although a bit of maple syrup AND cottage cheese taste just divine as well!) Maybe this sounds less than appetizing, maybe it’s an acuired taste, but I LOVE it! Give it a try!