Frito Lay #HLS Recap

Friday morning I met up with a bunch of bloggers to head on over the The Reading Terminal Market for a behind the scenes with Frito-Lay and their head Chef Stephen. This was my first blogger meet up and of course I was slightly nervous but I was instantly comfortable with this group and my nervousness quickly disappeared. I recognized a few people from twitter like @therunningjewess who I have interacted with on multiple occasions, so it was pretty nice to meet the people behind the blogs and twitter handles.

We walked over to the test kitchen at The Reading Terminal Market at about 10 am where we first got to learn some interesting facts about Frito-Lay before the real fun began…the cooking and tasting!

 

Frito-Lay has made a point of trying to make their snacks healthier than other brands. They use healthier oils, less salt and all-natural ingredients in a majority of their products.

 

Frito Lay products are better than you would think and they are committed to making their products as healthy as possible. I also like the fact that they have added dual labeling to their small-medium bags of chips. Dual labeling not only provides the nutritional information for the serving size but also the entire package, this way you know what you are consuming when you eat it all without having to break out the calculator to figure it out.

After learning about Frito-Lay we then had the pleasure of meeting Chef Stephen who is their executive chef. Chef Stephen uses real recipes like Garden Tomato and Basil Soup to create the flavors we taste in their chips. Our first tasting consisted of this recipe side by side with Lay’s Garden Tomato and Basil Chips and guess what….the flavor was exactly the same which was pretty amazing. Thinking of a flavor is the easy part but taking that flavor and translating it into a chip is pure genius.

 

 

Chef Stephen cooked up a Red Coconut Curry Sauce and a Green Coconut Curry sauce, both were delicious and picking just one proved to be difficult but I settled on the red one although I would absolutely make both sauces again. These sauces will be fantastic with chicken and rice and I can’t wait to try them out!!

 

Next up was caramelized onions 2 different ways served with SunChips.  One one side we had caramelized onions made in butter with a little balsamic vinegar, Parmesan cheese and Provolone cheese.   On the other side we had caramelized onions made in olive oil with Goat cheese and herb.  Both were fantastic but I preferred the caramelized onions made in the butter….must be the Paula Dean in me!!

Next was an avocado hummus with roasted pumpkin seeds.  Basically instead of chickpeas Chef Stephen used avocados and blended all the ingredients in the food processor until they were smooth, then he topped the hummus with the roasted pumpkin seeds….can you say yum!!  The avocado hummus was served with Tostitos Roasted Garlic and Black Bean tortilla chips from their Artisan Recipes line….these chips rocked!

Last up was a Bruschetta Quinoa Salad and it was out of this world.  I had have made quinoa in the past with very little success, it basically has tasted like nothing but this salad was awesome.  I am looking forward to testing it out on my hubby because he says he hates quinoa and I know he will love this salad, I practically licked the plate clean.

The quinoa salad was the perfect ending to the demonstration.  Chef Stephen was great, he cooked us some great food and exuded passion about what he does for Frito-Lay.  We concluded the demo with some pics, a great swag bag and a bunch of chips….plus a few great recipes.  Thanks Frito-Lay for having us!!

Make sure you stop by and check out Frito-Lay’s website, they have a ton of great info and recipes.  I also received permission to reprint all the great recipes I tasted so I will get that post up soon, if you’d like a recipe sooner just shoot me an email and I’d be happy to send them to you!!!

My next post will recap my day in Philly and the HLS cocktail party!!!

 

 

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