Margaret, Author at The Impulsive Buy

REVIEW: General Mills Peanut Butter Toast Crunch Cereal

January 10, 2013December 24, 2020 Margaret 22 Comments

A semi-reliable airplane magazine article recently informed me that Americans munch somewhere around 700 million pounds of peanuts per year, which would theoretically cover the floor of the Grand Canyon.

I don’t know who (Farmer? Intern? The spokes-peanut of Planters?) figured out that statistic, but I’m grateful, not just for the relief of mathematical anxiety I held regarding the square footage required in the peanut-to-Grand Canyon ratio, but also to be enlightened on this high degree of national support for the peanut.

Having served duty in everything from Thai peanut satay to Snickers, the peanut is one noble and versatile legume. It was with this nobility in mind that, at the cusp of my New Year, I decided it my goal to ferry my fair share of this national statistic on peanut ingestion, and what better place to begin than with General Mills’ Peanut Butter Toast Crunch.

No, you’re not having déjà vu (unless that particular “vu” had something to do with me telling you you’re not having déjà vu, which, in that case: you’re having déjà vu! How exciting!). General Mills released a version of this smack-daddy back in 2004, which was soon discontinued.

Despite this seedy past, the squares have returned in what hopes to be a reformulation of their retired counterpart, and, indeed, things are kicking off on the right foot as the reliable Cinnamon Toast Crunch mascot, Wendell, seems to be overseeing all the necessary preparations for this cereal in his underground Toast Lair.

It’s like the Bat Cave, but with industrial strength Hamilton Beach toasters.

Hope seems to stand in the form of redemption, and it is with this in mind that I rip open the bag before me…

Holy frosted mountains majesty submerged in amber waves of grain! These actually taste like peanut butter! Roasted peanut butter! The volcanic puff of peanuts that eschews from this bag literally pulls your hand (if not your full head) straight down into the crunchy carbohydrate squares within. Do not be ashamed of this maneuver.

Each little square has the hint of a salty-sweet balance I so yearn for in a peanut butter while still being just a tinge sweeter than smo-joe peanut butter straight from the jar. This is a good thing as, if there is anything that Steven Spielberg’s cinematic endeavors have taught me over the years, it’s that nearly everyone, even short little extra terrestrials, likes peanut butter a little sweet. I dare say that wobbly little alien friend of a younger Drew Barrymore just might swap his one-note Reese’s Pieces for the nutty, crunchy goodness delivered by Wendell here.

Wendell: encouraging extra terrestrial diplomatic relations.

“Crusty” is not a term that often denotes tasty, but here, crusty is da bomb diggity. What with each little square coming with a generous coating of its peanut-butter-sugar layer, these little squares are crusty as Quint from Jaws in that cool one-eyed, heroic sailor type of way.

As for the shape, they look similar to their Cinnamon Toast kin, which is to say they look like little brown rugs. I was going to say I would cover my flooring with a Peanut Butter Toast Crunch rug, but then I’d walk all over it and that would crush the cereal and then couldn’t eat it and that would make me sad. There is no need for sadness here.

If you’re a milk explorer, I’m happy to say that these did fair in the 8-minute milk test, where they shed their sugar coatings (tears of sorrow) while still sustaining a semi-spoonable structure (yay!). Eventually, however, these do succumb to the inevitable break-apart into the liquid. Oh, how I yearn for a grain that does not dissolve in milk. Where’s an atom re-arranger when you need one?

If you’re feeling like it’s a special day, chocolate or strawberry milk pairs well for spoon-related endeavors. Or better yet, pour mocha in there to ensure a kick-in-the-rear that would provide you drum-bangin’ powers that surpass those of the Energizer bunny even if you’re not musically inclined.

No question: these little reformulated squares charmed the mismatched socks offa’ me. It’s like Christmas returned for an encore. They are a smidge hard to find, but I hold hopes that they will spread soon enough as these are destined to go hand-in-hand in the degree of quality and love I hold for Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch and Reese’s Puffs, which both serve me dutifully on the days that cereal consists of 80 percent of my diet.

(Nutrition Facts – 3/4 cup – 120 calories, 25 calories from fat, 3 grams of fat, 0.5 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 75 mg of potassium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 8 grams of sugars, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: General Mills Peanut Butter Toast Crunch Cereal
Purchased Price: $2.97 (on sale)
Size: 12 ounce box
Purchased at: Harris Teeter
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Tastes of peanut butter. Crunchy. Crusty. Encourages extra terrestrial diplomatic relations. A Bat Cave of toasters. One-eyed sailors. Banging a huge drum.
Cons: Not as great in milk. Tough to find. Mathematical anxiety. Too many references to Steven Spielberg.

REVIEW: YoCrunch Vanilla Nonfat Yogurt with Mott’s Strawberry Applesauce

January 3, 2013December 24, 2020 Margaret 1 Comment

(Margaret stands alone, staring up at the dairy aisle. Her mom patters behind her, shopping for holiday groceries. Mom spots the yogurt product standing before her daughter, stops, leans in, and whispers)

MOM: “You sure you wanna do that?”

MARGARET: “No…but I will.”

And with that, I grabbed the box of four compartmentalized containers of congealed dairy product, swiped through the self-checkout, snapped into my car, and shot into the mid-day sky like Bruce Willis on a day when he feels he’s going to Die Hard, faced with nothing but the great destiny that lay ahead. A destiny shrouded in mystery, nuance and…applesauce.

(Cue a rapidly conducted orchestra of violins suited for an action film à la Hans Zimmer)

Applesauce.

Yogurt.

Two ingredients, both alike in dignity, and, despite the mind-boggling, candy-coated, granola-filled, extra-fruitinated conundrum that is the yogurt aisle these days, it was with this dignity in mind that I pursued this new thrust into the foray of yogurt varietals.

I noticed that the size of the cups was four ounces, which is but a wee little lass in comparison with the six-ounce containers I’m accustomed to. In fact, I almost didn’t go for it, but then I realized: dad-gum, it’s cute, and, like the big eyes of a beagle puppy, I could not resist. Could. Not. Resist.

I like vanilla yogurt. I have a secret affair with sugar cookies. I yearn for strawberries in January as Marcia Brady yearned for Davy Jones. Indeed, with so many qualities going for it, things were on the upside for this yogurt cup as I peeled back the aluminum covering to reveal…

Taupe.

A controversial color, indeed. It is the color of hotel lobbies and stale hospital waiting rooms. However, it is also the color of winter scarves and hamburger buns and those crummy kindergarten clay animal sculptures I tried to make (Was it a hippo? Was it a giraffe? We’ll never know…). This said, perhaps, taupe is a color of potential.

There it is, in all its taupe-like potential.

That kinda darker taupe swirl is the applesauce and, indeed, this tastes of applesauce. The applesauce itself had a little bit of a citrus somethin’ somethin’ with a hint of strawberry at the end, which is a nice little zing-pow-zam for you comic-book-sound-effects lovers. The texture of the applesauce blends well with the yogurt, maintaining a smooth consistency, although the vanilla, the sensitive flavor it is, seems to be lost in the midst of the apple.

Now, on to the cookies.

I’ll give it to you, YoCrunch: you give me lots of toppings. Over the years, you’ve nourished me with a scandalous mélange of edible “garnishes.” Like Oreos. And Reeses Pieces. And Oreos (wait…did I already say that?). And now, ye bringeth me these crumbly bits of a sugar cookie, which are good. Super good. Like makes-me-want-to-dance-the-whatoosie good (a miraculous and terrifying sight, indeed…). It would be great if you went into the cereal business and made this into a cereal. Could you do that for me, YoCrunch?

My love for these cookies was quashed by my own hand as I made the terrible mistake of stirring the cookies into the yogurt, resulting in a gloppy mess that tasted vaguely of cabinet shavings coated in strained milk product. Be warned, fellow eaters: do not mix your cookies in yogurt!

If you have a little pocket in your heart for the humble applesauce and desire to treat your cookies with respect (and I know you do), I recommend you pursue your yogurt cup using my newly developed 3-Step Cookie Pouring Technique (patent pending):

Step 1: After opening yogurt and stirring applesauce around, pour half the cookies on top.

Step 2: Without mixing the cookies, eat first half of the container.

Step 3: Now, pour the rest of the cookies on top of the bottom half of the yogurt and scoop-and-crunch away.

This will ensure you both cookie enjoyment and a non-mushy crunch with every vitamin-A-and-D-filled bite you take.

Despite their drab color and small size, these little cups offer a great deal to the world of apple yogurt. Indeed, they are the closest dairy product I’ve found to emulate an apple crumble in a factory-sealed plastic cup, and their size makes them easy to take anywhere, granting you the official right to enjoy one of these suckers whenever you like. It’s not quite dessert and not quite filling enough for a snack either, which makes it just right for any freakin’ time you want some smooth apple yogurt and cookies. A true embodiment of the philosophy that great things need not come in large packages.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup (with cookie topping) – 110 calories, 40 calories from fat, 1.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 55 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, Less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 16 grams of sugars, and 3 grams of protein.)

Item: YoCrunch Vanilla Nonfat Yogurt with Mott’s Strawberry Applesauce
Purchased Price: $2.58
Size: 1 box/4cups
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Smooth texture. Delicious cookie crumbles. Vitamins A and D. Good ratio of applesauce to yogurt. A little strawberry zing. Comic book sound effects. Dancing the whatoosie. Kindergarten clay sculptures.
Cons: Small size. Vanilla flavor seems absent. Food that taste like soggy cabinet shavings. Taupe. Hospital waiting rooms. Too many Die Hard films.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Special K Fudge Brownie Bites

December 26, 2012December 24, 2020 Margaret 16 Comments

Sometimes you’re waiting at the ATM or buying a plunger or watching movers carry a divan into the lobby of an apartment complex and a brownie craving just plum rises out of the Earth’s crust, willing and ready to swallow you in a single gulp, and there you sit, defenses bare, without a bakery, grocery, or Easy Bake Oven in sight. What’re you to do?

Fret not, dear reader, for the hope of relief rests in sight, and it cometh in the form of a 0.74-ounce purple baggie.

Saturday was an exciting day: we survived the Mayan apocalypse, dodged a passing asteroid, and lived to see another National Haiku Day (and what’s more fun than short poetic verse??). In hopes to celebrate all these wonders in a fiscally realistic economic exchange, I skipped-the-doo-da-day down to the local supercenter and found these new-fangled Special K Fudge Brownie Bites.

Prior to opening my factory-sealed satchel, I noticed the special emphasis Mr. Kellogg stamped on the portion represented here.

Hmmm…

Considering the amount of Photoshopping that went in to that picture, I visualized myself opening the bag to find two, maybe three, dinky brownie nubs that would more likely than not remind me of hamster food. Nonetheless, I closed my eyes and reached in…

“Como?!” I uttered under my breath.

These were not the brownie shrapnel I feared. Quite the contrary, they were chewy without a wisp of a factory-sealed grease coating in sight. I was so surprised by my spontaneous bout into brownie-inspired Spanish expression that I had to try another.

And another.

Ten anothers later, I realized I had eaten the whole bag. After conducting an in-depth psychological analysis and setting my results against years of previous research, I am proud to conclude that these are, indeed, fudge-like in texture, which is an accomplishment in any regard. It got me thinking, “Gee willikers, I wish there were a superhero made of brownies.”

Luckily, I had five more bags of these, so I made one.

Indeed, his name is Brownie Man. He has a theme song:

Brownie Man, Brownie Man
Quicker than
A minivan
Not Raisin Bran
Or made of flan
He’s Brownie Man.

One of Brownie Man’s greatest strengths is his convenience. The compact size of these nifty little pouches leads me to believe I could take these brownies just about anywhere. To the hardware store. In a submarine. Lumberjacking through the dense Canadian woods. In fact, due to the compact size and easy disposal, I’m about 87 percent sure they would make excellent space food.

Of course, if you’re not a lumberjack or deep-space explorer, I am pleased to announce how excellently these fit in a lunchbox.

Sometimes, I crave a homemade, straight-out-of-the-oven brownie filled with milk chocolate chips that, when pulled, form molten lava ribbons. Other times, I covet a simple, no-fuss brownie that comes in a cellophane bag and requires absolutely no effort other than rip, pluck, and chew. These Brownie Bites fulfill the second.

That said, texture reigns far over flavor here. If you find yourself with a hardcore, exclusive-batch, better-than-the-original-Star-Wars brownie craving, these may not fulfill your inner needs (and, really, what can when talking about the original Star Wars?), but, for those who are just looking for a chewy packaged brownie or, if you’re like me and missing those Hostess Brownie Bites (oh, lonely Hostess, where has your pastry magic gone?!), these are a rainbow of light, guiding the map to a chewy treasure.

So follow the brownie brick road.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bag – 100 calories, 40 calories from fat, 4 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 60 milligrams of sodium, 14 grams of carbohydrates, Less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 7 grams of sugars, and 1 gram of protein..)

Item: Kellogg’s Special K Fudge Brownie Bites
Purchased Price: $2.50
Size: 1 box/6 pouches
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Soft. Chewy. Lots of little brownies per bag. Lumberjacks. Spontaneous Spanish expressions of delight. Surviving the apocalypse. Space explorers. Haikus.
Cons: Faint on the chocolate flavor. Excessive photoshopping. Not having an Easy Bake Oven when you need one. Buying a plunger.

REVIEW: Kashi Chocolate Almond Butter Soft-Baked Cookies

December 17, 2012August 12, 2023 Margaret 7 Comments

Some mornings, I wake up and make a list of the things I could do to be a better person:

1. Learn to play the bagpipes.
2. Engineer a machine that cures allergies.
3. Prove that a Hadamard matrix exists for every positive multiple of 4.

Somewhere down that list, I eventually land on the inevitable, “Eat more whole grains.”

Ah, yes, whole grains: the former foundation of the food pyramid (prior to its 2000 re-fashioning) and topic pressed by nutritionists, early morning talk shows, and grandmoms alike, and, well, grandma knows best. While I still love my white bread and peanut butter sandwiches, no doubt more whole grains are gonna help me live longer, so, if I find a product that fulfills my grainy requirement in the form of a baked goodie, you can bet I’m on-board.

This is where Kashi cookies came into my life. Aisle 7. Tip top shelf. There it was. In shining bold letters.

“Whole Grains”!

First, I would like to take a moment of appreciation for this packaging. Like a miniature treasure hunt, these cookies are housed in a package within a wrapper within a box and let’s face it: there is no replacement for the utter joy brought about by ripping open a box then ripping open another package. It builds that bubbling, anticipatory suspense… slowly…slowly… until…

Boom.

There it is. 8 little cookies all in a row.

Now, the gloves come off: it’s tasting time.

Well, slap me sideways and call me Cabbage McPhee. There are whole grains everywhere in this cookie. Inside each of these eight hockey-puck-shaped wonders is the dense, rocky road of Cookieland. Those classic “7 Kashi Grains” take up the majority of the cookie. The chew is a little too texturally challenging for my cookie preferences, but, if you’re a texture kid, pull out your adventure hat and hop in the Jeep Wrangler. This is an off-roadin’ cookie.

This cookie’s flavors are much like a night of good jazz improv: all the components support one another. The nuttiness of those grains plays the bass beside the almond butter while the cocoa plays the saxophone, highlighting all that roasty-toasty swing (plus, who doesn’t want to play the saxophone?). It all comes together, with the chocolate being the main highlight and a hint of salty-sweet almonds at the end.

And did I mention there are chocolate chips? There are. And they’re especially soft. And especially good after microwaving the cookie for 5 seconds. Especially good.

Each cookie packs a double-punch of almonds with both almond butter in the cookie batter and whole almonds poking out from the jagged terrain of each crumbly offering. There were no noticeable almond butter swirls, but I was cool with that. The almonds echoed enough in the flavor that I trusted there was some almond butter in there doing its job.

While these rocked on taste combination, my particular box seemed to be suffering from a “Dry and Tough” disease. (Sad face) Although it wasn’t the soft chew I was hoping for, there was something I was rather fond of that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, so I ate another while listening to Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker in hopes that a holiday musical muse might descend from above and enlighten me. It was right in the middle of the “Waltz of the Snowflakes” that I realized (with a particularly dramatic gasp): these are cakey granola bars! In cylindrical hockey-puck form!

Talk about a way to energize the mid-day snack attack: whole grains, chocolate, and a recyclable box, which, after you dispose of said receptacle at your local recycling center, will give you good karma in days to come.

Within us all rests a desire to explore, and it seems the folks at Kashi channeled that urge into a cookie. While the multiple grains befuddled my child-like taste buds, I admire Kashi for what they’re doing. They like their 7 whole grains and, by gum, they’re not about to change them for anyone. There’s something admirable in embracing who/what you are and not being afraid to hide it, no matter what the cost.

At the same time, I do believe that these cookies could benefit from a tweak to the recipe that would allow them to transform from a tough granola-bar-like product into a softer cookie-like product, and I have faith that the good people at Kashi can and will do just that. In the words of that terrible 1990s parody of Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, “Never give up. Never Surrender.”

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cookie – 130 calories, 45 calories from fat, 5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 4 gram of dietary fiber, 7 grams of sugars, and 3 grams of protein.)

Item: Kashi Chocolate Almond Butter Soft-Baked Cookies
Purchased Price: $2.50 (on sale)
Size: 1 box/8 cookies
Purchased at: Harris Teeter
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Chunks of chocolate. Almonds and almond butter. Whole grains. Good karma from recycling. Learning to play the bagpipes.
Cons: Tough. Dry. A bit crumbly. References to poorly made 90s movies. The re-fashioned food pyramid. Not figuring out if a Hadamard matrix exists for every positive multiple of 4.

REVIEW: 3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa with Marshmallow Minis

November 27, 2012August 25, 2023 Margaret 6 Comments

Lethargy and laze with a high chance of napping.

These are the symptoms of the post-Thanksgiving coma.

Despite my foreknowledge of said tryptophan comatose, I remained surprised when I awoke last Friday with enough mental fog to cause a Los Angeles brownout. In a moment of clarity, I thumped down to the forgiving lights of the local Kmart in search of a cure.

Thankfully, the shelves were stocked to the brim with an abundance of seasonal sucrose offerings promising the sugar rush needed to counteract my case of the Thanksgiving Sleepies. Seeing as this is the time of year I find new ways to sneak a mug of hot chocolate into my daily schedule, it seemed fitting to initiate my cure with a shiny new bag of 3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa Minis.

Nothing like a bag of sugary polyhedra to snap me wide awake.

Each mini comes in the form of a little 25-calorie cube, which, in my mind, makes them multi-taskers. They’re just the right size for snacking, sharing, or plopping between graham crackers. They would also make perfect checker/chess pieces. That way, when you whoop your opponent, you can also eat his/her pieces.

I could also see them serving as excellent Lincoln Logs.

3 Musketeers: fueling the minds for a new generation of architects.

The outer shell of milk chocolate here seems a bit thinner than the ol’ regular bar, but it adds the appropriate sweet snap before arriving at the nougat core.

Oh, nougat, what a legacy you have in the world of chocolate bars.

The poof of nougat within a 3 Musketeers is stuck in an existential void between goo and fluff, and, by gum, it’s a tasty existential void. The nougat here is chocolate and seems quite similar to the original…almost too similar. However, if you close your eyes and use your imagination, you may detect a certain toasty-powdery-ness, which I suspect is meant to mimic powdered hot chocolate. Peculiar for my taste, but I admired it for what it hoped to achieve.

The one biggie that left me broken-hearted was the absence of the marshmallow. Perhaps the nougat itself was meant to represent said fluff? Or perhaps the marshmallow melted in the cooking process? I was unsure and semi-suspicious.

Nonetheless, I wanted to make sure I followed through with the “hot” part of the “hot cocoa” theme, so I crammed seven of the cubes in a mug and zapped them in the microwave for 5 seconds. Oh buddy, was that worth it. At first glance it looked like nothing had changed, but, upon whipping out a spoon and digging in, the cubes smooshed together to form a gooey, cake batter-like substance [fair warning: if you microwave, it gets a little messy, so consider microwaving in something you’d be willing to throw away].

Lots of beautiful things are small. Paperclips. Tangerines. Travel shampoo bottles. While it’s hard to beat travel shampoo bottles, I’d give these 3 Musketeers the thumbs-up to join the group. They’re convenient little packages of chocolate-y joy that taste at least 15 times better than a jungle of tropical poinsettias. At the same time, they feel dangerously close to the original, giving them broad possibilities to grow. Keep growing, 3 Musketeers, keep growing.

(Nutrition Facts – 7 pieces – 180 calories, 45 calories from fat, 4 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 70 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 27 grams of sugars, and 1 gram of protein.)

Item: 3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa with Marshmallow Minis
Purchased Price: $3.49
Size: 10 oz. bag
Purchased at: Kmart
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Snappy milk chocolate coating. Nice size. Nougat legacy. Lincoln Logs. Gooey cake batter. Travel shampoo bottles.
Cons: Peculiar toasty-powdery taste. A bit too close to the original. Absence of marshmallows. Nougat in an existential void. Thanksgiving comas. Eating tropical poinsettias.

Author: Margaret

REVIEW: General Mills Peanut Butter Toast Crunch Cereal

REVIEW: YoCrunch Vanilla Nonfat Yogurt with Mott’s Strawberry Applesauce

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Special K Fudge Brownie Bites

REVIEW: Kashi Chocolate Almond Butter Soft-Baked Cookies

REVIEW: 3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa with Marshmallow Minis

Basic