Category: Spotted on Shelves

Update: Click here to read our Lean Cuisine Spring Rolls review

Spring rolls are typically an Asian dish, but the rebels at Lean Cuisine decided not to play by the culinary rules with their new line of Casual Cuisine Spring Rolls. They come in three ethnic varieties.

The Garlic Chicken Spring Rolls contain white meat chicken, garlic, spinach, onions and parmesan cheese. The Fajita-Style Chicken Spring Rolls have white meat chipotle chicken, corn, black beans, bell peppers and onion. The Thai-Style Spring Rolls contains white meat chicken, shredded cabbage, julienne yellow carrots and spicy red coconut curry.

The folks that have filled the freezer aisle with a frozen meal variety that’s as vast as a Cheesecake Factory menu, call these spring rolls a “snack.” But I, and probably a Cheesecake Factory menu, think of them as appetizers, and something to make sure I don’t get hungry 20 minutes after eating a portion-controlled Lean Cuisine meal.

All three varieties have 200 calories, 7-8 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 4 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 2 grams of monounsaturated fat, 10-15 grams of protein, 580 milligrams of sodium, 23-24 grams of carbohydrates, and 1-2 grams of fiber.

The Lean Cuisine Casual Cuisine Spring Rolls are available now and each box contains two servings of three spring rolls.

Update: Click here to read our DiGiorno Pizza & Cookies review

In a move that strikes me as amazingly random, DiGiorno is now offering Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough with its frozen pizzas. Unimaginatively called DiGiorno Pizza & Cookies, you can get your chocolate chip cookies with three different types of pizza: Four Cheese, Pepperoni and Supreme. All pizzas have a hand tossed style crust.

The box says the dough makes 12 cookies, but you could probably make one really big cookie with a raw center, or just eat the dough while you wait for your frozen pizza to cook. The recommended amount of cookies raises questions regarding how many people it takes to eat a DiGiorno pizza. If you ask me, that’s a lot of cookies per person.

If you’re not a big fan of dessert, DiGiorno also now offers Pizza & Boneless Wyngz. Wyngz looks like something my cat would type while walking across my keyboard, but the box describes them as white meat chicken fritters. Perhaps they made the spelling XTREME in order to avoid anyone thinking they were actually chicken wings. You can get a Supreme or Three Meat with Honey BBQ Wyngz, or a Pepperoni with Buffalo Style Wyngz. No matter which flavor Wyngz you choose, you’ll be getting approximately 7-8 of them per box.

No word on price for either combo. No word on cooking instructions either, but I’m assuming both the cookies and the Wyngz are designed to cook to hot perfection at the exact same time as the pizza. These launched nationwide last week, so look for them in your grocer’s freezer aisle.

Pizza and cookies, a combination the people have been screaming for for years. Finally, all our dreams have come true!

Thanks for TIB reader Stefania for the tip.

Updated: Click here to read our Lean Pocket Pretzel Bread Sandwich review

Lean Pockets, the skinnier sister of Hot Pockets and favored lunch of calorie-conscious office workers who hate utensils, has come out with a new vessel in which to stuff their meats and cheeses – Lean Pockets Pretzel Bread Sandwiches. They’re currently available in two flavors, Grilled Chicken Jalapeño Cheddar and Roasted Turkey with Bacon & Reduced Fat Cheese, both of which are stuffed into a soft pretzel pouch that will supposedly be golden brown.

As you sit down at the dirty break room table, bite into the soft pretzel vessel, and scream as molten lava cheese coats your mouth like napalm, take solace in knowing that each Pretzel Bread Sandwich contains only 280 calories. Then hit the water cooler, because your Pretzel Sandwich also has up to 39 percent of your daily recommended intake of sodium.

Lean Pockets has a product locator (http://www.leanpockets.com/wheretobuy/index.aspx?category=600&upc=4369500239) on their website, but I got a scary 401 Unauthorized error when I tried it, so I guess your best bet is to cruise the frozen food aisle if you’d like to try out their new Pretzel Bread Sandwiches.

Source: Lean Pockets Website

Jelly Belly, maker of the slightly disgusting buttered popcorn jelly bean and many other less disgusting flavors, will be launching a Peas & Carrots Mix candy in February.

Despite how off-putting vegetable candy may sound, it will not be vegetable flavored, instead the carrots will taste like orange sherbet and the peas will taste like apples. Not only that, the candy won’t be jelly beans, instead they’ll be mellocremes.

Jelly Belly’s Peas & Carrots Mix will be dairy-free, gluten-free and certified OU Kosher. They will come in a variety of sizes and, if you can’t find them in stores, you’ll be able to purchase them on the Jelly Belly website.

Source: Candy Addict

I didn’t know there were so many Slim Jim varieties one could snap into. Not only do they come in different flavors, but also a range of sizes. Slim Jim’s latest varieties are the Slim Jim Giant Jamaican Style Jerk and Slim Jim Monster Zesty Garlic.

For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure of snapping into a Slim Jim, Giant and Monster are two sizes Slim Jim offers. The Giant Slim Jims are tall, skinny, 28 grams in weight and can be used as an impromptu whip, while the Monster Slim Jims aren’t as tall, but are thicker, weigh 55 grams and can be used as an impromptu (insert imagination here).

The Slim Jim Giant Jamaican Style Jerk Flavor has a suggested retail price of $1.45 and the Slim Jim Monster Zesty Garlic will be $2.49. Both flavors will be available this month, probably at your nearest convenience store.