REVIEW: Cocoa Puffs Combos

Marvo 63 Comments

I thought the idea of going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs was preposterous, like the belief that eating Trix will turn you into a prostitute. For years, I ate the brown balls of naturally and artificially flavored sweetened corn cereal and nothing ever happened to me. There was no bouncing off walls, no instantaneous urges to hump mailboxes, no desire to walk around in nothing but a coconut bra and grass skirt, no yearning for yogurt baths, and no longing to stalk an F-list celebrity and become them by wearing their skin like a coat, all the while screaming at the top of my lungs, “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!”

However, that changed one morning while partaking in a bowl of Cocoa Puffs and skim milk. I don’t know whether it was the whole grains in it or the fact I was eating it out of a bowl I made in the seventh grade that was coated in a lead-based glaze, but I suddenly went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. One moment I was eating cereal and then the next moment I was dancing around my apartment in what I believe was a homemade cosplay outfit made out of wax paper, food coloring, cardboard boxes and a strategically placed wash cloth. Ever since that episode, I’ve stayed away from Cocoa Puffs, which disappointed me since I <3 Cocoa Puffs and the chocolatey milk it makes.

However, the folks at General Mills recently introduced a cereal called Cocoa Puffs Combos, which has not only naturally and artificially flavored chocolate cereal, but also naturally and artificially flavored vanilla cereal. I thought this was my opportunity to enjoy Cocoa Puffs again, albeit with a vanilla chaser that I hoped would lessen the cuckoo side effects. Take a look at the video below to see how that went.

Obviously, with the addition of the vanilla cereal, the Cocoa Puffs Combos was significantly less chocolatey than regular Cocoa Puffs. However, it wasn’t just the vanilla cereal causing this, which by the way, hardly had any vanilla flavor. The Cocoa Puffs Combos chocolate cereal wasn’t even being close to being as chocolatey as the cereal in regular Cocoa Puffs. It’s like the white vanilla cereal was keeping the brown chocolate cereal down.

Overall, the Cocoa Puffs Combos was disappointing because I expected it to be a little more chocolatey than it was and it didn’t lessen the effects of Cocoa Puffs to a non-embarrassing level. Not even the milk was worth drinking and every time I don’t drink my cereal milk, a dairy cow cries milk from its udder. Chocolate and vanilla may go great together as soft serve ice cream flavors or as a metaphor for interracial dating, but doesn’t do very well in this cereal.

(Nutrition Facts – 3/4 cup – 110 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0.5 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 gram of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 40 milligrams of potassium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 11 grams of sugar, 11 grams of other carbohydrates, 1 gram of protein, and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to the TIB reader who suggested we review Cocoa Puffs Combos. The reader didn’t leave their name, so no two seconds of internet fame for them.)

Item: Cocoa Puffs Combos
Price: $5.99
Size: 11.7 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Good for those who don’t like sweet cereal. Vitamins and minerals. Soft serve swirl. Regular Cocoa Puffs and the chocolatey milk it makes. Doesn’t make me cuckoo enough to do something REALLY embarrassing, just slightly embarrassing.
Cons: Not as chocolatey as I hoped. Less chocolate didn’t lessen the effects of Cocoa Puffs to a non-embarrassing level. Chocolate cereal was mediocre compared with regular Cocoa Puffs. Vanilla cereal wasn’t very vanilla. Going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Me dancing in a dress and posting it on YouTube for the world to see.

REVIEW: Jack Daniel’s Baby Back Ribs

Ace 26 Comments

Ribs made with Jack Daniel’s barbecue sauce have been gaining some momentum recently, with recipes containing the famous whiskey winning legitimate awards in Southern barbecue competitions. Naturally, T.G.I. Friday’s has to strip the wholesome appeal away and bastardize the crap out of it by having the frightening amalgamation of *NSYNC known as Guy Fieri screaming at you to try them. It’s not just chain restaurants jumping on the boat, though; these ribs have made their way to your local supermarket.

Now you can try the ribs without having to withstand the deafening loudness of T.G.I. Friday’s as a gaggle of drunk frat brah’s hit on your date. It’s better in an intimate setting, on a lazy weekend with the game on. In a way, Jack Daniel’s appeals to the tailgaitin’ Southerner in all of us with these refrigerated boxes of booze-glazed ribs. I’ve been dying to try something that can get me drunk and fat simultaneously. It’s not hedonism – it’s efficiency.

Within eight minutes, you have a pound of real, unprocessed ribs ready to eat as you watch Peyton Manning and Brett Favre sell you TV’s and toothpaste during the increasingly-frequent commercial breaks. That isn’t to say that the ribs don’t have their flaws. Brett Favre spends most of his free time playing jean-football with his buddies in the mud, but even he would find these ribs to be messy.

The meat is fall-off-the-bone tender, which sounds awesome until you try to actually pick up the rib and watch the meat cascade onto the plate. It kind of takes the visceral satisfaction out of eating a rib. When you’re me, you need moments like those to keep you going. And this is going to make me sound like a teenage girl, but the whiskey is really, really strong. I’m not the type to indulge in Smirnoff Ice and Hypnotiq, but these ribs really do taste like they were dunked in a bottle of Jack.

I could lie and tell you that I sucked it up and pounded a few shots of Jack while I was eating, but I ended up dousing the ribs with ketchup and mixing it with the sauce. It was delicious after that. I had completely emasculated myself, but I figured that watching large men in tights jump on top of each other for six straight hours would have done that to me anyway.

(Nutritional Facts – 1/3 box – 500 calories, 30 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 120 mg of cholesterol, 990mg sodium, 31 grams of carbs, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 21 grams of sugar, 25 grams of protein, 2% Vitamin A, 2% Vitamin C, 2% Calcium, and 10% Iron)

Item: Jack Daniel’s Baby Back Ribs
Price: $7.99
Size: 16 ounces
Purchased at: Albertsons
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Real, unprocessed ribs. Tastes awesome when mixed with some ketchup. Sealed and microwaveable in less than ten minutes. Brings together booze and fatty meat in one package.
Cons: Meat falls off the bone by shear force of gravity. Whiskey is overpowering if you are a wuss like me.

Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs

Marvo 28 Comments

If you’re a foodie, you probably realize the long-winded name, Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs, has a little redundancy in it. For those of you who aren’t foodies, panko equals bread crumbs in Japanese, although panko is larger, flakier, and Asian-er than regular bread crumbs.

Food Network star Alton Brown uses the stuff so much that I’m surprised that his eyes aren’t slanted. It’s becoming so popular that I believe if you use panko instead of regular bread crumbs, you are instantly given some kind of culinary street cred, where people in tall white hats will give you fist bumps when you pass by them and the Swedish Chef will say something coherent to you instead of the usual gibberish he usually exuberantly spits out of his mustached, muppet mouth.

Because this is an “Italian Style” panko, which I’ve never heard of until I saw this box, there’s a little bit more to it than just plain panko. To make it Italian, there’s some basil, dried roasted garlic, paprika, dried onion, and spices in it. But to truly make it Italian, I was hoping Food Network personality Giada De Laurentiis also came in the box. However, I don’t think her cleavage would’ve fit inside the packaging.

To test the Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs, I decided to make something that looks like chicken parmesan. Now some of you at this point might be saying, “Holy shit! He cooked something. I thought he lived a lifestyle filled with eco-unfriendly styrofoam take out containers and gallons of gas wasted in fast food drive-throughs.” Saying I “cooked something” would be flattering, but I technically warmed up a jar of pasta sauce; boiled some spaghetti noodles; fried some chicken breasts that were dipped in flour, egg, and the Italian-style panko; and sprinkled parmesan cheese over it.

(Editor’s Note: The picture above is actually the second batch I made. The first had melted mozzarella cheese on top, but I didn’t have enough for the second batch, because I enjoy eating shredded mozzarella straight from the bag.)

As someone who uses panko quite a bit, in the kitchen and out, I wasn’t expecting the Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs to be much different than the regular stuff, but I was surprised by how my chicken parmesan turned out. I could taste the herbs and spices they added and it made my dish quite tasty. As you can see in the picture above, the chicken had a really nice golden brown exterior, which I don’t always get with my regular Japanese panko. The crunch from the Progresso panko was also really nice and better than my usual panko.

With all of this praise towards the non-Asian Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs, I felt I disrespected my ancestors and thought about committing seppuku, but then I put away my sword after I determined that the Progresso Italian Style Panko wasn’t truly panko.

Panko has a really light, flaky, and dry texture that looks like it was shaved off of a piece of toast, while the Progresso Italian Style Panko had a denser, greasy texture and looked like they were once croutons that were crushed by Kim Kardashian’s ass.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/4 cup – 130 calories, 6 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 400 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbs, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 2% iron, and a 75% chance a guy has of getting laid if they know how to use panko properly.)

Item: Progresso Italian Style Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs
Price: FREE (Retails for $2.49)
Size: 8 ounces
Purchased at: Given by nice PR people
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Very nice crunch. Creates a nice golden brown coating. Tasty. Inner bag comes with a sticker to help seal the bag after use. Getting the Swedish Chef to say something coherent.
Cons: In my eyes, it’s not truly panko. Pricey because I can get a bag of regular panko for 99 cents. My cooking abilities. Unable to fit Giada De Laurentiis’ cleavage into a box. Being crushed by Kim Kardashian’s ass.

Spicy Chicken BK Wrapper

Marvo 21 Comments

The new Spicy Chicken BK Wrapper is very similar to the McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap. It’s like Ronald McDonald and The King are taking the essay portion of the SAT Exam and The King is looking over Ronald’s shoulder with his huge head and copying his essay almost verbatim. If I were Ronald McDonald, I would be pissed and gather all my McDonaldland friends, find the house where The King is hiding out, and then beat down his plastic face and whopper of an ass with some golden arches.

This is how I would plan it out. I’d get Grimace, because he would be the muscle, or at least could ask stupid questions to disorient The King. The Hamburglar’s lock picking skills can get us through any door. Birdie the Early Bird can be aerial surveillance, like a police chopper, in case The King gets away. The Gobblins and the McNugget Buddies can be ground surveillance, since they’re small and hard to detect. Officer Big Mac can restrain The King with his handcuffs, and if necessary, knock a few fake plastic teeth from The King’s fake smile via pistol whipping. Finally, Mayor McCheese can oversee the operation and handle any of the logistics, because if he can run a town, he can manage a beat down. Once they give The King a taste of his own medicine and sneak up on him, I would send Ronald McDonald with the previously mentioned golden arches and have him beat that crown right off The King’s head.

The Spicy Chicken BK Wrapper consisted of spicy, crispy chicken, three types of shredded cheese, and a Southwest sauce wrapped in a soft tortilla. What stood out most was the flatness of the chicken, which looked like a wide BK Chicken Fry or it got a beating from an irate Ronald McDonald armed with golden arches. Another weird thing about this product is that, at times, it tasted like a soft beef taco from Taco Bell with mild sauce. Speaking of spicy, the Southwest sauce added to the BK wrap gave it a weak kick. On a heat scale of 1-10, with ten being an eternity spent in hell and one being the heat from a cell phone used to replace a lighter at a concert, the Spicy Chicken BK Wrapper was a three on the heat scale.

Despite being available for a limited time only and somewhat tasty, I don’t think I’m going to rush out to my nearest BK and gorge on the reasonably priced Spicy Chicken BK Wrapper while I can, because it’s not very spicy and I’m afraid of the consequences if Ronald McDonald and his McDonaldland friends catch me eating one.

(Nutrition Facts – Couldn’t find it on Burger King website. I could make them up, but I would use a lot of commas. For example, I would probably say that it has 10,000,000,000 milligrams of sodium. Of course, this would be 100 percent false, but if it encourages Burger King to post the actual nutrition facts, I’m going to say that it does.)

Item: Spicy Chicken BK Wrapper
Price: $1.49
Size: 6 inches
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Reasonably priced. Tasty. Crunchy chicken. A fight between Ronald McDonald and The King. The Hamburglar’s lock picking skills.
Cons: Not very spicy. Chicken was flattened. At times, it tasted like a soft taco from Taco Bell. Similar to the McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap. No nutrition facts on website. Getting attacked by Ronald McDonald and his McDonaldland friends.

Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie

Marvo 20 Comments

The Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie seems like it is supposed to give buyers the opportunity to experience Jamba Juice whenever they want, but I feel that fruity experience goes beyond what’s sucked through a straw.

It’s not Jamba Juice without having people judge you for the free boost you choose. It’s not Jamba Juice without the bright colored walls and employees that dress how you wish you could dress at your job — in a t-shirt and jeans. It’s not Jamba Juice without the whirring of powerful blenders that force you to yell your order at a decibel reserved for misbehaving children and clubs that play shitty hip-hop mixes, but can blend your smoothie together in less than a minute. The Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie may not come with all of that, but even if it did, what’s inside the bottle is a poor representation of Jamba Juice that could turn the bright colored walls of one of its stores into a drab color that’s usually reserved for poor bridesmaid dress choices.

Despite the front of the bottle clearly stating it has mango, orange, and peach, if you look at the ingredients list, there is also white grape, banana, and pineapple. Why so secretive about those other fruits? Who knows? But even if they weren’t so unforthcoming, sticking all of the fruits prominently on the front of the bottle would be a graphic designer’s nightmare equivalent to being forced to run the latest version of Photoshop with only 125 megabytes of RAM.

With all of those fruits in there, you would expect an explosion of fruity flavors that would make Barney Rubble stop stealing Fred’s Fruity Pebbles, but the only fruits I could really taste were the peach and orange. Its flavor was decent, but not being able to taste the mango, which I love for its taste and aphrodisiac abilities, was disappointing. Although the smoothie’s texture was slightly creamy, it didn’t come close to the thick, icy goodness of blended smoothies. Also, normal Jamba Juice smoothies are a really good source for vitamins and minerals, but the Jamba Juicie wasn’t.

However, there were two things that the Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie had in common with most regular Jamba Juice smoothies. First, it comes with a fiber boost, which provides a nice five grams of dietary fiber. Secondly, like most Jamba Juice drinks, it’s kind of pricey at $3.49 for 12.5 ounces.

Overall, I’m not impressed with Jamba Juice’s attempt at pre-mixed drinks. It may work for Starbucks, but the Jamba Juicie isn’t so juicy. (Get it? Ha! I. Am. So. Lame.) So if you have a hankering for a Jamba Juice smoothie, I suggest you skip the Jamba Juicie and get the real thing.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bottle – 230 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 52 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of dietary fiber, 45 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 20% Calcium, 20% Vitamin C, and 6% Iron.)

Item: Mango Orange Peach Jamba Juicie
Price: $3.49
Size: 12.5 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Decent tasting. Fat free. Fiber boost provides 5 grams of dietary fiber. Uses non-fat milk. Extra fruits added. Getting to wear a t-shirt and jeans at work.
Cons: Jamba Juicie isn’t so juicy. Pricey for what you get. Couldn’t taste the mango. Not high in vitamins and minerals as regular Jamba Juice smoothies. Texture was like slightly creamy, but not close to an actual smoothie. Running Photoshop with only 125 megabytes of RAM.