NEWS: New Wheat Thins Variety Adds Cheese and Polygon Vertices

Marvo 10 Comments

I’m not a connoisseur of cheeses, except for Kraft American slices and Velveeta, so I don’t know if I should be impressed with the Wheat Thins Artisan Cheese Crackers that have either Vermont White Cheddar or Wisconsin Colby cheese baked into it. I’m going to assume that the Wisconsin Colby cheese version will be good because if I’ve learned anything from watching Green Bay Packers games, it’s that Wisconsin knows how to make cheese. Or they’re really good at making cheese hats.

These crackers also come in a hexagon shape, instead of the usual Wheat Thins tetragon, which I think was a mistake. They should’ve gone with an octagon to jump on the chiseled, sweaty and bloody back of mixed martial arts.

The Vermont White Cheddar version has 140 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber per 12 cracker serving. The Wisconsin Colby cheese has 130 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 220 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber per serving.

REVIEW: Pringles Restaurant Cravers Onion Blossom

Marvo 14 Comments

Pringles Restaurant Cravers Onion Blossom

The Pringles Restaurant Cravers Onion Blossom potato crisps are based on the Outback Steakhouse appetizer known as the Bloomin’ Onion, which is not Australian in any way. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of being introduced to a Bloomin’ Onion and the unknown amounts of saturated fat and sodium it provides, it’s basically the worst thing one can do to get revenge on onions for giving us bad breath.

Imagine having more than a dozen deep slices around your body, then opening up those wounds more, coating those open gashes with a batter, then deep frying your entire body to a golden brown, and having your body picked apart and dipped into a spicy sauce. That’s what the onion has to experience for turning the gum and mint industry into a multi-billion dollar one and also for making us cry whenever we cut them.

Of course, I could make it much worse for onions, but I have yet to figure out a way to make them eat themselves and then blow heavily on themselves.

I imagined the Pringles Restaurant Cravers Onion Blossom would be like eating a potato and an onion making sweet, sweet love using a spicy dipping sauce as lubricant, but instead it mostly tasted like the spicy dipping sauce lubricant, which made sense because a Bloomin’ Onion without its sauce pretty much bloomin’ sucks. It’s lightly covered with an orange powder that give each potato crisp a mild horseradish flavor with a little bit of garlic and onion.

I’m not much of a horseradish kind of guy, but I have to say that I did enjoy the flavor of these Pringles. But they weren’t as appetizing as Outback Steakhouse’s Bloomin’ Onion because I think they lacked the three things that make a Bloomin’ Onion so special: high amounts of saturated fat, lot of sodium and being surrounded by a faux Australian ambience that makes Aborigines and Australians angry.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 ounce – 150 calories, 11 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 230 milligrams of sodium, 14 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 1 gram of sugar, 1 gram of protein and 6% Vitamin C.)

Item: Pringles Restaurant Cravers Onion Blossom
Price: $2.49
Size: 6.38 ounces
Purchased at: Walgreens
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tasty. Tastes like the spicy sauce given with the Bloomin’ Onion. Nice horseradish flavor. Super Stack. No trans fat. Significantly healthier than a Bloomin’ Onion. Getting revenge on onions.
Cons: People who don’t like horseradish won’t like it. Slightly high in sodium. A Bloomin’ Onion without sauce. Having to chew gum after eating onions. Eating an entire Bloomin’ Onion by yourself. Eating an entire can on Pringles in one sitting.

NEWS: Healthy Choice Sticks It Hard to Lean Cuisine with a New Look and All-Natural Entrees

Marvo 10 Comments

I’m Switzerland when it comes to the war between Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine for freezer aisle supremacy. I’m not picking a side and I’m just watching the whole thing go down with a Totino’s Party Pizza on my lap. They just go back and forth, flinging combinations of ingredients at each other and conquering more and more shelf space, like they’re a bunch of 12-year-olds playing Risk.

Healthy Choice recently launched their All-Natural Entrees line to counteract the new meals from Lean Cuisine. The All-Natural Entrees come in six varieties for your procurement:

Mediterranean Pasta РNine-grain orzo with beans, saut̩ed onions, diced tomatoes, and savory spinach packed with 12 grams of fiber. Topped with a cinnamon sauce, sweet apples, fontina cheese, and cranberries.

Portabella Marsala Pasta – Nine-grain mafalda pasta topped with crimini mushrooms tossed with marsala wine sauce and topped with fontina cheese.

Portabella Spinach Parmesean – Whole-grain penne pasta with baby portabella mushrooms and spinach.

Pumpkin Squash Ravioli – Ravioli stuffed with pumpkin paired with asparagus, butternut squash, and Granny Smith apples. It’s all topped with a butter-sage sauce.

Sweet Asian Potstickers (shown above) – Veggie potstickers served on a whole-grain rice and covered with a sweet Asian-style sauce.

Tomato Basil Penne – Nine-grain penne pasta topped with tomatoes, onions, sweet basil, and mozzarella cheese. Prepared with 100% extra virgin olive oil.

Besides being made from all-natural ingredients, all are high in fiber, low in saturated fat and cholesterol, contain no preservatives or artificial flavors, provide antioxidants and they seem like a gigantic “suck it” to Lean Cuisine.

Not trying to apply pressure in any way, but some of these will probably be reviewed by Heat Eat Review in the future.

(via I Ate A Pie)

REVIEW: Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes & Sausage Minis

Marvo 20 Comments

Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes & Sausage Minis 1

Its blueberry pancake batter covering makes the Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes & Sausage Minis look like tiny, diseased Russet potatoes, but that’s not what’s most disturbing about this product. The color of the pancake’s interior, which is an infected purple shade that’s only seen by Bret Michaels’ urologist, is also not the most troubling attribute of this product.

What’s most disturbing about the Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes & Sausage Minis is the demented mind it came from, which could be responsible for 98 percent of the monstrosities found on the blog This Is Why You’re Fat>. I would be afraid of meeting this unbalanced mind for fear of becoming just another ingredient that circles around its head like pink elephants around Dumbo’s. This mind has no shame, no conscience and no sense of what’s right and wrong, but that’s the kind of mindset one must have to come up with sausages dipped in blueberry pancake batter and then deep fried to a golden Russet potato brown.

Although I’m surprised they weren’t wrapped in bacon, folded into an omelette, covered with shredded cheese, wrapped in soft tortilla, deep fried again to a golden Russet potato brown and served in a pool of melted butter.

My colleague, Ace, didn’t care for the original version of this product, which he said, and I quote, “I was rewarded with a saccharine, crispy shell of batter surrounding a fine piece of ground rubber. As you could probably imagine, I quickly grew weary of this mysterious rubber sausage and went to the local Pep Boys to inquire about its recycled value.”

Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes & Sausage Minis 2

My feelings about the blueberrified version were different. While warming them up, an artificial, yet pleasing, blueberry smell filled the room. When they were done, I enjoyed them without syrup. The sweetness of the blueberry pancakes definitely enhanced the flavor of the sausage, creating the popular sweet and salty dynamic that food and porn companies can’t get enough of. I also tried them with syrup, but didn’t enjoy them as much. Looking at the diseased purple pancake interior also made me not enjoy them as much, so I’d recommend not looking at it or wearing something over your eyes.

I did enjoy the Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes & Sausage Minis, although I don’t know if I truly liked them or if the guilt of disliking every single Jimmy Dean product we’ve reviewed is getting to my taste buds or if I’m afraid of what the demented mind that spawned this product would do to me if I didn’t enjoy them.

(Nutrition Facts – 3 pieces – 260 calories, 18 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 470 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, 5 grams of protein, 2% Calcium and 4% Iron.)

Item: Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes & Sausage Minis
Price: $3.89 (on sale)
Size: 10 pack
Purchased at: Foodland
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Nice combination of sweet and salty. Produced an artificial, yet pleasant, blueberry scent when being warmed up. Blueberry pancake coating enhanced the flavor of the sausage. No trans fat. Can be microwaved. It could’ve been much worse, but wasn’t.
Cons: Exterior looked like a diseased Russet potato. Interior’s color looked like the infected wang of a groupie-hungry rock star. High in saturated fat. The demented mind who came up with this product.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts

Marvo 17 Comments

chocobananapoptarts.jpg

The banana split is a highlight of American dessert ingenuity and the ultimate dessert for those who want to give a big middle finger and a loud “fuck it” to their diets.

A classic version of this ice cream dessert includes scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream placed in single file on a banana that’s been split in half and topped with chocolate syrup, nuts, whipped cream and maraschino cherries.

The regret and possible diarrhea comes separately.

Although meant for two people, banana splits are usually eaten by 12-year-olds on their birthday or whenever their parents are sick and tired of their corpulent 12-year old’s whining for one. Kellogg’s has taken selected flavors from the beloved banana split and compacted them into a svelte toaster pastry form with their Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts.

I’ve always thought of Pop-Tarts as part of a complete breakfast, but the Pop-Tarts trend of introducing ice cream-related flavors over the years has confused me because I don’t know if it’s appropriate to eat them for breakfast. Just like drinking a malt liquor at the crack of dawn or poppin’ a cap at daybreak, it feels a little weird eating Mint Chocolate Chip Pop-Tarts, Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tarts, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop-Tarts or Vanilla Milkshake Pop-Tarts to help jump start my day. Until Kellogg’s tells me something otherwise, I’ll continue to eat their toaster pastries in the A.M. only.

The Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts filling is made up of alternating chocolate and banana stripes, but the strong flavor of the white banana stripes overwhelms the brown chocolate stripes. If you hate products that have a weird artificial banana taste and smell, you should avoid these Pop-Tarts. I personally like weird artificial banana tasting products and these Pop-Tarts weren’t bad, but they definitely aren’t anywhere near the top of my list of favorite Pop-Tarts flavors.

The Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts may not be a highlight of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts ingenuity, but they do have the ability to temporarily silence a corpulent 12-year-old’s whining.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 200 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s Chocolate Banana Split Pop-Tarts
Price: $2.99 (on sale)
Size: 8 pack
Purchased at: Foodland
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Decent tasting because I like weird artificial banana tasting products. Contains vitamins and minerals. Ability to temporarily silence a rotund 12-year-old’s whining. American ingenuity. USA! USA! USA! Real banana splits.
Cons: Artificial banana taste overwhelmed the chocolate. Contains high fructose corn syrup. Sprinkles don’t add anything. It feel weird eating desserts for breakfast. Eating a whole banana split by yourself.