Tag: Jimmy Dean

Jimmy Dean describes their Jimmy D’s breakfast entrees, which consist of french toast sticks with sausage, something that looks like a corn dog and these French Toast Griddlers, as “Satisfying, hearty breakfast to help kids do their best.”

Really?

I thought threats of taking away their Xbox 360; punishment in the form of them having to put on a clown costume and entertain the rest of the family; and using toys, candy and cold hard cash as bribes were the only ways to help kids do their best.

If all it takes is a microwaveable breakfast sandwich made from cinnamon glazed french toast and a Jimmy Dean turkey sausage patty to help children achieve their goals, then I’ve got parenting down pat. Bring on the women who wish to bear my children and I shall provide them with an ample supply of Jimmy D’s products and a standalone freezer.

If I fed my future illegitimate children these Jimmy D’s French Toast Griddlers and they helped my children do their best, I can imagine how successful they’ll become. With my genes, I’m sure they’ll accomplish amazing things, like become Walmart greeters, carnival game attendants, unemployed writers or repressive dictators of uninhabited islands.

Like the use of comic book fonts on the packaging, it appears Jimmy Dean used turkey sausage, instead of pork sausage, in their French Toast Griddlers for the children, who probably don’t need to consume twice the fat and saturated fat the pork sausages would’ve provided. But even if the sausages were made out of pork, the children probably wouldn’t notice as they stuff it down their gullets as they get ready for school to be the best that they can be.

Most children would probably enjoy the sweet and salty combination of the cinnamon flavored French toast with the turkey sausage. It’s like a poor child’s McDonald’s McGriddle. It’s also a healthier child’s McDonald’s McGriddle, since it has three times less fat, saturated fat, sodium and sugar than a Sausage McGriddle.

However, I’m not a child, I’m just a man who watches Ni Hao, Kai-Lan on Nick Jr. to help me start conversations with the workers at the Chinese restaurants and shady places I frequent, and I think the French Toast Griddlers are bland. The turkey sausage doesn’t have the same quality flavor and spice as Jimmy Dean’s pork sausage and the cinnamon glaze on the French toast isn’t pronounced.

The sausage patty is slightly smaller than the French toast buns and both are easy to bite through after being microwaved for 85 seconds. There’s also an egginess to the French toast, which makes me wish there was also a layer of scrambled eggs in this sandwich.

If Jimmy Dean wanted to make their French Toast Griddlers better, they could use Jimmy Dean’s flavorful pork sausage and, perhaps, sweeten the French toast with syrup, but, of course, adding all of that would create a satisfying, hearty breakfast to help kids do their best…to get fat.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 sandwich/102 g – 210 calories, 70 calories from fat, 8 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 390 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 6 grams of sugar, 8 grams of protein, 2% vitamin A, 2% calcium and 10% iron.)

*contains interesterified soybean oil and hydrogenated soybean oil

Item: Jimmy Dean Jimmy D’s French Toast Griddlers
Price: $7.49
Size: 4 pack
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Individually wrapped. Ready in 85 seconds. Uses healthier turkey sausage. Eight grams of protein. Helps kids do their best. Learning Chinese via Ni Hao, Kai-Lan.
Cons: Bland. Turkey sausage is less flavorful than Jimmy Dean’s pork sausage. Cinnamon flavor is too light. My future illegitimate children becoming Walmart greeters, carnival game attendants, unemployed writers or repressive dictators of uninhabited islands.

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.”

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.

I am not a morning person.

I wish I could tell you that I wake up at the crack of dawn, quickly jump out of bed, and sing the praises of being the early bird that gets the worm, but I don’t. Instead, I get up when my alarm clock tells me to. But even when it tells me to, I violently hit its snooze button 3-5 times before slowly rolling out of bed. And there aren’t any praises in the morning, just slightly loud cursing and threats at the inanimate object that wakes me up every morning.

There are things I would wake up early for, like Saturday morning cartoons, Macy’s sales, and the opportunity to stick it to senior citizens by getting up before they do, being the first in line when McDonald’s opens their doors, and buying all the coffee. But something I would not get up early for is the Jimmy Dean Sausage and Cheese on a Croissant Breakfast Entree.

Look at that picture above. Would you want to get up for that? If I woke up next to that, I would roll onto my side, fall back asleep, and hog all of the blankets, letting it get cold.

The sausage and cheese croissant, which makes the Burger King Croissanwich look like filet mignon, is in the tray’s main compartment, seasoned hash browns are in the upper right, and diced apples are in the lower right. I felt the need to point out where the hash browns and diced apples are because they could easily be confused, like Gary Busey, Nick Nolte, and zombies.

Jimmy Dean is known for his sausage and in this entree his sausage was tasty, albeit small, but EVERYTHING else didn’t come close to the quality of Jimmy Dean’s sausage. The croissant, which are usually crispy and flaky, was tough, chewy, and nowhere near flaky; the apples tasted like apples and they had a slight crunch to them, but they weren’t sweet, which made them quite bland; and the hash browns were lightly seasoned, but not seasoned enough to make you forget how soggy they were.

If you thought all of that was disappointing, I shall continue the dismay by saying the Jimmy Dean Sausage and Cheese On A Croissant Breakfast Entree has 50% of your daily recommended allowance of saturated fat, 1050 milligrams of sodium, and three grams of trans fat. The amount of trans fat is the most disheartening because if KFC, whose middle name is Fried, can go trans fat free, why can’t Jimmy Dean?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to roll onto my side, fall asleep, and hog all of the blankets.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 entree – 560 calories, 30 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 3 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 1050 milligrams of sodium, 62 grams of carbs, 4 grams of dietary fiber, 21 grams of sugar, 11 grams of protein, 6% Vitamin A, 10% Calcium, and 15% Iron.)

Item: Jimmy Dean Sausage and Cheese On A Croissant Breakfast Entrees
Price: $4.79
Size: 7.6 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Sausage was tasty, but as for the rest of it not so much. It makes a Burger King Croissanwich look good. Contains all four major food groups.
Cons: Sausage was small. 3 grams of trans fat. Croissant was chewy and not flaky. High in sodium and saturated fat. Hash browns were soggy. Apples were bland. Gary Busey, Nick Nolte, and zombies

Being a die-hard Celtics fan, I recently had the great pleasure of watching Kobe Bryant lose in historic fashion in the NBA Finals. I never liked Kobe, probably stemming from the time he took pop singer Brandy to his high school prom. It all seemed very insincere. At that moment, I could have sworn that it was a Michael Jackson−Lisa Marie Presley situation where he was covering up his secret disturbing sexuality by dating a woman that he could never really be attracted to. I mean, come on…Moesha? I’m not gay, but I’m pretty certain that I’d rather have sex with her brother Ray J.

Perhaps the best Kobe Bryant-related news I’ve heard all week, however, stems from a club frequented by former teammate and fellow adulterer Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq hates Kobe, not just because he is a sociopathic ball-hog, but because he told the police that Shaq paid off women to keep them quiet about their unsavory trysts. This all led up to TMZ catching juvenile-ly hilarious footage of Shaq in a club commanding Kobe to “tell me how my ass tastes” through the medium of freestyle rap.

I don’t know what Kobe’s response is, though I’m certain that he would somehow manage to fit in “We just have to toughen up on defense,” but I’d imagine that the taste of Shaq’s ass is not dissimilar to Jimmy Dean’s Pancakes & Sausage Minis. Maybe that’s being a little harsh, but I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to eat these things when there’s a much better version on the market that comes on a stick. My philosophy has always been that things taste better on sticks. Preferably deep fried sticks. Don’t ask me why, it’s just how things are.

Since I bought this box on the eve of my championship celebration, I had high hopes for these bite-sized Minis. Unfortunately for me, nothing ruins my mood faster than crappy and overpriced food. These Minis were soggy, disarmingly sweet, and had the texture of ground rubber. Being a fair reviewer, I then tried a batch in the toaster over.

For my patience, 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. Alas, as I’m sure Shaq would enjoy hearing Kobe say something about his ass, sometimes things are just better in bigger packages.

(Nutritional Facts – 3 pieces – 260 calories, 160 calories from fat, 18 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 30 mg of cholesterol, 510mg sodium, 19 grams of carbs, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 7 grams of sugar, 5 grams of protein, 0% Vitamin A, 0% Vitamin C, 2% Calcium, 4% Iron)

Item: Jimmy Dean Pancakes & Sausage Minis
Price: $3.29
Purchased at: Stater Bros.
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: Small, convenient size for families on the go who don’t care if they enjoy what they’re eating. For the environmentally conscious, sausage may be recyclable. Freestyle rapping about the taste of ass.
Cons: Very small portion for the price that you’re paying. Comes out soggy in the microwave. Extremely sweet for a product that isn’t honey-battered. Sausage tastes like a tire.

The night started off innocently enough. But then again, so did OJ Simpson’s acting career. I looked in the mirror and declared that I would stay cool. You don’t want to do anything crazy at a Halloween party. You never know what can happen once you get going. Or what you will buy.

After hitting the dance floor, I soon found myself with a cute girl in a skimpy tiger costume. After adjusting her beer goggles with a few drinks, I decided to try out a few of my patented moves. I went for the Wisconsin Bulldog and the Orange Creamsicle, but had my hand knocked away when I went for the Magic Bullet. I briefly thought to myself, “Does enjoying this make me a furry?” but then proceeded to get my groove on. I soon realized that I dance the same way I make love…very, very awkwardly.

One thing led to another and I ended up in her place with a massive hangover. I had no idea about what had gone on since we were last on the dance floor.

“Did we…did we do it?” I asked, hoping that I totally did it with her.

“Uhh…no,” she said. “Don’t you remember? You said you’d rather go shopping for food. Kept mumbling something about becoming god of all internet reviewers and the dancing queen.”

“Well, that does sound like something I’d do,” I remarked. “But then why am I naked and handcuffed to the bed?”

“I’m not sure, I left you alone after we came back,” she answered.

Hmm…she had a point. That is how I sleep every night. But I wish she hadn’t seen me like this. After I freed myself, I figured that I might as well raid the fridge. I needed something substantial to keep my head from throbbing. What I found was more than I was prepared to handle…

“Oh…my…god…What the fuck is this?!” I asked.

“I don’t know, I think you bought it,” she replied.

I stared at the box and slowly shook my head. Son of a bitch, I even hate myself when I’m on a drunken food purchase binge! I either secretly want to kill myself or have become such a diabolical genius that I went insane. This bowl was by far the scariest thing I had seen all weekend.

It was an unholy bowl of bacon, eggs, potatoes, and cheese — all mixed together so you can eat it like the failure that Jimmy Dean thinks you are. Did I mention that there’s a lot of fucking bacon in this thing? There’s like a ridiculous, enough-salt-to-melt-an-iceberg amount? I couldn’t really imagine ingesting it, but I didn’t have many options. It was either this or some ramen flavor packets that she had saved up. Seeing as it is Halloween season, I figured that I had a duty to myself and for the fine readers to indulge my morbid curiosity.

This bowl has no practical reason for existing other than as a product of a dare at some marketing department, so I tried to alleviate my fears by thinking the situation through. I’m sure it had to be quality tested. Some tasters actually had to survive long enough to give this thing the thumbs up. And at a mere 8 ounces, it didn’t seem like much of a meal. It couldn’t make me feel that bad, right? This was all before realizing that it would be healthier if I ate a tub of Crisco.

I eventually got around to microwaving this bad boy and watched it rotate for the full 3 minutes. By minute two, the air had been permeated by the nauseating scent of grease and cheese. I opened the plastic film to take in the beauty of the bowl’s contents. Oh, did I say beauty? I meant brain-exploding hideousness. The cheese had ceased to resemble anything appetizing and clung to the eggs like melted plastic. The potatoes had the glossy shine of a mint condition baseball card. The eggs were essentially pieces of yellow Styrofoam tossed together with chopped bacon.

This is the breakfast that 8-year-old children cook for their mothers’ birthdays. They fumble around in the kitchen, throw everything together, and then microwave the shit out of it so they can serve breakfast in bed. The mom will take two bites and make an exaggerated “mmm…” sound while vigorously rubbing her stomach. The child will then run off and laugh as she proceeds to dump the contents of the bowl in a trash can and begins to manually induce vomiting.

I tried a few bites. It was strange, but it wasn’t completely awful. Salty, greasy, and stiff, but still kind of edible. I’ve probably had worse breakfasts. I’m not sure why I’d pay $2.99 for this when I could have a small, possibly mentally challenged child make me the same thing at a fraction of the cost. As I was trying to justify my purchase, however, I started to wonder why I was suddenly nauseous.

The back of the box had my answer. Hmm…33 grams of fat, 1490 mg of sodium, 132% of my daily cholesterol allowance. Why don’t they include a complimentary vial of poison while they’re at it? And why exactly is an individual serving of a meal allowed to exceed 100% of something that can kill me? Well, at least it has 2 grams of fiber so I can stay regular after I collapse face first as I suffer a heart attack trying to walk down at set of stairs at school. Maybe I’ll wake up naked in a hospital bed with handcuffs on. That won’t be weird at all.

(Nutritional Facts – 1 Bowl – 520 calories, 33 grams of fat, 13 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 395 mg of cholesterol, 1490mg sodium, 21 grams of carbs, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, 30 grams of protein, 20% Vitamin A, 6% Vitamin C, 25% Calcium, and 15% Iron)

Item: Jimmy Dean Bacon Breakfast Bowl
Price: $2.99
Purchased at: Stater Brothers
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Not completely inedible. The possibility of getting laid at Halloween parties. When children are thoughtful even when they are incompetent.
Cons: Horrible mixture of horrible-for-you foods. Food gets overcooked and therefore stiff after microwave nuking. Enough cholesterol to kill you 1.32 times in a day. Not getting laid at Halloween parties. Waking up naked with handcuffs and not finding it unusual.