Tag: Misc Foods

When I want Chinese food, I don’t go to Paul Fleming Chang’s China Bistro.

When I’m jonesin’ for Chinese food, I want to be able to pick something from a bilingual menu and give my order to an angry Chinese woman who yells it to the cooks in the back of the restaurant, one of which is her husband. When my food arrives, I want to use extremely long plastic chopsticks with a slippery glossy coating that makes it difficult to pick up anything and brings me to the point of sheepishly asking for a fork. I also want to enjoy it with a small cup of green tea served by the restaurant owner’s high school-aged daughter who would rather hang out with her friends, instead of working at her parent’s restaurant on a Friday evening.

If I’m not able to get Chinese food the way I want it, I would settle for the Wanchai Ferry Cashew Chicken Chinese Dinner Kit, which is distributed by General Mills.

The kit is made up of individual packets of jasmine rice, cashew sauce, seasoned cornstarch, and roasted cashews. As for the chicken, just like the USB cable for your new inkjet printer, it is sold separately.

I thought preparing the dish was going to be as difficult as the paparazzi trying to get all of Kim Kardashian’s ass in a photo using a telephoto lens, but it was easy to make. All I had to do was take a pound of chicken, cut it up into one-inch pieces, coat them in the seasoned cornstarch, then brown the coated pieces in a frying pan, and then mix in the cashew sauce and roasted cashews. While I had that going, I also had to cook the jasmine rice in a pot for about 20 minutes. It made enough for three decent-sized servings. Once everything was done, I plated it and enjoyed.

To be honest, I didn’t expect much from this meal in a box but it was very good. The jasmine rice came out perfect; the cashew sauce, which seemed to be made up of mostly hoisin sauce, had a nice garlic taste with a little bit of citrus; and the cashews themselves added a nice nutty flavor and gave the dish a crunchiness. But the seasoned cornstarch on the chicken didn’t seem to add too much to the taste of the dish.

While I don’t get to pick it from a bilingual menu or hear a vexed Chinese woman yell “cashew chicken” in Chinese to a bunch of men in the kitchen with the Wanchai Ferry Cashew Chicken Chinese Dinner Kit, it’s good to know that I get to eat it in the comfort of my home and with a fork that I didn’t have to ask for with the face of shame.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cup – 300 calories, 10 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 490 milligrams of sodium, 39 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, 21 grams of protein, 2% Vitamin C, and 10% Iron.)

Item: Wanchai Ferry Cashew Chicken Chinese Dinner Kit
Price: $6.59
Size: 13.4 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Tasty. Rice came out perfect. Good sauce. Easy to make. Makes three decent-sized servings. Real Chinese restaurants.
Cons: You have to add your own chicken. Can’t microwave it. Damn slippery plastic Chinese chopsticks. Asking for a fork at a Chinese restaurant. Printers that don’t come with a USB cable. P.F. Chang’s.

The idea of fruit rolls-ups seems like something that was the result of a pleasant accident, like the Slinky, Post-It Notes, and possibly your youngest sibling, unless you’re the youngest child, in which case, you were planned. Someone apparently came up with a way to smash fruit better than a Sledge-O-Matic that also doesn’t get the first few rows of a theater covered with the carnage of fruit. If fruit roll-ups were an accident conceived in a laboratory, kitchen, or back seat of a Pontiac Firebird, I’m glad it happened because it led to the Strawberry FruitaBü Organic Smoooshed Fruit Rolls.

Although targeted towards children and people who love umlauts, I could see myself eating these in order to get the one serving of fruit they provide because according to nutritionists I don’t consume the daily recommended amount of fruit, unless a bag of Skittles or a 24-ounce Strawberry Slurpee counts as a serving. The FruitaBü is certified USDA Organic, which I would explain, but I would probably bore you with jargon like, “compliance,” “regulations,” “exceptions,” and “booteeshockee.” Basically, the Strawberry FruitaBü Organic Smoooshed Fruit Rolls is an organic and significantly much shorter version of General Mills’ Fruit by the Foot. While Fruit by the Foot provides “3 feet of fun,” the FruitaBü Fruit Rolls only offers “19.5 inches of interestingness.”

However, the ingredients in those “19.5 inches of interestingness” includes mostly of an inventory of organic apple, white grape, and strawberry concentrates and purees that provides all the sugar in each roll, while the “3 feet of fun” includes extra sweeteners, like sugar and corn syrup. Despite not having any extra added sugar, the FruitaBü was sweet, like sending a card to your grandma-sweet, but not overly sweet, like sending a strippergram to your grandma-sweet. Overall, I thought the Strawberry FruitaBü Organic Smoooshed Fruit Rolls were really good, although because of the orgy of different organic fruits, I thought the strawberry didn’t really stand out and if I were given one without any labeling I probably wouldn’t be able to tell what flavor it was. However, if your child, fruit deficient adult friend, or diacritic fanboy wants a fun way to get a serving of fruit, I would recommend the FruitaBü.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 roll – 80 calories, 1.5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 100 milligrams of potassium, 16 grams of carbs, less than 1 gram of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, 0% Vitamin A, 10% Vitamin C, 0% Calcium, 0% Iron, and 1 poem on the box.)

Item: Strawberry FruitaBü Organic Smoooshed Fruit Rolls
Price: FREE (retails for $3.69)
Size: 6 pack
Purchased at: Given by nice PR people
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tastes really good. Made from real fruit. One serving of fruit per roll. USDA Organic. No added sugar. Cute monkeys on the box that looks like were done in Adobe Illustrator.
Cons: Strawberry flavor doesn’t really stand out. Roll is not very long, only 19.5 inches of interestingness. Paper it is rolled up with is not edible. Might be difficult to find. Being conceived in the back of a Pontiac Firebird. Booteeshockee.

Thank goodness I don’t have to regress in age to enjoy these Gerber Graduates For Toddlers Strawberry Yogurt Melts, because if did and wasn’t able to return to my normal 32-year-old self, I don’t know who would potty train me, fill my sippy cup, and scold me for my “terrible twos” temper tantrums.

The Yogurt Melts are shaped like little Barbie pink piles of dog poop and consists of 99% real yogurt and fruit in a freeze-dried form, which makes it easy for little ones to chew, swallow, and throw it back at you during one of their temper tantrums that makes you wish for a very slight moment that you had used some form of birth control during that sexual romp in the living room after watching an episode of Talk Sex with Sue Johanson on the Oxygen Network. Like most regular yogurt and multi-ethnic areas, like San Francisco and New York City, these contain a variety of live and active cultures, which help with digestion and overall health.

If you’ve had strawberry yogurt in your life, then you’ll have an idea of what these Yogurt Melts taste like. They also had the same taste and texture as strawberry astronaut freeze-dried ice cream, so you probably won’t need to go to a planetarium or space museum if you’re jonesing for strawberry astronaut ice cream after smoking a fat bowl and watching Harold and Kumar achieve their goal of getting White Castle. I personally enjoyed the taste of the Yogurt Melts and the feeling of them dissolving in my mouth. They’re quite addictive and I’m surprised I didn’t eat the whole bag in one sitting.

One thing I didn’t like about the Strawberry Yogurt Melts is that when I chewed on them, they stuck to the contours on the top of my back teeth, which made it feel like I had foam fillings. I could’ve just let them melt away, but that took too long, so I instead used my fingernails to dislodge the melted freeze-dried snack from my teeth. Another thing I didn’t like about it was its price, which seemed kind of high for something in this size. But I guess if it’s for the future citizens of our planet, whose taxes will help take care of my medical insurance and whose job it will be to change my adult diapers when I’m 106 years old, it’s probably worth it.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/4 cup – 30 calories, 0 g of fat, 0 mg of cholesterol, 15 mg of sodium, 50 mg of potassium, 5 g of carbohydrates, 0 g of dietary fiber, 4 g of sugar, 1 g of protein, 0% vitamin C, 0% vitamin A, 0% iron, 4% calcium, and possibly 30 seconds of quiet time with the toddler while they chew on them.)

Item: Gerber Graduates For Toddlers Strawberry Yogurt Melts
Price: $3.50 (on sale)
Size: 1 ounce
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tasted like strawberry yogurt. 99% real yogurt and fruit. Contains live and active cultures. Easy to chew and swallow. Reminded me of strawberry astronaut ice cream. Kind of addictive. Talk Sex with Sue Johanson. I liked the feeling of them dissolving in my mouth.
Cons: Slightly pricey. Doesn’t seem like you get a lot for what you pay for. Gets stuck to teeth. Looked like little Barbie pink piles of poop. The “terrible twos.” An adult eating toddler food.

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.

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.