Good Morning!
I hope everyone is having a good week!
I actually had an interesting Monday morning. It was kind of stormy out, but I didn’t think too much of it and took a shower before going to work. While I’m in the shower the lights flicker so I’m like omg, I better hurry up – what if the power goes out?! So I quickly soap up and about a minute later the power goes out. I keep going but literally the water runs out, like, a minute later. UMMMM now what!? I have a head full of shampoo and soap all over my body and no running water. It was a total nightmare situation! So I ended up having to dump three bottles of water over my head and body to rinse all of the soap out. And it was freezing cold! So the lesson is: 1. I probably shouldn’t shower when it’s stormy out and 2. always keep bottled water on hand! And the power didn’t come back on in my house for like 5 hours! Ugh – it was quite the way to start the week…
Moving on to today’s blog topic – I am sharing a few recent food & recipe reviews! I hope you enjoy and let me know if you have any questions in the comments below!
Cheez-It Snap’d
A couple of weeks ago my sister told me that she tried a new Cheez-It product and loved it. I am a faithful Cheez-It fan myself (no Cheese Nips over here), so I eagerly picked up a package of these new Cheez-It Snap’d cracker/chips on a recent shopping trip.
The first product difference that I noticed is that they came in a bag, not a box. I believe this is so the consumer knows that this isn’t a cracker anymore, but a cracker/chip hybrid and in this case, Kellogg’s is calling them crisps. I purchased the Double Cheddar flavor as my store only had that one available. I have since seen Jalapeno Jack and Cheddar Sour Cream & Onion (which I would like to try next!)
I started munching on these and fell in love pretty quickly. I felt that they were a bit reminiscent of another Cheez-It spinoff– Cheez-It Grooves, which I also love but try not to purchase because I eat too many of them. The Snap’d crisps are advertised as being cheesy, thin, and crispy – all of which I totally agree with. The double cheddar flavor had just the right amount of cheesiness and there was also a somewhat buttery flavor to them as well, which I really liked. The overall flavor was really good but these weren’t the best tasting chip/crackers that I’ve ever had, yet I found them to be incredibly addictive. Somehow the right amount of crispness and airiness in them just made me want to keep on snacking. According to the package, serving size is 21 crisps which sounds like plenty, but I probably ate double that in one sitting. Oops.
Final Verdict: Excellent addition to the Cheez-It family. I would definitely purchase again. Yum!
Lay’s Electric Lime & Sea Salt Chips
As a huge chip lover, I was very intrigued recently when Lay’s came out with three new flavors of chips: Electric Lime & Sea Salt, Flaming Hot Dill Pickle Remix, & Beer Cheese. But to be honest, NONE of them sounded that good to me. However, it’s hard for me to resist trying a new product, so when I spotted them all at a recent trip to Target, I picked up the lime flavored ones thinking that salt and lime on a chip MIGHT work.
My daughter is super into chips these days and upon buying these and bringing them home, she insisted on opening the bag right away and trying them. She quickly bit into one and immediately yelled “Yummy!” and wanted to basically eat the whole bag. I tried one after she said this and my immediate reaction to the first bite was “OMG – EW! WAY too much lime!” Before purchasing I had read a quick review somewhere online and someone had commented that the lime flavor on the chips really reminded them of lime flavored skittles (those were great btw and they should really do away with green apple and bring them back!) BUT anyway – I must agree that the lime flavor was really overpowering upon the initial taste and did remind me of lime skittles! However, since we are talking about chips and I really can’t eat just one, by about the third or fourth chip the lime flavor became much more subtle and I found myself actually enjoying the flavor! The subtle lime taste mixed with a healthy dose of salt made for quite the delightful chip! I think these would go over well at any gathering and would be especially fun for Cinco de Mayo! I polished them off (with the help of my 2-year-old) in about 3 days. In my defense, the bags are a little smaller than regular sized bags of Lay’s. I would say that if you like salt & vinegar chips, then give these a try – they are along that same idea.
Final Verdict: Would buy again – already have and ate the whole 2ndbag as well! 😉
Ruffles Double Crunch Chips – Zesty Cheddar Flavor
I’ve really been on an extra big chip kick lately and decided to try these out. I thoroughly enjoy Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream chips so I thought I would maybe like these.
But sadly no, unless you LOVE cheese (and I mean are borderline obsessed with cheese) and all cheese flavored products, I would not recommend these chips. They are SOOOOOO cheesy and I like cheesy, but these were just overkill on the cheese flavor. It was simply too much cheese. Also, the new zest flavor comes through in a big way in that they are a tad spicy with a zesty (read: nasty) aftertaste to boot!
On the plus side, the wavy ridges are a nice touch and I kept thinking that they would benefit from some sort of sour cream dip to cut down on the spicy cheese flavor. These chips are advertised as being 2x the crunch and I must say that the crunch does deliver. Very crunchy, but not sooo crunchy that it hurt my teeth! Normally, I love most cheese products and I really like both Pringle’s and Lay’s cheddar chips, but in these Ruffles chips the increase in intense cheddar flavor coupled with the spicy zest is just flat-out bad.
Final Verdict: Avoid these at all costs unless you are a total cheesehead.
Yoplait Whips! Dunkin’ Yogurt – French Vanilla Latte
Being the huge Dunkin’ fan that I am, I obviously had to scoop this up upon seeing it in the grocery store last weekend! They had a few different flavors available, but I picked up this one and one other flavor that I will have to review in my next food post. French Vanilla Latte seemed to be the one that I would like the most given that I LOVE vanilla lattes.
The first thing that I did upon pulling off the foil lid was take a big whiff of this yogurt. AND WOW what a heavenly aroma it was! It was like walking into the most delicious smelling coffee shop filled with all kinds of freshly baked delightful little goodies! It smelled so good that I thought surely it must taste good, too. So next came the first bite and…omg YUCK! The taste was a little like burnt coffee mixed with a lot of artificial sweetener. I took a few more bites to see if my taste buds would adjust and begin to enjoy the flavors. Sadly, that did not happen – I began to tolerate the taste a bit more, but not really enjoy it. It’s overly sweet and filled with a harsh coffee flavor. I’m no health nut (clearly) so I eat plenty of foods with artificial sweeteners in them and it typically does not bother me, but in this case I couldn’t help but keep thinking of how gross tasting these sweeteners were in this yogurt.
Final Verdict: The French Vanilla Latte flavor is rough! TBD on the remaining flavors.
Recipe Reviews
I was browsing FoodNetwork.com one day when a headline came up alerting me that 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray was starting back up. I like Rachael Ray and I loved that show years ago so I was so happy to read this! I immediately checked to see when the show would be airing and quickly recorded a couple of episodes.
Two of the first meals that she made on the newest season of the show sounded so good that I decided to make them myself. I watched the program for how to make Chicken Parm Patties with Salami Salad and felt that it looked simple enough so that was the first recipe that I tried out.
It was pretty easy to make and was super tasty. I love Chicken Parmesan so I was excited to make a quicker version of it, as it can be time-consuming. The mix of spices in the ground chicken patties were delicious and this was definitely a fun and tasty way to make a lighter version of Chicken Parm. My only caveat is that I think the next time I make it, I would only use only one pound of chicken. The two pounds of ground chicken made for some huge patties which is fine if you want leftovers, but I think I would have preferred to make smaller patties and just eat this for one meal. You also need to make sure that you aren’t grossed out by man handling meat as mixing the ground chicken with all of the spices by hand is the best and easiest way to get an even distribution of ingredients!
The accompanying salami salad was so good! I made it two more times during the week because the dressing made enough for two more salads and it was that good! I will definitely make this meal again.
The second meal that I made from her show was Quick Rotisserie Chicken Pot Pies. I loooooove chicken pot pie and will attempt any recipe that claims to make it in as little as 30 minutes. This one was more of a deconstructed chicken pot pie with no crust actually being on the pie. Instead you bake puff pastry and use that as the crust topping! I was more than happy to do this because puff pastry is basically a little slice of heaven and so delicious!
This meal was super good! The recipe calls for mixing plenty of interesting foods and flavors (like apples and dijon mustard) when making the chicken filling, but it all came together in a very tasty way. I also had plenty leftover to have it two nights in a row and surprisingly the puff pastry tasted pretty good the next day when I zapped it in the microwave for a few seconds to reheat!
Rachael Ray knows her stuff and these two recipes were really good. Did either one actually take me 30 minutes to make?! NO. But clearly she has a bit of help from her staff to get things prepped and ready to go before the actual taping of her show. I would say that these meals took me 30 – 60 minutes to make. The chicken parm one is pretty fast once you finish forming the patties because it’s only 15 minutes in the oven to cook and the sauce that she advises you to make is a quick one! Both recipes are fairly simple to make and if you enjoy cooking then you should definitely try these out!
The last recipe that I have for review is a real simple dessert one that I made last week while watching the championship game of March Madness. (And just a quick side note: How good was March Madness this year?! I don’t typically get so into it, but the last three games that Virginia played all went into OT and it was AMAZING to watch. They played with so much passion and intensity that it was so exciting and fun! I feel like the NBA rarely has games like that so it was really enjoyable to see.)
Now onto the bars that I made for the game. I made No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars because they seemed like a great equivalent to Reese’s and would make for an excellent game day treat. This recipe is from Sally’s Baking Addiction who posts some really great recipes! These bars are super simple to make and only have five ingredients. The tricky part is making sure that you make them in advance of when you want to enjoy them because they require at least two hours in the refrigerator to fully set.
If you love chocolate and peanut butter and want to make an easy dessert then these are the bars for you! They are really good, but I found that eating six of them in a row (I cut them up small!) caused me to feel extremely sick! I was probably in borderline diabetic shock. 😉 My only complaint is that I actually found them to be almost too peanut buttery because the layer of peanut butter is at least double the thickness of the chocolate layer. I prefer more of an equal ratio, so I ended up cutting off a layer of the peanut butter as I ate them so that they weren’t so rich. That is my personal preference, though. I brought a bunch of them into work and everyone seemed to like them just fine with the thick layer of peanut butter. But you know how it is in the workplace, those people will basically eat anything to help get them through the day! haha
I would make these again, but I would probably only make them for a party. Since I found them a touch too sweet, I wouldn’t just make them for a family dessert to have around the house -but at a party these are definitely a crowd pleaser!
That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed reading and let me know if you have tried any of the products or recipes that I blogged about!
Xo
Holly
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