Good Morning!
I hope everyone is having a good week thus far!
Today I am back with my July food reviews. I am a little early with it, considering that it is only July 3rd, but I have tried a few new food items that I wanted to blog about!
So let’s get into it!
Chester’s Puffcorn
First: a little back story. I’ve been on the hunt for Planter’s cheeseballs since they announced that they were coming back out. It was for a limited time only, so I’m guessing by now that I missed my chance to get my hands on them. I scoured sooo many stores in my quest for them and always came up empty handed. 🙁 There are a few other cheeseball brands around, most notably Utz. But they sell cheeseballs in these ENORMOUS containers that I think are mostly meant for parties or if you have a gigantic family.
I was at Super Wal-Mart the other day which is one of my most favorite stores because they typically have snack foods that I can’t find at other stores. On this particular visit they had a large display of Cheetos products, but instead of it being a actual Cheetos, it was advertised as Chester’s with some new-ish looking packaging. They had a bag of Chester’s Puffcorn,which by looking at the packaging quickly, I thought looked and sounded like cheeseballs, so I put them into my carriage for purchasing.
However, once I got home and completely read the bag, I realized that they aren’t really like cheeseballs. They are supposed to be a safer snack substitute for cheese popcorn because they do not have kernels, but have that same cheesy popcorn flavor.
Regarding the taste, these are actually kind of an interesting tasting product as the Puffcorn has a unique consistency. It is almost like when you are eating Jax cheese curls and occasionally eat one that tastes way softer and is missing than the usual Jax cheese curl crunch. That is the only product that I think the consistency of this product is comparable to. If you have never had Jax, then I would say that this product both looks and tastes similar to what I would imagine Styrofoam packing peanuts covered in cheese would taste like! That isn’t a diss or to say that these are bad, because they are actually good! The cheese flavor is yummy and these are a super lightweight snack, making me feel like I’m really not eating something bad. It’s just takes a minute to adjust to the odd product consistency.
I do think that this would be a good snack food for younger kids and toddlers as I rarely give my daughter popcorn at all because I’m afraid a kernel will get caught in her throat. These are so soft and light that I would definitely give her a bowl of these to munch on and would feel super comfortable about it.
In the end, I think most adults and kids alike would like Puffcorn. Although it is definitely not a substitute for my beloved cheeseballs, it is a solid cheesy snack food nonetheless!
Drake’s Starlight Brownies
This product is fairly new and I was SO pumped about these. I absolutely LOVE Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies and their original brownies with nuts on them (that seem to be a little harder to find these days).
Drake’s makes some really stellar products like Funny Bones and Ring Dings, so I was excited to see what they would bake up as a competing brownie against Little Debbie.
After checking a few grocery stores, I finally found these at Market Basket. I happily dove into one that afternoon and was not disappointed. I dare say that these are even better than cosmic brownies. These brownies feature a superior fudgy top layer that really delivers on chocolate taste. That chocolate layer is topped with little chocolate chips that are coated in a candied white shell, the “starlights”. Those aren’t really necessary, but I almost always welcome an added chocolate touch.
These are super delicious moist brownies and I highly recommend that you use this handy little product finder to locate a store that carries these delectable little goodies near you!
McDonald’s Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger
I was really excited when I caught wind of McDonald’s new international menu items. I would be more excited if they would bring back the Frozen Cold Brew from last summer because that was AMAZING, but since it appears that they are not, I sought to try out a couple of new international delights.
I decided to try the McExtreme Bacon Burger, because I never really love chicken sandwiches from fast food restaurants and the only other entrée choices was the Tomato Mozzarella Chicken Sandwich.
This burger is a ¼ lb. fresh beef topped with applewood smoke bacon, onions, a McBacon sauce, and Gouda cheese on a sesame seed bun. That all sounded pretty good to me and it lived up to the hype!
The star of this burger to me was really the McBacon sauce, which was simply delightful! It looks almost like Big Mac sauce, but the taste had a smoky bacon flavor that was most enjoyable. I also found the onions to be a great addition and provided a nice crunch in every bite. I’m not a huge fancy cheese person, so gouda cheese doesn’t mean that much to me, and I can’t say that it really made the burger any better. But that bacon sauce was amazing and I kept thinking that it was yet another thing that McDonald’s should just bottle and sell already. (Along with their sweet & sour sauce and their ketchup, which I swear is different and better than all store ketchup brands!)
I would definitely recommend trying this burger out before it’s gone! McDonald’s does not specify how long the “limited time” is, but hopefully this international menu is available through summer!
McDonald’s Stroopwafel McFlurry
Coming in from the Netherlands is the new international McFlurry. It features McDonald’s usual vanilla soft serve ice cream, mixed with caramel swirl, and chopped Stroopwafel caramel cookie pieces.
It sounded pretty darn good and tasted even better! It’s really just like a McDonald’s sundae if you have ever had the sundae with caramel sauce and then they just added some caramel waffle flavored cookies to it. In other words, it was heavenly! I don’t really care much for vanilla ice cream so I rarely get McFlurrys, but McDonald’s vanilla ice cream really has its own unique flavor that with one bite took me right back high school when I would get ice cream from there all the time!
This was super delicious with the only problem being that the caramel is a bit sticky, and even more so now with the addition of caramel cookies. The end result is a lot of it getting stuck in your teeth and you could possibly pull out a filling if you had decades old fillings in your mouth, which I think plenty of people do! So maybe don’t eat this if you are concerned about needing some dental work in the near future. 😉 Otherwise just be prepared for lots of caramel getting stuck in your teeth, but it being well worth it. I downed this in record time and can’t wait to get another on a hot, summer day!
DiGiorno Crispy Pan Pizza
I wanted to love this pizza because I like Domino’s pan pizza and was hoping that this was fairly similar or if I was shooting real high – hoping for something similar to Pizzeria Uno’s deep dish pizza. BUT sadly, this pizza wasn’t on the level of either one. I realize that this is just a frozen pizza, BUT a girl can dream.
This pizza looked really good and I love that it came in its own pan to cook in. However, that’s sort of where the good points end. Because it’s pizza, it was edible & alright, but definitely not great. The corner pieces of the pizza were the crispiest and the best tasting, while the middle was soft and kind of doughy. It’s A LOT of crust and dough and I’m a huge bread person so if I think it’s a lot, then it’s A LOT.
Also, I took one bite and all the cheese came off the slice with it! UGH, I hate it when that happens!! After that, it basically became one of those awful Rhode Island pizzas (my apologies to the miniature state, but I’m not a fan) where it’s just a square piece of thick bread with pizza sauce slathered all over it.
DiGiorno is a good brand so I wouldn’t say don’t buy this, but there are definitely better frozen pizzas out there!
Herr’s Grill Mates Chips – Montreal Steak Seasoning
Herr’s Chips are one of those obscure chip brands that I rarely see in stores. I feel like it’s a chip brand that you occasionally see in a vending machine or in some random convenience store on a road trip. And although it’s not a chip that I eat often, I do enjoy them and think they make a quality chip.
So I was intrigued when I was doing some grocery shopping at Market Basket the other day and I happened to spot these on an end cap. I did a quick backtrack to check over the flavors and I scooped up this bag with Montreal Steak Seasoning.
This bag was 6.5 oz. and was $2.00, which I think seems like a very fair price. Montreal Steak seasoning is one of my all-time favorite products that my mom really got me into growing up. She would put this seasoning on EVERYTHING and it made every dish taste good. Since it seemed to taste good on everything, I felt confident that this would be a great seasoning on potato chips and it is!
These chips don’t taste incredibly different from a regular chip that is just salted, but it’s kicked up a slight notch with the addition of garlic and pepper seasoning. These are tasty for sure and would definitely be a great summertime chip! They could use maybe a little bit of heavier of a hand when dumping on the seasoning, but overall really good!
That’s all for today! Have you tried any of these products?!
I hope everyone has a great holiday!
Xo
Holly
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