Hi All!
Today I am back with some new food and recipe reviews! I’ve tried a few new products and recipes out in the past couple of months and I am sharing all of the details below! You can find all recipes and products by simply clicking on the title name – I have linked them there!
So let’s get into it!
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!
Hello All!
Today I am back with a post sharing some recipes that I recently made and also sharing my food reviews on a couple of products! I hope you enjoy and let me know if you have any questions in the comments below!
First, the product reviews:
1. Goldfish Crackers Epic Crunch Honey BBQ Flavor
I must start by saying these are not very good. I picked these up one day at the store because I love to try new products, especially snack foods. Goldfish are some of my most favorite little crackers and since I like to always have a large Goldfish supply in my house, I decided to purchase these and try them out.
The first thing you’ll notice about these crackers is that Pepperidge Farm decided to plump up their size and these are jumbo sized fish compared to the regular size goldfish. Then I took one bite and Whoa! What a crunch! Ok, I know that they are calling these epic crunch but, like, literally the crunch is a bit much. I’m talking borderline my teeth kind of hurt. And I love Corn Nuts and other crunchy snacks just as much as the next guy, but the crunch on these was too much for my liking.
In addition to the crunch being really extra, this is basically a goldfish cracker masquerading around as something it’s not. The bag advertises as being a tortilla chip crunch with a honey bbq flavor – but unfortunately, it’s still a cracker and not a chip! I will say that the general honey BBQ flavor is actually very tasty and reminiscent of Fritos honey bbq twists (which are seriously delicious and one of the best snack foods of all time and what I think Pepperidge Farm was going for.) However, this flavor is not good on a goldfish cracker. They also tried to change the cracker flavor by adding in some sort of tortilla taste, but the end result falls short. Very short.
Do yourself a favor and don’t bother trying these! I will most definitely be picking up a bag of Fritos honey BBQ twists instead or some honey BBQ chips since that is all that these goldfish made me want to eat!!
2. Pop-Tarts
I used to eat pop-tarts pretty much every single day when I was in high school. I would throw a pack of either the strawberry or wildberry flavor in my backpack and try to nibble on it either in between classes or eat a chunk of it in homeroom while trying to hide my face. Once I got to college I stopped with the pop-tarts because I pretty much ate every meal at the dining hall and then I kind of forgot about my old friend, the pop-tart. Recently, I started wondering about my old friend and I decided to pick up a box of pop-tarts on my last shopping trip.
I found the box and general packaging to be very similar to that of 15 years ago. I was delighted to see that my old friend looked the same! A square-shaped pastry covered with a layer of white frosting with fun colored bits of sprinkles. I took one bite and instantly smiled. I was transported right back to homeroom in the fall of 2002. My old friend still tasted the exact same! Soft, flaky crust on the outside, sweet strawberry flavor on the inside. And I would just like to take this opportunity to thank the fine folks over at Kellogg for never changing Pop-Tarts and trying to make them be some awful healthy snack with no preservatives. That normally strips away the delicious taste and I’m happy to report that Pop-Tarts have not yet succumbed to the peer pressure of the all natural foods industry. Two thumbs waaaaay up on Pop-Tarts and although I have yet to find Wildberry in stores, they are available online from Amazon and Wal-Mart! I’ll be getting my hands on those soon enough!
In my quest to always try new recipes, I stumbled up Sally’s Baking Addiction. Her recipe pictures look amazing and immediately I was trying to decide which recipe I should try first! She is mostly known for baking, but had recently posted a recipe for alphabet soup. I was honestly thinking it was kind of dumb to post a recipe for this because I feel like anyone can just throw together pasta, tomatoes, and some frozen veggies and technically make a soup. However, I love soup and love trying out new soup recipes especially in the colder months and decided to give this one a whirl.
The most difficult part of this recipe was just making sure that I had all of the spices on hand. I didn’t, so a quick run to the store solved that. Other than that, this was really fast and easy to make and tasted soooooo good!! Sally has really nailed the amounts and different kinds of spices in this recipe and they really make the dish. It was such a flavorful soup that tasted so hearty that I didn’t even miss that there is no meat in this recipe! This is definitely a winner and a great recipe to make for dinner, especially during this Lenten season or if you are vegetarian or trying to even cut out meat a little. I’ve read a few articles lately about how you should cut out meat one day a week as a good lifestyle choice and this soup would be a good way to help jumpstart that change!
The other recipe that I recently tried from Sally’s Baking Addiction, was her recipe for monster cookies. I had never made anything called monster cookies before, but I got the general concept of adding in a bunch of different mix-ins to cookie dough and calling it a monster cookies.
I had all of the ingredients already on hand to make these except for chocolate chips and I was actually trying to use up the last of my Valentine’s Day colored M&Ms, so I decided to just add a bit more of those to make up for the lack of chocolate chips. I quickly made the dough and was a little surprised by how thick the cookie dough was. I triple checked the recipe and I know I made it correctly!
Despite being a little leery of the cookie dough consistency, these cookies came out very good. The weirdest part of all though, is how the taste and consistency of these cookies changed each day after I baked them. Every time I bake cookies, I wait for them to cool 5-10 minutes out of the oven and then I obviously eat one (I mean how can I resist?!) The first cookie that I bit into left me feeling disappointed in the flavor and the consistency was kind of crumbly. Then I tasted one or two more cookies a few hours later and felt that they tasted a little better and that the consistency had improved.
The next day they tasted even better. Then on day 4 when I was down to my last 3 cookies because I had brought most of them into work, I was actually so mad that I only had 3 left because they tasted so delicious! It was honestly the strangest thing that they got better with age. I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced that before with any other cookie recipe. I would also say that flavor wise, these really just tasted like peanut butter cookies with M&Ms in them, which is great but I think I need to add in more mix-ins next time to truly call them monster cookies. Overall, I would make these again or perhaps try this Paula Deen monster cookie recipe. And since these cookies tasted great for days they would actually be good to make if you had some big party and wanted to make something way in advance that would last!
One thing I’ve been incorporating a little bit more of this year is eating salads. I had a coworker a few years back who used to bring in salads from home in a mason jar. I had never heard of the idea, but thought it was great and started looking up recipes of how to do it. It’s a bit of a project to put them together, as it requires a few hours to do over the weekend, but it’s worth it to have either lunch or dinner ready to go during the week.
The website that I typically use to make mason jar salads is this one here. I typically add lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, pasta, bacon, chicken, hard-boiled eggs, and silvered almonds. I think the cheapest place that I’ve seen Mason jars is Wal-Mart and if you can find the wide mouth ones, they worked especially good for these salads. I will typically make 4-5 jars at one time and I would say that they keep for 4 days. I think once I stretched it to 5 days and it tasted just alright, and by that point you are sick of salads!
That’s it for today! I hope everyone has a great day! Let me know if you have any questions or comments!
xo
Holly
Hi All,
Happy Valentine’s Day!! It’s been a little bit of a hectic week, but today I am back and talking about cake pops, which I made as a sweet treat for V-Day this year!♥
I know you may be thinking, “Cake pops?! Those are soooo 2011.” And I totally agree! To be honest back in 2011, I thought cake pops were a pretty dumb trend. I didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t just eat a delicious piece of cake like normal?! Remember how they even made cake pop machines and they were everywhere?! It was a new level of baking craziness that I was never really on board with.
Hello All!
Today I am sharing a few different recipes that I found recently online and tried out in the last few weeks. I am constantly looking up recipes and wanting to try out new meals and desserts! Facebook isn’t my favorite website ever, but I do like how users can share videos of different dishes being prepared and that you can easily save any video and view it whenever you want later on. I have been doing this frequently and I recently made two dinner dishes that I came across on Facebook.
Hi Friends!!!
Today I am sharing a recipe featuring the other white meat, AKA pork. I personally love all pig products and I’m talking pork chops, ham, hot dogs (this is mostly pig, right?!?!), bacon, sausage, etc. I suppose I am a total carnivore! One thing I have noticed in my adult life is how many people have either: a. never eaten pork (and not for religious reasons), b. claim to dislike it, or c. just flat-out don’t want to try it. It seems like a lot of people didn’t grow up eating pork regularly and therefore, don’t really want to try it. I know it’s kind of strange to just start eating something that you never grew up with, but pork chops are seriously good stuff and y’all are missing out! I also think there is maybe a lack of delicious pork chops recipes circulating on the internet, so today I am sharing one of my favorite (and easiest) dinners that I make using pork chops!
I grew up eating a wide variety of dinners and this was one of the ways that my mom would cook pork chops. The tomato soup and Worcestershire flavor combine to make a delicious, mouth-watering sauce. This meal also smells so good while cooking, I used to love to come home and realize this was for dinner! We always used a large electric skillet to make this meal, but you could use a large frying pan if you were making a smaller amount of food.
I hope you enjoy! I’ve never known this recipe to really have a name so I am just going to call it Pork Chop Surprise since that sounds fun! 🙂
Hi All!!
Merry Christmas Eve!!! Today’s post is about one of my favorite foods that I enjoy during Christmas….Christmas Crack!
Years ago one of my coworkers gave me a little box before Christmas and told me to enjoy her “Christmas Crack.” I opened the box and knew it was Chex Mix, however, I’d never seen or tasted this version before and it was really good! This went on for years that on the last day of work before Christmas my sweet coworker would always come by my desk and drop off Christmas Crack and I looked forward to it every year. Two years ago when I had my daughter, I was still on maternity leave for Christmas and realized I wouldn’t be getting my yearly treat of Christmas Crack. 🙁 So I set out to the grocery store and googled how to make my own! I ended up putting it in mason jars and giving it out to family that came over to my house on Christmas to take home. I think this is a great idea because all too often I’m totally stuffed at a gathering and won’t eat any dessert, but hours later at home or the next day I’m wishing I had a cupcake, brownie, or etc. from the party. So this way you get to take some sweets home with you to enjoy later on!
I think most people have heard of Chex Mix and are somewhat familiar with all of the delightful concoctions that the great people over at General Mills have come up with! They really have quite the extensive list of Chex Mix recipes that you can find here. Christmas Crack is a such a tasty holiday version of Chex Mix, but I actually can’t find the exact recipe that I use on their website! I have tweaked a recipe that I found a few years ago online that works for me and I hope you enjoy it!
*This recipe makes a large amount. This year I filled two large size (32 oz.) mason jars and nine jelly (12 oz.) jars. Plus, my mom was over and between us we probably eat 1-2 cups of it before I even jarred them up!*
3 cups Cheerios
2 cups Rice Chex
2 cups Corn Chex
2 cups Wheat Chex
(You can use any kind of Chex, but I like a nice variety!)
2 cups pretzels
2 ½ cups M&M’s
30 oz. white chocolate morsels
1. Place parchment paper on two large cookie sheets. Set aside.
2. In a very large bowl, combine Cheerios, Rice Chex, Corn Chex, Wheat Chex, pretzels, and M&Ms. Mix well to evenly distribute all pieces.
3. Melt white chocolate in a double boiler on medium to low heat until fully melted and smooth.
4. Quickly poor all melted chocolate over your chex mixture.
5. Using a large spoon, gently mix the melted chocolate into the chex mixture and be sure to try and coat all pieces with the chocolate!
6. Once fully mixed together, pour mixture onto the two cookie sheets from earlier. Let mixture fully dry on the cookie sheets for a few hours. I typically make this at night and just leave overnight.
7. Once you are sure the mixture is fully cooled, break up into pieces and either jar them, serve in a big bowl, or just chow down!
I found the cutest gift tags at BJ’s this year so I tied a gift tag around each jar and stuck a bow on top for a simple, yet festive touch!
I hope everyone has a Holly, Jolly Christmas!!! Peace & Love to you all.
xo
Holly
Ahhhhh there is nothing quite like walking into your home after a long day at work and smelling the delicious aroma of a hearty stew emitting from your crock pot. I love a good crock pot meal year round, but especially in the winter! So today I am sharing a beef stew recipe that I make in my crockpot all the time in the cold, winter months. The prep work takes a little bit of time so I will wake up earlier than usual to chop everything up and throw it all together. There is a bit of effort involved, but it’s worth it to get home and not have to do much else other than make a quick gravy to add to the stew! I’ll get home, make the gravy, and while that is thickening, I will throw one of those take and bake breads from the grocery store into the oven. Then roughly 10 -15 minutes later, I’ve got a warm, heart healthy meal on the table!
Hi Friends!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far! Today I am sharing a recipe that has been in my family for generations. It is a two part brownie recipe using unsweetened chocolate.
Hi All!!
Hope everyone’s week is going lovely!! Brrrr, it’s getting so chilly out and I can’t believe Thanksgiving is already next week!
Today I am back with a few food reviews and they are all desserts or sweet treats because I’m a little piggy! Oink, oink. lol. Seriously though, I had reviewed a couple of delightful treats over the past few weeks and I decided to just group them together in one dessert food review post. So let’s dive right into it! This first one is a review of the product features in addition to the taste. The rest are all regular food reviews!
1. Filled Pastry Bag Vanilla Funfetti Frosting
A little backstory first!
A few weeks ago it was my daughter’s birthday and my mom (the ever great baker) was making her a Minnie Mouse cake. I had requested she make chocolate so I decided I would make some vanilla cupcakes to also have at the party because I feel like two desserts are necessary and not everyone likes chocolate cake. So in an effort to please all the party guests I picked up some vanilla cupcake mix and I was about to buy some rainbow chip frosting to go with it, when this new package of fancy frosting caught my eye. It’s a pastry bag already filled with the frosting that has a built in star tip. So basically you can make your cupcakes look semi professionally done without owning any pastry bags and cake tips! I had heard about this a couple of months back, but I had never seen it in store until that day. The price of it was similar to a jar of frosting so I decided to just buy it instead. I believe only Pillsbury makes this, so Funfetti frosting is what I picked up – although you know I think Rainbow Chip is better! 😉
Years ago I took a cake decorating course at Michael’s but I’d forgotten most of what I ever learned, so I wasn’t really sure how to go about using this pastry bag. I knew to push all the frosting down to the tip and squeeze and that’s about it. Haha. Honestly though, I think anyone can use this and it does make your cupcakes look a lot better and at a party presentation is kind of up there on importance factors. So I started just going around each cupcake with a little swirl and then added some rainbow sprinkles to the top and they looked pretty good! Regarding the taste, the frosting tasted exactly like Funfetti frosting out of a jar, so delicious.
However, I was very dismayed when I was only about halfway done frosting my cupcakes and yet I was nearly OUT of frosting! This was only a couple of hours before the party so I quickly felt myself panicking to only have 12 cupcakes frosted. I looked over the frosting box to see if the new scam is that they gave less frosting because they added it to this dumb pastry bag. Nope, it claimed to have the same amount as a jar of frosting. I think part of the problem lies in the fact that some frosting is wasted in the pastry bag as you cannot squeeze out every last drop of frosting but you can pretty much scrape a jar of frosting clean. The other issue (I’m guessing) is that you use more frosting per cupcake doing the swirl effect with the star tip as opposed to just scooping some out of a jar and spreading it across the top of a cupcake. Or at least I did in this case!