Teriyaki Doritos

Another chip flavor in my J-List package, this one happens to be from Doritos, in a teriyaki flavor.

The bag of chips borders on being industrial strength in tenacity. I had to cut it open. That's bad for a snack bag. If I were on the train and moving, or walking somewhere where I just needed a snack, I don't want to have to ask for help or look for a sharp object to open a damned bag of chips.

The Doritos are of a normal size, perhaps a smidge smaller than their American counterparts. Beware, when you open this bag. These smell horrendous. Almost smelly enough to turn me off them completely, but I tried them and the taste is much better than the scent.

I'm not sure if I'd classify these as teriyaki. I guess one could, because they're sweet and salty, but I don't taste the soy sauce. If anything, it's more of a barbecue taste, like a sweet honey barbecue. The Doritos from Japan have a much more intense corn flavor to them than the regular, which I like and don't like at the same time. On one hand, the proportions are different, giving a very crispy, almost sembei-like texture to the chips, with a sweet corn flavor as an aftertaste, but on the other hand, the corn flavor really takes us away from the teriyaki, and if the flavor is billed as teriyaki, I don't know why there isn't more of a flavor.

They're good chips, and quite addictive at that. I like them.

7/10- NICE

Late Night Doritos: Last Call Jalepeno Popper

I've always loved spicy things, but for some reason, have never gotten around to trying jalapeno poppers. They're a bar food staple. The tasty appetizer with a beer. So I figured if I tried these, I might be inspired to try the actual food.

If these are supposed to be accurate, Doritos has the flavor spot on. The aroma is deeply spicy, spicier than I thought, and the chips are bright orange. If they were green, that would be cool. But I digress.

The flavor is really, really good. I was expecting a weak peppery flavor, nothing to write home about, but these are spot on. The chip base provides the battery taste of the popper's shell, and the taste starts out tangy and cool, and then develops into a legitimately hot chip with a nice peppery taste and a real spice that can only be remedied, of course, by eating more chips.

This is the first Doritos chip I've had that doesn't taste like a conglomerate of Cooler Ranch and Nacho Cheese, so they definitely need to stick around. I like them a lot.

9/10- GREAT

Starbucks Sausage Piadini

Mom and I went to Starbucks today for a little breakfast, and I wanted something hot and filling, but not too rich, so I ordered this piadini.

Contrary to what I first thought, piadini, or piadina, is not a word invented by Starbucks marketing executives to seem avant garde and homemade. It's an actual Italian food, a sort of taco-flatbread thing served with meats inside. I ordered the sausage, egg, and cheese piadini.

The piadini is lighter and fluffier than it originally looked in the case. The bread is some sort of foccacia bastardization with green flecks in it. The green flecks could be boogers or green dye for all I know. Their flavor is never again mentioned in the context of the food. The filling is nice and hot, and the bread is crispy instead of simply tasting reheated.

As for the flavor, the sausage and cheese are rich and gooey, but the egg is flavorless. It exists. I can feel its presence, like the ghost of a dead grandmother or a lingering elevator fart, but lacks any actual substance within the melding of the pastry.

It's good. Would I order it again? I'm on the fence. It's a nice, hot meal, but at $3.25, you're better off with a McGriddle. Cheaper, tastier, and much more filling.

5/10- AVERAGE

Chili's Chicken Crisper Bites

Yo, all my foodies. So Swagger and I went out to Chili's to celebrate us leaving for college soon, and got a shitload of good food for me to review.

As a meal, I got the chicken crisper bites. These are billed as chicken fried "to perfection" with sauteed onions, pickles, and cheddar cheese with ancho-chile ranch sauce on a bun, served with crispy onion straws and french fries.

I ordered these without onions and pickles because that just seems strange, for one, and for two, it also seems like there's just too much going on with the briney flavor of the pickles and the crunchy onions, and the cheese and sauce, and underneath that you remember that there might actually be some chicken, too. So I got them with just cheese and sauce, figuring it'd be much less simplified to eat.

The food comes out on a platter with each sandwich stabbed squarely through the middle, as if to create a food diorama based on a medieval pit trap, so one can safely stab one's french fries through the skewers. They were nice and hot and massive. I was wholeheartedly tricked by the sandwich. I figured, oh, they're tiny, they won't hurt me, and like the Gremlins, I was fucked.

The sandwich itself is delicious. It's little, roughly three bites' worth, one if you're Galactus, and is very tasty. Not a lot of cheese taste, and if there was any ancho-chile ranch sauce, a sauce I was legitimately excited to try, I could not tell you where it was. Seriously. It was like searching for WMD's...it was not there.

I can make that joke. I'm a Republican.

Good little bites, though, but filling as hell. Extremely addictive until you actually get full. I just wanted to keep eating and eating and I powered through three of them until my stomach reminded me that it was full. I left the last one sitting there. I didn't even want to take it home. Four is just too many for me, I guess. I'm a wuss.

The fries and onions on the side baffled me. So is it fries or onions? Oh. I guess it's both. It just made me wonder why they'd bother serving smaller-than-adequate portions of each with the sandwiches. I'd have wanted one. The onions seemed like more of a garnish than a side dish, too. Little crispy straws. Too small for me. The fries were nothing spectacular. I made better at home. Just plump pieces with the skin on, and by the time I dug through my shredded onion things, they were cold. AND WHERE WAS MY DIPPING SAUCE, CHILI'S?

Overall, these were quite tasty. When I was eating them. At home, I was miserable and bloated. So, my foodies, my lesson to you is to beware the allure of the Seductress of Sliders. She will take you to a fun, friendly atmosphere to STAB YOU THROUGH THE STOMACH AND LEAVE YOU FOR DEAD.

Rest in Peace, my stomach.

8/10- YUMMY

Desert Heat Buffalo Wild Wings and Assorted Appetizers...

I had these wings a few nights ago with a friend of mine, and I was excited to see that for the first time, BBW is eschewing their messy sauces for a nice dry rub. Of course, I had to eat them.

We had appetizers to start out with- BBW's miniature corn dogs and mozzarella sticks. The mozz sticks were quite good, actually- nice and big with a panko crust, and the cheese was hot and melty enough so that it strung out in a big loop rather than falling out of the breading and scalding your face. The corn dogs were tiny and crispy, and the batter to dog ratio wasn't bad. They were good dogs, just a little bland. I would have appreciated some dipping sauce or flavoring in addition to them.

STICKS- 6/10
DOGS- 5/10

As for the wings, well, they were typical BBW fare. If chicken had a hierarchy, it would go like this. Boned chicken, then chicken nuggets, chicken wings, chicken tenders, and finally, fried chicken fillet on top. These "boneless wings" waver in the nugget/tender region. They call them tenders, but tenders are, at best, big slabs of breast meat in holdable shapes. These are like tenders that have been curled up like pill bugs and fried into a frenzy. They're too crispy, and rarely ever larger than a small dog's turd.

The seasoning is good. Lots of paprika flavoring and spices, a very salty taste, too. But it's just too hot, somehow. I'm not sure if it's the dryness of the spices offsetting the flavor, but it is really akin to being in a desert. Out of eight wings, I ate three, maybe. They're not that good.

Why do I keep eating here?!?

4/10- THUMBS DOWN

The holy grail of chicken.

By pure accident, I have perfected fried chicken and french fries. Sorry for the photo...I really do need a good camera!

And I'm going to show you the recipe.

Ingredients (serves 1)
1 boneless chicken breast
1 potato roll
salt
pepper
bread crumbs
flour
butter
1 potato
oil- olive and peanut

1. Take your chicken breast and tenderize it- roll or pound it down until it's roughly 1/2 inch thick.
2. Mix together salt, pepper, bread crumbs, and flour. Dip chicken in and coat on all sides.
3. Butter roll and bake potato. Yes, bake it. Once it's done baking, cut it into fry shapes.
4. Fry chicken in pan at 200 degrees for about ten minutes, or until golden brown on both sides. Let cool.
5. Fry fries at same temperature until crispy and golden brown.
6. Take cooled chicken, fry again for roughly 30 seconds to a minute, take out and serve.

This is definitely the best chicken I've ever had. Why? Because it's so simple. I wanted to do a dry rub, put a sauce on it, and just decided to throw that down the tubes. It's so simple. Baking the potatoes was genius, and wasn't even my idea. We had a leftover baked potato in the fridge so I just put it in the fryer. They come out tender and have so much less moisture and starch than fresh potatoes, which ensures that there won't be a raw inside and that the flesh will be extremely tender, but crisp on the outside.

As for the chicken, the key is in the twice-frying. I let all the juices soak in and then refried it for that extra crispy crust. I had no idea it would taste so good! Seriously. Try my accidental recipe. You won't forget this chicken easily.

Shameless Foodette: Red Lantern Cake

Yesterday, The Brownie Whisperer and I got together to create a cake filled with rage and buttercream. It was the sequel to the blue lantern cake that he soloed with last week, and soon to be preceded by something even more amazing...when I think of something to create.

The cake recipe was adapted from the guy who got his ass kicked by Bobby Flay, Cake Man Raven, who inexplicably spells his name "Cakeman," like caveman but pussier. Regardless, here's the recipe.

I will warn you- concentrated food gel is bullshit. The lady said we'd be able to color it with a toothpick's worth- the entire cake took the whole bottle. Like fuck it worked.

Ingredients (serves 2-10)
Cake
2 1/2 cups of cake flour
1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of fine salt
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
1 cup of buttermilk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vinegar (white distilled)
1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil
An assload of red food coloring
1 tsp. of vanilla extract

Frosting
4 cups of confectioner's sugar
1 lb. of cream cheese (room temperature)
1 lb. of butter (softened)
2 tsp. of vanilla. extract
Cinnamon to taste
More red dye

1. Sift together all dry ingredients- the first 5 on the list.
2. Add liquid in an electric mixing bowl and beat on medium speed until well incorporated.
3. Slowly add dry ingredients to bowl, until all ingredients are combined.
4. Bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.
5. For the frosting, mix together the cream cheese, cinnamon and the softened butter. Partition off roughly 3/4 of a cup for the "blood" middle.
6. Gradually add confectioners sugar until it reaches desired sweetness and smoothness.
7. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and frost the cake.
8. Mix red dye into blood and add milk until frosting reaches liquidy consistency. Frost cake with white, blood in moat on middle layer (see photo) and white on top. Garnish with fondant symbol.

Catch bad guys red-handed. No photos of me. I'm not pretty.

Trader Joe's Cream Cheese Stuffed Buffalo Chicken Breasts

Rachel, this one's for you. One of my amazing bloggy friends commented on my recipes with a mutual detestation for mayo, so I went out to find her an amazing treat that I knew she'd love. I loved it, too. That treat turned out to be a find from The Brownie Whisperer raving madly about these chickens from Trader Joe's stuffed with cream cheese. And yes, I realize that this is the worst photo in the world. If you hate it, buy me a goddamn camera.

He took me home, and cooked me up a chicken. They're bigger than I thought they'd be. They're not nugget sized, like I assumed, but a little bigger than a regular cutlet, I'd say, eight inches long, maybe two across. Either way, they're hefty.

The chicken is coated in panko bread crumbs, so it's really crunchy, and a buffalo seasoning. It took thirty five minutes exactly to cook this in the oven, but it's worth the wait. When we took it out, the cream cheese was oozing out the sides. It looked fantastic. I waited for it to cool, and then dug in.

The first thing you notice with these is the crunch of the panko. The chicken is easy to saw through and just gushes cream cheese. The buffalo flavoring is subtle. It's noticeable, but doesn't take away from the taste of the chicken or the cream cheese. The cheese is delicious and creamy, the perfect filler in here. Every bite has a nice amount of cream cheese in it.

My only complaint was that it's an awfully messy food, so it's not ideal for on the go, but I think that if I had to have a last meal, it just might be two of these in a baguette or a hoagie roll with some cheese on top! They would make an amazing sandwich. And the coolest part about these is that the chicken is local, from a town not too far from my own.

9/10- MMMMM!

Deli Manjoo

Here's a funky little treat for New Yorkers in Chinatown. It's called Deli Manjoo. It's a Korean-based company that makes fresh cakes in front of you to eat. It's probably the most amazing thing I've ever encountered.

Everyone loves Twinkies, but hates how cheap they are. These are the gourmet answer to a Twinkie. The cake is just a little more dense, the cream isn't that fake whipped cream bullshit, it's custard, and best of all, they're bite-sized for easy eating.

The price is upsettingly inexpensive, too. At $2 for 8 cakes, it's just impossible to pass up. They're able to be ordered in walnut and plain.

I got mine plain. When eaten hot, the cake was lovely. Not too sweet, which served as the perfect pair to the sweet, thick custard. It was chewy and dense, like a pound cake. They're adorable, too, like the poor man's petit four, and are shaped like little ears of corn. The custard was hot and gooey and gushed out of the cake, but was still very tasty. Eat these with milk. You've been warned.

Cold, they're good. Cake is still very dense and not mushy in the least. And the cream has solidified so you can eat it in a more portable fashion. A great and cheap little treat for the road!

8/10- LOVELY

Kraft Oreo Brownie

This brownie was eaten in a movie theatre. It boasts Oreo pieces, like in the photo, but lacks them. It looks just like a regular brownie, come to think of it.

If you like thick brownies, this is a good treat for you. It's a pretty chewy, cake-like brownie. It tastes thick and cakey but doesn't crumble all over the place. I'm not sure how this is accomplished, but it manages to keep the taste of Oreo without actually having a large amount of Oreo chunks to begin with. If there were any, I really didn't taste them. The brownie encompasses six good-sized mouthfuls. It was good, just not great. I wasn't impressed or excited. It was just an average brownie with a gourmet price tag of $2.50.

4/10- MEH

Recipes take a test drive.

All right, guinea pigs, I have three recipes for you, and they're both delicious and famous, at least in my eyes. Two of them I lack photos for, so am using shameless stock photos instead. SHAMELESS PHOTOS. Shame them. None of them are mine. I'm just some hack with a blog.

It's going to be a new feature of mine called The Shameless Foodette. I'm a teen. I make amazing and oftentimes, strange recipes. So I'll post the best of them here, yes?

If you like these, PLEASE COMMENT. I want to know if I ought to keep this feature.

Chicken Salad
Here's a favorite of mine. I love chicken salad, but detest the aroma, flavor, and texture of mayonnaise. So I invented this version of chicken salad that still maintains the creaminess and texture of salad without the mayo, and a few additional tasty treats.

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 pieces of flatbread (I use Arnold Select Sandwich Thins)
4 chicken tenders or breast fillets
1/2 cup of mashed potatoes, refrigerated
2 spoonfuls of hummus (plain)
1/3 cup of shredded cheese, any flavor
2 spoonfuls of sour cream or cream cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Turn on stove and cook chicken however you like chicken cooked, though preferably sauteed in a pan.
2. Toast flatbread to a light brown.
3. Mix together the remaining ingredients and microwave for 20 seconds on high.
4. When chicken is finished, take two forks and shred it. Salt and pepper to your liking.
5. Mix shredded chicken into bowl with other ingredients.
6. Spread on bread.
7. Devour.

If it sounds gross, it's definitely not. I adore it. It's flavorful, has a little bit of tang from the sour cream and hummus, and still sticks true to the basic idea of a chicken salad.

Ghetto Dog
Another big favorite of mine. I make it when there's nothing left in the house and when I want to have a quick and cheap, but gourmet, meal.

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 turkey dogs (Definitely use turkey- the taste makes a big difference. Ball Park White Turkey Franks are best.)
2 spoonfuls of ancho-chipotle powder
4 slices of bread
Cream cheese

1. Spiral cut your hot dogs once they're out of the package. Spiral cutting makes them gorgeous and really crisps them up. Just take a sharp knife and cut into the dog to the bottom without cutting through, like you're slicing it but faking out at the end. Make as many slices as you can, and cut an "x" in each end of the dog.
2. Take your bread and spread cream cheese on. Trust me on this one. It's good.
3. Rub the hot dogs with the ancho-chipotle powder, making sure to get into all the cuts and crevices made by the spiral cutting.
4. Put hot dogs on the grill or pan and cook until crispy and browned.
5. Put on bread. Roll up, natch.
6. Consume.

It's delicious. Just trust me. It's a creamy, yet spicy taste, like the chicken salad. It's good.

Pancakes Bananas Foster
I made this one day when I was craving stuffed French toast, but didn't have any bread. It's a really tasty and pretty way to start the morning.

Ingredients (serves 4)
Enough pancake mix for 12 pancakes
2 bananas
1/4 cup of brown sugar
Sugar
Flour
Butter
Caramel/Dulche de leche sauce
Whipped cream

1. Start making pancakes. In the mix, stir in a little dulche de leche or caramel sauce, enough to color the mix, but not screw up the chemistry of the pancakes.
2. Cook pancakes.
3. Slice bananas into circles and sprinkle brown sugar, sugar, and a little flour on them. Make sure to cover all sides. In separate pan, melt butter and toss in bananas. Mix in remaining dulche.
4. When bananas are brown and crispy on all sides, take out of pan.
5. Layer each pancake in this order- pancake, bananas, whipped cream, pancakes, bananas, whipped cream. Whenever you stop layering, top with whipped cream.
6. Eat.

They're all really delicious recipes that I've tried and perfected over and over. Eat them. They are cheap and tasty.

The KFC Double Down Sandwich

Well, folks, here it is.

I know what you're all going to say, and I appreciate it, but the time has come for me to depart this earth. I'll entertain a few questions. For instance, how I will end my life in a pain-free way.

The answer, friends, is the KFC Double Down sandwich. I never said it had to be dignified.

So I saw this lead on GrubGrade and a few other sites and sniffed it out at a KFC near me. I had to get it. It was just disgusting enough for me to have to eat, and oddly enough, seemed to be Atkins-friendly.

I took this photo from Food Geekery, because in my amazement, I never ended up taking photos. How I acquired that was a mystery, really. I went to my local KFC, looked on the menu. No Double Down. But the employees must have been debriefed for such inquiries, because I asked for one, and they delivered.

So how is this monstrosity? Well, it's damned good. I'll tell you that. It reminds me of a MAD Magazine parody a few years back for TGI Friday's where they offered the menu option to replace your bun with two pieces of fried chicken. Oddly enough, that's what this is.

Deconstructing the sandwich. It's two pieces of fried breast fillet, bacon, cheddar cheese, pepper jack cheese, and Colonel's Sauce, which may or may not be semen from Colonel Sanders himself. The breast fillets are like KFC's standard fillets. They're salty. They're greasy. They're delicious and crunchy and crispy. They serve as interesting handles for a sandwich. Not sure if it's the first thing I want my hands all over, but still.

The cheese is quite tasty. It's all melted and gooey and stays nicely on the chicken, and you can taste the individual spicy flavors of the Jack and the sharpness of the cheddar. Quite good. The sauce...I have no idea what it is. Some quick research tells me I could have one of two limited edition sauces, put out by the Colonel in 1964, a selection of a honey rum or a BBQ. I tasted neither, but did taste a creamier flavor, potentially semen or the cheese melting. The bacon was present. Wasn't good, wasn't bad, just added a mildly porky flavor and didn't really add anything to the meal.

So there you have it, folks. Straight from the horse's ass. Do you like it? I don't care. Why? Because I am dying slowly.

8/10- DELICIOUSLY AWFUL

Diet Dr. Thunder

Here's Walmart's rebuttal to the popular Dr. Pepper soda brand.

It's in a silver can, same size, same brown liquid, same scent of cherries, even, but when you take a sip, you taste...nothing. It's as though Dr. Pepper was filtered through someone's system a few times, the flavor was leeched out, and you were left with carbonation and little else. There's no flavor. There's not even a sugary taste. It's like drinking scented seltzer.

The bubbles are nice, but it's essentially, brown seltzer. And who drinks that? This soda isn't worth the low price you pay for it. I keep opening cans, thinking they're flukes, and just pouring them down the drain. This is one disgusting soda.

0/10- INEDIBLE

Cakes by CrumbyDelights

I got a selection of cakes in the mail a few days ago and am just getting the chance to review them now.

These are cakes by CrumbyDelights, and I received a few different flavors in the mail. One thing I will mention that I really love and highly recommend to anyone who ships things that need to be kept in one place is this shredded paper.

I'm sure I'd seen it before when used with gifts for my birthday or something, but I like it a lot because it's festive and nice, but because it serves a purpose, too. When I opened this box, there was a veritable mass of shredded fuchsia paper in there, and it had all clumped together so that the plate inside wouldn't move. In addition to that, the plate was packaged in a nice hat box, so when I opened it, the cake pieces were as fresh and ready to eat as the day they were packaged.

I tried the first cake, an amaretto and Kahlua chocolate cake first, and I was somewhat on the fence. I'm not really a drinker of alcohol, so I can't quite tell you if the flavors were accurate, but I do know that Kahlua is a coffee-based alcohol and that amaretto is an almond based alcohol. In that respect, there wasn't any coffee flavor that I was able to detect, but I might be wrong about the subtle flavors that Kahlua has.

There was a decent amount of almond flavor and a really moist, but dense texture, probably from where the alcohol was. A nice crust was around the cake, and the overall taste was chocolatey and flavorful.

6/10- MMMM.

This cake was a pecan rum cake, with a really nice streusel on the top. It had a very tropical flavor to it, potentially from the rum, and the texture was much better on this cake than the last. It was definitely airier and fluffier and had less of a heavy and dense texture to it. The crumbs fell apart in my mouth, but not in my hands, and were moist and tasty.

As for the taste, the pecans really made it a more interesting dessert than if it was simply a rum cake. They were nestled in a nice glaze on top, and the streusel made a moist top crust as well as middle, too. I'd like to see this with pineapple incorporated, perhaps, or a cream cheese frosting. The alcohol flavor was there in strength, in the intensity of the flavor, but not so much in the overall taste of the cake.

7/10- GREAT

The last cake was a plain almond cake with a dusting of powdered sugar. It had the same texture as the chocolate cake, the same spongy, but extremely dense cake. It reminded me more of a pound cake than any other type.

The almond flavor was present and good. It was a nice mixture of a vanilla cake taste and the almond extract I assume was used. There was a nice crust covering the cake, a chewy, brown and nearly caramelized crust that made the inside even tastier.

6/10- NICE

Crumby Delights
crumbydelights.etsy.com

Snapple Diet Peach Green Tea

I tried this tea late last night, after a hastily prepared chicken sandwich and a hot walk outside. I was looking forward to a refreshing, cool, and tasty beverage. All I got from this was the cold. And that was from an effort entirely of my own, as a result of refrigerating it prior.

This drink was just gross. Everyone has had canned peaches or fruit before, right? There's always that residue of sugary, thick syrup at the bottom of the can that you either incorporate into a recipe or throw out. It appears that the Snapple company has made alliances with the canned fruit industry to take that syrup juice or whatever you call it and simply bottle it for their own profit.

The result is a sickly-sweet, thick liquid that refreshes less than it coats the throat. It's too saccharine to drink more than a sip or two, and if there's any peach flavor, I couldn't find it. The dominant taste was of concentrated green tea and goop. Not a fan. Never will be. If this is the diet version, I hate to try what the sugared kind is like.

1/10- YUCK

PattyBakesCookies

I got in another package a few days ago from Patty, a baker from Brooklyn. Patty has been baking for a long time, ever since she was a little girl, but started up her business as part of a dream she and her husband had, and in the wake of his death, worked and worked and now sells her cookies to all!

Patty sent me a selection of her three top cookies- peanut butter, double chip, which is a chocolate chip and potato chip cookie, and cowboy cookie, with chocolate chips, raisins, oatmeal, and coconut.

The cookies were fresh from a recent Irish festival she'd participated in, and were tied with a pretty green bow on top. Each pack of cookies held two, and they're of a good size, so it was more than enough for me!

I tried the double chip cookie first. It was a little crunchier than I would have liked, but was good. This was an interesting experience for me. I've never tried a cookie with potato chips before, and it was a nice and salty, if slightly bland, flavor. The texture of the potato chips was interesting, too. Again, definitely something I'd try again.

6/10- GOOD

The next cookie was a peanut butter cookie. Now, I love a good peanut butter cookie, and the addition of granulated sugar just makes it even better. The cookie was crumbly, and quite tasty. I generally prefer a more complex and differentiated peanut butter cookie, but this was a good and simple recipe. Reminisces of molasses and a sweet, burnt nut flavor were present. A good cookie.

6/10- TASTY

The last cookie I was sent was the famous Cowboy cookie, with coconut, oatmeal, chocolate, and raisins. I don't like raisins in cookies or anywhere, quite frankly, but there weren't enough raisins in these cookies to bother me, per se. The bottom of the cookie was nice and crisp, and the coconut had toasted a little and added some moisture to the cookie's overall texture.

The chocolate chips and oatmeal also added a unique texture to the cookie, creating a rather interesting creamy flavor and mouthfeel. I liked this cookie, but felt that it could have been a little softer. That being said, though, the ingredients were all top notch.

8/10- MMMM!

Patty Bakes Cookies
pattybakescookies.etsy.com

Red Baron Premium Deep Dish Pepperoni Singles

I've been eating out of the freezer lately, going through the deep recesses of my ice box to grab whatever strikes my fancy as edible. I realize that most freezer foods aren't haute cuisine, but shit, it's summer, and damned if I have any effort or motivation to cook something.

Yesterday, while with The Brownie Whisperer, we decided to heat up two Red Baron mini pizzas. These pizzas are roughly the size of a small frisbee, a bedside table clock, or one of Flava Flav's necklace watches. About five inches in diameter, these are pretty large for miniature pizzas. They are about 3/4 of an inch thick, with a nice, crispy crust on the outside.

I strongly recommend making these in the oven. When they come out, the crust is crispy, with a slight oiliness on the bottom, and an almost buttery flavor. The depth is perfectly proportioned- not too crispy, but not deep enough so that the fillings make the pie soggy.

The cheese covers each pizza perfectly, and there's enough pepperoni on the pie so one gets a good chunk in each bite. The sauce is typical frozen pizza sauce- too sugary, reminiscent of a watery spaghetti sauce mixed with kool-aid or something. But that's the norm. I've never had a frozen pizza where the sauce has been decent.

All in all, not a bad snack. I'd easily eat two of these in one sitting.

8/10- GREAT

Bagels, bagels, bagels!

Got four flavors of gourmet bagels yesterday, in the mail.

The flavors delighted me. I was all too pleased to try them. Being Jewish, I've discovered many a bagel in my life. They were a traditional staple of our household in Sunday mornings, and made all sorts of good recipes. Many was the day where I'd come home to look in the freezer, only to find that paper bag stuffed full of bagels.

These four flavors of bagels were no less than the ones we had, some slightly less kosher, though. My sampler pack, from Eleanor, also known as eeka13 on etsy, had a vegan apple cinnamon, a garlic, onion, and the crown glory, a bacon cinnamon bagel.

The bagels came wrapped neatly in wax paper, which I highly appreciated because there's nothing worse than biting into something and finding that whatever it's been mixed with in the packaging has contaminated its flavor. Each was labeled so I could easily seek the bagel I so desired.

The first bagel I tried was the vegan apple and cinnamon. To be quite honest, I wasn't as excited about this bagel than the others, for good reason. I mean, someone managed to put bacon in a bagel. But I popped it in the oven and got on with it.

The funny thing is, it was much better than I had originally assumed! There was an apple glaze on top, and the bagel was delightfully infused with lots of cinnamon flavor. If this was vegan, I wouldn't have guessed. The cell wall definition was great, many tiny bubbles infused in it, with only the smallest of yeast-like tastes to it. Overall, this was a really great bagel for vegans and non-vegans.

7/10- DELICIOUS

The next bagel I tried was the onion bagel, with pieces of purple onion on top. It was attractive, all the bagels were. They are chubby for miniature bagels and have a pretty wash on top to make them shiny.

The onion bagel smelled like onion, but when sliced, the taste had not much onion at all. The top half had it, but not so much the bottom, and I think that was only because the top had the pieces of onion on it to begin with. It wasn't as bubbly with the cell wall, and had a crumblier texture than the others. I wasn't too impressed.

4/10- ALL RIGHT

The garlic bagel was another one that I didn't expect to be as good as the others, but one that completely blew me away. Slicing into it, it had a mild scent of garlic, with a nice texture and softness to the inner bread. When I toasted and ate it with butter, it was like eating garlic bread from a restaurant. It toasted perfectly, with an outer shell for a good, crunchy crust, and a delicious inner fluffiness that was almost infused with garlic flavor.

This bagel was also great with cream cheese.

9/10- AMAZING
The last bagel was the cinnamon and bacon bagel. This was a monstrous bagel, even for a miniature. If this bagel was a horse, it would be a slightly obese Shetland pony. Anyhow, the taste. Unfortunately, this bagel was a little more crumbly than the garlic, the standard by which all bagels are now judged, but toasted up nicely.

Topped with a little bit of butter, this was not a bad bagel at all. I just wasn't as impressed with the flavor as with the garlic. There wasn't as much cinnamon as in the vegan bagel, and the pieces of bacon were present, but not as flavorful. I really wished that this had more flavor to it.

6/10- GOOD

eeka13.etsy.com
AWESOME BAGELS.

Mallo Cup

Another Southern favorite. I'm not really a fan of coconut, so when I saw these, I balked, but my cousin convinced me to get one and try it.

It's billed as a chocolate cup with whipped cream. The cream is not whipped, at least, not in the sense that you'd expect, but that's what makes it so incredible. The chocolate is average, and the coconut is not so intense like an Almond Joy, but it's more sprinkled on top and adds to the texture, but doesn't conflict.

The cream is what completes the mallo cup. It's creamy and delicious and the texture is just gooey enough to make it a really complex mouthfeel, but not gooey in the marshmallow sense that it gets sticky and gross.

6/10- GOOD

A small plug.

Le sigh. Well, I warned you.

So my friend, The Brownie Whisperer, has started a new blahg. And it advertises just what you readers have been looking for- unwarranted attacks against yours truly and brownies.

He's linked to my side. Visit him and poke him and encourage him to bake brownies for me so I can review them.

www.thebrowniewhisperer.blogspot.com

Google Analytics!

Got it a while ago, and I let it sit. Now, I'm going to show you some of my favorite search engines that you, the readers, searched for to get to my blog!

- are herrs baby back ribs vegetarian
Ribs are not vegetarian, and neither are the chips.

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Uhhh...yes?

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Someone's obviously been reading my mind, because I have a review coming up for a drink with basil seeds in it. Unless you're referring to ramune. And don't drink the beads.

- bee curls
...Yes. The cheese curls with the bees.

- dick porn photo
Not here, pal. Unless you get lucky and find that I've done a hot dog review.

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Free tines come aplenty. I'm sure the forks are relatively breakable. Free time, though. Fuck if I know what to do. Play cards?

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No idea. Ask WebMD.

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Great. Now the emo kids will be trolling my blog.

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Not here. Not unless I do a Foodette Porno Shoot. Any takers?

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Yes. Stop reading my reviews and get help.

- monster energy jello
Doesn't exist, but it's not a bad idea. It will definitely taste like pee.

- soy crisps gave me stomachache
WEBMD. I CANNOT HELP.

- where can i buy hanky panky dessert
Hanky Panky Snax, in your local sketchy vending machine. Hanky Panky Dessert...that just sounds dirty.

Foodette

Utz "The Crab Chip"

Mmmm. Utz. Just their name invokes tastes of homey, crispy, summers with days at the sprawling playground I called home for most of the season. Even plain, the chips are amazing. A really distinctly thin and crispy chip. No ruffles. Nothing fancy. Just good potato.

This particular chip worried me, as I am no connoisseur of seafood or crustacean-like delicacies. They remind me of bugs, quite frankly, and that fishy taste is just plain gross. But this chip, upon eating it, delivers a tasty smack of paprika and Old Bay seasoning that one might use on a crab instead of a fishy, crabby taste.

For starters, I have to applaud Utz on their packaging and resilience. These potato chips made it all the way from a grocery in Thurmont, MD, to my house in the middle of a large, stuffed backpack. And when I opened the package, not a chip was crushed! Imagine that. Of course, this might also be due to the fact that they're rather small in stature and uniform in shape, carrying the ability to stack one on top of another for the quintessential "chip sandwich."

Utz's chips are crispy and transparent, and this particular flavor boosts a healthy dusting of bright red powdering, with intermittently shaded flecks all across the chip. The first thing one tastes when eating this is paprika, and then a boost of hot flavoring and a sour, salty taste underneath. The ingredient list says there's honey, but I didn't taste any.

These are pretty hot for a crab chip. Having never had Chesapeake crabs or Old Bay, I can't tell you if they resemble either, but that it's a nice flavor. Were I to make a comparison, it would be to a barbecue chip, if anything. I still like them, though. After so many chips, your mouth does sort of numb to the entire experience, rendering taste buds useless.

7/10- CRABALICIOUS

TastyKake Limited Edition: Summer Berry Pie

Whoops. Almost typed "beery" instead of "berry". TastyKake might want to jump on that bandwagon. It'd probably sell a lot more pies.

I was dubious about these because back East, we have the Hostess pies and those are crap. They're nasty, lard-tasting pie shells barely a third full of pie filling and no chunks. Tasty Kake, though, I expected to be different, and it was. It's true. In the South, everything really is better.

The pie was thicker than I expected, and the crust was very soft. It was packaged in a nice little box with photos of the fruit on it and was nestled safely so as not to crush.

The crust was a sweet crust, not so much of a pie crust as a thicker, cakey crust, because it didn't flake and get icky. It surrounded the filling well and was consistently thick on all sides and made a nice ratio to filling.

I have a horrible confession, and that confession is that I like pie filling. I mean, I prefer it to regular plain fruit in a pie. I like the texture, the gooiness. I just like it. And in this pie, it has that delicious, gelatinous pie filling, but there are HUGE CHUNKS of real fruit. I even went so far as to take the other half of my pie and sort of comb through to see how many berries I could find. I got three blueberries, two cherries, and two pieces of apple- in half the pie! It was really impressive, especially for a small company to do that, and I think others could take a page from Tasty Kake's book.

8/10- GREAT

Bliss Candies August Nibbler Sampler Pack

A special announcement: I am extending the contest for another week! Comment now, or forever hold your peace, and let my two comments win! Yes, a total of two. No, don't laugh.

And another announcement- in just a few weeks, I will be MOVING TO A NEW ADDRESS. That's right, the Foodette is starting college at UMass Amherst, and gladly accepts care packages, ha ha ha. If you're interested in the address, as I am not wont to post it on the world woide web, do shoot me a line, foodette.reviews@gmail.com.

In the mail today I got a delightful selection of cookie bars and brownies from Bliss Candies, one of my regular bakers. There were seven in total, all with very different flavor profiles and textures, a real summer-beating treat! All the bars in the nibbler pack were chosen for their longevity in the hot sun, so these are a really great treat for a sugary craving that won't melt away!

The first bar I ate when I was in the car- an unrecommended practice for those with bad insurance! It was the toasted coconut and almond bar. This bar resembled an Almond Joy candy with a delicious brownie base.

I normally don't like coconut, but this was a really delightful brownie. The coconut was roasted on top, and had a layer of goo in the middle with an almond-studded brownie base. The entire thing could best be described as moist. I liked the moistness and the nutty crunch of the coconut and the flavor of the chocolate, very rich and deep.

7/10- TASTY

The next bar given to me was a "Not so plain Jane" butterscotch bar. Bliss advertised a hint of butterscotch, but with this car, it was more like a "Give me the money or I'll break your knees" amount of butterscotch. It was good, just not what I was expecting. The heavy bar was studded with chocolate chips, too.

The bar had a nice, deep brown sugary flavor, but was a little too dry for my tastes. Although I did enjoy it very much, I'd recommend eating this bar with a large glass of milk next to it, as it does get to be a bit of a desert dessert.

6/10- YUM

My favorite bar was this bar, the Oatmeal Fluffernutter bar. I'd never seen a bar, aside from a Rice Krispie treat, of course, incorporate marshmallows so seamlessly, making them a key player in the texture and flavor, but not overwhelming the gourmand with that quintessential marshmallow taste. This bar was so complex that I had to bite half of it, eat it together, and then dissect the individual layers to analyze how it all went together.

It starts with an interesting base that slightly detracted me from the overall appeal of the cookie bar. It was an oaty, more granola-y base that was crunchier than I expected. Upon taking the bottom part off and eating it separately, I found that I much preferrred the sum of the rest of the contents. The next layer is, I kid you not, a layer of homemade peanut butter filling, just like in a Reese's. This layer was malleable and soft and overall, delicious. After was a spongy marshmallow peanut butter fluff layer, which was just delicious. For anyone who has never partaken in a homemade marshmallow, this is the time. It's just incredible, and with the streusel and chocolate chips on top, this bar is just to die for.

9/10- INCREDIBLE

Another bar in the Nibbler package was a bittersweet chocolate meltaway truffle brownie. It was a very good treat, very moist, like Bliss's treats often are. I didn't taste any real hint of truffle, aside from a much stronger, almost like a bittersweet cocoa powder flavor, in strength, but nothing really reminded me of a truffle.

The brownie was very good. It resembled more of a bread, like a tea cake, because of its moistness but stood up to its topping and really did live up to its motto- a little bit of this goes a long way. I ate half of it and felt as though I was satisfied, and it was a small bar! It's very rich and yummy.

6/10- GOOD

An oatmeal turtle bar was a part of this selection. None can escape the delicious, gooey wrath of Bliss Candie's homemade vanilla caramel! Really. It's that good. Thisd bar was a little more dense than the others. Instead of providing that chewy texture, it crumbled a bit more. This was good, but did make it a little messy!

The flavor was quite good. Bliss does not skimp on chocolate chips for any of these. The oatmeal works well with the caramel's smoothness, taking bumpy and moving it to bodacious with this bar. The caramel was saltier than I expected, but still worked with the sweetness of the chocolate.

6/10- NUM NUM

Another bar that really utilized the homemade caramel and smacked its flavor home was the "Presidential" Turtle Brownie. I don't know why, but the two parts of the brownie had distinctly different textures, possibly from the caramel liquid seeping into the bottom part, but I loved it.

The bottom layer was delicate and moist and very fudgy, separated by the thick and rich homemade caramel layer. I love caramel. I love it when it's perfect. And this was some perfect caramel. The top layer of brownie was studded with pecans, and was a little more fluffy and crunchy than the bottom payer. My only complaint with these is that the pecans were too chunky and thus, the flavor was inconsistent, but that's always been my thing with pecans. Don't let it detract you from ordering these beauties!

8/10- MMMMM!

The last bar in the Nibbler package was an almond cookie bar with chocolate chips. This bar was very crumbly and very brittle, but the chunks of chocolate and nuts provided some softness that made it very tasty.

I liked the contrast of textures in this bar and think that it would make a very facile and portable snack for on-the-go decadence. A winner.

7/10- GREAT

Bliss can be found here, blisscandies.etsy.com!

Food Porn: Photos from Down South

Introducing a new feature here on Foodette, some Food Porn. Now that I have a camera phone, I have the ability to take photos of anything, especially the stuff I eat when out. So here's a small selection, some with reviews coming, of what I ate and when I ate it.

I totally squeezed those.

A snow cone with copious amounts of banana syrup. Delicious in humid MD weather.

Sea Critter. 'Nuff said.

Many old fashioned candies, like horehound and sarsaparilla.

My Roy's sandwich and fries.

Chick-Fil-A nuggets.

Chick-Fil-A's fresh fruit bowl. Wasn't bad at all.

That dick-suckingly thick shake.

Look at that delicious piece of chicken! It's incredible!

The fresh waffle fries. Very tasty.

A really gross brownie from Union Station. I only bought it- $2! so I could sit at their table for being a "customer".

A substantial cheese and cracker plate from the train's snack car.

It's just called blue pop. Nothing else. It tastes like the syrup from a snow cone.

A review on this will be done soon. It's a creme brulee chocolate candy from Godiva.

Fries from Flamer's. Everybody laugh! I sent the logo of Flamer's to FoodZ. He appreciated it.

A pumpkin whoopie pie. Why is it that the Amish aren't obese, fat jiggling as they churn their butter for more food like this?

I'd never had milk out of a glass bottle. Very rich and amazing chocolate milk.

Homemade ice cream from Antietam Dairy- review on them soon, too. Left is Lemon Cream, with chunks of graham cracker crust, right is cotton candy.

The money shot. Amazing, homemade fresh triple caramel ice cream in a PA Dutch pretzel cone. Mmmm.

Quarts of ice cream, three bucks apiece. Pints here are six. It's almost sad.

I loved this bacon and eggs treat at the Mennonite grocery.

TastyKake Summer Berry Pie. Review soon.