it's been awhile. . .

. . .since this blog has seen any kind of action (although my hard drive has about a million pictures of things i've eaten, just waiting to have words written about them that no one will read). generally, i hope to stick to the parameters of the blog, which is: reviewing food. however, i could not pass up this web site:

http://www.baconsalt.com/

yes! finally, a company that is as passionate about bacon as i am. this is salt that tastes like bacon. bacon salt. with quotes such as "i'll put this on everything!" from sean r. and "why would you have fries when you could have bacon fries??" from chuck h., this is my kind of web site.

bacon salt has zero calories (a negative in my eyes) but is kosher (wow!).

check out the site, as they're on a quest to make everything taste like bacon. plagiarism be damned, i hope they steal my idea for bacon-flavored root beer.

product: Marketfare Deli Pride 'Fish & Cheese' Sandwich

Marketfare Deli Pride 'Fish & Cheese' Sandwich
purchased at: save-a-lot
price: 99 cents
net weight: 4.9 oz
calories: 410 (with tartar sauce)
daily price: $4.83

story: this isn't going to be the greatest of introductions, but: i like fish sandwiches. i have ever since i ate one of those old blue-wrapper "filet-o-fish" mcdonald's sandwiches back when i was young. the value of this is decent although during lent, all fast food places ever in the history of everything have their sandwiches down to 2 for $3. but fish sandwiches are a year-round obsession with me, so i was all over this like christians on beef patties the day after easter (i have zero idea how accurate that analogy is and don't care).

judgement: if you're going to eat this sandwich, it'd better be thawed first. thawed, all you have to do is microwave it for like a minute. unthawed, you have to do like three more things and heat at 30% heat with the package partially open for 3 minutes while the sandwich is "upside down" and making sure that all the jade crystals are in place and rubbing the fifth crystal counterclockwise 12 times before inserting it into the power grid. whatever.
after cooking, you can put the tartar sauce on. i was unaware at first that the sauce contains the rare tartar sauce ingredient of red bell peppers and thought that there was blood or a tapeworm in my sauce. why marketfare decided to accentuate asthetics in their gooey white sauce is beyond me.
all that aside, i liked this sandwich. the fish is really hard to get evenly cooked and has some weird taste from a spice whose name i can't recall and is usually not in a fish sandwich, but the bun tastes great and the fake melted cheese is salty fake perfection.

bottom line: compared to some of the other fish products you'll find in a freezer, these are pretty good. and relatively speaking (in regards to the other products we eat here), the value isn't great, but if you like fake cheese and sesame seed buns, these things are awesome.

next time: Cheese Club Macaroni & Cheese

product: Totino's Mini Meatball Party Pizza

Totino's Mini Meatball Party Pizza
purchased at: Kroger
price: $1.00
net weight: 10.2 ounces
calories: 350 per serving; 2 servings
daily price: $2.86

story: I love pizza of all kinds, in my experience anything delivery is mediocre compared to anything you can buy in a store in terms of quality versus price. This little sucker is about as amazing as you can get for only a single Washington.

Back in my early days of apartment dwelling, these gems were my main source of sustenance (aside from cigarettes and ramen noodles). I could eat them three meals a day, easily.

This meal takes roughly 15 minutes to make and only requires basic knowledge in the use of ovens. Preheat, unwrap, place on rack, wait, take out, let stand a few minutes, enjoy. EASY

judgement: All I have to say about this product is that it's better than most of the sex I've had (most, not all.) I had to control myself and not eat it as soon as I got it out of the oven, lest I burn the roof of my mouth out. The cheese, the toppings, the sauce, the crust, all are highly enjoyable and definitely don't taste like cardboard. This pizza also isn't insanely salty like most delivery pizzas are. Of course there are better store bought pizzas out there, but this is the most bang you get for a buck. I HIGHLY recommend you go out and buy some if you can find them in your grocers freezer. Also, it only takes like $2.80 a day to live off these things, something I would totally do if I didn't mind blowing holes in my pants from the gnarly farts these give you.

bottom line: YUM

rules; or guidelines

i probably should've put this in the first post, but here's a few guidelines that we abide by for this blog:

-the food should be cheap
-the food should be kinda easy to cook
-we must follow the cooking instructions printed on the box
-we must consume the entire thing in one sitting

at any point, we can break any of these rules. for example, i don't think it's going to be physically possible to eat the whole box of "cheese club macaroni and cheese" (which utilizes a pouch of gooey, disgusting cheese that you just pour on top of the cooked macaroni).

anyway, those are the 'rules'.

product: Asia Specialties Cream Cheese Wontons

Asia Specialties Cream Cheese Wontons
purchased at: aldi's
price: $1.99
net weight: 6 oz
calories: 280 x 2 servings = 560
daily price: $7.11
# of product: "10 wontons" (recieved one bonus!)

story: back when i was a kid, i never used to like cream cheese. i hated cheese in general (my extremely particular relationship with cheese could probably be a novella-length book), but all that changed when i started eating jr. bacon cheeseburgers at wendy's when i was 12. slowly i started liking all things melted fake cheese. i've since started liking cream cheese, and since i've always loved dough, it was hard to pass these babies up when i saw them for less than $2. the fact that something with a filling probably three times removed from being real cream cheese is being passed off as an "asian specialty" further cemented the deal.

judgement: right off the bat, these things won my heart over by containing a bonus wonton. i love it when i get more product than the box even says i should get. it feels like there has been a bank error in my favor [/monopoly].
they were pretty easy to cook; just open, heat up the oven and jam them in for like 10 minutes or something. as you'll note in the picture to the left, they look pretty good coming out of the oven, too.
taste and texture-wise, these were awesome. they were crunchy, piping hot, and didn't taste like cardboard or plastic, which is always a worry with cheap frozen food. they were also somewhat filling, although i could probably eat a few boxes in one sitting because they're so good.

bottom line: if you see these for sale and the idea of it doesn't put you off, you should absolutely buy these. i'd pay upwards of $2.50 for them and that's saying a lot. to utilize the comedic device known as the "call-back", that's 2 1/2 jr. bacon cheeseburgers i'd be willing to spend for these.
also, i ate these plain, and it'd be a fun project to find out the best dipping sauce for them.

next time: Marketfare Deli Pride Fish & Cheese sandwich

product: Asia Specialties Chicken Potsickers

Asia Specialties Chicken Potsicker
purchased at: aldi's
price: $1.19
net weight: 10 oz
calories: 450
daily price: $5.29
# of product: "9 potstickers" (no bonus)


story: as with my previous post, chinese food is a food that i love yet know little about. for example, previous to buying these, i had no idea what a 'potsticker' was. i'd heard about them, but never had them. although i suppose greeting a new food through the lens of an aldi's purchase probably isn't the best way to become acquainted with it, i threw caution to the wind and bought these babies anyway; mostly out of curiousity but also because i will buy pretty much anything that is frozen and near a dollar in price.

judgement: based on the packaging and box description, i was assuming that these would have a filling like a wonton or something with some preservative-laden saucy matrix keeping the chicken and vegetables in place. instead, what i got could best be described as 'egg rolls crammed into a pierogie piece'. i hate egg rolls (probably because i hate cabbage), but i had to plod on.

prep-work for these fell painfully outside the realm of microwave cookery, so i was forced to boil them in water for 9 minutes, also not unlike pierogies. however, completely unlike pierogies, i was given a brown 'sauce' for these by the good people at Asia Specialties, although i'm not sure something qualifies as a sauce if it has less viscocity than water. this stuff was seriously so thin it was almost a gas . i bet it's boiling point is like three degrees above room temperature.

anyway, considering all of this, these were suprisingly good. the sauce kind of tasted like soy sauce, although not much of it ever stayed on any of the potstickers. the potstickers themselves tasted good and were somewhat filling.

bottom line: i cautiously recommend these. if you want fake high-class asian cuisine for less than a $1.50, you can't go wrong with these. they taste fine, but sometimes i'm wondering if i like all of this food only because my subconscious figures out how cheap the food is and sends messages to my taste buds to like this stuff so much. failing that, though, the sauce could provide a cheap science experiment about phases or something.

next time: Asia Specialties Cream Cheese Wontons

Product: Banquet Turkey Meal

Banquet Turkey Meal
purchased at: Kroger
price: $1.00
net weight: 2.95 ounces
Calories: 230
daily price: $8.70

story: Myself being a fan of both things turkey and cheap, I saw this little item selling for a dollar and knew I had to try it. It certainly looks harmless enough, a couple slabs of turkey breast with some stuffing, mashed potatoes and peas. All things I enjoy eating under normal circumstances, unfortunately vacuum sealed and factory packaged isn't what I consider normal circumstances.

Now, I'm a veteran of TV Dinners, as a matter of fact I consider myself "a big fan." But this abomination of mankind had my stomach churning before I even removed the plastic wrap from the mashed potatoes section. The portions of the two side dishes are tiny, a couple spoonfuls at the most. The two slabs of meat in my dinner had an odd green tinge to them as well, but like a trooper I went ahead and followed the heating instructions. I had to go through the process twice because my microwave is ancient and doesn't have a carousel. So after I got as much of the meal at least lukewarm as possible, I sat down to enjoy my meal.

judgement: I started with the potatoes. They had the consistency of instant grits (for those of you that have never had grits that would make them very soupy and grainy) I like mashed potatoes that I have to mash around with my tongue before swallowing, these I could just drink if I had no spoon handy. From there I moved onto the stuffing, this was the best part of the meal. They had some real flavor to them and tasted just like stuffing should, so that was all well and good. I then devoured the peas that were surprisingly crisp and tasty. Finally, it was time to tackle the turkey. I sliced one of the slabs in half with the side of my fork like a real man and shoved a portion in my mouth. I gave it a good chew and really tried to absorb the flavor...only problem was, there was no flavor to speak of. These meat slabs were just bland and gross. If it wasn't for the fact that they were so soft and easily swallowed I might have just thrown the damn thing out right then and there. Luckily, as I write this review a day later I'm not experiencing any bowel obstruction or other form of discomfort, so I can only assume this meat wasn't tainted like I initially suspected...thank god.

bottom line: as the saying goes "You get what you pay for", but from experience I have gotten way more satisfying dishes for a dollar and sometimes less, so I'd suggest steering clear of this one...unless you don't have taste buds, in which case the different textures will entertain your tasteless tongue for the approximate 3.25 minutes it takes to eat this tiny "meal"