Author Archives: Erik
The Snack Report: S’Mores Oreos
It seems like more and more food companies are joining in on the ‘limited special edition’ bus lately. What once used to be this short exclusive list which included breakfast cereals, ice cream, and a couple restaurant chains, has expanded now to huge proportions. Taco Bell went from a couple recurring menu rotations per year to miraculously managing to pump out limited time menu items on what seems like a bi-monthly basis now, simply by stacking cheese, meat, and tortillas in different orders. Lay’s has been doing the “Do Us A Flavor” with whacky chip varieties every Summer for a few years now. And especially Nabisco, namely with Oreos, has been finding various new ways to inject the longtime standard cookies into your veins under the guise of new ridiculous flavors. We’ve covered quite a few of these on PCFG for better or worse (was red velvet cake really frigging necessary guys?), and lo and behold a new variety has popped up for Summer 2015.
The Cereal Report: Cocoa Puffs With Stars
The Cereal Report is a column in which PCFG conducts various cereal reviews, of new or limited products, as well as providing brief backgrounds on the cereal. Cereal is delicious and fairly cheap as far as meals go. Everyone should eat cereal!
Cocoa Puffs is one of those cereals that we sort of take for granted, since it’s been around forever. Originally created by General Mills in the 1950s, it’s been around for over half a century. Probably everyone has had a bowl or two in their lives. It’s nothing fancy, just chocolate-flavored corn puffs. Interestingly enough, there really hasn’t been much evolution or many special editions of Cocoa Puffs, for at least the time I’ve been alive. But lo and behold, General Mills put out a new, limited edition (I think?) version of the cereal for the first time in a long time, called Cocoa Puffs With Stars. I say “I think” because it doesn’t really explicitly state it. It just sorta claims they’ll be orbiting Earth for a short time, or something, on the box.
Food 101: How To Make Tomato Sauce (or “Red Sauce” if you will…)
Tomato sauce, it’s everywhere. For Italians, it’s on and in everything, to the point that there probably isn’t a single human being in Italy over the age of 7 who doesn’t have an encyclopedic knowledge on how to prepare a pot of sauce. The majority of my family’s heritage is Italian. I grew up in a household where it got tossed on everything from pork to pasta to pizza. Every Sunday was time for everyone to head on over to my aunt’s house for a big-ass Italian dinner with pasta and antipasti and bread and etc… You get the picture. And yet, I have a confession to make, I actually don’t really like tomato sauce all that much.
DUN-DUN!!
Yes I know, I know, blasphemy. But in all honesty I felt like the fact tomato sauce had to be thrown onto every edible item on planet Earth kind of made me sick of it by the time I hit my teen years. Now, I don’t necessarily hate it, but it just feels overused and homogenous to me. That may not be a popular opinion, but I feel like many in Italian-American families simply don’t have the guts to actually come forth and say that, for fear of ridicule and mafioso style ” ‘ey, come on.” half-slaps on the cheek.
That all being said, I ironically am a staunch opponent of jar sauces, both because I’m pro-from-scratch on the food front and also because despite my relative lack of enthusiasm for it, I know what a good tomato sauce tastes like. And jar sauce tastes like shit, frankly. Rather, I will admit objectively that having a good tomato sauce technique in the back of your head is a vital skill for most cooks, if for at very least making pizzas.
Because, well, pizza.
Pizza Lab #29: Cheesecake Pizza
Okay folks, let’s talk cheesecake. It’s a cake, sorta… but it’s filled with cheese. Cream cheese, to be specific. And it’s quite a delectable-ass dessert. When you think of just the name alone, it does sound kind of silly though. Most people default the idea of cheese to old favorites like cheddar, swiss, limburger, etc… Few people hear the word cheese and go “Oh yeah! Mascarpone!” On the flipside, one thing we do think of when cheese comes up, is obviously pizza.
Whoa, shit, do you know what this means?!
It’s exactly what it looks like.
Cheat Codes: Tips For Reheating Rice
Rice is a big staple in many cultures’ diets. Pretty much everyone outside of Europe has been dumping rice on the sides of their plates since basically forever. And in modern day, everyone eats rice. That’s right, everyone. Even gluten-free people. With good reason too! Rice is a really effective side-dish, is easy to prepare, and unless you’ve got blood-sugar disorders it’s pretty innocuous in your diet. Interesting fact I learned a couple years ago, all you Italians out there, know how your mother/grandmother would whip up a pot of sauce on Sunday, then you’d just use that sauce all week for different dishes? Many Asian families have done the same thing in a similar manner using a pot of rice. Call me a traitor, but I forgo the pot of sauce, and instead use the weekly rice batch for my own meals ranging from burritos to curries. Rice is great and versatile, but actually come to think of it, there’s a lot of people who aren’t really sure how to heat it up correctly.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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