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.
The Snack Report: Entenmann’s French Toast Donuts
I think everyone can agree with Homer Simpson that donuts are great. They’re a breakfast, they’re a dessert, and even just a snack. They’re one of the great “on the go” foods because they’re so easily portable. Unfortunately if you eat too many donuts you’ll end up sharing a waistline with Homer Simpson and not just a food appreciation. I suppose this has been my roundabout way of saying that I’m reviewing donuts this week.
I first saw Entenmann’s French Toast Donuts in the grocery store last week, and since they happened to be on sale I decided I couldn’t pass them up. They sounded too yummy not to try, and obviously I always like things better when they’re on sale. Besides, I’m all for interesting breakfast food mash-ups (we did come up with francakes after all). I could already faintly smell the hints of French toast when I picked up the box, so I was excited to give them a taste. So, how’d they do?
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.
Food 101: How to Make a Pizza
As you may have guessed by now if you’ve spent any time on the blog at all, we’re big fans of pizza. Pizza is one of the most perfect foods around. It’s delicious, it’s portable, and it’s relatively cheap both to buy and make. Specialty slices are great, but nothing beats a really good regular cheese slice. The sauce, the cheese, the crust…they all just go perfectly together. In my opinion pizza is comfort food at its finest. There’s no problem pizza can’t solve.
It can even double as a Frisbee!
Now we make a lot of specialty pizzas (at least one per month),and we’re all for people experimenting with their own fun pizzas, but with all things you should master the basics before moving on to the advanced. So this post will go over the basic pizza making techniques for those who may be less familiar with pizza making than we are (and there’s nothing wrong with that!).
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.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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