Blog Archives
The Cereal Report: Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch
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!
Obviously there’s been a stupid number of food companies taking advantage of the “limited edition” hype train the past couple of years, though I have to say that one niche was left out of the mix was Christmas editions. Especially cereals. Outside of Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas Crunch, there’s not really any Christmas-themed breakfast cereals I can think of. Lo and behold however, General Mills came to the rescue and added two special editions of two of their biggest IPs: Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cookie Crisp. This review will focus on the former, which gave us Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch.
The Snack Report: Ritz Fudge Covered Crackers
I feel like we’ve said this before in Snack Report, but it seems like everybody has jumped onto the “limited edition” bandwagon lately. Oreos have become the worst offender, but nearly every snack food has dipped its toe into the limited edition waters. One of the latest to join in is Ritz crackers. Their limited edition offering is Fudge Covered Ritz. We first saw these in the grocery store last week, and this week they just happened to be on sale, so I decided to give them a try. I was actually kind of excited about them because I really enjoy crackers. Cheese and crackers and peanut butter and crackers are classic snacks, but I’ll also just snack on crackers plain. So the prospect of a dessert cracker was intriguing.
The chocolate plus salt combo is nothing new. It has gained in popularity over the past few years though. Chocolate covered pretzels and peanuts have been around for a long time. And chocolate covered potato chips entered the scene a bit later. There’s even chocolate covered bacon. So chocolate covered crackers really isn’t that far out of an idea. But can they stand up to their predecessors?
Test the Recipe: Hearty Whole Grain Coffee Cake
It can be a lot of fun looking through old cook books. Some recipes you look at wondering what people were thinking back then while others still sound really yummy. Though it’s usually pretty easy to tell the horrific vintage recipes at first glance, sometimes it can be harder to tell for sure which recipes have actually stood up to the test of time. That’s where our new recurring “Test the Recipe” posts will hopefully come to help. We plan to find recipes from vintage cookbooks/recipe cards/magazine cutouts, etc. and test them out. For the first run through we will follow the recipe exactly (barring any possible ingredients that are very hard to find/might not exist anymore in which case we will make the closest possible substitution) and see how it turns out. If it turns out good, then that’s it! Recipe is good to go and you can rest assured that you will end up with something yummy if you make it. If it doesn’t turn out good? Well then we’ll be revisiting the recipe and tweaking it and then posting our version of it as a “We Can Do It Better” post at a later date.
Our first recipe up for trial is from the Quaker Oats Wholegrain Cookbook from 1979.
There’s a bunch of interesting sounding recipes in there, so we’ll probably test some more from there, but first up is the “Hearty Whole Grain Coffee Cake.” I enjoy coffee cake but hadn’t had any for awhile, so it seemed like a good place to start.
The Snack Report: Nature’s Path ‘Love Crunch’ – Apple Chia Crumble
You’re all familiar with the TV Trope, the ‘granola girl‘ (or granola guy, if you will), are you not? If no, you can read up, but it’s essentially just our modern day incarnation of what hippies used to be, decades ago. Preaching love and happiness, exploring counter culture, an affinity for mother nature, etc… You get the idea.
Interestingly enough, with Meg and I’s newfound love for yoga, actual granola, and gardening, you could probably classify the two of us as a granola girl/granola guy. Interestingly especially with me, since anyone who grew up with me knew I was a major league cynical asshole in high school and college. But hey, people grow up, right? I’ve already come to grips with the fact some people consider me a hipster, so what the hell. Bring on the granola. (Though admittedly I still have no idea how to play a guitar).
The Snack Report: Simply Nature Pumpkin Seed Tortilla Chips
We’re in the heart of fall, which means everything we review must be pumpkin. I kid, of course. Not everything has to be pumpkin. It just so happens that a lot of the stuff we’ve been reviewing lately is pumpkin. But that’s because most of the limited edition snacks and beverages out now are pumpkin or pumpkin spice flavored. Today’s pumpkin offering is, I think anyway, one of the more unique pumpkin items available this year: pumpkin seed tortilla chips. We found them when we were wandering around Aldi looking for appropriate snacks for our fall party. Unfortunately Simply Nature is an Aldi exclusive brand, so if there isn’t an Aldi store near you you’re going to have to sit this one out. Or have a friend or family member who does have a local Aldi go and buy it for you. Without giving away too much of the review before the “read more” cut, I will say that they’re worth the effort.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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