My little sister loved Goldfish crackers growing up, but I was more of a Cheez-it or Cheese Nip kind of girl. Honestly, I always felt like Goldfish were a blander, fish-shaped, version of the cheesy square-crackers I loved, and that they were meant for little kids, so I didn't really give them the time of day, until they started coming out with all of these new flavors.
There's been cheeseburger flavored fish, vanilla cupcake, french toast, and even more mature cheese flavors. The list is ever growing. It's nice to see this company trying new things to keep up with all the other food products out there, and even though I was never a Goldfish fan, the foodie in me just couldn't resist the allure of these new fancy flavors. I've always had a thing for flavored pretzel pieces, like Snyders, so I figured, why not give this new cracker and pretzel flavor combination a try?
They're back! I freaking love these things, they're the perfect lazy desk lunch and they taste great. (Read my previous review HERE.) Out of all the varieties available, this one is my favorite, although the sesame noodle bowl is pretty nice too. I already stocked up and filled the backseat of my car with them (don't judge) so if you're a big fan of these you might want to run over to Aldi and stock up too!
Months ago a reader contacted me and asked me to review Haribo's Sour bears and I'm now I'm finally doing it! Slowly but surely I'm making my way through my massive food horde.
More stuff leftover from my Trader Joe's podcast haul? Yup, but I'm 99% sure this is the very last item! (Okay, maybe I'm only 75% sure, but that's because I didn't feel like digging through my giant food hoarding pile to double check.)
It took me a few months to get here, but you know what? Pretty much every product I reviewed was a winner, so it was totally worth it. These mints combine three of my favorite things, so I figured this should be a really good note to end on. (But you never know!)
There was once a time where we thought that adding bacon to something automatically made it better. Bacon cheeseburgers? Genius! Bacon pancakes? Brilliant! Bacon Pop-tarts? Okay, this one I'm a little on the fence about.
I love bacon, and it's one of the reasons why I haven't adopted my boyfriend's vegetarian diet even though my personal eating habits lean towards the veggie side. When my sister and I survive an usually hard work week I always buy and cook an ENTIRE PACKAGE of bacon on the weekend and we eat the entire thing. (Throughout the day, not all at once. We tried eating the entire thing as breakfast and it was too much bacon. Which was a thing I never thought I'd ever say in my life, but it's true.) We call this bacon-feast, "real people breakfast" and it's usually served with eggs, toast, and all that well-balanced-breakfast stuff you see on TV commercials and cereal boxes. Just with 400% more bacon. Okay, I think I've proven my bacon-loyalty, but with that being said...I don't know how bacon will translate into Pop-Tarts, but I'm ready to find out! (Although to be honest...I'm going into this with really low expectations.)
Valentine's Day has come and gone, and clearance candy has (already) disappeared from the shelves. These stores move so quickly! You have maybe 2 days after the holiday occurs to score anything on clearance before it all disappears into some kind of magical season-appropriate black hole. I thought they used to ship it off to the discount stores or something, but it seems like it's short lived on the shelves there as well. What happens to all of this out of season candy?
Thankfully, Aldi is amazing as always, and they hang on to seasonal stuff and mark it down until it's all sold out. (I love you Aldi, never change.) I grabbed this fancy looking box of "luxury" chocolates to treat myself after the holiday season.
Originally I wasn't going to check this cereal out, because I figured it was just Cinnamon Toast Crunch without the cinnamon, but my fellow foodies over at Junk Banter gave it a glowing review, and we tend to have similar tastes, so I decided to check it out before this seasonal treat disappeared. Then I let it sit in my to-be-reviewed pile for a few months, but now it's finally time to see what all the fuss is about.
I absolutely loved the little bags of Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Mints.
I've bought...I don't even know how many bags of them by this point.
They are just so damn good! When I really like something I tend to stick
with it and not stray, like my Bacon Turkey Bravo addiction at Panera,
but sometimes sticking with what you know means you're missing out on
something you could like even more. There are two other products
available in these tiny portioned packets, so I figured I might as well
give them a try to see if they are as equally addicting.
It's been ages since I've done a restaurant review! I don't really have a
reason as to why it's taken me so long to get back out there and
experience the foodie scene, other than I'm a food hoarding recluse, but
Philly is right over the bridge and it has a lot to offer.
Bar Hygge(pronounced HOO-gah) is one of the newest editions to the Philly food scene, and my step-dad and uncle did all it's carpentry! (Which is how I knew this place existed or how to pronounce it's name.)Bar Hygge brews it's own beer, makes unique appetizer boards and entrees (with vegan options),
and the building is decorated with tons of recycled materials. It's
hipster-y, which has become a dirty word in the food scene, but it all
comes together nicely creating a cozy artsy atmosphere without being
pretentious.
My not-so-secret love affair with Aldi continues! This product pulled me in with it's gorgeous packaging, but to be honest, I'm not too sure I really want a cinnamon apple flavored cookie. I like apple pie, apple oatmeal, and apple cobbler, but I haven't found an apple cookie that I've liked yet. Something about that apple flavoring being in something purely crunchy and without little chunks of real apple seems unnatural to me. Maybe this will be the one to win me over?
If you're not following me on Instagram, you're missing out on all the stuff I've been munching on behind the scenes.
Along with massive amounts of junk food I share on the blog, I also like to cook and bake, so here's what I made on Sunday for my boyfriend and I. (He's vegetarian, so a lot of the food I've been eating/cooking lately is meatless, since I personally feel uncomfortable eating meat when we're together, but rest assured, I still love bacon and buffalo wings. I'm an omnivore with strong lean to the veggie side.)
A photo posted by M. Smith (@poison_and_antidote) on
I keep meaning to write up a formal review for this ice cream but I don't think that's ever going to happen, so this will have to do.
Maybe my "adult taste-buds" still haven't come in yet or something, because I'm nearly 30 years old and I still hate beer. I try all the new beers my friends bring over, everything from peanut butter to creme brûlée brew, and nothing has won me over yet. I take a sip, then I react like those babies on YouTube trying a lemon for the first time. Once at a BBQ I even spat it out right into the grass! Not my classiest moment, but I still gave that beer a try.
I think it's safe to say I'm a beer-hater, but when I saw all the rave reviews this boozy flavor of Ben & Jerry's was getting, I decided to give it the benefit of a doubt. (Plus my boyfriend likes beer, and brownies, so I figured it wouldn't go to waste if I ended up hating it.)
The beer-part of this ice cream IS the actual ice cream. This off-white creamy base is flavored like Belgium brown ale, and then there are caramel swirls and bits of brownie blended in. I'm totally on board with the caramel and brownie, but that ale-base had me pretty nervous. It makes up the majority of this little container, and if I hate beer then that could be a problem for me and my baby-taste-buds.
I took a bite, and surprisingly, it's pretty good! The ice cream has this salty, yeasty flavoring to it, mixed with vanilla, and I know it's meant to mimic a brown ale, but in my mind it kind of tastes like a soft South Philly pretzel! When you mix that slightly salty and savory base with sweet caramel and little chunks of brownie the end result is pretty darn good! As a non-beer lover, I think of this is a salted chocolate pretzel ice cream, and I really dig it! If any of you are the kind of person who dips their french fries in a Wendy's Frosty, this is the ice cream for you. It's salty, kind of savory, but sweet all at the same time.
I baked up some brownies and served a big scoop of this stuff to my boyfriend and he really enjoyed it. (But he's a sucker for a warm chewy brownie.)
I bought this thinking that it was going to be a foodie gift for him, but it ended up being something I really enjoyed too! (I might even like it more than him!) I'm glad I got it, and I might even buy it again. Does Ben & Jerry's make beer? If so, I might have to give that a try.
This food blogger don't want none unless it's got buns, 'hun! (How many other food bloggers went for the joke? I'm guessing a lot.) This was the Oreo flavor I was most excited about. You can keep that re-released Red Velvet Cake, the Peppermint, and the over-hyped Creme Filled Cupcake. I am all about the cinnamon bun!
I'm losing my mind. If you thought my desperate Jerked Mac and Cheese dinner was a lack of judgement then you better fasten your seatbelts for today's slice of hot mess that is my life. I, a grown woman, locked myself out of the house this morning leaving my healthy lunch trapped on the kitchen table taunting me from the window. (I'm nearly 30 but I'm still getting the hang of this whole "adulting" thing.) After a few sad attempts to break in and rescue said lunch, I had to leave or be late to work, so no use crying over forgotten house keys and soon to be spoiled sushi. At least I have an excuse to munch on all these candies at my desk instead of real food.
Want to know how I've been this week? Here's a little taste, "AHHHHHHHHHHH." Yup, that pretty much sums it up. It's been insane! I always start the week off by eating healthy and making good food choices, like my meatless Mondays that I post on Instagram, but by Thursday I'm exhausted and this week has been even crazier than usual. I'm tired, barely sane, and I'm craving junk food. I was rummaging through my pantry for something quick and easy for dinner and I came across this box of jerked macaroni and cheese from...I don't even remember when. A few months ago? (I hope.) I bought it at Aldi when they were promoting spicy foods and never got around to trying it, so let's see if this meal was worth the wait.
We've talked about a ton of the sweet stuff, so today we're focusing on Sour!
It's the sour things in life that make us appreciate the sweet! On today's episode of Candyology 101 we tackle the goodies that make our mouth water and our eyes tear. Everything from the mild Lemonhead to the profuse puckering power of Warheads. To start, I give you a little glimpse of the science behind what makes these sweets so sour, and we talk about the validity of the warning labels on treats like these. Then things get a little less science-y as Cybele and I discuss our favorite go-to sour candies. Plus, we have the fan favorite Treat or Trick section to finish things off and let you know what new goodies are headed our way. Tune in and grab a napkin, because talking about all these sour goodies may cause you to drool a little. (Consider yourself warned.)
Listen to the player above, check us out on Stitcher, or you can download the MP3 file. If you want to subscribe to the show, it’s available on iTunes and via RSS.
Seasoned Seaweed Sandwich with Almond and Sesame - TBT Summer Fancy Food Show
Longest post title ever? It might be! Well, this swanky looking mermaid has red hair, so that's kind of Valentine's Day-y, right? Okay, maybe not, but I have to review it. It's been in my stash for nearly a year! (It expires this April!) Plus it's Thursday, so what better time to review a throwback item with a sassy red-headed mermaid on the package?
I could only find this Mystery Flavor Fun Dip in a classroom sharing size, so I now have 24 pouches of Fun Dip in my possession. This may have been a bad decision... These mysteryflavorsalwaysget me. Let's hope this flavor will be so awesome that my future insulin shots will be worth it. (I kid, but seriously, this is a lot of candy, I gotta find some kids/people to hand these out to.)
I'm counting this as a Valentine's Day product because it's pink. Plus I have a huge foodie backlog, so reviews are going up faster than ever before! I need to get this stuff 'outta here pronto before TLC show up at my house with cameras and a dumpster.
Caplico, not to be confused with the beverage Calpico, are little wafer-style ice cream cones and filled with solid, but bubbly, chocolate. Usually they are really tiny candies, but this Caplico in particular is GIANT. So it's pretty much the same size as a real ice cream cone! So, it looks like ice cream, but does it taste like ice cream?
Every time I buy a Dum-Dums product I get the song from their 90's commercial stuck in my head. Looking back, I feel like that commercial and the Blow Pop one were always being shown on Nickelodeon! I can still recite them both from heart, along with the kickass song from the Crossfire commercial!
These new Oreo flavors are fun to track down, but I'm starting to get a little burned out. I reviewed the Peppermint ones in January, and since then we've already had the Cinnamon Bun Oreos (review coming soon), a re-release of Red Velvet, and now Filled Cupcake? We're only 39 days into the new year! Oreo is really cranking these things out!
When this flavor was first teased months ago, I really wasn't interested. I figured it was the normal chocolate filling, or maybe the Brownie Batter Oreo filling, with a touch of the traditional white sandwich cookie creme in the center. So it's chocolate, chocolate cookies, and creme. Sounds pretty normal to me. How is this different from Oreo products we've already had? I guess I"ll find out!
I think we all recognize this iconic little kitty. (Although she's apparently a little girl?)Cat,
human, whatever she may be, she's been around for 40 years and even
though this isn't specifically Valentine's Day themed, it's pink and red
with hearts, so what better time to review it than now?
This is a novelty product, so the main selling point is the packaging.
They want to sucker us all in with that iconic Sanrio-cuteness, and you
know what? It totally works. (It got me and I'm not even a big Hello Kitty fan.)
We have a bunch of adorable Hello Kitty illustrations scattered on a
resealable foiled plastic pouch containing a small amount of candy. It's
adorable, collectible, and the gummies themselves are shaped like Hello
Kitty's iconic bow so you get a double whammy of cuteness.
Speaking
of the bow shaped gummies, they're really cute, but they have this
weird edible-glitter-like coating that I don't understand. Is it
intentional? Or are these coated ina little too much food-grade wax?
It's kind of neat, like they're coated in clear glitter, but these could
just be old or something. I can't really tell.
Inside there are two flavors:
Peach (translucent pink):
Once you get through the weird waxy coating, the gummi tastes very
sweet and mild. It's a bit on the floral side of things, but it tastes a
lot more realistic than other peach flavored candies I've had in the
past. (I still think the Kasugai gummies are better, but there aren't half bad.) It's enjoyable, and not bad for a novelty product, but I know I can get better peach flavored gummies elsewhere.
Apple(translucent redish-peach): Again, once you get
through that weird waxy outside, the flavoring is pretty nice. These
apple gummies are tangy and more concentrated than the peach, and it's
almost like they took apple juice concentrate and turned it into a gummy
candy. I like this one more than the other, but you don't get that many
in this bag, and it's pretty pricey, but this flavor is on-par with
Kasugai's.
This is a really cute novelty product for fans of
Hello Kitty, and the flavoring is more authentic than a lot of gummies
on the American market, but the portion size is really small and these
are pretty expensive. If you're looking for delicious fruity gummies to
snack on, and you want to spend a little money, I suggest getting
Kasugai ones instead. However, if you're looking for an edible gift for a
Sanrio fan, these are pretty gppd for a novelty product and I don't
think anyone would dislike them.
Lindt Strawberries & Cream White Chocolate Truffles - Target
Yet another strawberry themed item for Valentine's Day? Yup! I told you guys, candy companies went strawberry-crazy this season. When it comes to strawberry flavored chocolate sweets I still think a white chocolate base is best, since a milk chocolate one can overpower everything else, and thankfully, Lindt felt that way too, because these truffles are white chocolate based! Sure, there are some exceptions to the white chocolate rule. I mean, I absolutely love Ghirardelli's Dark Chocolate Strawberry Squares, but so far all of the other strawberry and chocolate variations have been pretty lackluster.
Lets see if a white chocolate base can really make a difference!
Valentine's Day is officially one week away! I'm sticking to my original goal of reviewing everything in my foodie stash that is related to this lovey dovey holiday before February 14th, but I don't want to flood your feeds with all things pink and heart-shaped. We still need some variety, and there's no shortage of goodies in my food stash, so I figured I'd toss a few of these shorter savory reviews into the mix.
These Poppin' Jalapeño flavored Doritos are a re-released product, so they're not entirely new, but they're new to me since I've never had them before. As a lover of spicy snack foods, and a food blogger, I felt it was my duty to try these before they disappeared back into the limited edition foodie abyss.
That's right, there's not one, but TWO exclusive strawberry-themed m&m's on the shelves. One for Target and this one for Walmart. Unlike the Target one, which used white chocolate, this one uses a milk chocolate base, and I'm not too sure how I feel about that. Normally I'm against it, because chocolate tends to overpower any of the other flavors that are mixed in, but years ago there were these Strawberried Peanut butter m&m's that were released as a promotional product for the Transformers movie (which made absolutely no sense), and I thought they were really cool but I never found them. I'm kind of hoping that this flavor will give me a little bit of the strawberry flavored snacking satisfaction that I missed out on.
I'm a food blogger on a mission. The challenge: to review ALL of the Valentine's Day themed products in my stash BEFORE February 14th. Can I do it? (I sure hope so!)
To make things even more intense, and to (hopefully) put a massive dent in my overwhelming food stash, ALL of my PINK candies and sweets count as "Valentine's Day Candy." Which ups the ante quite a bit since I have a bunch of pink toned sweets from Japan, but I have faith in myself. Serves me right for hoarding stockpiling so much stuff. For today's seasonal sweet, I have two cupcake flavored Hammond's Caramel Marshmallows!
More outdated candies from my food stash! This pack of Tic-Tacs was given to me as a gift way back in October, and I just never got around to reviewing them. I recently found them hiding out in one of my purses, so why not review them?
It would be "berry" awesome if you'd be our valentine!
Due to scheduling conflicts, our sour episode was put on hold, so today's Candyology 101 episode is dedicated to sweets for sweethearts! Don't have a sweetheart? No problem! (That means you don't have to share your candy! ) We all deserve a little treat, and today
Cybele and I look at the surprising strawberry trend that infiltrated our seasonal candy aisle. We also look at a few other surprising things, and then, as always, we have our Treat or Trick segment to let you know what products are headed your way. This time it's JAM packed with all kinds of goodies. (Get it? Jam? Strawberries?) Tune in and find out what we're munching on this holiday season and find out what's headed our way in the months to come!
Listen to the player above, check us out on Stitcher, or you can download the MP3 file. If you want to subscribe to the show, it’s available on iTunes and via RSS.
New year, new limited edition m&m flavors! Recently the cherry flavored ones were re-released, and Walmart had some new chocolate-based strawberry ones (review coming soon), and now we have these fancy white chocolate Strawberry Shortcake ones that are Target exclusive! I guess 2016 is the year of the strawberry, and as a fan of all things berry flavored, I'm all about it!
Dove Milk Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake Crisp - Target
This strawberry influx was something I never saw coming, but I'm excited none-the-less. (Strawberry sweets are a weakness of mine.) It seems like every chocolate company out there is putting out something to cash in on this unexpected fruit flavored trend, and Dove's contribution are these milk chocolate Strawberry Shortcake Crisps.
I haven't had Bubble Tape in AGES, so when I saw that there was a "new mystery flavor" available, I had to have it. It's 6 feet of tooth-rotting goodness! I don't remember seeing this flavor around when I was a kid, but apparently this is some kind of re-release? This same exact flavor and packaging was released as "new" way back in 2011. Oh well, it may be old, but it's new to me!
Let's hope this flavor is as fun as my nostalgic bubble gum chewing brain is hyping it up to be!
