Fig & Goat Cheese Pizza

Fig & Goat Cheese Pizza

Remember this pizza dough recipe?
I whipped up a double batch of dough earlier today and took a nap let it rise for three and a half hours. The crust turned out even better than last time!  The final results were much lighter, similar to a delivery style pizza crust, but it didn't lose it's crispiness.

My mom's boyfriend, who I call my kinda-sorta-step-dad, has this huge fig tree in his yard. Every fall I get a TON of figs and now that fig season is back I am trying to figure out different things to do with them.

This time I made a fancy, appetizer-style, pizza.

Impulsive Buy Spotted on the Shelves Entries - 4 (Halloweenie Goodness)

Do you really want to be the house that hands out pepperoni on Halloween?

 There is a really awesome foodie site called The Impulsive Buy (Go check it out!)

One of my favorite posts on the site is called "Spotted on the Shelves." It is a viewer-fueled inventory of new items that have been released in various stores. I already made three posts of my submissions, found HERE, so here is round 4!

Here is the stuff I found at Wegman's!

Vegetarian Autumn Squash Soup - Panera Bread: Cherry Hill, NJ

Vegetarian Autumn Squash Soup - PaneraBread: Cherry Hill, NJ

The pumpkin-ing has begun! (insert evil scientist laughter here.)

I recently filmed a video where my boyfriend and I tested 4 pumpkin spiced lattes from different locations. (It'll be up sometime this week.) One of those locations was Panera, and while I was there I picked up a bowl of the new Autumn Squash Soup which is made from squash, apples, and...pumpkin!

Since the packaging for soups hasn't really changed, I'll skip the aesthetic review and get right into the good stuff.

Gatorade Prime Energy Chews - Wegman’s : Cherry Hill, NJ

Gatorade Prime Energy Chews - Wegman’s : Cherry Hill, NJ

By the time this is posted it'll be Friday and I will be completely exhausted.
I very rarely drink coffee, although I have a special Youtube video coming up where I drink a ton, so I have been looking for something to give me a little pick me up on Fridays. These on clearance at Wegman's so I figured I'd give them a try.

The package is really skinny and tall, it's about the size of a candy bar. The outside container is made of cardboard (yay recyclable materials) and it has the typical Gatorade logo and color scheme. There isn't too much to critique, but I like that this package easily fits in with the rest of the Gatorade line.

Garden, Meatless BBQ "Chicken" Wings - Target: Cherry Hill, NJ

Garden, Meatless BBQ "Chicken" Wings - Target: Cherry Hill, NJ

I'm not a vegetarian, I think my love of bacon cheese burgers makes that pretty obvious, but I like a lot of vegetarian restaurants and foods. (Here's a fun fact: My boyfriend was actually a vegetarian when we met in college. He had been one for several years but he stopped due to poor health.)

He and I were at Target the other night and we saw a little package of these BBQ "chicken" wings. They were 50% off, and we were hungry, the perfect combination, so into the cart they went.

Visually this bag is really refreshing. The combination of crisp white with yellow, green, and black is very visually appealing. (Plus the colors stimulate feelings of hunger.)

Rare Cheesecake Pocky - ??? : Chinatown, Philadelphia, PA

Rare Cheesecake Pocky - ??? : Chinatown, Philadelphia, PA  

It's been a while since I have reviewed Pocky, so here is a snazzy flavor new flavor that was released this summer.

What is "Rare Cheesecake?" Some kind of fancy hard to find cheese? Nope, it's actually a no-bake cheesecake, so the "rare" refers to being uncooked like a rare steak. We have no-bake cheesecakes here in the states as well, but the ones served in Asian have a very different taste. Cake may vary, because all bakers make everything a little differently, but rare cheesecakes can taste very, well, cheesy. In America we tend to prefer a standard cream cheese flavoring for the base but Asian cheesecakes can occasionally have a truly cheesy taste with strong lemon flavoring. Again, it varies from bake shop to bake shop, but you might get something that tastes completely different from the standard, American, cheesecake.

On to the review...

Sometimes Foodie Teaser Haul

I have all this food waiting to be reviewed, so I figured I'd give you all a sneak peek of what is to come.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!

Potato Wish Chips (Tomato flavored) - ??? : Chinatown, Philadelphia, PA

I am a slave to good package design. I bought these tomato flavored chips even though I am mildly allergic to tomatoes!

What do I mean by mildly allergic? My throat doesn’t swell up, but my stomach will hurt and I may or may not throw up. It all depends on the acidity levels and the amount I have eaten.

Two handy packs.

The product concept isn’t new, I mean these are simply more sophisticated looking Pringles, but the overall packaging is really well thought out.

First of all the colors really stand out on the grocery shelves. This package is able to pull off green and red designs without making me think of Christmas, and the photograph of the product is very appealing.

The container is a tall, irregularly shaped, cardboard box that contains 2 individually packaged stacks of baked potato chips. That means you can easily split this into two portions or toss a pouch of these into your lunch. Beautiful AND handy. I love it!

When I opened the first pouch I was actually a little horrified. The chips look absolutely delicious, but they smell like canned Spaghetti O’s. That is like poison to me. I could never eat them as a kid because I would very likely throw up, and these chips smell just like them. It’s that sweet, ketchup-y, canned tomato sauce smell.

Urg…

 I am not looking forward to this taste test.

Nice thick cut chips. Too bad they smell like tomato poison.

Well, I grabbed a chip and popped it into my mouth. Thank goodness these aren’t as strongly flavored as they are scented.

The chips are pretty thick, so they have a really satisfying crunch, and only once side is seasoned. The unseasoned side tastes like a normal, thick cut, potato chip, but the other side tastes like canned zesty pasta sauce smeared onto a chip.
This was NOT the most appealing flavor for me, but I like the concept and the packaging.

I will be buying more of these chips, but not in this flavor. I just can’t handle the tomato-y taste.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!

Sparkling Spiced Pumpkin Cider - Pumpkin 2012 Haul

Sparkling Spiced Pumpkin Cider - Aldi : Medford, NJ

Today marks my one year anniversary with my boyfriend, so I wanted to post something a little special. He and I have deemed this anniversary the PUMPKIN anniversary. We went pumpkin picking at a local farm and now here is some sparkling cider for us to toast with!