The King.

Thanks to the Obamicon Generator by Paste Magazine.

.

Dollar Store Nightmares: Circle A Ranch Homestyle Meatballs

"Meatballs from the dollar store," my wife said. "You have got to be kidding me."

But I wasn't kidding; I had bought a seven-ounce package of frozen meatballs at Dollar Tree and was trying to interest the rest of the family in trying them. My wife and daughter read the ingredients and opted out, but the dog - functionally illiterate - was interested. I admit the ingredient list was kind of scary: Mechanically separated chicken, chicken skin added, water, soy flour, beef, and then a long list of the spices and chemicals which comprised "2% or less" of the total. Heh. Mechanically separated chicken and chicken skin. These things are basically flavored balls of food-grade slag.

I dumped the meatballs from the bag onto a foam plate and microwaved them for about two minutes, following the package instructions. The results were interesting. Far from the neatly spherical, meaty-looking "serving suggestion" on the package, the meatballs were misshapen lumps that looked like they had been made by wrapping long ribbons of extruded pulp over on itself. They smelled fascinating: exactly like leftover KFC after sitting in the refrigerator for a day or so. Moist but not wet, and not greasy, the texture was firm and consistent though quite spongy. They were a little salty but rather inoffensive - overall, they just lacked any real defining flavor other than "leftover chicken."

I never did get my wife and daughter to have a bite, but the dog was quite enthusiastic and enjoyed most of them that evening, chopped up and mixed with his kibble for supper.

Two-headed...Onion?

It's happened to all of us, hasn't it? The onion on the bottom of the bag that we suddenly notice has a few scapes poking out through the netting? This is the first time I've had one sprouting from both ends, though.

Mt Dew Game Fuel Is Back!

My daughter and I were in the local 7-11 the other day and noticed a new addition to the Mountain Dew section of the beverage cooler - Mountain Dew Game Fuel! As a dedicated gamer and primary Mountain Dew consumer of the family, she was pretty psyched to see Game Fuel back on the shelves - the citrus-cherry flavored version was her favorite Mt Dew flavor back in 2007 when it was first introduced as a Halo 3 promotion - and she immediately picked up a couple of bottles. She works the midnight shift at a local warehouse, and always brings a bottle of Mt Dew to drink at breaktime: Dew's sugar content and caffeine boost help her make it through the night just as it keeps her going during a long RPG quest. If you were a fan of the Halo 3 Game Fuel, you won't be disappointed by the latest release - it's just as kickass as ever, though this time the promotion is tied to the popular online game World of Warcraft.

PepsiCo has announced the release of the 2009 Game Fuel in two flavors - the original Citrus Cherry (now known as Horde Red) and a new Wild Fruit version (dubbed Alliance Blue.) So far, we've only been able to find Horde Red in local coolers, but it's early in the promotion so we haven't given up.

Along with Game Fuel's rerelease, PepsiCo also has opened up an interactive website where Dew fans and WoW players can accumulate prize points to exchange for cool swag. Click here to check it out - they're giving away prizes every 15 minutes.



Links:

Game Fuel Product Info

Pepsi Product Information - Use the dropdown list to choose Mt Dew Game Fuel or any other PepsiCo product to find Nutrition Facts and ingredient information.

We've Always Been A Little Crazy For Bacon

Although the Internet Bacon Meme is responsible for a lot of smoked pork silliness, Bacon Madness is old and timeless. The clip below is from the May 1958 issue of Mechanix Illustrated:

Mountain Dew vs. Mountain Dew Throwback

Back in February, I noted that Pepsico was planning on bringing back real sugar-sweetened soft drinks. Pepsi Cola Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback are now on the shelves as promised.

Although I haven't seen them in the local grocery stores yet, 20-ounce bottles of Mountain Dew Throwback and Pepsi Throwback are being carried by a few convenience stores in my area. I bought a bottle of the Mountain Dew variety today to compare with standard Mtn Dew.

A check of the label reveals that there are two differences between the Dew varieties: Today's "Mtn Dew" (as Pepsico now refers to the drink) contains high-fructose corn syrup and concentrated orange juice; Mountain Dew Throwback is sweetened with sugar, and contains no juice. So, how do they stack up?

No matter what anyone tells you, there is a distinct and noticeable difference in the flavor of drinks sweetened with HFCS and those sweetened with sugar. I was amazed when I took a swig of Mountain Dew Throwback - it tasted exactly like I remembered it tasting when I was back in high school. Although still kind of syrupy sweet (some things never change, I guess) Dew's lemony edge was back. The flavor was sharp and clean.

Mtn Dew, in contrast, tasted thick and rounded, like the flavor had been filed off at the corners. The concentrated orange juice was indetectable - I never knew it was in there to begin with, until I read the labels after comparing the two drinks - but the citrusy tang was just not there.

I poured some in a blind tasting for my daughter. She's 20, born after the big soft drink companies switched over to HFCS, and although Dew is her soft drink of choice (especially the blue Voltage variety) she had never before tasted sugar-sweetened Mountain Dew. She carefully tasted both of the drinks, not knowing which one was which, before she pushed one of the glasses toward me. "That one's fresher tasting. A lot more like citrus. I like it a lot better than the other one." She had chosen Mountain Dew Throwback.

I know that politically-motivated high sugar prices and intense lobbying by Big Corn is going to keep HFCS flowing thickly into soft drinks for a long time. The Throwback products are just a tiny slice of PepsicCo's beverage production, but I am grateful to PepsiCo for at least giving consumers the ability to choose sugar sweetening.

Bacon Gumballs

Bacon Gumballs are a product of Archie McPhee/Accoutrements Inc. and there is no doubt in my mind that the folks at McPhee dreamed them up as a gag gift. They taste like cigarette butts and sugar - absolutely vomitous - and it astounds me that so many bloggers have treated them as an actual, viable confection.

In fact, the more of these "bacon flavored" novelty foods that I sample, the more I discover that none of them are worth a dead rat's ass.

Bacon mints? Smell like smoke, taste like Alka-Seltzer without the fizz. Bacon Salt? Mediocre smoke-flavored salt loaded with artificial flavors that manages, with the help of marketing and imagination, to taste vaguely bacon-ish. Baconnaise? If your idea of "bacon" is liquid smoke and artificial flavorings, then yes, Baconnaise tastes like bacon too.

Thanks to the Internet Bacon Meme, however, I'm quite certain we're going to be plagued by crap like this for years to come. So, in order to be prepared, I'm just going to write this bit of boilerplate and paste it into future reviews of bacon-flavored junk :

Bacon - real cured-and-smoked-pigmeat bacon - is a delicious food and a tasty ingredient that can add marvelous dimensions of flavor and texture to all sorts of other foods and dishes. "Bacon flavored" foods - however well-intentioned - are generally pretty disgusting, and this is no exception.

There. That should do it.

Microwave vs. Oven: Frozen Pizza

I admit, I'm not a big fan of microwave ovens. I have one in my kitchen, like just about everyone else, but I don't put it to much use - heating frozen or canned vegetables, mostly. I hate the texture most things get when they're "cooked" in the microwave, and I don't think that the savings in time is worth the dramatic decrease in quality of the finished product.

Recently, though, some companies have introduced recipe changes in their manufactured prepared foods that have made products better suited for microwaves. Pot pies, for example. I used to hate pot pies cooked in the microwave because the crusts came out so badly. But recently, Banquet and Marie Callendar pot pies seem to have tweaked the way their crusts are made - I honestly couldn't tell the difference between a microwaved and a baked pot pie the last time I had them.

And that got me to thinking about frozen pizzas. When I was a kid, frozen pizzas were the bottom of the frozen-food barrel. Nasty in all ways - the crusts were flavorless cardboard, the sauce was cheap, acidic, and rarely seasoned with anything but too much oregano, and the cheese was like plastic. Nowadays, though, there are some really decent frozen pizzas out there. Just about all of them are better when cooked in a conventional oven, though.

The first time I ever tried heating frozen pizza in a microwave, it was a Celeste Pizza For One. Even given the generally low quality of Celeste pies to begin with, it was horrible. The cheese was hard and brownish-yellow, the crust leathery and unchewable, and enough of the moisture had evaporated from the sauce to render it into a kind of tangy red tar. Microwaves were just getting wide acceptance then, and food companies were starting to adapt their products to this new way of ruining dinner.

This week, with Celeste Pizzas For One selling for a dollar each at the local Stop & Shop, I picked up a couple of them and decided to do a head-to-head comparison of cheap frozen pizzas cooked in the microwave and in a conventional oven. I picked the Pepperoni variety and followed the package directions to the letter.

Microwave Instructions: Remove frozen pizza and microwave disk from carton; unwrap. For best results, do not add additional toppings. Cetner disk, silver side up, on microwave-save plate. Place frozen pizza on disk. Place plate in microwave oven. Microwave on HIGH (100%) power 3½ to 4½ minutes, or until most of the cheese is melted, rotating ¼ turn after 2 minutes. Carefully remove pizza from oven. Loosen pizza from disk with spatula.

Result: The package instructions were clear and easy to follow, and did produce a somewhat evenly-heated and acceptable pizza. The cheese melted well but also tended to dehydrate a bit, leaving it translucent and stiff. And because the microwave made the sauce bubble up from the crust, the already-stingy application of cheese looked even less generous as it became hidden beneath a layer of bubble-pocked redness.

The microwave disk definitely helped make the crust crispy, and it was far better than that first one years ago, but it's clear they have a long way to go here. The edges were crunchy, but coming in from the edges the crust was dense and tough, and parts here and there were dehydrated.

---

Conventional Oven Instructions: Place baking sheet on center oven rack; preheat oven to 400F. Remove frozen pizza from carton; unwrap. Place frozen pizza on PREHEATED baking sheet. Bake 11 to 13 minutes or until center cheese is melted and crust edge is golden brown. For extra crisp crust: Place frozen pizza directly on center oven rack. Bake as directed.

Result: The cheese was much more evenly melted, without and dehydrated, plasticy areas. The sauce stayed put, bubbling a bit but not pushing its way up through the cheese. Parts of the cheese got golden brown on the surface.

The crust was much nicer on the baked pizza - crispy, but also flaky and tender, with a toasted edge. Although not as agressively crunchy as the microwaved version, it was pleasantly toasted around the edges.

One other thing I noticed: I timed the cooking phase so that each pizza would come out of the oven and be served at the same time. Both of the pies were cooked exactly to package specifications, and yet the microwaved pizza got cold faster than the conventionally-cooked one. I've noticed this in other microwaved foods as well, and it's another reason why I don't use the microwave very often.

Conclusion:

Celeste Pizza For One is still a pretty crappy frozen pizza, even if frozen pizzas themselves have gotten better over the years.

Link:

Pinnacle Food Group, Inc. holds the Celeste frozen pizza brand. The number of other familiar brands they own might surprise you.

.

Revisiting and Revising

Revisiting two little restaurants reviewed back in Spring 2008...

Coach D's Steamed Cheeseburgers: I reviewed this little storefront restaurant in Springfield MA back in June 2008 during their grand opening. It was a great little place - friendly owner, comfortable tables and booths, and the best steamed cheeseburgers this side of Ted's in Meriden. We returned several times for lunch and were never disappointed. Unfortunately, it seems that steamed cheeseburgers just weren't popular enough outside of their native Central Connecticut home. It had been a little over a month since our last visit when we went back this weekend (18 April 2009.) Coach D's has closed.

Donut Dip, West Springfield MA (blogged in March 2008:) Happily, Donut Dip is still going strong, baking and serving the best donuts in the Pioneer Valley. When you get tired of factory-made "donuts" shipped frozen from a dunkin' warehouse, make the drive to West Springfield and treat yourself to scratch-made delights baked right there on the premises. Donut Dip coffee is aces, too.

Sonoma Jacks "Gourmet" Cheese

The local Big Y supermarket had these cheeses on sale a couple of weeks ago: Sonoma Jacks Gourmet Cheese Wedges. I figured they'd be sort of like flavored versions of those sticky little cheese wedges that Laughing Cow makes. I was kind of right - Sonoma Jacks are sticky little wedges. But while Laughing Cow makes theirs from cheese, powdered milk, milkfat, and cream, Sonoma Jacks are cheese, water, and "natural flavor."

The Pepper Jack variety has a "serving suggestion" on the front label showing a jalapeno-flecked cheese wedge positioned near big slices of pepper. The actual product is so different it's almost deceptive. The pepper bits in the cheese are almost invisible. The "grassy" green flavor of jalapenos is there, but the expected heat or spiciness is almost completely lacking. The texture is wet and sticky, and the overall flavor is quite bland and milky.

But "bland" and "milky" might be the kindest things one can say about the Original variety, which takes the already-mild flavor of Jack cheese to new and untested levels of mediocrity. It's very similar to plain cream cheese - except cream cheese is less expensive, spreads more easily, and doesn't have to be annoyingly unwrapped an ounce at a time.

Interestingly, the Parmesan Peppercorn variety had the most flavor of any of the three, even though there isn't a bit of Parmesan in it - just Jack cheese, "natural flavors" and plenty of coarsely ground peppercorns, which added a fruity, floral kick to the cheese (but unfortunately, not much peppery burn.)

Overall, I didn't find much about this stuff deserving of the label "gourmet." I much prefer a good aged Vermont, Massachusetts, or New York State cheddar, or a real soft-ripened wheel of brie, or a stanky Gorgonzola with a bite so sharp it peels the roof of your mouth. But if you're a fan of sticky cheese spreads and those orange cheese food product "slices" that come in their own individual plastic wraps, you might enjoy the change of pace that Sonoma Jacks will offer.

Link:

Sonoma Cheese Website

.