Month: January 2011

REVIEW: Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Superfruit Fusion Cherry Pomegranate

Nichol 4 Comments

Nutri-Grain Cherry Pomegranate Superfruit Fusion Bars

Super powers come in varying degrees. You have your laser-breath and invisibility on one end of the spectrum, and on the other you’ve got typing 200 words per minute and psychically communicating with tropical birds. Where does Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Superfruit Fusion Cherry Pomegranate fit in? Well, it’s complicated.

From the front of the box, one would be led to believe that both fruits hold equal footing, a kind of dynamic duo of breakfast treats, but the text on the back of the package tells another story: “We’ve taken traditional fruit and blended it with superfruit flavors (bold text comes from them, not me).

It appears that ol’ cherry with its artful stem knotting and crude virginity joke inducing powers is being nudged slowly into retirement to make way for pomegranate which, according to certain rumor mills, possesses a hypnotic stare and an arsenal of secondhand batarangs. Cherry has gone all mellow and senile but the higher-ups aren’t about to can him outright because he has so much knowledge left to impart, including the passwords to all of the Nutrigrainland computers.

One taste of these snack bars and you’ll know it’s true. That little bit of an edge cherry used to have? Gone. In its place? Subdued, confidence-lacking pomegranate. And when their powers combine they form something in the same flavor family as a sugar-dulled cranberry.

Both flavors are threatened by the gooey machinations of the highly controversial Mad Dr. Corn Syrup. As usual, our heroes manage to persevere in spite of the odds. Unfortunately, it becomes impossible to taste the subtle flavors of truth, justice, and the American way with everything else going on.

Nutri-Grain Cherry Pomegranate Superfruit Fusion Bars Innards

As for the super whole grain, nutrient-fortified outer shell, which Kellogg’s is now calling a “crust”, well, Fortress of Solitude it is not. It’s actually much crumblier than the regular Nutri-Grain shell, but still soft enough to not actually feel like what I would traditionally consider a “crust”. It tastes like maybe they got a hold of some dried out Trader Joe’s Walks into a Bar shells and sprinkled wheat chafe on top. While tasty, the casing has a tendency to fall apart and crush everything inside with no regard for the distinctions of hero and villain. There’s definitely a gritty reboot of a lesson hidden somewhere deep within this breakfast.

So on the super spectrum this ranks right up there with Elastigirl’s stretchiness or Robin’s hand-me-down range of bat-gadgets. It’s a secondary hero of a breakfast food. I’d certainly trust it to get my cat out of a tree or discreetly spy on my neighbors, but if the world were ending at eight in the morning, I’d still either flash the Odwalla signal or phone up oatmeal.

Would I buy this again? Maybe if I found it on sale, otherwise I’d take a pass. While the super bars managed to make one morning way more compelling than usual, I’m just not sure how well they’d hold up to repeated breakfasting.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 130 calories, 30 calories from fat, 3 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 15% vitamin A, 20% calcium, 20% Vitamin E, 25% Riboflavin, 25% Vitamin B6, 10% zinc, 20% vitamin C, 15% thiamin, 25% niacin, 10% folic acid, and 10% iron.)

Item: Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Superfruit Fusion Cherry Pomegranate
Price: 2/$5.00 (on sale)
Size: 6 bars
Purchased at: Schnuck’s
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Laser breath in a battle situation. Pomegranate and cherry working in harmony to defeat evil. Nice jam texture. Yummy without overwhelming sweetness. On board with the whole grain fad. Tastes more naturally derived than regular Nutri-Grain bars.
Cons: Laser breath in a non-battle situation. The bird psychic end of the super spectrum. Outer crust makes for a terrible secret lair. Truth and justice flavors undetectable. Crumbs and wheat chafe. Verges on mundane. Not actually that much more “natural” than its non-super snack bar cousins. Unable to save the world.

NEWS: Lean Cuisine’s New Spring Rolls Are Something You Can Bring To Work For Lunch and Something Your Co-Workers Can Steal From The Company’s Lunch Room Refrigerator

Marvo 7 Comments

Isabel's Mum's Spring Rolls

Update: Click here to read our Lean Cuisine Spring Rolls review

Spring rolls are typically an Asian dish, but the rebels at Lean Cuisine decided not to play by the culinary rules with their new line of Casual Cuisine Spring Rolls. They come in three ethnic varieties.

The Garlic Chicken Spring Rolls contain white meat chicken, garlic, spinach, onions and parmesan cheese. The Fajita-Style Chicken Spring Rolls have white meat chipotle chicken, corn, black beans, bell peppers and onion. The Thai-Style Spring Rolls contains white meat chicken, shredded cabbage, julienne yellow carrots and spicy red coconut curry.

The folks that have filled the freezer aisle with a frozen meal variety that’s as vast as a Cheesecake Factory menu, call these spring rolls a “snack.” But I, and probably a Cheesecake Factory menu, think of them as appetizers, and something to make sure I don’t get hungry 20 minutes after eating a portion-controlled Lean Cuisine meal.

All three varieties have 200 calories, 7-8 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 4 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 2 grams of monounsaturated fat, 10-15 grams of protein, 580 milligrams of sodium, 23-24 grams of carbohydrates, and 1-2 grams of fiber.

The Lean Cuisine Casual Cuisine Spring Rolls are available now and each box contains two servings of three spring rolls.

NEWS: DiGiorno Puts Pizza and Cookies in the Same Box; Also Offers Pizza and ‘Wyngz’, Goes on to Lose Spelling Bee

Kelley 11 Comments

Update: Click here to read our DiGiorno Pizza & Cookies review

In a move that strikes me as amazingly random, DiGiorno is now offering Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough with its frozen pizzas. Unimaginatively called DiGiorno Pizza & Cookies, you can get your chocolate chip cookies with three different types of pizza: Four Cheese, Pepperoni and Supreme. All pizzas have a hand tossed style crust.

The box says the dough makes 12 cookies, but you could probably make one really big cookie with a raw center, or just eat the dough while you wait for your frozen pizza to cook. The recommended amount of cookies raises questions regarding how many people it takes to eat a DiGiorno pizza. If you ask me, that’s a lot of cookies per person.

If you’re not a big fan of dessert, DiGiorno also now offers Pizza & Boneless Wyngz. Wyngz looks like something my cat would type while walking across my keyboard, but the box describes them as white meat chicken fritters. Perhaps they made the spelling XTREME in order to avoid anyone thinking they were actually chicken wings. You can get a Supreme or Three Meat with Honey BBQ Wyngz, or a Pepperoni with Buffalo Style Wyngz. No matter which flavor Wyngz you choose, you’ll be getting approximately 7-8 of them per box.

No word on price for either combo. No word on cooking instructions either, but I’m assuming both the cookies and the Wyngz are designed to cook to hot perfection at the exact same time as the pizza. These launched nationwide last week, so look for them in your grocer’s freezer aisle.

Pizza and cookies, a combination the people have been screaming for for years. Finally, all our dreams have come true!

Thanks for TIB reader Stefania for the tip.

REVIEW: McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder

Marvo 8 Comments

McDonald's Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder

Besides helping to increase toilet paper usage more than other foods, using the same ingredients to create new menu items is what Taco Bell does best. But it appears McDonald’s took a page from Taco Bell’s playbook when they came up with their Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder.

The latest addition to the McDonald’s Angus Third Pounder lineup combines the 100 percent Angus patty, bun, bacon, cheese, onion and pickles from a Bacon & Cheese Angus Third Pounder with the Chipotle BBQ sauce McDonald’s includes in their Chipotle BBQ Chicken Snack Wrap.

I didn’t expect McDonald’s, the 800-pound gorilla of the fast food world, who by the way probably got to 800 pounds by eating McDonald’s food, to stoop to the same level as the company who couldn’t be honest enough to name their Fourthmeal, which happens between late night drinking and breakfast, what it really is — Drunkfast.

Just like all of the other Angus Third Pounder burgers, the Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder has a bit of heft thanks to the meaty 100 percent Angus beef patty. Or maybe they feel heavy because the only regular arm exercise I get is lifting 20-ounce bottles of Pepsi Max. The Angus patty is, by far, better tasting meat than what’s offered with other McDonald’s burgers. Too bad its flavor gets lost in this burger.

McDonald's Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder Booyah

The Chipotle BBQ sauce is one of the main ingredients of the Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder, but it’s also the burger’s main problem.

The Chipotle BBQ sauce is like a telenovela without the sensuality — all flavor, almost no heat. But that was to be expected since the McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap also isn’t spicy. While it may not provide any heat, what it does have is a sweet and smoky flavor. However, that sweet and smoky flavor dominates the Angus beef and all of the other burger’s ingredients, because it appears the burger jockeys in the McDonald’s kitchens have their sauce guns set to splooge.

The burger also come with three strips of bacon, pickles, red onions, and cheese, but, again, the chipotle BBQ sauce doesn’t allow any of them much face time, just like I’m not giving them much attention by only talking about them in this one sentence paragraph.

The Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder is my least favorite Angus Third Pounder variety. Not only is its flavor disappointing, but also its lack of creativity. What was so impressive about the original Angus Third Pounders was that McDonald’s was able to take a giant leap away from what we thought a McDonald’s burger should be, with better beef and colorful, fresh ingredients. They’ve shown they can make that leap and create a decent burger, so I’m disappointed all they could do is swap condiments to make something new. All they’re showing now is that they perhaps no longer want to take leaps, just baby steps.

Just like Taco Bell.

(Nutrition Facts – Not available on website. But I’m pretty sure it contains trans fat and enough sodium to make dogs want to lick you when you sweat.)

Other McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder Reviews:
Grub Grade
Brand Eating
An Immovable Feast

Item: McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder
Price: $6.99
Size: Regular Value Meal
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Great if you’re really sick of the other Angus Third Pounder varieties. Three decent sized slices of bacon. Angus beef patty. Hefty burger. Pepsi Max. The original Angus Third Pounders.
Cons: Chipotle BBQ sauce brought no heat, and it’s sweet and smoky flavor dominated all of the other ingredients. Setting sauce guns to splooge. Swapping condiments isn’t very creative. McDonald’s take a page from the Taco Bell playbook.

REVIEW: California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe Frozen Personal Pizza

Marvo 7 Comments

California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe Crispy Thin Crust

The Hawaiian pizza sounds like the result of a love story that happened in the 19th century between an Italian explorer and a Hawaiian princess who couldn’t be together due to her family’s disapproval, but before heading out to sea to return to his home country, the Italian explorer showed his love for her and how he would remember her forever by baking a pizza that combined Italian ingredients (cheese, sauce, and ham) with a local Hawaiian ingredient (pineapples) for their last meal together.

But, alas, that’s not how the Hawaiian pizza was invented. Instead, it was created in 1962 by a couple of canucks in Ontario.

It may be called the Hawaiian pizza, but, to be honest, most Hawaii residents don’t order it even though it’s offered by the major pizza chains and a few local restaurants. I guess we find the idea of having pineapples on pizza as disgusting as most of the country. I know it might be disappointing to hear that people from Hawaii don’t like the Hawaiian pizza, but you can just included that on your list of things you didn’t know about Hawaii…and here’s more.

No one lives in grass huts. The state motto is Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono, which means, “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.” The Victoria’s Secret store in Hawaii doesn’t sell coconut bras. It does snow in Hawaii. Hawaii residents don’t drink Mai Tais. The beach water in Waikiki is warm because of all the tourist kids who pee in it.

Okay, that last one isn’t true.

But, as for most Hawaii residents not eating Hawaiian pizzas, that’s true. Although, I did eat the California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe personal pizza for this review. Also, there were a couple of times at a Pizza Hut buffet that I had to eat their Hawaiian pizza because they were all out of the others.

California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe Crispy Thin Crust Before

The California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe personal pizza is made up of a crispy thin crust, tomato sauce, reduced fat mozzarella cheese, hickory smoked ham, and, of course, pineapple.

The packaging looks like a mini version of their larger frozen pizzas, which is probably a cheerful upgrade from the old packinging for these personal CPK pizzas when they were called “California Pizza Kitchen Pizza For One.” The older boxes had emblazoned on the front, in a large font, “For One,” which I imagine was depressing for some single people, and for others, a way to let people know they were available.

California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe Crispy Thin Crust After

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve had Hawaiian pizza in the past. However, I should mention that I don’t find them utterly disgusting. I just think they’re a little weird because of the use of pineapples, but overall they’re decent tasting. With that said, I thought the flavor of the California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe personal pizza was disappointing for a Hawaiian pizza. While the pineapples are definitely noticeable, even though I didn’t have many chunks on the pizza I bought, the other ingredients fell flat. The sauce and cheese were bland, and the ham didn’t provide much flavor to compliment the pineapples. But the crust did end up crispy, thanks to the included cooking tray.

Yay! Cooking tray!

If for some strange reason you really like Hawaiian pizzas, I’d stay away from the California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe Frozen Personal Pizza because you’ll probably be disappointed. But if you’re single, putting it in your shopping basket will let everyone know you’re available.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pizza – 370 calories, 110 calories from fat, 13 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 720 milligrams of sodium, 46 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 7 grams of sugar, 19 grams of protein, 10% vitamin A, 30% calcium, 8% vitamin C, and 8% iron.)

Item: California Pizza Kitchen Hawaiian Recipe Frozen Personal Pizza
Price: $3.99
Size: 6.2 ounces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Noticeable pineapple flavor. Crust was crispy. Good source of calcium. Good way to let people know you’re available.
Cons: Trans fat. Bland cheese and sauce. Ham lacked any flavor. Not a lot of pineapple chunks. Ending up in a particularly warm section of water at a beach. Bad way to let people know you’re lonely. Hawaiian pizza not the result of forbidden love. Wearing a coconut bra.