REVIEW: Temptations by Jello (Apple Custard Pie, Double Chocolate Pie, French Silk Pie, Lemon Meringue Pie & Strawberry Cheesecake)

Temptations by Jello

Hey y’all. Lucifer here.

I’m having a really hard time believing these glorified Jello Pudding Snack cups called Temptations by Jello can be considered a temptation. There’s no way a double-layered pudding cup that’s supposed to taste like a pie can equal the power of a seductive come hither. Now some of you might be thinking, who the hell am I to say what’s a temptation and what’s not? Oh, maybe because I’m THE Master of Temptation.

I know. I know. I didn’t get Jesus, but I got Eve to eat a forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and I got dozens of spandex-wearing glam bands from the 1980s and 90s to sell their souls to me for fortune, fame, groupies and one or two hit songs. So I’ll see you soon, Cinderella, Winger, Slaughter, FireHouse, Britny Fox, Danger Danger, Ratt, Stryper, L.A. Guns, White Lion, Europe, Tesla, Mr. Big, Nelson, and Whitesnake.

Also, what’s with the name choice? Temptations by Jello? Is Jello making fragrances now? CKOne by Calvin Klein. Fahrenheit by Christian Dior. Cool Water by Davidoff. Tommy by Tommy Hilfiger. Eternity by Calvin Klein. Yes, I’m taking you back though my 1990s cologne history, because if you think I’m good at tempting people to sell their souls to me, you should see me tempt women in clubs. Women love bad boys, and I am the ultimate bad boy. I’ve got so many notches in my bedpost that I don’t have bedposts anymore. Now I keep track of the women using a database I created in Filemaker Pro.

I tried five of the flavors and I have to say, if you get tempted by Temptations by Jello, you have an extremely weak soul, you should stay away from illegal drugs, and I’ll see you soon.

Temptations by Jello Naked

The Apple Custard Pie is made up of a custard-style vanilla pudding topped with a gelatinous cinnamon apple top that contains a few apple chunks. As you can see in the photo it doesn’t maintain its form as well as the other flavors, but then again it is extremely hot in hell, so melting shouldn’t be a surprise. The whole shebang tastes like cheap apple pie filling. It’s okay, but I don’t think I could get Eve to take a bite from it.

The Lemon Meringue Pie has a pleasant level of tartness, and it’s also pleasant to watch it wiggle on my spoon. Yes, I like playing with food as much as I like tormenting peoples’ souls. If you’re a fan of slightly artificial tasting lemon pudding and eating something called sucrose fatty acid esters, you’ll enjoy it. But, even if you love lemon pudding, I don’t think you’ll give me your soul for it, or the soul of your first born.

The Double Chocolate Pie flavor combines a level of dark chocolate pudding topped with a milk chocolate mousse. You might think I enjoy anything with the word “dark” in it, after all, I am the Prince of Darkness, and you would be absolutely correct. Although, all is not perfect with this flavor. The mousse has a chocolate flavor that’s hard to detect, while the chocolate pudding on the bottom brings the choco-boom-chaka-la-ka, so it’s more like One and a Quarter Chocolate Pie. Actually, it just tastes like plain old chocolate putting that I could have my minions make for me with some milk and a package of pudding mix. Some of you might think it’s too sweet, but it’s not my fault your taste buds can’t handle it.

Strawberry Cheesecake is good and it tastes like strawberry cheesecake, albeit a less decadent, lighter version of cheesecake that doesn’t make my tummy feel like I swallowed the soul of a glutton. The airy cheesecake-flavored pudding is on the bottom, while a strawberry jelly sits on top of it. Just like I love foods that are dark, I love foods that are red, although I prefer the red to come from the blood of the damned.

Of the five flavors I tried, the French Silk Pie was my favorite. Maybe because the vanilla mousse pudding on top represents heaven, while the chocolate pudding bottom represents the darkness of hell, and if you mix the two together, the vanilla gets darker as the rich chocolate pudding slowly swallows the purity of the white pudding, turning everything into darkness. Or maybe because it’s very tasty. The combination of vanilla topping and chocolate pudding equals something sinfully delicious, although it’s slightly less chocolatey than the Double Chocolate Pie.

Temptations are all about getting people to do things that involve a little danger, goes against one’s morals, or gets people to worship me. Look, if you’re going to tempt someone into doing something wrong or naughty, you’re going to need more than these Temptations by Jello, no matter how good some of them are. Also, I’m pretty sure no one is going end up in hell for eating pudding that has anywhere between 100-150 calories. If they did, hell would be a lot more crowded and I’d have a lot more paperwork to do.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 snack – Apple Custard Pie – 130 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 125 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 21 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein. Double Chocolate Pie – 120 calories, 4 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 170 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 15 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein. French Silk Pie – 140 calories, 5 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 180 milligrams of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein. Lemon Meringue – 110 calories, 2 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 120 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 15 grams of sugar, less than 1 gram of protein. Strawberry Cheesecake – 150 calories, 3 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 150 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 24 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.)

Item: Temptations by Jello (Apple Custard Pie, Double Chocolate Pie, French Silk Pie, Lemon Meringue Pie & Strawberry Cheesecake)
Price: $2.49 (on sale; reg. $3.49)
Size: 3 pack
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Apple Custard Pie)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Double Chocolate Pie)
Rating: 8 out of 10 (French Silk Pie)
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Lemon Meringue Pie)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Strawberry Cheesecake)
Pros: French Silk Pie because it’s tasty and it perfectly represents hell’s victory over heaven someday. Strawberry Cheesecake taste like a strawberry cheesecake that doesn’t make me feel like I swallowed the soul of a glutton. If you like chocolate pudding, you’ll like the Double Chocolate Pie. Foods that are colored with the blood of the damned. Filemaker Pro replacing the notches in bedposts. Being the Master of Temptation.
Cons: Glorified pudding snack cups. Doesn’t really deserve to be called Temptations. Apple Custard Pie melts too easily in hell. Lemon Meringue Pie has a slightly weird artificial flavor. Double Chocolate Pie might be too sweet for some and thanks to the weak mousse topping, it’s more like a One and a Quarter Chocolate Pie. Awesome source of sugar.

NEWS: Silk Fondles Coconuts To Get Milk; Stroking Rice Stalks To Make Milk Is Probably Next

Silk is extremely good at turning plants into milk. It started with soy, then last year they expanded to almond, and recently they’ve added their new Silk Pure Coconut coconutmilk. I imagine it must be more pleasant to have plants to milk instead of cows.

No manure to accidentally step in. No moo-ing. No tail to accidentally whip you. No open mouth chewing to look at. No desire to ride on its back. No getting attached to it, making it a part of your family, having to put it down when you need to put food on the table, and then having to eat it. No jealous bulls to impale me when I stroke a cow’s back.

Silk Pure Coconut has 50 percent more calcium than dairy milk and is an excellent source of vitamin D and vitamin B12. It comes in two flavors: Original and Vanilla. The Original has 80 calories per serving, while the Vanilla has 90 calories. Like all of Silk’s milks, Pure Coconut is produced without using GMO (genetically modified organisms) ingredients. Silk Pure Coconut coconutmilk is available now nationwide.

REVIEW: Hot Pockets Snackers (Loaded Potato Skin Bites, Grilled Italian Style Bites, Fiesta Nacho Bites & Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli)

Hot Pockets Snackers

Baked Not Fried*

Those three words are on the front of every package of the new Hot Pockets Snackers. But what’s that snowflake-shaped thingie that’s hanging on the end of those three words like a piece of poop hanging from a dog’s fur around its poop chute? That, my friend, is an asterisk and it’s the shifty side of the eight key on your keyboard.

If you’re a person who doesn’t like to read, an asterisk always leads to more reading, which begins with another asterisk that hangs at the front of a sentence or phrase like a piece of snot hanging from one’s nose. Whenever there’s an asterisk on food packaging it can lead to three things:

1) An obligatory line found in every nutrition facts label: “Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

2) Something scary that food companies, sometimes by law, have to let you know about, like “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration”, “Contains MSG naturally occurring in foods”, “Ingredients not in regular mozzarella cheese” or “If you’re a male who’s 35 or older, hide this box of Lucky Charms when women come over*.”

3) Something the food company didn’t really need to tell us, like what the asterisk after Baked Not Fried leads to — NOT A LOW FAT FOOD

Duh.

I don’t know of anyone who thinks Hot Pockets is a low-fat food, although I do know of people who think Lean Pockets will make them skinny. Hot Pockets Snackers are definitely not a low-fat food, but they aren’t a high-fat food either, like other Hot Pockets. They’re like fancier and slightly bigger pizza bites, or Hot Pockets for babies**.

They come in four varieties:

Hot Pockets Snackers Innards

Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli – mozzarella, ricotta, romano, parmesan and asiago cheese in a toasted ravioli. I wish I could say my tongue was talented enough to distinguish every cheese in the Hot Pockets Snackers, but my tongue is only good for one thing, ladies. I could only detect the mozzarella and parmesan, but I wonder how much of each cheese they stuffed into each one because there wasn’t much cheese filling. It’s definitely my least favorite of the four flavors. Although while being microwaved, it made my place smell like parmesan.

Fiesta Nacho Bites – taco seasoned beef, mexican style cheese sauce, and jalapenos in a tortilla style crust. Despite reading that there were jalapenos in it, I didn’t think there would be any heat, just the flavor of the peppers. However, there is a mild level of heat, maybe a 3 or 4 on a scale of 10. These triangular-shaped Snackers have a good flavor to them thanks to the jalapenos. It tasted like either something from Taco Bell or Mexican Hamburger Helper was stuffed into it***.

Grilled Italian Style Bites – Italian style deli meats and mozzarella cheese inside a panini crust. I enjoyed these as much as the Fiesta Nacho Bites. The prosciutto cotto, salami, and capicola provided wonderful flavor with a little spice. It had a decent amount of filling and the panini crust came out soft. Probably the fanciest of the four, but then again isn’t everything Italian considered fancy.

Loaded Potato Skin Bites – bacon, cheddar cheese, potatoes and green onion inside a golden potato crust. My second least favorite. While it did taste like potato skins, it didn’t have a strong flavor, even though there was as much filling as some of the others. The golden potato crust easily beats Pringles as the most embarrassing way for potatoes to end up. Despite being made of potatoes, the crust has very little potato flavor and was a bit too chewy. Thank goodness for the additional potatoes stuffed into it to give it a recognizable amount of potato flavor.

A serving of four takes about one minute and fifteen seconds to warm up, and there is no crisping sleeve. However, the instructions, which comes in English and Spanish, says completing the cooking process also involves letting it sit in the microwave for two minutes. So that one minute claim on the front of the package is misleading. Also, Hot Pockets really needs to work on preventing the filling in their products from oozing out while microwaving. And why do I have to use a damn paper plate to heat Hot Pockets? I don’t go on picnics, nor am I a hoarder who needs to use paper plates because my sink, which is blocked by a mountain of stuff that is valuable to me and no one else, is full of dishes that haven’t been washed in months.

Overall, my opinion is split between the different flavors of Hot Pockets Snackers. The Fiesta Nacho Bites and Grilled Italian Style Bites are the tastiest and have crusts that turn out decent from the microwave, while the Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli and Loaded Potato Skin Bites don’t have strong flavors and have tough crusts after being microwaved. However, the Hot Pockets Snackers does make it possible to create a Hot Pockets Diet****, which is like the Special K Diet, except instead of a bowl of Special K for breakfast and lunch, and a Special K snack in between meals, the Hot Pockets Diet would consist of a Hot Pocket for breakfast and lunch, and these Hot Pockets Snackers to help curb hunger in between meals.

*Not on boxes of Lucky Charms.

**If you feed your baby Hot Pockets, you are a horrible parent.

***Might be a good or bad thing, depends on how you feel about Taco Bell or Hamburger Helper.

****Don’t attempt to make the Hot Pockets Diet a reality.

(Nutrition Facts – 4 pieces – Potato Skin Bites – 230 calories, 90 calories from fat, 10 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 610 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 9 grams of protein, 6% vitamin A, 20% calcium, and 6% iron. Italian Style Bites – 210 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 500 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 8 grams of protein, 10% calcium, and 10% iron. Five Cheese Ravioli – 220 calories, 60 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 540 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 9 grams of protein, 2% vitamin A, 20% calcium, and 10% iron. Fiesta Nacho Bites – 220 calories, 80 calories from fat, 8 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 540 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 7 grams of protein, 4% vitamin A, 10% calcium, and 10% iron.)

*Made using partially hydrogenated oils.

Item: Hot Pockets Snackers (Loaded Potato Skin Bites, Grilled Italian Style Bites, Fiesta Nacho Bites & Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli)
Price: $3.00 (on sale; reg. $4.79)
Size: 10 ounces/Approx. 12 pieces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 4 out of 10 (Loaded Potato Skin Bites)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Grilled Italian Style Bites)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Fiesta Nacho Bites)
Rating: 4 out of 10 (Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli)
Pros: Grilled Italian Style Bites and Fiesta Nacho Bites were tasty and have crusts that microwave well. Baked not fried. Like fancy pizza bites. Using asterisks to create ASCII pictures. Hot Pockets Snackers package may contain an extra one or two pieces. Might be able to stuff these Hot Pockets into a regular Hot Pocket to make Jim Gaffigan’s nightmare come true.
Cons: Not a low-fat food. Loaded Potato Skin Bites and Toasted Five Cheese Ravioli lacked strong flavors and had crusts that don’t microwave well. Good source of sodium. Microwave instructions are misleading because it takes over three minutes to warm them up. Made with partially hydrogenated oils. Using asterisks to let people know how scary their food could be.

NEWS: Like A Bra Strap Peeking Out Teases Me, Tostitos To Tease Your Taste Buds With A Hint of Pepper Jack Tortilla Chips

tostitos

I know how it is Tostitos, and I know what you’re trying to do with your new Restaurant Style with a Hint of Pepper Jack Tortilla Chips. I’ve called numerous 1-900 numbers to know that if you give a little hint of something good, you’re gonna want more. A $3.99 for the first minute hint can easily lead to several $2.99 additional minutes. So I don’t think I’ll be falling for the light, smooth jack cheese flavor your new chips will provide.

There’s also the new Tostitos Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips with a Hint of Jalapeno, but I’m only going to spend this sentence talking about it because in 2009 they released Tostitos Scoops with a Hint of Jalapeno, so it’s not a totally new idea.

A one-ounce serving size, or about six chips, of the Tostitos Restaurant Style with a Hint of Pepper Jack Tortilla Chips has 140 calories, 7 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 3 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 2 grams of monounsaturated fat, 140 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, and 2 grams of protein.

NEWS: Go Girl Makes Available More Energy Drinks Meant For Mortals With Mammaries

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In 2007, I reviewed the original Go Girl Energy Drink. In 2008, I reviewed Go Girl Glo, an energy drink that’s supposed to help one’s skin. In 2009, I reviewed Go Girl Bliss Energy Drink. In 2010, Go Girl Energy didn’t release a new flavor that I would’ve had to embarrassingly buy like it was a pack of tampons. However, in 2011, they’re making up for the lack of a new flavor in 2010 by releasing two new flavors — Go Girl Pomegranate Blueberry Tea Energy Drink and Go Girl Lemon Drop Sugar Free Energy Drink.

The Pomegranate Blueberry Tea Energy Drink is non-carbonated, only 35 calories, made with Yerba Mate tea leaves, and sweetened with agave. It also contains B vitamins, taurine and Super Citrimax, the company’s herbal appetite suppressant. As for the Lemon Drop Sugar Free Energy Drink, it too is non-carbonated, has B vitamins and contains Super Citrimax, but it only has 5 calories and contains sweet, sweet caffeine.

Like all Go Girl Energy Drinks the new flavors come skinny 11.5 ounce cans and a portion of the proceeds of each case sold is donated to breast or ovarian cancer research and awareness.

Image via flickr user Waifer X / CC BY 2.0