REVIEW: M&M’s Classic Mix and Peanut Mix

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M M s Classic Mix and Peanut Mix Pouches

It has never dawned on me to mix M&M’s varieties. Is it a thing that people have been doing all this time, and I just didn’t know about it? The only out of the ordinary thing I’ve been doing with the candy is blindfolding myself, trying to determine the shell’s color using only my non-sight senses, and getting it right 100 percent of the time.

Besides, it’s rare for me to have different M&M’s varieties in my house at the same time. And if there were, they were probably like ships passing in the night.

But now Mars Chocolates has done the mixing for us with its Classic Mix (Milk Chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Peanut M&M’s) and Peanut Mix (Milk Chocolate Peanut, Dark Chocolate Peanut, and White Chocolate Peanut M&M’s). There’s also an M&M’s Mystery Eggs Mix for Easter that has Milk Chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Double Chocolate M&M’s. But I wasn’t sent that for review.

You’d think combining these different varieties, whose delight factors vary from good to great, would create something unique. But it’s not a best of all worlds ordeal.

M M s Peanut Mix Closeup

When I pop any combination of the candies into my mouth, my tongue can’t determine which M&M’s is which, especially with the Peanut Mix, which overall tastes like regular Milk Chocolate Peanut M&M’s. Although, if I happen to stuff my maw with all White Chocolate Peanut M&M’s, my taste buds notice it.

M M s Classic Mix Closeup

With the Classic Mix, I can, of course, tell which is the Peanut one, but as a whole, most combinations taste like Peanut M&M’s. And that’s a shame because this has my favorite permanent variety — Peanut Butter. I love the burst of nuttiness and saltiness they have, but it’s hard to detect when mixed with the other two.

But if you prefer to pick out your M&M’s individually, it’s easy to determine which is which with the Classic Mix. The largest ones are Peanut, the smallest ones are Milk Chocolate, and the in-between ones are Peanut Butter. With the Peanut Mix, good luck determining what Peanut M&M’s flavor you’re pulling because they all look the same.

I like all these M&M’s individually, but I don’t taste anything special when paired with each other. To be honest, I wish it was more like Pringles’ effort to create new flavors by stacking multiple varieties. For example, a cheesecake mix that combines White Chocolate Cheesecake M&M’s with current and past M&M’s would’ve been neato.

DISCLOSURE: I received free product samples. Thanks, Mars! Doing so did not influence my review. Also, my apologies for the messed up candy shell colors. You see, I got these a few months ago, and only recently I opened them. My office, where I had them, is not the optimal place for chocolate candy. Sorry, Mars!

Purchased Price: FREE
Size: 8.3 oz sharing size pouches
Purchased at: Received from Mars
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 oz) Classic Mix – 140 calories, 7 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber 15 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein. Peanut Mix – 150 calories, 8 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0mgc 10 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 14 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Avocado Toast

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Dunkin Avocado Toast Full

What is Dunkin’s Avocado Toast?

Better late than never, Dunkin’ tries to court millennials with the ever popular avocado toast. Dunkin’s version has a piece of toasted sourdough bread as the base, topped with avocado spread (made with four ingredients: avocado, sea salt, black pepper, and lemon juice), and finished with a hearty sprinkle of everything bagel seasoning (sesame seeds, poppy seeds, onion, and garlic).

How is it?

Dunkin Avocado Toast Toasted

Avocado toast is a tricky thing to nail. Yes, it seems simple, but it can go bad very quickly. Dunkin’s iteration sits in that “firm middle of the road” category. It isn’t good, nor is it bad. It’s just okay. The sourdough provides a good base for the item. Thoroughly toasted, it holds up well to the spread and keeps its structural integrity.

Dunkin Avocado Toast Split

The avocado spread is certainly better than most spreads I’ve had, but the lemon flavor will come on strong every few bites. It’s not necessarily unpleasant, but it’s not a flavor I associate with avocado toast. Of course, I understand the necessity of lemon to help the avocado stay stable and not turn brown.

The everything bagel seasoning does most of the heavy lifting flavor-wise. The strong flavors of the garlic and onion bits make the lemon less pungent. I can say with pretty strong confidence that the item would be rated much lower without the seasoning.

Anything else you need to know?

Dunkin Avocado Toast Cut

The item was relatively light for a breakfast item on its own. After the fact, I cursed myself for not getting some of Dunkin’s snacking bacon. I think that might make it a little more substantial, and I’d be curious how the bacon worked with the spread.

You can also buy the spread separately to add to other Dunkin’ items if you so want.

Conclusion:

Dunkin’s Avocado Toast is a solid try at a popular item. It’s not going to wow you if you’re looking for the flavor of pure avocado, but works well as a very light breakfast/snack. It’s a nice change from the more traditional breakfast offerings at Dunkin’ that can sometimes be heavy on the stomach.

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: N/A
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 piece) 240 calories, 11 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 530 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 6 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Blue Bell Cookies ‘n Cream Cone Ice Cream

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Blue Bell Cookies n Cream Cone Ice Cream Tub

What is Blue Bell Cookies ‘n Cream Cone?

It’s the newest flavor from Blue Bell and is described as, to quote the packaging, “vanilla flavored ice cream with chocolate crème filled cookie crumbles, dark chocolate-coated chocolate cone pieces and a chocolate fudge swirl.”

If you’re counting, the word “chocolate” is mentioned four times in the description but not once in the product’s name. And if you are a stickler for punctuation, you might wonder why chocolate-coated is hyphenated, but not vanilla flavored or crème filled. I have no answer for that, and it will probably keep me up tonight.

How is it?

Blue Bell Cookies n Cream Cone Ice Cream Top

My first thought upon popping the top was that the quartet of chocolates in the description was not enough because all I saw was a small island of vanilla-ish color in the middle surrounded by a sea of chocolate.

Blue Bell Cookies n Cream Cone Ice Cream Excavation

However, after some excavating, it turned out that there just happened to be a thin layer of the fudge swirl on the top. A full scoop has more of a traditional cookies’ n cream look.

Blue Bell Cookies n Cream Cone Ice Cream Bowl

As for the taste, it was quite good and not overly chocolatey. The cookies’ n cream part was basically your standard cookies’ n cream flavor, but the fudge swirls added a nice chocolate boost and tasted a lot like Hershey’s syrup.

Blue Bell Cookies n Cream Cone Ice Cream Spoon

The cone pieces provided some extra taste and texture, although they were hard to distinguish from the cookie pieces. The label was not kidding when it said “crumbles” either, as I didn’t find many cookie pieces of significant size. The cone pieces were larger but still fairly small. Overall, the flavors and textures all worked together splendidly. It would have been nice to have some more sizable chunks of both cookies and cone, however.

Anything else you need to know?

In my dedication to providing you with the most comprehensive information available about this product, I actually read — OK, I skimmed — a press release about it. According to it, this new flavor is an homage to Blue Bell’s Cookie Cone product that launched in 1997, was sold mostly in school cafeterias, and discontinued in 2015. That product had a complete cone with a scoop of chocolate-coated ice cream, along with the same overly happy fake Oreo guy on the package.

Conclusion:

This is not the fanciest or most daring ice cream flavor out there, perhaps because Blue Bell sees itself as a more traditional ice cream maker. The packaging on this product is flashy by its standards, as most of its other flavors have just a solid color with the kid leading the cow logo. So if you want ice cream with Pop Rocks, Sour Patch Kids, or something like that in it, you have plenty of other options, but if you just want some good cookies’ n cream ice cream with a little something extra, this one is for you.

Purchased Price: $6.34
Size: Half-gallon
Purchased at: H-E-B
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2/3 cup) 280 calories, 15 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Creamy Chocolate Silk Ultra Protein Drink

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Creamy Chocolate Silk Ultra Protein Drink Carton

What is the Creamy Chocolate Silk Ultra Protein Drink?

It’s Silk’s attempt to get into the lucrative protein drink industry. Along with this one, there are also two other flavors — unsweet and original.

While it’s a “soy protein beverage,” it pretty much looks and pours like soy milk. How much protein does it have, you ask? Twenty grams per one-cup serving. That’s 40% of your daily recommended intake and slightly more than double the amount in regular Silk Chocolate Soymilk. Plus, Ultra has half the sugar of chocolate milk, 35% of your daily recommended calcium, and 130% of your daily vitamin B12.

How is it?

It’s chocolatey and chalky. It’s chalkolatey.

Although I’ll admit, it’s not the chalkiest chocolate plant-based milk I’ve had. That sad, sad honor goes to the Suja Chocolate Organic Plant Protein Milk I tried a few years ago. It was so chalky that I can still remember how much so it was all these years later. It’s like a bad food memory that’s tattooed on my brain, like that time I drank bacon-flavored soda or learned I have a shellfish allergy.

Creamy Chocolate Silk Ultra Protein Drink Closeup

However, to make Silk Ultra’s texture significantly less noticeable to not noticeable at all, might I recommend adding it to cereal or iced coffee. For some strange reason, it fades when used in those ways. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s soy magic.

When it comes to chocolatiness, and this could be my imagination, it seems to be slightly more so than regular Chocolate Silk Soy Milk. But overall, the Ultra version pretty much tastes like the original one, except, you know, chalkier.

Anything else you need to know?

I’ve read that regular chocolate milk is an excellent post-workout drink because it has the right balance of protein and carbohydrates. And I’ve learned through personal experience that regular chocolate milk is an awful pre-workout drink. Oh, also egg nog.

The midnight black carton looks cool.

Conclusion:

Because it tastes like regular Silk Chocolate soy milk, I’ve been enjoying Creamy Chocolate Silk Ultra. Also, I love the efficiency of getting 40% of my protein in just a cup of it. Its chalkiness isn’t a complete deal-breaker for me. Then again, isn’t that quirk par for the course when it comes to protein drinks. It would probably be a huge endeavor to make them not so chalky.

Purchased Price: $4.29
Size: 59 fl oz
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup) 190 calories, 5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 3 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 1 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 280 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 11 grams of total sugars (includes 10 grams of added sugars), and 20 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Sonic Oreo Big Scoop Cookie Dough Blast

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Sonic Oreo Big Scoop Cookie Dough Blast Big Scoop

I recently stumbled across something on the internet suggesting that Missouri actually has 12 seasons. Right now, we are in the Spring of Deception, which is past Fool’s Spring and Second Winter, and just ahead of Third Winter, the Pollening, and Actual Spring. As funny as this is, it is also hauntingly accurate.

And here in the Spring of Deception, the weather has been in the upper 60s and lower 70s, which means it is a perfectly reasonable time to try Sonic’s new Oreo Big Scoop Cookie Dough Blast. (We have a chance of snow next weekend, which will usher in Third Winter, but I suppose there are plenty of people who say there is never a bad time for frozen desserts. Then there are those who crave ice cream even more when it’s cold; if you’re in either of these camps, please ignore my preamble.)

Here’s the bottom line about this Blast: I would gleefully consume this thing in real Winter, even the one we just got out of where we spent days in a row without the temperature getting above 0. It is just that good.

Sonic Oreo Big Scoop Cookie Dough Blast Diggin In

Sonic describes its new offering as “Real Ice Cream blended with cookie dough bites then topped with even more cookie dough bites, Oreo cookie pieces, and a big scoop of Oreo chocolate chip cookie dough.”

The first thing of note is that this is a legit Oreo cookie dough scoop. A fat golfball-sized chunk of tongue-numbingly delicious dough takes up a great deal of real estate on top of the Blast, meaning that it is quite possible to nick a nice spoonful with every bite. I’ve never had Oreo cookie dough, but from what I can tell, it’s like if some lovable klutz knocked a handful of Oreo into the batch of chocolate chip cookie dough they were whipping up in the mixer. In other words, divine.

Then, peppered around the dough mountain is a large amount of crumbled Oreo along with more dough pellets.

Sonic Oreo Big Scoop Cookie Dough Blast Cookie Dough Closeup

And here’s where I’ll explain why, while this thing is tremendous, it’s not perfect— the cookie dough pieces are a bit weird. They are VERY uniform in shape and size, which makes me wonder about their origin story. Additionally, the texture is a bit odd. Contrasted with the Oreo’s crunch and Sonic’s vanilla ice cream’s smooth creaminess, the cookie dough pieces come across as almost gummy.

Sonic Oreo Big Scoop Cookie Dough Blast Spoon

But it’s a small quibble, really, as there is plenty of other magic happening in this styrofoam cylinder to make me forgive such a minor transgression.

You’ll also note that the nutrition is, well, maybe don’t even look at that. Because honestly, if you’re eating this, you know what you’re getting into. But I will suggest that I got a small, and I was actually satisfied eating about a fourth of it. This feels like the sort of thing you might want to split with a significant other. You could also probably make multiple desserts out of it.

No matter what you do, though, you should definitely make a plan to eat one. You’ll be glad you did.

Purchased Price: $4.79
Size: Small
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 820 calories, 50 grams of fat, 21 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 95 milligrams of cholesterol, 520 milligrams of sodium, 106 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 65 grams of sugar, and 11 grams of protein.

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