Red Velvet Done Right

Russel Stover's Red Velvet Egg

Let me preface by saying that I am NOT a big fan of red velvet cake, or up until this point, anything red velvet flavored.  I actually originally bought one of these for my wife, who inversely usually loves all things red velvet.

Thankfully for me though, she had a moment of complete insanity when she bit into it, and threw it down the garbage disposal (my mouth).  I instantly fell in love.  

The dark chocolate shell is pretty damn perfect.  Not at all bitter, but still deep/sweet enough that it leaves no doubt that its not your average weak ass milk chocolate.  

The red velvet filling was much different than I expected (and if I would have planned ahead I would have a picture of that for you).  It was very "solid", with zero cakey texture, look, taste, or feel.  More comparable to Milky Way's nugget (a little more solid though) than the cake batter I was expecting.  This was definitely a plus, because I'm not a big cake fan in general.

For any of you wondering how well red velvet pairs with chocolate...  In this particular manifestation, it does so amazingly.  There really isn't a ton of flavor jumping between the shell and the filling.  You definitely know they are both there, but they jell just right.

I have found them at almost every grocery store I looked at, and they are generally 2 for $1.  I highly recommend picking some up before they go out of season!  (I'm assuming they will disappear shortly after Easter) 

VALUE - 10/10

GOODNESS - 8.5/10

Pumpkin Pie SODA!!

Lester's Fixin's 

I found this last night at our favorite grocery store FRESH, which we hardly ever get a chance to go to because its pretty out of the way.  Its comparable to Whole Foods, but its MUCH larger.

Since I am obsessed with anything and everything pumpkin I had to break my general no drinking cals rule and try this out.

Sadly, it was a HUGE letdown.  It had a very strong spice flavor but the pumpkin was barely even there.  The taste overall seamed kind of watered down and weak.

I only had a few sips and then just threw the rest out.  My wife and son both hated it as well.  This bottle held so much promise, but it fell way too short of its potential.

Will I buy again?  Definitely not.

RATING - 4/10 

Leonardo's Spinach & Cheese Pizza

Todays food review was a completely unexpected find, as I had actually never even heard of this company.

Last week the wife, my son, and I were at Brookshires Market (a much larger version of the regular Brookshires grocery store) and we happened upon this little gem.  She had never had Chicago style pizza, and I am a HUGE fan, so this was a must.

It was pretty expensive for a frozen pizza, coming in at I believe $12.99, but it was still too promising to pass up.  They had Pepperoni and Spinach, and we clearly chose the latter.

So lets dive into this bad boy.

As soon as I took it out of the box I realized that this was a little different from your standard open and bake pizza.  First I had to thaw the sauce in hot water (microwaving would work too), and then pour it on the pizza once the over was preheated.

Next, I had to tear two long strips of foil, place the pizza over them, and cover the edges of the crust down to the sauce.  This was clearly to allow the thick inside of the pizza to cook without burning the crust.

Once it had cooked for 25 minutes I took it out and removed all of the foil, and put her back in all hot and naked for another 15.

I ended up burning the top of the crust slightly, but it wasnt enough to affect taste.

The pizza was a little smaller than I thought it would be, which did make sense since it was SOOO thick and each slice was only 320 cals, which is pretty standard for a slice of hand tossed or deep dish pizza.

We waited about 10 minutes to eat because we didn't want to give it to our son really hot (and he ended up refusing to even touch it lol), but that ended up hurting our pizza devouring experience a little.  The cheese cooled and began to harder surprisingly quickly, and really wasn't hot and melty at all by the time we started eating.

Of course I added my obligatory parmesan and red peppers, which no piece of pizza is complete without.  Pizza has no flavor without a touch of heat!!  Or at least thats what I keep trying to tell everyone...

  

So how was it??  In a word, AWESOME!  You could never tell that this was a frozen pizza, it was just as good or better than anything I have had from most pizza joints.  The crust was flaky and crispy which was perfect for this style, (actually it says on the box to cut it with a serrated knife, which made sense when you were trying to get through that crust).

The sauce was fairly sweet and quite flavorful, and there was just enough of it on there.  Sauce tends to make or break a pizza for me a lot of the time.  Its not so much about flavor issues, but the fact that having too much or too little kills the experience.

Even though the cheese had began to harden it was still delicious.  It was clearly not low fat, nor would I ever want it to be.  I'm sure it would have been even better straight from the oven.

My main complaint was the spinach.  I prefer larger pieces in my pizza.  Like, entire spinach leaves.  This was pretty shredded and it really didn't stand out at all.  This wasn't a huge deal, but it could have been better.  My wife was the opposite though, she's not crazy about spinach on pizza in the first place so this was perfect for her.  It was awesome to find a spinach pizza without that nasty white sauce most places insist on putting on it though...

I didn't find this pizza to be as filling as I had hoped for.  I worked half of this baby into my day and sadly it was a fairly unsatisfying 1,300 cals.  I didn't regret eating it at all, I had just hoped for a little more bang for my buck.  My wife had planned on eating 3 slices and ended up only eating 2 because she was stuffed, so dont take my impression here as gospel.

Will I buy again?

Hell yes.  I would really like to try the pepperoni one next.

RATING - 8.5/10

One final note that I found pretty cool is that apparently each of these is hand made!  At least thats what it says on the box.

Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses, the HUNT!

So I was just perusing Amazons selection of ridiculously overpriced seasonal treats when I stumbled upon these little guys.  I had completely forgotten that these existed!  

I have never actually seen them in person, but last year my wife ordered some as a surprise for me but they mistakenly sent Candy Corn Kisses instead.  Clearly I am a candy corn fan as well so I didn't bother trying to get the mistake corrected.  Even though the little blunders turned out to be pretty delicious I was still a little annoyed with myself for not finding some of these before they went out of season.

Well here is my 2nd chance!  I haven't even been looking at Kisses, so hopefully I can find some locally.  But if not, I might just have to bite the bullet and shell out a little more than I should.  

Hopefully I will have a review coming at you any day! 

Yoplaits gift from the Greek Gods

I will be the first to admit that I do have a tendency to be a little how do you say, dramatic, when I find a new ice cream that I really enjoy.  By that I mean, I rave about most of them.  But I promise you that this is NOT one of those instances.

The instantaneous emotion I felt pour over me as soon as I took the first bite of this heavenly frozen yogurt was nothing short of true love.  Every flavor blends together in perfect harmony to create quite literally one of the best ice creams (yaya, fro you) I have EVER had.

The base itself isn't anything spectacular if you dont get any of the caramel/honey ribbon with it, but once all of the elements are combined it really shines.  I found the best way to eat it was to stir it all together for a minute so that everything started melting and mixing into each other.  I do this with most of my ice creams but some benefit from it more than others.

Strangely the flavor that seamed to stand out the most to me was maple...  But clearly there is no maple in this.  You can definitely pick out the honey and caramel, but something just kept screaming maple to me, but I think I know why...

One of my favorite treats growing up was taking newly fallen snow into a bowl and pouring maple syrup all over it.  You just eat it like a bowl of ice cream, and man is it delicious.  Something about this brought those memories and flavors back full force.  It must have been a combination of the slightly icy consistency of the base, and the honey/caramel combo resembling maple.  Whatever it was, I approve.

I know that it must seam very strange that a low fat, low calorie frozen yogurt can be this good, but it really is.  I put this right up there with the best full fat ice creams I have tried.

Buy this stuff!  I found mine at Walmart.

9.9/10

Milky Way Candy Apple

This was a purchase I wasn't at all excited about, but I HAD to make anyway.  Who could resist a very strange seasonal candy bar regardless of how it sounded??  Not I, thats for sure.  But clearly I had low expectations.

Sadly, as I suspected the chocolate and candy apple flavor mixture was well, strange to say the least.  Its not bad, or gross by any means, its just not very enjoyable.  The apple flavor is very overpowering, so if you are a HUGE apple fan this could be a big win for you.  But its just way too much for me, and the combo just doesn't mesh well.

BUT HOLD ON A MINUTE! 

I wasn't ready to write these completely off just yet.  What else was there to do you ask?  FREEZE THEM! 

If you have never tried freezing your candy bars you are seriously missing out.  I dont really know why, but even with how much I couldn't stand these normally, I had a pretty good feeling about how they would taste frozen.

What was the verdict??  AMAZING.  They went from a 5/10 to a 8.5/10 in a few short hours.  The apple flavor really calmed down with the change in consistency and actually turned into a very welcome undertone.  

So as long as you freeze these bad boys I would definitely recommend picking up a bag or two.

These are NOT a store exclusive.  I got mine at Target but I have also seen them at Walgreens and Walmart.  

M&M's White Chocolate Candy Corn

I dont know about all of you, but despite being a big fan of candy corn, the words love, mouth watering, breath taking, and please melt all over me, have never crossed my mind while eating a delicious little orange kernel.

Well, these M&M's have changed all of that, because those are exactly the thoughts that spin through my head with every bit I take of these amazing little shelled masterpieces.

The white chocolate flavor is quite subtle, almost to the point that I completely forget its even there as I bathe my taste buds in the deep, warm, candy corn flavor.  I think describing these as the fudge of candy corn is quite appropriate.  

Even though the white chocolate really takes a back seat here I still recommend giving them a shot if you were more interested in the chocolate than the candy corn.  Although very subtle, the white chocolate flavor is still quite powerful once you pick it out.

I wasn't even that excited about buying these, and I probably would have passed them by if my wife hadn't told me how amazing they were.  So if you try these because of this and love them, most of the thanks are deserved by her.

I give them a solid 9.5/10