Just got them today because they were on sale for $3 for 12. They were in the bakery section in a plastic box. They are *delicious*.
Category: Food Items (Page 14 of 20)
Over the years I have come across recipes that called for smoking whatever you were grilling by putting wood chips in the BBQ grill’s smoker box. I have a very simple gas BBQ grill, so of course it does not have a smoker box – so I usually just ignored those recipes. But a week or two ago, I came across a smoker box at Grocery Outlet and I figured, why not give it a try? The box is a rectangular metal box with a metal lid that has holes in it. You put it on top of the burning element, under the grill.
I first tried it last week when I made Smoked Tri Tip with Sicilian Herb Sauce for a small BBQ that I threw. Alas, the sauce (which I used as a marinade) was too strong to let the smoke flavor come out. Today, however, I “smoked” two cheap Safeway NY steaks, and I can’t believe just how good the meat was. Even Mike was surprised.
I was also quite happy about how easy the whole process was. I’ll be experimenting with other meats in the future.
While looking for a picture of Royale Center Cut Naturally Smoked Bacon, or at least a link to the manufacturer’s website, I came across bacon tasting from the SF Chronicle in which Royale Bacon came at the bottom. The bottom bottom, getting only 24 out of 100 points. The winner, Tyson (really, Tyson), got 80 points.
I have to say that I don’t agree with the tasters. Royale may not have the best bacon, but I actually think it’s pretty good. It has a slightly sweet flavor that I like. Is it the best bacon I’ve ever had? Probably not, but it’s great in my spaghetti carbonara.
I bought it at Grocery Outlet, which carries several Tyson products, so I will look for the Tyson bacon and give it a try.
Grocery Outlet had these cookies for sale last week in a variety of flavors. Some of the no-name products have actually turned out to be quite good, so I decided to give the chocolate walnut cookies a try. Well, they were so bad that my 7-year old daughter, not the pickiest of gourmands, stated that these “must be the worst cookies ever”. Mike also commented as to how bad they are.
Alas, I have to agree, they have no chocolate flavor whatsoever and nothing that could be identified as a walnut. They just suck. Perhaps other flavors are better, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Ben and Jerry’s line of organic ice cream flavors (introduced in 2003), has not been doing very well. I haven’t really seen them in supermarkets, and this week they made an appearance at my neighborhood’s Grocery Outlet – for $1.50 each! I tried their organic vanilla and organic strawberry and they were both fine, not spectacular. These are not flavors I usually get, so I can’t say how they compare to the originals.
It’s another matter with Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, which is one of my favorite B&J’s flavors. Alas, I’ll have to continue eating the regular version (usually $3 on sale at Safeway), as the organic version just doesn’t do it. The problem starts with the flavor of the ice cream, the chocolate is just not deep enough, it lacks that almost bitter richness of the original. In a blind test, I would not guess it was Ben & Jerry’s. The lack of flavor continues in the brownie – which is also dry (how do they manage to make a brownie that is sitting in ice cream dry?) and non-chewy. Not a brownie you’d pay to eat. In other words – there is a reason why this ice cream is being sold at Grocery Outlet.
It’s unlikely you’ll find anything if you look for “Hart Authentic Orange Chicken” online – at least I didn’t find anything when I looked. It seems that this frozen entree is made by Hart Food Products from Lakewood, CA. I bought it at Grocery Outlet, and I imagine they are their only distributor. Actually, given Hart’s pathetic website, it’s difficult to believe they are any sort of serious company. Which really tells you something about where Grocery Outlet sources its products. And indeed, orange chicken seems to be one of only three or four products Hart offers .
Anyway, I was in Grocery Outlet yesterday and thought I’d take a look at the frozen stuff they had, as I’ve been feeling less and less like cooking lately. This orange chicken product didn’t seem too bad – at least in comparison to the brand-name frozen food products. Yeah, it has a lot of salt, corn syrup and a myriad of preservatives, but so do all the brand name products. At least it had chicken as its main ingredient 🙂
It’s not obvious from the picture in the package, but this is really popcorn chicken – which is annoying as that means it has much more breading than you would like. It’s uncooked so you need to bake it for 20 minutes, pan fry it for 10 to 15 minutes, or deep fry it for 6 minutes. Then you mix it with the orange sauce which comes in 3 packages. You can’t microwave it.
As for the taste, it met our very low expectations. Mike found it too bland, while I thought the chicken had a subtle “off” flavor. The sauce was OK, somewhat orangy and not too sweet.
I’m unlikely to buy it again.
** UPDATE July 2012**
The owner of Hart Chicken e-mailed me a few weeks ago and told me they’d made changes to their product and to give it another try. I was reluctant, because one of the changes involved getting a different supplier of chicken pieces that produced more uniform – but smaller – pieces. I figured one of the major problems was the size of the pieces, so this wouldn’t help. But I figured I would give the product another try (though it would have been nice if he’d sent me a coupon rather than I having to buy it myself) and I was happier than the time before.
The pieces are still small (they need to be in order to be ready within a reasonably period of time, given that they are not pre-cooked), but this time I went into the meal experience thinking of it as popcorn chicken. So I wasn’t disappointed by their size.
I also used much less oil than the instructions called for, which you can do if you stir fry the chicken.
The sauce was supposed to have an improved flavor, and I think it did. It was just the right amount to coat all the chicken – though a bit more would have been welcomed for any rice or veggies you might want to throw in. I did note this time that the sauce takes on a full 10 oz of the 32 oz of the package, which is quite a lot.
Anyway, Hart Orange Chicken is still not for me, though as you can see below it has many lovers (and haters).
Last night I forgot to cook. Really. Earlier in the day I baked a cake to eat after dinner – but the thought of actually cooking dinner did not occur to me until it was too late. I had bought the ingredients to make lime and coriander chicken, but I had to marinate it for 3 hours and had not done so.
Safeway had advertised meatloaf for $5 for Friday only, so I thought I’d give it a try. Lord, was that the wrong decision – the meatloaf was horrible. It has no flavor of meat, actually, it had no flavor a all, and it had an unpleasant, gritty texture. The sauce on top was disgustingly sweet – but you had to mix it in with the meatloaf, to make it edible at all. In other words, don’t buy it.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I received a few packages of Amazing Taste seasonings to try and review. Last night I made rotisserie chicken with the Malibu seasoning package. I rubbed it both under and over the skin of a full chicken, which I then cooked to perfection 🙂
I was not as fond of this seasoning mix as I was of the one for pork. The chicken was tasty, but I wasn’t completely fond of the taste. It had that sort of artificial flavor that store-bought rotisserie chickens have, maybe it was the preservatives in the spice mix. Mike thought it was pretty good, however.
I probably would not buy this seasoning.
A couple of months ago I got a message from the Amazing Taste company asking me to review their spice mixes. I got them in the mail soon after, but for one reason or another, I hadn’t gotten to try them until now. Tonight I made pork chops with their seasoning for pork, and I was very happy with the results.
The seasonings (the package doesn’t specify what spices it uses) gave the pork a grilled flavor, even though I had cooked it in the George Foreman (where I grill during the winter). Both Mike and I liked it quite a bit. My only concern is that in addition to spices, the package contains a lot of other ingredients: rice flour and tapioca starch (I imagine they are there for volume), caramel and dextrose (for color and sweetness?) and soy lecithin (an emulsifier, to prevent the seasonings from coming off?), among others. I tend to prefer spice mixes that only contain spices.
One package was enough for 8 pork chops, rubbed on both sides.
Another thing I liked about the mix, is that it allowed me to make dinner quite quickly. I usually either dedicate hours to cooking, or make something quick like frozen ravioli. This was a good in-between.
I gave the chili spice mix to my friend Desiree, and she also said she liked the resulting chili very much.
I still have a couple of more envelopes to try with other meats, and I’ll review them as I try them.
Food Items Reviews
I got a package of DEEP brand HomeStyle Masala Paratha at Santos Spice Products in San Leandro yesterday. I’m quite pleased with it. The parathas are pretty flaky and don’t taste frozen, plus they are very quick to make (just heat for 2 minutes on each side). They are a bit spicy, but not overly so, and nicely seasoned. They are nowhere as good as the parathas available at some restaurants, but I think they’re pretty good for a frozen product.
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