As far as microwavable tikka masalas go, this isn’t bad.
I love chicken tikka masala, but I’m pretty particular about it. I haven’t found many commercial versions that I like. Trader Joe’s tikka masala sauce and frozen chicken tikka masala entree are OK, but just that. This refrigerated version was better, it wasn’t as acidic and tasted closer to what you get at a restaurant. But it wasn’t quite there. The sauce wasn’t very complex, the chicken didn’t really have the smoky tikka flavor and I didn’t find myself licking the bowl as I otherwise would. It’s better than the Sukhi’s Chicken Tikka Masala you find at the supermarket – but that’s not saying much.
It’s also not a particularly great value . It’s $6.50 (at the Castro Valley Trader Joe’s) for the 16 oz package, but half of it is rice. The 15oz package of Sukhi’s chicken tikka masala is $11 at Safeway (and it goes on sale occasionally) but that’s all chicken. And you can get a far better chicken tikka masala at Shef, for $11.50 for a 16-oz container.
Trader Joe’s version is OK, perhaps a tad better than I expected, though nothing to write home about. The chicken was tender and well seasoned and the mashed potatoes were generic, but this dish is all about the sauce. And the sauce was just OK. There needed a little bit more of everything: more mushrooms, more cream, more chicken base, more Marsala and longer reductions. The dish also needed more sauce, period. There was enough of it for the chicken, but not for the mashed potatoes.
It comes in a plastic tray and it only takes a couple of minutes to microwave, so at least it’s very convenient. It’s possible that if you reheated it on a pan and allowed the sauce to reduce some more, it might be better – but I don’t buy ready-to-eat meals because I want to take out my pans.
This meal is supposed to feed two people, but the whole dish is only a 17 oz, which makes it too small of a meal for anything but the lightest appetite (unless you add a salad or something else). However, it is too big of a portion for just one person. All in all, I think it’s a bit overpriced and not tasty enough to get it again.
It was $8.50 at my Trader Joe’s in Castro Valley – but I think it might be cheaper at Trader Joe’s in other locations.
The final frozen pizza on sale at Safeway last week was Chicago’s Home Run Inn pizza. I got both a cheese and a pepperoni one and my daughter made the cheese. We both loved it. It’s hard to describe a pizza, but this one reminded me of the pizza served at La Vals in Berkeley when I want to college. It’s quite a bit thinner, but flavor wise it’s very close to what I can remember. It is probably my favorite frozen pizza ever.
Safeway had a bunch of frozen pizzas on sale this week, so it seemed like a good opportunity of giving them a try. I’m not generally fond of thin crusted pizza (which is what I gather Safeway means by “Neapolitan style”), but it’s overall healthier.
This flavor particularly intrigued me, as pear and gorgonzola pair beautifully and bacon could only make it better. This time, I was right. The flavors actually all worked very well and the pizza was very good. I’d have it again (despite its crispy, thin crust).
Gorgonzola by itself would be overwhelming, so the pizza also has mascarpone and Mozarella cheeses – but I had to read it in the box, as it’s not apparent. The predominant flavor is gorgonzola, but in a reasonable amount. I did like both the bacon and the arugula, but felt it could have used more of both. The pear came in the way of a very sweet chutney. Of course, fresh pears would be better – or even a less sweet chutney, but it did provide a nice note to the pizza.
It’s made me want to try the other pizzas from this series – though only as long as they’re on sale for $6.
I absolutely love Chicago style deep dish pizza, so when I saw that Gino’s East of Chicago Deep Dish Pizzas were on sale at Safeway for $6, I had to give it a try. The reviews were so good that I got both a Mozzarella cheese one and a Supreme. Boy, was I disappointed!
The pizza tastes of one thing and one thing only: pasta sauce. And while it’s not a bad pasta sauce, it’s not a great one either. On top of some spaghetti, with some Parmesan cheese on top, I might even enjoy it. But it just does not belong on pizza. I am aware that the sauce for Chicago style pizza, unlike that for other pizzas, is cooked – so it lacks the fresh, fragrant flavor of raw sauce. But they still tend to taste different than pasta sauce. Zacchary’s, my favorite Chicago-style stuffed pizza chain in the Bay Area, uses a sauce very similar to just stewed tomatoes, which retains much of the freshness of the raw fruit. Gino’s sauce while still chunky, is really a melded sauce. It’s hard to describe other than it really makes you think of spaghetti sauce.
And while the sauce is on top, as is the custom for Chicago-style pizza, I couldn’t remove enough of it to be able to taste the other ingredients. It was just a mess. No one else in the family liked it either. I hate to waste food, but I ended up giving it to the dog.
It takes 45 minutes on a pre-heated oven to heat up this pizza. I was pre-warned by reading reviews, but you should be aware. At $6 for a 2 Lb pizza, it’s not a bad value while on sale. It should feed two people (or more if you are eating a salad or something else).
Watch any movie or show based on New York City, and chances are you’ll see the protagonists getting a hot dog from a hot dog cart. These “dirty water” hot dogs – called that as they are boiled and rest in water before being moved into the bun – are famous, not only because they serve as a good prop for movies, but because they are supposed to have a special flavor due to being boiled in NYC’s superior water (maybe it’s all those tiny shrimp). But are they as good as the claims go? On our next-to-last day in NYC we set out to find out.
Finding a hot dog cart in Manhattan proved harder than we thought. There were plenty of halal trucks serving hot dogs – but then, that’s not exactly the same concept. It took us walking several blocks from our hotel to find a hot dog cart per se. And then, in Mike’s words, we had the whole New York experience by being charged $5 for the smallest hot dog ever. To add insult to injury, it just wasn’t that great.
Don’t get me wrong, the hot dog was fine. But then again, most hot dogs are fine. The $1.50 hot dog that you get at Costco was probably better, three times as large and comes with a soda. Of course, that’s a loss leader and you have to deal with the inconvenience of going to Costco, but that’s pretty much the only time I get hot dogs anyway.
The hot dog we got was from a cart labeled Sabrett – which is the same brand of hotdogs that seems to be for sale at most halal trucks. Maybe a Nathan’s hot dog would have been better. Or maybe, the allure of NYC hotdogs was the same than their 99-cents pizza slices: they were cheap. Now that they aren’t, it’s time to move on.
Sabrett branded hot dog stand
Corner of 7th Ave. & West 53rd
New York City
In the “battle” between Safeway’s and Panera’s Tomato Bisque, Panera is the clear winner.
I have never been a fan of soup – ramen excluded -, but I became fond of Panera’s creamy tomato soup during the pandemic. It’s warm, creamy and hearty – and most importantly, not too acidic – and feels just like a hug. In retrospect, it’s not a surprise that I would like it. It’s really just a thinner version of pasta sauce, and we all know that pasta is just a vehicle for sauce.
During the pandemic, when I still had kids at home (insert empty nest tears here), we usually got the soup as part of a family feast – my vegetarian daughter didn’t really like the sandwiches, but she did enjoy the soup. Later, I found out that they also sell the soup at the supermarket, it’s almost as good, and at $12 for 32 oz, it’s considerably cheaper than at the store (unless you are ordering a family feast). The store-bought soup is also vegetarian and, as I mentioned, quite tasty. Here are the ingredients: Tomatoes, Water, Heavy Cream, Onions, Contains 2% or Less of: Butter (Cream, Salt), Sugar, Salt, Spices, Corn Starch, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Nisin Preparation and Garlic.
This week, Panera tomato soup wasn’t available at Safeway, so I decided to get their Signature Cafe Tomato Basil Bisque instead. It looks very much like Panera’s and, truth be told, it doesn’t taste that differently. It’s a bit spicier – something I don’t really like -, and seems to have less umami than Panera’s, but it’s also very comforting and good. What it is not is vegetarian. The soup contains chicken base and chicken broth.
Safeway’s soup also uses tomato paste instead of tomatoes, as well as a variety of other ingredients to, I presume, enhance the flavor. That, I imagine, is the purpose of the chicken base and broth. It’s thus interesting that it’s not as tasty as Panera’s far simpler one. For just $2 less for a 32 oz container, it makes little sense to buy the Safeway Signature Cafe brand, unless the Panera brand is out of stock, or they change it.
Here are the ingredients for the Signature Cafe tomato soup:
I just deboned a 4 lb “semi-boneless” leg of lamb from Safeway supermarkets, and I got about 2.5 lbs of meat out of it.
I don’t know why I never before bothered to note how much meat I get from bone-in and non-trimmed cuts, but I will going on, mostly for my own reference. In this case, the “semi boneless” description was a complete lie, the cut had a full bone (which my dog is now enjoying).
I came across this product soon after having some complimentary bread with a creamy tomato sauce at some restaurant, probably Buon Appetito in Hayward. My daughter and I really liked it, so when I saw it, I figured I’d give it a try.
I hadn’t tried it until now but it tastes exactly as you would expect from the title/description. It basically taste like pesto, which has been mixed with some ricotta cheese and tomato sauce. The strongest flavor in the mix is the Grana Padano cheese, a cheap cousin to Parmesan, followed by the basil, which stands in the background. The tomato adds quite a bit of intense acidity to the mixture, while the Ricotta somewhat softens it, but can mostly be felt in the soft yet slightly chalky texture.
All in all, I enjoyed it quite a bit on French bread, but the acidity is such that you can’t eat too much of it. Still, it works well as a dip, and you could make interesting canapes with it. The producers also suggest as recommended uses: “Roasting or Basting Proteins and Vegetables, Baked into Bread, Layered with Pasta as Lasagna, Base for Creamy Soup”. I’d note that due to its intense flavor, less is likely to be more on any dinner dish.
Filippo Berio is a brand named after the namesake of the olive oil company he started. In addition to olive oils, they produce and sell balsamic vinegars, pestos and glazes. They seem to be base din Lucca, Italy and the pesto is made in Italy. It sells at my local Safeway supermarket for $6.60 (I bought it on sale 2 months ago for $2.50 and it’s currently on sale for $4).
My vegan-cum-vegetarian daughter is very fond of Morning Star products, particularly the buffalo cik’n. But did you know that “Morning Star” is another term for “Lucifer“, aka “the Devil”?
I’d never had realized that if I hadn’t started watching both “The Sandman” and “Devil in Ohio“*. Of course, I had to go to Wikipedia, where I found a not-very clearly written article on Lucifer. For what I can make up from it, it would appear that the planet Venus is known as the “morning star.” Venus is the closest planet to the earth and therefore the brightest “star” in the sky – but it’s particularly visible when it’s low in the horizon. As both the Earth and Venus orbit the sun, their relatively position changes, and approximately every 18 months Venus goes from appearing brightest right before dawn to appearing brightest right after sunset. It was thus known in ancient times both as the “morning star” and the “evening star.” I’m not clear if the ancients realized it was the same star.
In any case, the Latin name for Venus as the morning star was “Luciferus,” or “bringer of light”, from where we get the name “Lucifer”. As many astral bodies, Luciferus became personalized and given a family and vague mythology.
Meanwhile, there is a passage in Isaiah, in the Old Testament, where they refer to the King of Babylon by a Hebrew term that translates as “the shining one”, also understood to be Venus, aka “the morning star”. In the Vulgata and King James versions, they translated that word as “Lucifer,” while modern English versions use the term “morning star” or even “day star“. The passage describes the King of Babylon’s fall from grace – which you can compare to Venus, as the morning star, being seen low in the horizon before dawn. I guess the fall from grace motif caused “Lucifer” to become a name for the devil.
So, is eating Morning Star products a form of devil-worshipping? I mentioned it to my daughter and she laughed. More seriously, though, Morning Star is a product line that belongs to Kellogg’s, a company that has a history of exploiting/mistreating employees, false advertisement/lying to consumers, andincluding toxic ingredients in its cereals. That seems like quite evil/devilish behavior. So perhaps, by giving money to Kellogg’s and increasing its promising, we are rewarding evil and worshiping the devil in the only real way to do so.
* My daughter tells me that this is a also a well known fact to people who watch the show “Lucifer“, as the main character, the Devil, is called “Lucifer MorningStar,” but I never watched it.
