P-nuff was another item I saw on Shark Tank and decided to try. I found them at Amazon for $8.25, and while I’d normally not pay that much for a snack, I do want to try as many Shark Tank featured food items as possible.
This was another failure.
The peanut puffs are basically peanut flavored Cheetos. Instead of corn meal, these are made with ground navy beans and rice, but it’s the same concept. The ground cereals are mixed with oil and puffed.
They are supposed to be peanut puffs, but the peanut flavor is very subtle. This is not surprising as roasted peanuts are the next to last ingredient – salt is the last one. The peanuts do give the puffs a slight peanut aroma, but it dissipates quickly. It’s not bad, but it’s also not particularly delicious.
This was sold as a healthy snack, but I’m not sure I’d call it that. It has about half the fat and twice the protein that Cheetos, but it’s only a little bit less caloric. It has the same amount of carbs as Cheetos, but more fiber and, surprisingly, twice as much sugar.
I’m sure this is a great snack for vegans, but not something I’d buy again, even at half the price.
This Shark Tank product tastes just like graham crackers
Since I started watching re-runs of Shark Tank on YouTube, I’ve been intrigued with trying some of the products they’ve featured. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority does not seem to have made a commercial success and/or are not easily available.Oat Haus Granola Butter, however, is available at Target – and while it’s $8 price was steep, I figured I’d get both the pleasure of eating it and the pleasure of reviewing it. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be true.
I like granola, and while I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting, I thought this granola butter would taste like granola. Instead, it just tasted like graham crackers mixed with oil. I’m not a huge fan of graham crackers, so this product is just not for me.
Alas, my children didn’t like it either. While they like graham crackers more than I do, they did not like the chalky, gritty texture of this granola butter. I think someone noticed this as a minus in the show as well.
The granola butter is made with oats and sunflower oil, and while it has some sort of emulsifier, it doesn’t seem to work. The can comes with a thick layer of oil on the top that you have to mix in before consuming (unless you like eating oil). Unfortunately, you have to mix it in every time.
Unfortunately, but for the few minutes I spent writing this review, this was a total waste of money.
My second Shark Tank purchase was a disappointment
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I’m totally new to Shark Tank, a TV shows where budding entrepreneurs pitch new products to potential investors. I saw the pitch for Copper Cow Coffee, a DIY Vietnamese coffee kit and I was intrigued. While I’ve seen coffee offered at many Vietnamese restaurants I’ve never actually ordered it – I’m someone who only consumes coffee for breakfast and never with a meal -, and I was curious about it. I still am. Vietnamese coffee might be great, but this make-at-home version was a bust.
Copper Cow Coffee comes in boxes with individual pouches of coffee and creamer.
The coffee is in a filter bag with paper wings. You rip off the top and then spread the wings around the sides of your cup. This probably works best with a mug, my cup was too wide and the sides kept falling off.
You then pour hot/near boiling water over the coffee pouch. This works best if you have heated your water in a kettle. I, however, have gotten out of the habit of using a kettle and didn’t remember where I’d put mine, so I heated the water in a mug in the microwave – only to realize that I would not be able to pour it into the filter. I transferred it to the a creamer and that worked well. I could have heated it in the creamer originally – but having to use two cups, even if one didn’t need to be washed afterwards, was annoying.
Brewing the coffee was a slow process. It takes a while for the beans to absorb and then let the water through, so there is only so much water you can pour into the filter at the time. As the filter was unstable in my cup, I also had to hold it with my hand.
Removing the coffee filter ended up being pretty messy, and I ended up with coffee beans everywhere. I am a very clumsy person, I will admit it.
You then open the creamer pouch and squeeze it onto the coffee and mix.
Finally, you have your cup of Vietnamese coffee. I did not enjoy it.
First, let me say that I messed up. I brew about 8 oz of coffee instead of the 4 oz that is recommended for Vietnamese coffee per se – the 8 oz instructions were for American coffee. That may be why the coffee was just so weak. I’m not someone who is in the least picky about coffee – I was an instant coffee drinker for decades, before Keurig came into my life. But this was too weak even for me. I also did not enjoy its earthiness – that’s something that I particularly dislike in coffee and while the earthy tones weren’t too strong, as the coffee was that weak, they were still there.
The creamer is just condensed milk. I have used condensed milk in my coffee before – when I run out of another creamer – and it’s not my favorite, as I tend to prefer a sweeter but darker coffee.
At Target, the box with five coffee pouches and five creamers was $12, which makes it $2.40 for a cup of coffee. Even if I had enjoyed it, it wouldn’t have been worth it. You can brew a much better cup of coffee with your Keurig and add your own condensed milk for much less.
I finally tried this Shark Tank product and it’s good.
Shark Tank, a show where budding entrepreneurs pitch investment opportunities in their companies to five billionaires, has been on national TV for fifteen years – but as I never watch TV per se, I didn’t really become aware of it until a few weeks ago, when YouTube started pushing episodes of it on me. After trying one, I got hooked on it – not so much for the pitches, but because it introduced me to some cool products, some wacky ones and some that everyone could see were destined to be failures. Several of the products pitched to the sharks have actually become popular since their appearance on the show, though so far, there is only one I’d actually bought myself prior to becoming acquainted by the show. I have been intrigued by some of the products featured, however, and when I saw that the Pizza Cupcake was available at my local Safeway, I thought I’d give them a try.
The pizza cupcakes are not cupcakes per se, but they consist of a pastry dough baked in a smaller-than-usual muffin tin, hollow in the center and filled with pizza sauce and cheese. They come frozen and you bake them in the oven. The secret of the cupcakes is the dough, it’s described as a mixture of brioche and sourdough and it’s light, airy and yet still chewy. It’s quite tasty and I loved he consistency. The pizza sauce was on the sweet side, it bordered on being too sweet an acidic – but as there isn’t much of it, it wasn’t a big deal. The cheese is just cheese, it could have used some Parmesan for a shaper flavor. The problem is that there isn’t enough sauce/cheese for the whole cupcake – only the shallow center has it. Fortunately, the bready borders are good dipped on ranch sauce, but you have to have some around to enjoy them that way.
I cooked my cupcakes in the air fryer, using the directions in the Pizza Cupcake website: preheat the air fryer to 350°, and then cook for 5-7 minutes (I did 6). That left me with some burnt spots on the top and cheese that was bordering on cold. Next time, I’ll try not preheating and doing 8 minutes, or maybe cooking it for 10 minutes at 300° – but I imagine all air fryers are different.
The package of 6 pizza cupcakes was $10 on sale at Safeway ($13 regular price), which seems way too expensive – though I find pretty much all food at Safeway too expensive nowadays.
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