Review of Meijer Premium Macaroni and Cheese Dinner

On a recent trip to Meijer I picked up a package of dogs and macaroni and cheese for the kids for lunch. I was burned out on potato chips so I opted for a little mac and cheese to accompany the hotdogs. We usually prefer homemade macaroni and cheese as it is the best. Time was short and we had a Sunday afternoon of activities planned so homemade prepared pasta was out of the question. I was feeling nostalgic for the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese dinner but decided to try out the Meijer premium brand as I have had good luck with most Meijer products measuring up  to the brand name competition. That leap of faith could not have been more misguided.

 

Cooking

Same process as all stove top macaroni and cheese. Bring water to boil, add pasta and cook until tender. Drain, add the powder, butter, and milk. The process flow was simple as it gets.

Appearance

The overall appearance of the macaroni noodle was decent and the orange tone of the sauce seemed to match other brands. Several noodles did seem to tear and flatten upon mixing the ingredients during final stage of cooking process. I took this as a bad sign.

Taste

Upon first taste of this item, I knew it was a miss. The cheesy taste was absent leaving nothing but lifeless, creamy, mushy pasta.  At this point I really desired our homemade oven baked macaroni and cheese. I would have even settled for the Kraft version as this point for which there was even a slight taste of cheese.

Don’t recall the price, though I believe it hovered around one dollar. Next time when I am in search of store bought macaroni and cheese I will opt for the Stouffers microwave variety or even the Kraft. I rate the Meijer Premium Macaroni and cheese a poor buy.

Snyders Hot Buffalo Wing Pretzel Pieces: A Review

After completing another Sunday dinner and getting the kids ready for bed, it occurred to me that storage pantry was bare for preparing kids lunches for the week. I made a run to Meijer to pick up a few essentials for the school week. Amidst my travels up and down the food aisles, I spotted several sale items in the main aisle displays. One of these displays were various Snyder flavored pretzel combinations. The one that really stuck out was the Hanover Snyders Buffalo Wing flavored pretzel bites. I have a passion for buffalo wings and thought that someone was genius enough to pair up that recognizable zesty flavor with pretzels seemed like a plausible idea. The regular price was $3.69, but the sale knocked the price down to $2.50 for 12 ounce bag. At this price,this venture seemed worth pursuing.

Returning home and putting away recently purchased items, I sat in front of the television and kept thinking about that new bag of pretzels that I had originally intended to save for later in the week. Nope, Iran up stairs to grab a cold beverage and brought with me the new buffalo wing flavored snacks.

Physical Characterics of Snyders Buffalo Wing Pretzel Pieces

The bag is not very large, nor are the pretzel pieces. These pieces are really just “bits” and not even  “bites”. I would expect these to resemble the shape and size of the “combos” pretzel snacks but these look like someone took a bag of pretzel rods and ran them through the wood chipper several times over. Some pieces were bite size nubs, while most where tiny fragments that were not easy to pick up.

The bits were heavily coated in the flavor dust and coated the fingers quite easily with each bite. My laptop keys still have dust remnants from eating these while browsing on the couch.

Despite being someone put off by the lower quantity per bag as well as the tiny shrapnel size pieces of pretzel, the taste was a saving grace for this Snyders treat. The taste lived up to my expectation and more. First and second bites, I was thinking these are pretty solid; but then I found myself craving more and more of these. My wife joined in on my snack session and the bag was depleted soon thereafter.

Verdict on Snyders Buffalo Wing Flavored Pretzel Pieces

As the sale of this coveted snack is most likely over, I am unsure I could go back and pay $3.69 for a bag. For certain occasions, I will make an exception because these taste so damn good. I really regret not hoarding these when the sale existed. I also wish Hanover Snyders would have made the pieces slightly bigger as they were difficult to pick up. Manufacturers that sell under generic or store brand label might want to take notice that there is room for competition to produce a buffalo wing flavored pretzel at a cheaper price. Those that take on this challenge just better be sure their designed pretzel bit measures up to the excellent flavor produced by Snyders.

Review of Aldi Peanut Delight Creamy Peanut Butter

I have never maintained much brand allegiance to a specific peanut butter label.  They all are pretty similar as they all have the common denominator ingredients of peanuts, oil, and preservatives. Peanut butter is used regularly in our household whether it is prepared for sandwiches, baked in desserts, or simply offered as a dip for celery sticks or crackers. There are purists out there that like the organic or even homemade peanut butter. As this is most likely better for me, I find the lack of smoothness as well as separation of oils to be a bit much. I am okay with factory processed peanut butter. I am on the fence with peanut with and without nuts still in the jar. There are times when I prefer one over the other. For review purposes, this post only discusses my findings with the smooth variety.

Taste

As with all processed nut butters, I don’t expect there to be a great variance in flavor as the ingredients lists is minimal no matter which brand one is sampling. The peanut delight peanut butter is no different than Skippy or Jiff. I find the taste satisfying and it marries well with jam.

Appearance

The peanut butter is sold (like most brands) in the plastic jar. The nut butter carries the usual pb brown color. Label is red and there is a protective foil safety wrap on top when first opening jar. The bright red lid makes this jar an easy find in my densely packed pantry when making sandwiches early in the morning.

Price

This forty ounce (2 pound 8 ounce) jar of this Aldi peanut butter is priced at $5.00. A comparable jar of peanut butter from Jiff or Skippy will run $6.15.  I rate it a solid buy.

Benton’s Fudge Stripe Shortbread Cookies: A Review

Is there a suitable replacement for Keebler Fudge Stripes?

Not sure which country, kitchen, grandmother, or clan invented shortbread. Whoever did create the combination of shortening,flour, sugar, and vanilla made the world a better place. It doesn’t matter if I am sampling Walker’s shortbread, Salerno butter cookies or those incredible Lorna Doone squares (mysteriously shaped like giant pats of butter); they all taste incredible. Just when shortbread couldn’t get any better, the cookie was upgraded with “fudge stripes”. The first fudge stripe cookie I was acquainted with was the Keebler brand introduced to me when I was a young lad. Four decades later they are still tasty, but like all name brand treats be it cookies, ice creams, pastries, etc; current economic trends have only left us with higher prices, lower quantity per package, and flashy advertising to make up for these cutbacks.  The Keebler Elvin magic and whimsical packaging is not enough to maintain brand loyalty as I pursue fudge stripe cookie equivalents elsewhere.

I have tried the Meijer label fudge stripe and it is almost as good as Keebler, though at a price lower by fifty cents. While I still pick up a package of Keebler when they go on sale, I considered the Meijer brand to be my mainstay fudge stripe option, until I learned Aldi sells the Benton Fudge Stripe Shortbread cookie.

Price of Cookies

The attention grabber of these cookies was the low price of $1.29 for a thirteen ounce package. The Meijer brand usually hovers around $1.49 and the Keebler holds at $1.99.  Some sales at Aldi will position the Benton fudge stripes as low as ninety five cents a bag.

Physical Characteristics

The cookies are sold in plastic packaging with yellow/orange tones, much like Keebler. No presence of cartoonish elves but simply the picture of the cookies on the label which very much resemble the real thing inside. The actual cookies seemed a tad wider than the Keebler competition and the chocolate (or fudge) carries the dark brown tone that real chocolate is supposed to have. I always worry that a low price fudge treat will have that subpar faux chocolate that comes across as dusty or muted in color. Nope. These look like the real deal.

Taste Test

Now it was time for tasting. The cookie starts and ends with a good crispy bite and a well blended mix of rich fudge and butter cookie undercoat. If caramel was present it would resemble something close to a thin Twix bar. I would put this cookie in blind test up against the Keebler and I think it would win.

Verdict

I give the Benton’s Original Fudge Striped Cookie a passing grade with flying colors. Considering this item is frequently on sale and sometimes half the price of Keebler, this is a no brainer.

Review of Meijer Cheese Balls

Flash back to 1970s, 1980’s or even 1990’s. Grandma and Grandpa had the standard items on the kitchen counter: half completed TV trivia crossword puzzle, the ornate glass candy dish filled with cashews or ribbon candy, and last but not least, the blue cylinder container labeled “Planters Cheez Balls”.  As popular as the Planters nuts were, the cheez balls seemed to be extremely popular in U.S. households.  This snack was so damn good.  Cheetos took a back seat to these. Unfortunately in 2006, this product was discontinued by the manufacturer.

Now as we are well into the 2014 year, I will be on a quest to find a suitable replacement for the Planter’s cheez balls. Notice my focus is on cheez balls, not the puff or crinkle form. Those puffs do have their place on the lunch table. For now, I am on a quest to find a successor to the blue can favorite.

My first attempt was made during my last trip to Meijer. I picked up a nine ounce package of Meijer Cheese Balls. The snack is sold in large purple bag with the transparent window positioned in the middle to display the actual cheese balls. The packaging came across as “meh”.  I did find the price very attractive as it was part of the weekly Meijer’s 10 items for $10 campaign so this large bag of cheese balls set me back one dollar. Normally the Meijer cheese balls retail at $1.99.

These cheese balls made their debut on my table during my Sunday lunch. It was sort of a double cheese whammy of a meal as this snack was served alongside my cheddar Panini (courtesy of my George Foreman grill).  The first test of this snack was the flavor character. The flavor was surprising decent as it was cheesy but not too pungent as you get with those sharp cheddar dusts. I honestly expected flavor to be much less satisfactory given the low price. The product’s best trait was the crunch of the corn puff. I am no food chemist but the manufacturer hit the right formula with corn meal, corn starch or whatever they used to make this cheez ball fun to munch on. My kids emptied two thirds of the bag in one sitting as they enjoyed chomping on these.

The Meijer brand cheese balls are my first attempt at finding a suitable replacement for the discontinued Planter’s product. I would give these snacks a definite passing grade; especially at the low price. I will continue my pursuit of testing other brands whether they are Utz, Target Market Pantry, Wise, or any no name store brand. I will update my findings here on this site.