Category: Food Items (Page 15 of 26)

Contessa frozen “On the Stove” meals – Product Review

December 28, 2011 / marga / 1 Comment

For the last month or so, Grocery Outlet has been carrying three of Contessa’s frozen “On the Stove” meals ($4), out of the 20 or so that Contessa makes: Orange Beef, Crispy Pork with Tangerine Sauce and Crispy Chicken with General Tsao Sauce. I’ve finally tried them all and while I really like the Orange Beef, the other two are not nearly as good.

These meals consist of a package with four different components: a bag of white rice, a small bag of meat, another bag of sauce, and frozen vegetables . To prepare, you stir fry the meat for 5 minutes or so, add the veggies for another 3-4 minutes and then the sauce for 30 seconds. You microwave the rice for 3 minutes, put it all altogether and you are done. Note that there is too much rice for the amount of meat/vegetables/sauce included – I ended up discarding about 1/3 of it.

One package is supposed to have two and a half 1-cup servings. Now, if you are a child or on your deathbed maybe 1 cup of food (mostly rice) may satisfy your hunger. Personally, I’d say it serves one adult – maybe you could share it with a younger child, but not more.

Now, as for the food itself. The meats were generally good, tasty and tender, and they brown nicely. The rice is as what you could expect from something that comes from a bag. The sauces were generally good; I particularly liked the orange sauce that came with the beef, it was dark and intense and not overly sweet. The General Tsao sauce was a bit too spicy for me, but it was still pretty good.

Where the problems come are with the vegetables. The orange beef came with onions, leeks and red peppers and these were all very nice, they kept their flavor and went well with the sauce. The tangerine pork, OTOH, came with onions, water chestnuts, carrots and scallions and these were less than tasty. I actually disliked the bell peppers, carrots and water chestnuts that came with the chicken, they had such an “off” taste that I couldn’t make myself eat them.

In all, I’d say that the orange beef is restaurant quality (well, Chinese restaurant quality) and I would definitely buy it again (and have). I wouldn’t say the same about the other two meals. If GO offered other flavors, I would probably try them as well.

I hadn’t been able to figure out how much these meals sell in regular supermarkets – perhaps they don’t have much distribution yet -, but I definitely wouldn’t pay more than $4.

Marie’s Sesame Ginger Salad Dressing – Product Review

December 27, 2011 / marga / 1 Comment

This year I didn’t want to bother making a complicated salad for my Christmas Eve dinner. Instead I got an organic salad mix from Grocery Outlet and a bottle of Marie’s Sesame Ginger Salad Dressing from Safeway. This proved to be a great decision. The dressing was simply delicious. I probably should go buy more salad so I can eat more of it 🙂

Anyway, so far this is my favorite salad dressing hands down.

Bellafoglia and California Pizza Kitchen Frozen Pizzas – yuuum

December 8, 2011 / marga / 1 Comment

Tuesdays are a hard dinner day for me. The kids have classes until late, so we don’t get home until 5:30, and then Mike has to go and rush to make it to his School Board meetings. While I love cooking, I don’t like cooking when I’m rushed and I don’t particularly want to cook just for the kids and I (if I make what they want, I won’t be happy, if I make what I want, they won’t be). So often times, if we have no leftovers, we rely on take out or frozen food. Last night was one of those nights, so I headed to Grocery Outlet for some frozen pizza.

Generally, Grocery Outlet has tons of choices, but this time they were more limited. The kids only like cheese pizza, so I went for this California Pizza Kitchen version. I’d had the CPK frozen pizzas before, and I’d liked them. Well, so did the kids. While they still prefer take out pizza, they were perfectly happy to eat this one. We got the version that comes with the flat bread appetizer, and the kids pronounced the bread the “best bread ever”. It’s pretty good, and it tasted garlicky to me, but I didn’t tell them that :-). I didn’t try the spinach artichoke dip as that’s not my thing. This pizza was available at GO for $4. It’s think crust, so it pretty much only fed my two hungry kids.

For me, I got a Bellafoglia pizza with a bunch of toppings ($4). I’d never heard of the brand, but I’m glad I gave it a try. This was by far the best frozen pizza I’ve ever had. The cornmeal crust had a lot to do with it, it was just crunchy enough, just salty enough and just very good. The cheese and toppings were good quality and were well balanced. I did some research when I came home, and found out that Bellafoglia is a product of Hayward’s Pacific Cheese Co. a cheese supplier. Sizewise, this pizza may be enough for two adults, but probably if they eat a salad or something else as well. I ate half of one, and was hungry later in the evening.

In all, I think I’ll keep a few of these pizzas in my freezer for nights just like last’s.

Beware of Honey!

November 11, 2011 / marga / 0 Comments

Honey. Who doesn’t like honey? From Winnie the Pooh to “natural foods” fans, honey has many fans. But a new study shows that what you are getting labeled as “honey” at the supermarket may not honey at all. Indeed, more than three fourth of all the honey sold at supermarkets and big box stores and all the honey sold at drugstores does not qualify as “honey’ under international standards.

For honey to be considered honey, it needs to have pollen in it. The pollen allows experts to identify where the honey came from, everything from the region of the world it was harvested to the flowers the bees fed from. But most of the honey in the market has had its pollen removed, through a process called “ultra filtration”. The main reason for ultra filtering honey seems to be to hide its origin. China is a huge producer of honey, but Chinese honey is kept out of the US market. To get around that, Chinese companies sell their honey to American distributors through representatives in other countries. By removing the pollen, they make sure the honey cannot be traced back to them.

The problem with Chinese honey is that some of it is adulterated with animal antibiotics (which can be harmful to some people), heavy metals and even other “extenders” such as corn syrup and other sweeteners. You think you are paying for honey – and honey is not cheap – and you are getting other stuff instead.

There is a way around this, however. The honey sold at farmers markets, co-ops and, more importantly for me, Trader Joe’s is all honey full of pollen. I know where I’ll be buying my honey from now on!

Sister Schubert’s Cinnamon Rolls – Review

October 6, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

I really wanted to get a treat today, but Grocery Outlet didn’t have much to choose from. I’d seen Sister Schubert’s Cinnamon Rolls before, but for some reason they hadn’t really drawn me. Still, with no other real choices I got them. Lord, I’m glad I did.

I don’t tend to like refrigerated cinnamon rolls (at least the Pillsbury kind) because they have a weird metallic flavor (I imagine it’s the preservatives). They are just not that good. These rolls, however, were delicious. They were moist, not too sweet, with lots of cinnamon flavor and came covered with sugar frosting. They may not be as good as homemade cinnamon rolls or the rolls you get at Cinnabon, but for being a frozen product they are very good.

You can cook the cinnamon rolls directly from the freezer, it takes 25 to 30 minutes in a preheated oven, or thaw them first and cook them for 15 minutes or so. I did the former.

I think they sell in regular stores for $3.50 or so (but I don’t know who carries them), but they’re current on sale at the San Leandro Grocery Outlet for $2. Tomorrow I’m going to go and get a few packages – they are frozen, so I can keep them in the freezer until I need them.

Organic spices @ Grocery Outlet

September 30, 2011 / admin / 1 Comment

Grocery Outlet usually carries a selection of spices, though often times they are no-name brands. Then again, I’m not sure what “name” brands are vis a vis spaces or whether it would make a difference. Are there lower quality nutmeg trees? In any case, today I found a number of Nash Brothers Trading Company organic spices at the San Leandro Grocery Outlet. They had parsley and oregano, maybe ground cloves and definitely ground nutmeg (that’s what I got). I think they were all $2-3 for a “regular” size jar. That’s about 1.7oz in nutmeg, but it’ll vary on other spices.

Nash Brothers is a “premium” brand of the Nash Finch Company, a large distributor of private label food items. Nash Finch is hoping to develop Nash Brothers as a national branch and place it in large supermarkets. So far it doesn’t seem to have been too successful, but I guess Grocery Outlet is a start (or is it an end?). In any case, in addition to spices, GO also is carrying Nash Brothers organic vanilla extract ($5 for a 4 oz bottle). Alas, the extract is not “pure”, which means it doesn’t have as much alcohol as others, which I imagine means the vanilla flavor is more diluted. I still got some, though, let’s see how well it works.

Safeway Peanut Butter Chewy cookies – Review

September 8, 2011 / admin / 1 Comment

The Safeway in downtown San Leandro offers children a free cookie from their bakery. This is a great strategy by Safeway, not only does it create good feeling on parents but it means that kids rae eager to actually go grocery shopping with the parents. Parents shopping with kids are more likely to buy stuff they wouldn’t otherwise.

Yesterday, my kids (and I!) got a Safeway Chewy Peanut Butter cookie and I have to say it may very well have been the most delicious cookie I’ve ever had. As promised, it was very chewy, it almost felt like it had caramel inside (but I don’t think it did). The flavor was out of this world, not too sweet, not too peanut butterish, with a chocolate chip here and there to balance the flavor. Even though it was so chewy it did feel a bit dry (a common problem with peanut butter cookies), so I think it’d be best eaten with a cup of milk or coffee.

These cookies retail at Safeway for $4.50 for a dozen (I think) – almost twice as much as their “regular” cookies cost (on sale). But as they’re twice as good as their regular cookies, I can’t complain. I just wish they sold them by the unit, as good as they are I can’t expect to buy a box and not eat them all (so I won’t).

I found a recipe for chewy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies at the Safeway site, I’ll try it and hope it’s the same one they are using.

Betty Crocker Warm Delights – Review

September 6, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

Betty Crocker Warm Delights are individual-sized cakes, cookies and brownies that you prepare at home in your microwave. The bowls come with a small package of cake mixture, to which you add water. Then you put it in the microwave for about a minute, and top it with ready-made fudge from a packet included in the kit. You have a warm dessert in 2 or 3 minutes. Really, it couldn’t be simpler or faster.

These warm delights bowls taste much, much better than they have any right to. Indeed, they taste just as good – it not better – than most similar desserts you can get at a restaurant or even make yourself. Because you make the cake right before you eat it, it’s moist and airy. The fudge adds intensiveness and sweetness. They are even better with vanilla ice cream on top. Of course, I’m sure they are terribly bad for you and I don’t even want to look at the ingredients, but as a quick dessert to hit your sweet tooth they can’t be beat.

Warm Delights came in two sizes, a regular bowl (pictured) and “minis”, bowls about half the size. A mini is definitely large enough as a dessert. They retail for about $2 (for either a large bowl or two minis), but I get them at Grocery Outlet (when available) for 50-cents each.

Claim Jumper Frozen Dinners – Review

August 22, 2011 / admin / 8 Comments

I’m not a frozen food fan, but sometimes I want something that is quick and easy and cheap and frozen food is /it/. Today, for example, my original plan for dinner was to make Cajun jambalaya, but we went to the movies, and then to the supermarket, and then it was too late to cook (really, I can’t really make anything in less than an hour). So it was mac & cheese for the girls and a trip to Grocery Outlet for me, to see what was in the frozen food aisle. Alas, there weren’t too many choices that fit my palate.

I had already tried Claim Jumper lasagna before – I’d found it edible. There was too much sweet sauce, too little cheese and meat, but while it’d never be my first choice, I could eat it again. Today I decided to try something else, the meatloaf. My expectations were low so I was pleasantly surprised to find the dish not just edible but satisfying. Now, I think that was because the food was super hot and I was very hungry, but I only eat frozen food when I’m really hungry :-). The meatloaf itself had a mild taste and a non-offensive texture, it smelled of liquid smoke but it didn’t have any overwhelming flavor. The mashed potatoes were light and the gravy non-offensive. The portion is definitely much smaller than the picture implies, but it was enough for dinner – and a reasonable 540 calories (though mostly coming from fat, some of that is probably in the gravy and you don’t need much of it). I’d this dinner again over the lasagna.

Update: Today I tried the Claim Jumper fried chicken. Once again it looked like it wouldn’t be enough food for dinner, and once again I was wrong. The meal consisted of a breaded/fried boneless chicken patty, mashed potatoes & gravy & some corn in the cob. The chicken itself wasn’t that great. It had a weird flavor, similar to food fried in really old oil. The texture was fine, though. I did like the mashed potatoes, the fact that they were very hot helped. I didn’t try the gravy or the corn. I don’t think I’d buy this meal again.

My biggest gripe with these meals is that they take too much work. If I’m going to have to eat frozen food, what I want to do is put the damn thing in the microwave, set the time and come back when it’s done. For the meatloaf, I had to remove the cover, add water to the green beans, recover, cook, come back, remove the cover, remove the meatloaves, stir the mashed potatoes, return the meatloaves, recover, cook some more, remove, pierce the gravy package, put it on a plate, microwave, open the package and pour it on the food. It may not sound like much, but if I have to do multiple things I might as well cook some pasta.

Claim Jumper dinners are $3 a Grocery Outlet, they’re about $4 at the supermarket.

High end salts & herb mixes at Grocery Outlet

August 18, 2011 / admin / 0 Comments

I just came back from Grocery Outlet with a beautiful glass bottle of Himalaya Pink Salt. According to the bottle, Himalaya Pink salt, a product of Pakistan, was originally “formed from marine fossil deposits over 250 million years ago”. The rock salt tastes like salt to me, but I’m not a salt connoisseur. Still, for $3, I thought it was worth it. If nothing else, the bottle is nice.

The salt is distributed by La Collina Toscana, an Italian company. It doesn’t expire until 2015 (though, really, if it’s 250 million years old I’m sure it’ll hold for a few more years). In addition to this salt, the GO in San Leandro had gray salt from Brittany, and three herb mixes: Herbes de Provence (though this mix didn’t contain lavender and other typical ingredients), a Tuscan herb mix and another Italian herb mix. All are $3.