Tag Archives: Food Review

Hippie Snacks: Cauliflower Crisps

7 Apr

I went to Safeway after work with the intention of buying more bandages (for the cat, loooong story!) and a piece of cake for me (loooong day!). I ended up with the bandages, much to the cat’s dismay, but instead of cake I sampled and then bought Cauliflower Crisps by a company called Hippie Snacks.

cauliflower crisps

Who am I?

I went in for cake and I bought a vegan version of a potato chip that is made out of cauliflower!

It’s like I don’t even know myself anymore. 😉

They also make a version out of avocado, which you would think would be amazing cuz hello, avocado! But no, not really, don’t do it ok? If you’re going to try one of them try the cauliflower version. They come in original and ranch flavour, I wouldn’t mind trying a dill pickle flavour, or bbq, ooooh, that could be nice…but I don’t think those flavours exist yet.

The tag line on the bag is “Real food tastes better”, the ingredients are cauliflower, coconut milk, pumpkin seeds, brown rice, tapioca starch, sesame seeds, water, sea salt, and mustard flour. I bought the original flavour so no ranch flavour added to my ingredient list.

I could definitely make the argument that a piece of chocolate cake would have tasted better, and is still “real food” but these aren’t bad. I’m not really a chip person so I don’t need a healthy alternative for that particular junk food category but if you’re trying to cut down on chips this might be a good option for you.

Cauliflower is a pretty forgiving vegetable, with no real taste of its own you can do to it whatever you want. so mix up some guacamole or make some salsa and dip these in, it’d be yum! Maybe even top with a bit of cheese…see now I’m starting to see possibilities for these chips, which is a good thing since they cost me over $5 for a 70 gram bag. *rolls eyes*

A high price point, which will put me off buying them again because while yes I value healthy food I value sticking to my budget more but if you can afford them why not jump on yet another cauliflower food train and give em a try?

cauliflower crisps 3

cauliflower crisps 2

 

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A Safeway Sandwich

28 Jun

The other day I had a small amount of time to grab something to eat so I stopped at Safeway and did that whole build your own sandwich deal…yeah…so not worth it.

I’ve never gotten a sandwich from there but since my options were one of the pre-packaged sandwiches, a freshly made to order sandwich, or my going to Subway, I thought this was a healthy choice.

The list of options you can pick from is out of date so the first three types of bread I asked for I was told I couldn’t have because they don’t use that bread anymore. Okaaaaay…annoying but fine. Then the guy couldn’t tell me how much my sandwich was going to cost because it depended what meat I got, I told him I wanted turkey and he was still unable to tell me how much it was going to cost. sigh. Then when he put the turkey on the bread it only covered half the bread! The meat is pre-portioned to make sure they only put a certain amount on the sandwiches but the portioned out amounts are freakishly small, so I asked for double meat. Oh, and when I asked how much it would cost for double the turkey he said it depended on how much the turkey cost…but he didn’t follow that up with how much the turkey costs, he just ended the sentence like that lol

I was starting to wonder just how much this sandwich was going to cost me. At this point I didn’t really want it anymore, it was becoming more effort than it was worth, but not like I could walk out half way through the sandwich making process. *rolls eyes*

The rest of the sandwich had mustard, light mayo, spinach, cucumber, tomato, red onion, and one slice of cheddar cheese. a fairly classic combo.

safeway sandwich

I was doing the really classy thing of sitting in my car and eating the sandwich, I would have eaten it while driving but they didn’t cut it so it was too large for me to hold and eat, while driving.

The first bite was pretty much all bread and that kinda set the tone for the rest of the sandwich, the tone being I was eating stale bread. I know, I know, first world problems! But c’mon, I paid for this freshly made sandwich and they can’t even be bothered to put it on bread that isn’t stale? Not cool Safeway.

In the end the bread was inedible, I ended up opening the sandwich up and eating the meat, cheese, and veg, then threw the bread away. So, yay on saving calories! But boo on paying for something that turned out to be a waste of money.

I should’ve just gone to Subway. 😛

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Try It Tuesday:Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

14 Jun

So obviously this isn’t the first time I have eaten Strawberry Rhubarb pie, it is just the first time I have eaten this particular pie. It is from M&M Meat Shops and currently costs $9.99. If I remember correctly mine was on sale so it cost a bit less, who doesn’t like a sale? 😉

First off, the finished product does not look nearly as good as the one on the package, the filling doesn’t hold its shape nearly that well. The filling is less chunky and more pureed, if that makes any sense? There is a lattice topping with the pastry but it is pretty lackluster, I mean c’mon, not like it is that hard to make the pie look pretty, this just looked lazy. Or maybe I am too harsh about the presentation of pies, meh, who knows? lol

To bake it you bring your oven to 350C, take the plastic wrapping off the pie, put the pie on a cookie sheet and pop it in to the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, then take it out and let it sit for 20 minutes. I am not certain why it needs such a long cooling down period, maybe they are worried about people being burned? lol Nah. I think it is most likely to give the filling time to solidify enough that it doesn’t completely ooze out when you cut a slice.

2016-06-02 20.03.52-1

frozen still wrapped in plastic

 

2016-06-02 20.05.38

fresh from the oven

The flavour was nice, had a stronger strawberry flavour than rhubarb and the strawberry seemed to more closely resemble jam rather than freshly chopped strawberries. Hell, I would have settled for frozen strawberries, thawed and cut, before being put in the filling but I guess I am asking too much from a commercially mass produced pie.

Even with the 20 minute cooling off period the pie was still warm-ish so I topped my piece with some ice cream and settled down to enjoy. 🙂

It’s not that it wasn’t an okay pie, but I wouldn’t really recommend paying the ten bucks for it when you can find a better quality pie at a bakery or one of those stands that pop up with fresh home made pies for sale at completely reasonable prices. Or hell, you could always make one. Not to boast but I have made a better strawberry rhubarb pie from scratch wiiiiiith a more complex lattice top and if I can do it so can you!

In a pinch I guess it will suffice but you can find better so my advice to you is to keep searching! 🙂

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Soup and Yoghurt

7 Aug

I figured since I bought all that soup and yoghurt yesterday when in the States I might as well start eating it! 🙂

Today I chose the Progresso Light Zesty Santa Fe Style Chicken soup, it is 2 Weight Watchers Plus Points per serving (which is 1 cup) and there are 2 servings in a can.

Santa Fe Style Chicken

Zesty Santa Fe Style Chicken

Here is a close up of it…

2015-08-07 12.57.29

It is not a pretty looking soup, the broth is kind of a sludge type colour, not appetizing looking in person at all. The chicken pieces were nicely sized, I’d go as far as to call them chunks or cubes of chicken rather than pieces buuuuut the chicken was dry and chewy, sigh. There was one cube of chicken that was soft and tender and it was such an oddity compared to the other pieces I actually wondered what went wrong with that particular piece of chicken lol The rice, veggies and beans were excellent, Mmm! The first spoonful was a tad spicy but I like spicy food so I quickly adjusted and was fine with it.

For an overall review I would not recommend this soup, mostly because of the chicken being so dry and chewy. I feel that if a company is going to put meat of any form in to a can of soup they should make sure the meat is tender and tasty. Just sayin.

For the yoghurt I enjoyed a Yoplait Cherry Yoghurt that apparently has 25% Less Sugar.

Cherry!

Cherry!

It is 4 Weight Watchers Plus Points which seems a tad high considering it is just a yoghurt cup, shrug, but it did taste good! There were actual pieces of cherries in there which is always nice. 🙂

So far I am batting 50/50, one yah and one nay, and that’s alright, I mean I can’t expect everything I choose to taste good lol I expect most of the yoghurts to taste good but the soup is a total guessing game, shrug.

I’m picking randomly which soup and which yoghurt to eat so who knows which ones I’ll write about next! 😛

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