Review: Steve's Paleo Goods PaleoChef Ketchup

I've mentioned in my prior Steve's Paleo Goods reviews that they were kind enough to send me a box of free samples.  Within that box was a product that I've been kind of terrified to review because of my prior experiences with people trying to make ketchup more "healthy" or what not.  Now, I've mentioned before that I have an unrequited love for ketchup.  It's one of my favorite things in the world and I'll put it on anything...eggs, fries, fried chicken, pizza crust, hot dogs, hamburgers, crackers, vegetables, eat it straight out of a spoon, etc.  Basically, my ketchup love knows no bounds.  Anyway, past bad experiences and my high esteem for ketchup made me fearful of this bottle of Steve's Paleo Goods PaleoChef Ketchup, but ultimately life is about overcoming your fears, so here we are with today's review.  This bottle comes in at twelve ounces and has 24 servings (a half ounces per serving obviously) and each serving comes in at 15 calories.

Review: Slow Food For Fast Lives Thai Bar

I didn't really cover in my last Slow Food For Fast Lives review that I was very fearful of the product going in just based on the fact that it seemed like such an odd flavor profile and was really something that I had never had in a nutrition bar before, so the fear of the unknown hit me.  Well, despite the fact that I liked that particular bar, I'm just as afraid this time as I take a look at another free sample that I received in this Slow Food For Fast Lives Thai Bar.  The bar itself is 1.4 ounces, has 190 calories and also has six grams of protein.  It's also all natural, vegan and gluten free.

Review: Smartfood Garlic Tomato Basil Hummus Popped Chips

I mentioned in my last (and also first) Smartfood review that I picked up a bunch of these mini bags of chips in the clearance section of Kroger for half their original price.  That splurge leads me to the source of today's review of these Smartfood Garlic Tomato Basil Hummus Popped Chips.  Typically, these lunch sized bags run at about $1.00 per bag and they are 0.8 ounces and 100 calories.  I know that a lot of people are creeped out by hummus, but I find it tasty (along with the tomato basil flavor combination), so I was more than ready to try these chips out for today's review.

Review: Green Giant Zesty Cheddar Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips

I mentioned in my last Green Giant review that I had the freaking brand theme song locked in my head.  Fortunately, I've managed to shake that and because it's not rocking my head and driving me crazy anymore, I figured now was as good of a time as any to look at one of Green Giant's original chip flavors with this bag of Green Giant Zesty Cheddar Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips that I picked up on sale at Marsh for the low, low price of $1.00.  Each bag is 5.0 ounces and has five servings per bag.  For those of you keeping score at home, one serving is about ten chips and each of those servings is a 140 calories.

Review: Green Giant Multigrain Barbecue Sweet Potato Chips

Today's review is the introduction of another one of mega conglomerate General Mills' products to the blog with this Green Giant Multigrain Barbecue Sweet Potato Chips.  With that, I was reminded of one of the more terrifying things that I've ever seen on television.  Most of us today know the cartoon version of the Jolly Green Giant mascot and his little cartoon buddy that they use in the marketing on television, print, etc.  Have you ever seen when they used a real person painted green that dwarfed the made up set that they had put together?  I saw it once in a television special about old commercials and it was terrifying.  What is also terrifying is that I've now got the Green Giant song from the commercials stuck in my head.  AHHHH!!!!  Anyway, this was a sample package that I got in the mail to demo one of their new products (I'll get to the core Sweet Potato Chips later) and since this was a sample, the measurements are kind of skewed compared to what you'd find in the store, but I'll list them anyway.  This was a 0.8 ounce bag and had 110 calories.  Of those 110 calories, 45 came from fat, so that's not particularly wonderful, but I guess it could be worse.

Review: MorningStar Farms Mediterranean Chickpea Veggie Burgers

I've eaten my fair share of MorningStar Farms products for the blog, but the funny thing is that I rarely think to purchase them when I am at the store, so I don't eat them at all except when I do reviews. I guess I don't get them often because they are at the opposite end of the freezer case (let's call it the Netherworld) from where I usually frequent. Recently, I just happened to be strolling thought the Netherworld and I glanced in and saw the "NEW" label on these MorningStar Farms Mediterranean Chickpea Veggie Burgers and being that I'm a sucker for new stuff, I hurriedly reached in and grabbed a box. This box set me back $2.99 at Kroger and each box contains four frozen veggie burgers. Each burger is 2.36 ounces and has 110 calories with 10 grams of protein.

Review: Patak's Original Korma Curry Simmer Sauce

I've got to say, I've had some real successful experiences with Patak's products here on the blog. Some have been better than others, but as a whole, they've been quite good. It's those positive experiences that led me to pick up this twelve ounce jar of Patak's Original Korma Curry Simmer Sauce at Kroger for $2.99. I like reviewing these not only because I've had good experiences, but also because they help me expand my culinary experiences with Indian food, which is a cuisine that I had zero interaction with for my entire life up until these past few tears. Since this curry is cream based, it's a little higher up on the calorie scale compared to some of its brethren at 280 calories per half cup serving, but that's fine in the grand scheme of things.  If the heat of Indian food scares you, there's not much to fear here as this one score's as "Mild" on Patak's heat scale that they conveniently place on all their jars.

Review: Walden Farms French Onion Dip

If you've spent any time reading this blog, you'd know that it is no secret that I have written a lot of reviews on Walden Farms products.  What can I say...I love the whole idea of calorie free foods, although that may not be 100% truthful.  Regardless, my quest for more and more calorie free foods led me to make another order from Netrition.com where I picked up this jar of Walden Farms French Onion Dip for $3.99.  It's twelve ounces and is of course calorie free.  I can say though that a product modeling itself after a dip that is a party mainstay makes me exceptionally curious to try it out.

Review: Patak's Original Tikka Masala Curry Simmer Sauce

When I was in the process of moving a while back, I was trying to go through my cabinets and eat as many of the things that I had stored up for reviews as possible.  Among those things, were a few jars of Patak's simmer sauce that have led to some reviews and also this most recent review with this jar of Patak's Original Tikka Masala Curry Simmer Sauce that I picked up at Kroger for $2.99.  Each jar is fifteen ounces and contains three servings at 130 calories per serving and clocks in at a medium on the Patak's heat scale.  My prior experiences here on the site with Patak's products have been very positive, so I had some fairly high expectations heading in.  Tikka Masala is also more popular in Great Britain than it is in India, so maybe I should consider this a new ethnicity of foods instead of classifying this as Indian like I usually would.  What do you think?

Review: Saffron Road Wasabi Crunchy Chickpeas

Some people just love Wasabi, for some reason.  My brother, for example, eats Wasabi peas like they are candy and I don't quite get it.  I've had it several times and it's fine (I'm more than fine with hot food), but it's not something that I actively seek out like he does.  So, these Saffron Road Wasabi Crunchy Chickpeas would probably be right up his alley.  The question is, will they be up my alley?  I guess that's what the review will find out!  Like the other Saffron Road products I've looked at, I got this one for free from their publicity agent and also like the others, it's six ounce bag with six servings at one ounce apiece and 120 calories per serving.  Since it's Wasabi, it's bound to be hot and in case you didn't now that, Saffron Road makes sure to point it out by fully filling the temperature gauge on the front of the bag.  Yikes.

Review: Patak's Original Rogan Josh Curry Simmer Sauce

My experience with ethnic food, specifically Indian food, has been very limited here on the blog even though reviewing those types of foods was one of my original missions when I first started that blog.  Still, I have done some reviews relating to one or both of those things and it's an increased focused on that mission here in 2013 that leads me to do another Patak's review with this review of a fifteen ounce jar of there Patak's Original Rogan Josh Curry Simmer Sauce that I picked up at Kroger for $2.99.  Each jar contains three servings and each serving is a relatively budget-like (in my mind) 100 calories.  On the Patak's spice scale, this rated as a medium as well.  Rogan Josh is typically served with lamb, but I decided to use it like a lot of Indians would, meaning that I stuck to being strictly vegetarian and mixed it with plain Ramen noodles (not something a typical Indian would do).

Review: Saffron Road Falafel Crunchy Chickpeas

Despite the fact that I'm not the world's largest fan of chickpeas (but I do like hummus; go figure?), I was pleasantly surprised in my last Saffron Road review of one of their crunchy chickpeas products.  Like the last time, I obtained this Saffron Road Falafel Crunchy Chickpeas via a publicity agent for Saffron Road, so now I've got another review!  Exactly like the last review, this is a six ounce resealable bag with six servings with each one ounce serving coming at 120 calories.  It's a high source of protein, it's gluten free, certified Halal, organic and just a generally healthy snack.  Yay chickpeas!

Review: Saffron Road Bombay Spice Crunchy Chickpeas

One of the benefits of writing a highly respected blog (I say that dripping with sarcasm) is that publicity agents from food manufacturers contact you from time to time offering you free products.  It's nice because often times the products you get contacted about is stuff that you would NEVER think to buy and that's definitely the case with the subject of this review with this bag of Saffron Road Bombay Spice Crunchy Chickpeas.  Chickpeas have never really been my thing as I find them to be particularly boring, so that's why I'd have never bought these, but I do love free products, so it's worth a shot.  The resealable bag is 6.0 ounces and contains six servings at one ounce per piece.  Yep, I'm a math genius.  Each serving is 120 calories and is fairly high in protein for a snack at six grams of protein per serving.  These chickpeas are gluten free and also Certified Halal (something I had no prior knowledge of, so I've linked it for those who don't know what that means either).  The front of the bag also had a temperature scale to indicate spice and this one was classified as "Hot", so I had to prepare myself for an adventure.

Review: Patak's Original Dopaiza Curry Simmer Sauce

One of the things that I intended on doing when I started this blog was reviewing ethnic foods.  Fifteen months later, I haven't reviewed a single one (I don't consider frozen food enchiladas to be that) so that FINALLY leads me to my first review of an ethnic food, in this case Indian, with this review of Patak's Original Dopaiza Curry Simmer Sauce that I picked up at Kroger for $2.99.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert when it comes to Indian food.  I've tasted a lot of it and I've liked a lot of it, but if a person were to ask me what my favorite dish in Indian cuisine was, I would have no idea how to answer.  I just don't have the knowledge.  That said, I do have the knowledge to determine whether I think something is good or not and to somewhat accurately describe the way something tastes, so that's how we'll approach this review.  It's as much of a learning experience for me as it is for you.  By the way, this jar was fifteen ounces and has three half-cup servings at 140 calories per serving.

Review: Walden Farms Alfredo Pasta Sauce

In the world of pasta sauces, I chose tomato (red) sauce over Alfredo (white) sauce about 98 times out of 100.  Just my personal preference, but after one of my many Walden Farms reviews where I reviewed their abysmal Walden Farms Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce (posted yesterday), I decided I'd give their Walden Farms Alfredo Pasta Sauce a try even though I wasn't expecting a lot based on my prior review.  Like the last, I picked this up at Kroger for $3.69 and it's twelve ounces.  Like all Walden Farms products it's sugar free, calorie free, fat free, gluten free, etc.  As always, it's a miracle of science.

Review: MorningStar Farms Tomato & Basil Pizza Veggie Burgers

When I was in elementary school, our school cafeteria would serve something that they called pizza burgers once a week or as least every other week.  These pizza burgers consisted of a base of a hamburger bun, a "pizza" mix on top (it was more like Sloppy Joe mix) and then melted mozzarella cheese on top of that.  For some reason, we all thought those were spectacularly delicious.  Why do I bring that up?  Well, this review of the MorningStar Farms Tomato & Basil Pizza Veggie Burgers reminded me of those.  Of course, MorningStar Farms' version is nothing like those that we had in the cafeteria, but at least the name is similar enough that it reminded me of an oddly fond memory from my youth.  Anyway, for this addition to the MorningStar Farms review series, I picked up a box of these pizza burgers on sale at Kroger for $3.00 and each box contains four burgers at a weight of 2.36 ounces and 120 calories per burger.

Review: Kellogg's Special K Sour Cream & Onion Cracker Chips

In my prior reviews, I've had some pretty good experiences with these cracker chips.  They are very potato tasting which should be one of the most obvious statements of all time being that these are basically baked potato chips.  That said, the strength of the potato flavoring did surprise me as I was expecting something more along the lines of a rice cake.  Anyway, those experiences have led me to be more open to trying more flavors from this product line, so that leads me to today's review of these Kellogg's Special K Sour Cream & Onion Cracker Chips that I picked up in the monster Special K sale at Meijer for $2.50.  Each box is 4.0 ounces of fun and contains 3.5 servings at 110 calories per serving.  As a reminder, Special K describes a serving as 27 cracker chips.

Review: Walden Farms Jersey Sweet Onion Salad Dressing

I don't think it's a secret that I like doing reviews of Walden Farms products.  I'm always interested to find a new and flavorful way to cut the calories from my increasingly unhealthy diet.  Walden Farms seemingly has an answer for every situation and that leads me to this review of their Jersey Sweet Onion Salad Dressing.  I picked up a twelve ounce bottle of this at Netrition.com for $3.79 and as usual, it's calorie free, sugar free, etc.

Review: MorningStar Farms Chik'n Strips Meal Starters

It's been a bit since I've either eaten or reviewed a MorningStar Farms product.  Recently, I had some tortilla wraps in my refrigerator that I had to use prior to the expiration date, so I figured that grabbing one of the bags of MorningStar Farms Chik'n Strips Meal Starters that I had in my refrigerator would be the perfect way to come up with a base starter for the filling in my wraps that I was making.  I picked this one up on sale at Marsh for $3.00 and it's an eight ounce package proclaiming it has roughly 2.5 servings of these veggie "Chick'n" strips.  Each serving has 140 calories and a whopping 23 grams of protein.  It's also cholesterol free, so this really is a fairly healthy product and as I read more and more of the packaging, I was exceptionally surprised by that.

Review: Walden Farms Tomato Ketchup

First things first, I am OBSESSED with ketchup.  There are many foods that I eat that I don't particularly care for (eggs), yet I eat them only as a form of a ketchup delivery system.  Not only do I put ketchup on my eggs (and lots of it), I use it outside of the norm in other ways too.  I use ketchup as a dip for fried chicken, put it on crackers and chips, put it on spaghetti (admittedly, I took this idea from the movie Goodfellas), put it on vegetables, etc.  Basically, I'll put it on anything, although I've never put it on ice cream, nor do I think I ever will.  That said, when I saw that Walden Farms offered a sugar free and zero calorie version of Tomato Ketchup, I said that I had to give it a try.  I knew I was playing with fire with this one, but hey, I'll try just about anything.  I picked up this twelve ounce container for $3.69 at Kroger, by the way.  So, with a sense of terror in my mind fearing how my beloved ketchup could be ruined, I plodded on.