Sometimes Foodie

Wegman’s Chocolate Mousse - Wegman’s : Cherry Hill, NJ

It’s been a rough couple of months, so my mom decided to pick up some little treats for the family.

I am in love with this plastic angled container! The translucent, packing tape-like, label peels off cleanly so that the presentation becomes that much nicer. These are just so impressive looking, especially for a pre-made grocery store creation. I bet theses would look fantastic at a dessert table for a party.
Once I removed the lid I could instantly smell the chocolate. The aroma is a bit sweeter than a dark chocolate, but richer than a baking chocolate.
The dark chocolate shavings on top add texture but they quickly melt in your mouth and blend with the frothy chocolate mousse. The flavors are pretty rich for a grocery store product, and I liked this a lot, but it’s a little too sweet. (It took me two days to finish my portion because it was just too much for one sitting.)

I love the packaging and presentation. These gorgeous ready-made desserts from Wegman’s are definitely worth a try!

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Skinny Cow Peanut Butter Creme Chocolates - Dollar General : Cherry Hill, NJ

(I bought the Key Lime Coconut Patties as the same time.)

I bought these from the dollar store because I recognized them from a review on Candy Blog. (One of my favorite foodie sites.) For some reason I remembered these getting a really favorable review, so I grabbed a package.

I have had skinny Cow products before, and while I liked the product, I hated the logo. It’s just plain creepy. A humanized cow with an hourglass figure wrapped in measuring tape? Combine that image with the slightly suggestive pose and you have a decent amount of nightmare fuel. (This pose actually reminds me of Molly Ringwald’s from The Breakfast Club.) Logo aside, this design has a decent layout. Personally, I would tweak the sizing of the text and make everything a little bit larger, but the placement allows the design to flow nicely.

Inside the plastic packaging there is a cardboard sleeve that holds three curvy milk chocolates. I like the unique shape, and I feel like this is a decent portion, so no complaints there.

When it comes to smell, I can’t detect any peanut butter, just milk chocolate.

After my first bite I was a bit surprised by the texture of the peanut butter filling, it’s almost translucent! It looks and feels more like a caramel than any peanut butter I have ever had. Although the texture and appearance are a bit odd, the filling definitely has a salty, peanut taste. To me, the fault in this candy lies with the milk chocolate. It’s just too sweet. (This is on the same sweetness-level as Cadbury chocolate, which I am not a fan of.)

After eating my chocolates I looked up the Candy Blog review and realized these only got a six out of ten. For some reason I thought they ranked much higher, but I totally agree with Cybele’s review. The filling is overly salty and the chocolate is overly sweet. These aren’t a satisfying candy, and I found myself craving a real candy bar once I was done my chocolate pieces, so I wouldn’t recommend this to any dieters. In my opinion, Skinny Cow needs to stick to ice cream.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Unreal 54, Candy Coated Chocolates with Peanuts - Target : Cherry Hill, NJ

These were a little gift from my mother, she saw them on sale during a trip to target and picked up a little bag for me. I have already reviewed two other Unreal candies, and so far I’ve been pretty impressed.

Other reviews:

Unreal 8 (Snickers)

Unreal 77(Peanut Butter cup)

I love the look of this brand! All of the packaging I have seen so far has used bright, metallic, colors for accents and their signature logo. The first time I ever saw the logo, it thought it looked like some kind of alien language, but it’s actually a really stylized font that says “UNREAL.” (You can read it in the 1st photo when you turn your head to the left.) The black packaging and limited text give this brand an secretive, adult, feel. It’s really different from everything else on the candy shelf, and I love that.

Inside, there are peanut-filled M&M-like candies. Right away you can see the candy colors are intense, but a bit different. Instead of food dyes, this brand uses natural coloring. (So yellow is made with turmeric root, red with cabbage, and so on…) At first, the colors can be a little off putting, because they are a little muddy-colored, but that is only because we are used to the bright colors of food dye. These are also irregularly shaped, and they vary in size.

These smell like a mixture of chocolate and roasted peanuts. I was pleasantly surprised by how strongly these smelled, the peanut aroma is really intense,

When I ate the first piece of candy, I instantly noticed the bold peanut-y taste! When compared to peanut M&M’s, the panned hard candy layer is about the same thickness (maybe a just tiny bit thicker) and the chocolate layer is a bit thinner. This allows the chocolate to quickly melt in your mouth, and allow the roasted peanut to really shine.

While these don’t look as pretty sitting out in a candy dish, I do prefer the flavor of these Unreal candies to Peanut M&M’s. If you love roasted peanuts, give these a try. You won’t be sorry.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Key Lime Coconut Patties - Dollar General : Cherry Hill, NJ

Put the lime in the coconut and dip it all in chocolate! I saw this at the dollar store check out and I thought it might be interesting because I love these flavors. (I just don’t know how successful they would be when combined into a candy.)

The plastic packaging features an overall lime-green color scheme with a hibiscus flower print in the background. Piled on top of that, are images of palm trees, limes, coconuts, chocolate, and the coconut-candy-bar product itself. The design is busy, but graphically I think it works. I feel like the fonts and typography are where things gets a little iffy. The text choices makes this product look cheap. (Then again I got this at a dollar store, so you get what you pay for.)

Inside, there are two sweetened coconut squares that have been dipped in dark chocolate. The lime flavored coconut is a beautiful bright spring-green, but it isn’t natural at all. I would love to buy clothing or nail polish this color, but I don’t know if my food should be this bright.

The candy has a very strong coconut aroma, and it easily over powers the lime and chocolate.

Taking a bite…I was instantly disappointed. The chocolate is not chocolate at all, It’s that fake, overly sweet, waxy, “mock-late” that you can find in a lot of cheaper drugstore treats. Once you get beyond that gross mock-late, the coconut itself has a great texture, and there is a tangy lime flavoring, but it is more artificial than realistic. This is like mixing sweetened coconut with concentrated limeade. Surprisingly the combination isn’t bad, but that mock-late just ruins everything.
I actually liked the key lime flavored coconut patty quite a bit, but I hated that fake chocolate stuff. I bit around it, but that wasn’t enough to save this candy. I won’t be buying this again. When will I learn my lesson and stop buying dollar store sweets?
© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Ichitan Organic Green Tea with Chrysanthemum - SunSeng Market : Pennsauken, NJ

Blast from the past! A few moths ago I started reviewing these bottled green teas, but I never got around to posting the last flavor. Here it is!

The only difference between these three bottles were the shrink-wrapped labels. This flavor has a bright white background with scattered yellow chrysanthemum flowers and luscious leafy greens. I think the design is light and refreshing, but it’s my least favorite. I just feel like it’s a little boring when compared to the texture and color of the other two labels.

Right away this tea smells sweet. In fact, I think this might be the sweetest of the three. There are hints of honey, chrysanthemum, and cane sugar.

This is so sweet, it’s almost syrupy! At first it tastes like tea with too much honey, but there are some bitter chrysanthemum notes in the aftertaste. This really isn’t what I was expecting. To be honest, it’s like I mixed a menthol throat drop with a ton of honey and a splash of green tea.

I wish I could say that I saved the best for last…but this is undoubtedly my least favorite of the three green teas. (I won’t be buying anymore of this in the future.)

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Strawberry All Natural Cane Sugar - Home Goods :Moorestown, NJ

Okay, this post is going to be a little different…

I’m going to do my typical review, but I totally bought this without knowing what I should do with it, so I am going to ask all of you for suggestions.

What should I make with this?

I was drawn to this product because of the packaging. The sugar is inside a thick glass jar with metallic detailing, which gives this product an industrial look, but the typography feels a little off. The lowercase font that is used for “strawberry” looks out of place when mixed with the distressed information in all caps. I like the look of either font on it’s own, but something about mixing the two just doesn’t work.

The only ingredients listed are raw sugar, dried strawberries, beets and red cabbage (the latter two were for coloring purposes only), so this is pretty good stuff. This smells exactly like I expected. I can smell delicious cane sugar mixed with tangy, ground up, dried strawberries.

I love the smell and taste of this fruity sugar, but I have no idea on what to make with it.

PLEASE SEND ANY SUGGESTIONS MY WAY!

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Wegman’s Premium Ice Cream - Wegman’s : Cherry Hill, NJ

I was so impressed with the Wegman’s premium banana ice cream, I decided to try this cherry one. (Which looks a lot like Cherry Garcia, my favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavor.)

The design is just like the banana, but with a red color scheme. While it doesn’t look that great in person, these bold designs really photograph well.

The ice cream has a deliciously sweet black cherry scent. Right off the bat, this looks a LOT like Cherry Garcia. I can see chocolate fudge flakes scattered on the surface of the ice cream, but there wasn’t any sign of the cherries.

As I scooped the ice cream I found several black cherries hidden under the surface. The fruit bits are always my favorite part, so I was really happy that there were a lot of them in my first scoop.

This looks and smells like Ben and Jerry’s, but it isn’t quite the same. The ice cream has a strong black cherry flavor, which I like, and there are plenty of add-ins throughout the pint. The chocolate flakes aren’t quite fudge-y, they are more like little bits of dark chocolate, which isn’t a bad thing. This tastes great! (It just doesn’t taste like Cherry Garcia.) The overall flavor is a lot like chocolate covered cherries.

While I liked this ice cream, I’d rather have a pint of Cherry Garcia. I think I’ll use this to make some root beer floats. (I always use cherry ice cream for my root beer floats, and using this means getting little bits of chocolate in my float too!) I’m still very impressed with the Wegman’s banana ice cream, and I would still love to try more flavors.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Wegman’s Premium Ice Cream - Wegman’s : Cherry Hill, NJ

The other day I had to stop by Wegman’s to pick up some wonton wrappers for dinner, and I saw they they had little pints of premium ice cream, similar to Ben and Jerry’s. I just couldn’t resist. I love banana ice cream. (It is second only to Cherry Garcia.)

Store brands typically mean no frills, so the designs and packaging are very basic. The container is a bright, gaudy, yellow with chocolate brown swirls and generic graphics. At first glance, the packaging looks like a 2nd semester design student project, but it actually photographs really well. The bold colors and design give it a nice graphic quality in photos.

Once I peeled the protective plastic coating off, the ice cream had a creamy vanilla-banana scent. It wasn’t a very strong aroma, like banana chips, but it was very pleasant.

As I scooped the ice cream I was pretty impressed with the distribution of add-ins. There were little peanut butter cups and fudge swirls in every scoop! I wasn’t able to see any of the marshmallow swirl, but I think it blended in with the banana ice cream.

I fell in love with this after the first bite. I could taste yummy vanilla-banana ice cream and chocolatey swirls instantly. When I got a bite with a peanut butter cup in it, it not only added a delicious peanut buttery flavor, but it added a nice texture to the ice cream as well. I couldn’t taste any marshmallow, but I think the marshmallow flavoring is what gave me the nice vanilla notes in the ice cream.

I have to say, this banana ice cream is awesome! I am really impressed with the Wegman’s store brand, and I will be buying more flavors in the future. (They had a little something that looks like their version of Cherry Garcia..<3)

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Lion Soda Kids Candy - Asian Food Market: Cherry Hill, NJ

Because this candy has 6 flavors, and such amazing packaging, I am splitting it up into multiple reviews.

Check out THIS POST on the aesthetics.

And THIS POST for the other 3 flavors.

Today I’ll review 3 flavors of this soda candy:

Cola (brown)

Orange (orange)

Lemon (yellow)

Cola:

You can taste the cola flavor the second this hits your tongue. This candy starts out tasting a little flat, similar to the Haribo gummy cola bottles, but when you hit the fizzy center it really starts to shine. These are really similar to the other cola hard candies, (reviewed here) , but these are much fizzier.

Orange Soda:

This might be the most accurate soda flavor in the bunch! This candy honestly tastes just like a glass of orange soda! As it dissolves, you can detect some sweet mandarin notes, but the overall flavor is unmistakably orange soda.

Lemon Soda:

Bright and refreshing. This starts out with a sweet lemon-drop flavor, but as it dissolves the fizzy center brings out stronger citrus notes. These are a little tart, but no where near Super Lemon.

It was tough to pick a favorite out of this group, but if I HAD to pick…

Orange

Lemon

Cola

My love of citrus sodas and candies beats the cola, but all three are delicious. This group turned out a lot better than the last one.

I’m not sure if I’d buy another bag of these, but if they sold individual flavors I’d definitely buy a bag of orange.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Yoo-hoo -Target : Cherry Hill, NJ

Time for one of my childhood favorites, Yoo-hoo!

This beverage became popular in the 40’s and 50’s, so the packaging has changed over the years. (Check out some vintage bottles HERE.) The bottle pictured above is actually pretty close to the ones I remember in the 80’s and 90’s. The label is a bright, sunny, yellow with brown, red, and blue accents. It might be my nostalgic love of Yoo-hoo, but I think the packaging is charming.

If you didn’t know already, Yoo-hoo is not a chocolate milk. It is marketed as a “chocolate drink.” (Pretty sneaky Yoo-hoo.) Quite a few people have though Yoo-hoo was a milk-based beverage, but there is little to no dairy in it!

Because of this, Yoo-hoo has a bit of an odd smell. It’s sweet and chocolatey, but there i something else to it. I can’t quite place the odor, but it reminds me of a chocolate lotion or candle. You can tell it is supposed to be chocolate, or that chocolate is in it, but it’s a little off. Thankfully, it tastes a lot better than it smells.

To me, Yoo-hoo tastes like an un-carbonated chocolate soda. There are sweet chocolatey notes, but there is a crisp finish. Similar to drinking a glass of water.

If you’ve been following me, you might remember THIS POST where I reviewed the Yoo-hoo singles. If you haven’t, it’s worth reading. I honestly have no idea what they put in those instant packets, but it tasted like a chemical burn.

Yoo-hoo may not be a chocolate milk, but I love it anyway. (Just not the instant packets. I will NEVER buy those again.)

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Key Lime Cake Doughnut -Krispy Kreme : Collingswood, NJ

The key lime cheesecake doughnut I reviewed yesterday was pretty yummy, even though there wasn’t much filling, but how will this cake doughnut taste?

This time, the doughnut has a cake base with the same key lime icing, but the whole thing is topped with cream.

Right off the bat, this doughnut is a mess! It is a typical doughnut with a hole in the middle, that hole is topped/filled with cream. When I opened the package cream was everywhere!

Taking a bite, the doughnut was light and fluffy like most Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and the icing was tangy. The key lime icing stands out more with this doughnut since there aren’t any graham cracker bits to overpower it, and I really like the flavor payoff. As for the cream topping, it is my least favorite part. Not only does it get everywhere, but it also has an artificial vanilla taste.

I think this doughnut would be much better without the cream on top. I had cream all over my hands, the plate, the other doughnut…just everywhere. I think the simple key lime icing is all this doughnut needs.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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Key Lime Cheesecake Doughnut -Krispy Kreme : Collingswood, NJ

The original, glazed, Krispy Kreme doughnuts are amazing, but their seasonal flavors have always been a bit of a let down. Right now the company is promoting 2 different key lime donuts: Key Lime Cake and Key Lime Cheesecake. Since key lime is one of my favorite flavors, I am giving these a shot.

This cheesecake-doughnut is topped with graham cracker pieces and a tangy lime icing. Inside, there is supposed to be a creamy key-lime-cheesecake filling.

Now, when I took a bite I could taste the toppings and the cake doughnut, but there was no filling. The dough is fluffy and sweet, like a traditional Krispy Kreme, and the toppings add a nice graham cracker texture and flavor, but there was barely any lime. It took several bites before I managed to find anything inside. Once I did find some filling, there was only about a tablespoon’s worth. It was surprisingly tangy and delicious, but there wasn’t enough to give me a real ‘key lime’ flavor. This ended up tasting like a graham cracker doughnut.

I got a bum doughnut. I’m not happy with the filling to doughnut ratio, but I could see this being really yummy with the proper amount of filling.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

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