I’m really big on trying foods that I think I don’t like – something that I’ve eaten in the past and perhaps not been too thrilled with how it tasted, or just didn’t appreciate as much as other people seemed to – trying them again after a decent amount of time has passed, just to give them a fair shake.  I do this quite a bit, giving a few years between each try of a food… although some things, like olives, I kept trying a few times a month because they are just, by nature, something I should like!  Errr, anyway…

Basically, a while back, I bought a bag of cheese tortelloni in a tomato cream sauce, because I don’t tend to like filled pastas (ravioli, agnolotti, and of course, tortelloni).  It was a long time ago; frozen pasta plus I was just never in the mood for trying tortelloni again.  Ah well.  It got a lil freezer burn, yes. 

It cooked down fine enough after the freezer burn melted away. 

Not too bad looking, right?

And the cheese innards.  Verdict?  I think this was fine, but I still don’t like tortelloni.  Not their fault – and yes, I’ve had housemade, super fancy pants tortellini/tortelloni at restaurants, from nice places, and I still don’t like it all that much.  So please no comments on how I just have to try “good” tortellini/tortelloni – I don’t think I like it!  But feel free to recommend places for me to try and what I should order!   

Do you guys re-try foods that you previously didn’t like?  Have you found yourself changing your mind about anything at all?  Anything that you just keep trying but never like?  Share in the comments please! 

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2010. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: frozen pasta, Ready to Cook

I was recently offered the chance to try Dr. Oetker’s frozen pizza. 

Dr. Oetker is a German brand/company whose claim to fame is being the best selling frozen pizza in Italy.  And now they’re available in the US.  Got that? 

My boyfriend actually received the deliveries for me, and begged me to let him eat the pizza.  Without me.  Before I’d even taken photographs.  AS IF!!!  Hahaha.  His arguement was that he’d certainly eaten more frozen pizza than I had in his entire lifetime; while that may true, I’ve also eaten my fair share and just… no!  My pizza!  Hehe. 

I pulled out the mozzarella pizza and was amused to see large rounds of cheese mixed with shredded bits, and frozen green globs.  I followed the directions exactly. 

Compared to the box photo – hey, pretty close, right?

Closer up -

Upskirt.  The upskirt doesn’t really do the pizza justice – no, it doesn’t look particularly appetizing.  However, this was actually excellent frozen pizza.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find it in a store near me to verify the price, though I’m told it should be $4.99-5.99. 

What makes it excellent: the crust was crisp and thin, without any nasty pronounced cardboard taste like some frozen pizzas have.  It was a good base upon which lay some quality ingredients.  BF emphasized how much he really liked this pizza, and said it might become his go-to frozen pizza (and yes, he eats a lot of that, so this is a Big Deal with a capital B and a capital D!).  He did note two things: the pesto blobs really brought this pizza to an entirely new level, and that, more importantly, the entire pizza was light enough for him to eat without feeling disgusting and heavy, though he was still full after eating one. 

**The only reason it “might” become his go-to frozen pizza is because we can’t find it in his neighborhood right now.  Waldbaum’s is the big grocery store out that way, so… someone do something!!! 

I tried the ‘funghi’ or mushroom version.  (And a bit of his, of course.) 

Right after taking it out, I noticed the uneven distribution of ‘shrooms.

Problem solved!  I was a bit disappointed that they were all button mushrooms.  I wouldn’t have minded a mixture or a few portobellos/creminis… the flavor is so much earthier on those.  But I wasn’t too worried. 

Out of the oven, compared to the box.  A pretty accurate representation, I’d say. 

Closer up.  Do you see the problem in this photo?  The center of the pizza has a pool of moisture on it.  From the mushrooms was my assumption, since we didn’t have this problem with the mozzarella pie. 

Again, you can’t really go by the upskirt, but the crust was crisp and held up well… except the ‘tips’ of each slice I cut, which was soft and a bit soggy.  As for the pizza itself, while the crust has a lot to do with how good a pizza is, it was only alright.  I really wished this pizza was simply the mozzarella pie, with mushrooms added on top.  Which means in the future, that is what I’ll do – buy the mozzarella pie and add whatever I want on top, instead of relying on their mushrooms.  Too bad.  I mean, the flavor was good/fine, but the mozzarella was just THAT much better!!!

Yvo says: I can definitely see stocking this in the freezer for the BF (and him stocking some in his own freezer!).  It’s a great frozen pizza with excellent crust, good flavor (the mozzarella), and makes an excellent meal for one or a snack for two… while watching a DVD maybe on a rainy day or something… toss a salad to go on the side and you’ve got yourself something that you won’t feel too guilty about later.  Yummm!!! 
recommended

I received no compensation to write this post, though I did receive the pizzas free of charge.  I was under no obligation to write a positive or negative review, or any review at all, and do so freely.

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2009. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Pizza

It’s about time for another product review, no? 

So, as you know, I recently went to Unilever HQ and was set loose in the company store.  Before leaving me, the Lipton Brand Manager, with whom I’d been chatting all day, pointed out the frozen case and said “Oh, the Bertolli frozen pastas are actually pretty good, you should give one a try,” and I obliged.  I picked up this “pasta and sauce” – this one being mushroom ravioli in a mushroom cream sauce; skillet prepared in 10 minutes. 

I needed a quick side dish with the salmon I made on Friday night (recipe to come!), so I took the bag out of the freezer.

I immediately ran into a problem here.  The front of the bag, as you can see, under which is printed “Suggested Serving” (meaning, “what you see in the picture, that’s how we would serve it, were we to buy this bag and bring it home to eat”, as is my understanding), shows just the pasta, along with a glass of wine.  No bread, no meat, just “This is how we would eat it.”  Well, I wanted to eat this alone, and with some protein, which presented a problem, as the directions are strictly for making the entire bag.  I didn’t want to make the entire bag, and then leave some in the fridge for who knows when.  I’ll eat frozen foods, I’ll eat leftovers, but leftover frozen food seems a bit weird to me. 

The bag said there were two servings inside.  I wanted less than a full serving, since ostensibly, one serving (with a glass of wine, according to the picture) would suffice as my meal. 

So I poured the entire contents of the bag out of into a bowl.  I was going to count the ravioli and then take 1/3 or 1/4, but I decided that was too messy (and the ravioli seemed to be melting quickly at that point), so I just guessed how many would be good with a big slab of salmon.  Since I’ve been in resturants that serve 6 ravioli as a full entree (!!!), I decided 6 would be okay (they looked a bit small).  Then I decided two more wouldn’t hurt.

Popped it in a skillet and heated it with some of the sauce “cubes” until it’d all melted and heated through.  Smelled really, really good… this was looking promising.  Although, to be completely honest, it smelled like a certain company’s condensed cream of mushroom soup, something with which I grew up… and occasionally even will use to cook…

Plated it up, some parsley flakes for color.  I don’t think I used enough sauce cubes.

Time for the moment of truth…

Kind flat, not much inside, huh?

Well, I found this inside one.  Probably the stem from an herb they used, but a bit disconcerting to find within mostly soft ravioli. 

The taste of the ravioli itself was alright.  Nothing special or WOW about it, nor was it offensive in any way.

A few days later, for lunch, the BF and I were hungry and couch potato’ing, and too lazy to go out and get lunch or anything civilized like that.  I remembered the partially-eaten bag of ravioli, and suggested we eat that, which he quickly agreed to. 

Unfortunately, when I poured the entire bag into my pan, I discovered 14 ravioli left and a lot of sauce cubes.  I guess my educated guess as to how many were in there was a bit off. 

We each got 7 ravioli, a lot of sauce, and BF thought it was okay, though it wasn’t anything he’d want me to go out of my way to buy again.  Eh.  I thought it tasted better with more sauce, a bit plumper with the sauce coating it anyway.

Yvo says:  Passable… barely.  If I were really hungry, and this was in the freezer, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at it, but I probably wouldn’t buy it again, either.  It satisfied the hunger, but it was definitely nothing great.  Considering I paid the low price of just under $2 for this, and it basically made up 3 meals (counting the BF as one), it’s a great bargain – I think in regular stores it’s probably $4-6? which still isn’t that bad.  If you round out the meal with other stuff – garlic bread, maybe a piece of chicken? you’d do yourself well with this.  I’ll have to check out other flavors to know if they’re good, but this one was only alright. 
middle of the road

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: One Pot Meals, Pasta, Vegetarian

There’s a funny story behind this recipe.

No one wanted me to make it.

I was sitting at work during a slow moment, thinking about what was in the cupboards and what I could do with things to make them more interesting.  I’d discovered the night before that for some reason, I had three cans of corn niblets; unusual if only because BF likes creamed corn and I don’t usually buy canned vegetables, nor do I recall buying three cans of any one vegetable at one time.  (Did I buy them for something specific and forget to use them?  I couldn’t tell you.)  Finally, I concocted this mixture, and emailed two of my coworkers asking them what they thought.

“diced – red onion, green bell pepper, scallions and plum tomatoes, corn niblets and chopped cilantro, kosher salt/fresh ground black pepper; lime juice and olive oil, all mixed together.”

Neither one was impressed with the offering, but I shrugged it off and went home to start the chopping.  I tweaked it a bit because some of the ingredients I’d thought I had were old or just not up to par for the job, and wound up with:

“Diced red onion and green bell peppers, corn niblets, kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, lime juice, a spoonful of mayo, and 1/2 lb. of al dente elbow pasta, tossed together.”

Another friend was like, “Sounds like mayo macaroni salad, gross.”  I tried to explain at this point (as I’d already made it, tried it and liked it) that it was very little mayonnaise and that it was actually quite delicious, but she just shrugged it off and said whatever. 

I wasn’t going to give up though.  I popped the bowl into the fridge and let it chill while I made burgers (same as last time), and when BF got home, he asked me what we were eating with the burgers.  My response, “Homemade macaroni salad!” garnered a “YES!” response, but when he peeked into the bowl, he said, “Ew, why is there corn in there?!”  (Note: He likes corn.) 

Despite all of this, my darling, part of why I am always so proud of my influence on him when it comes to food- he gamely tried some with his burger and wound up loving it.  He took seconds, thirds even, and when I said “I thought I’d lost you when you said ‘Ew! corn!’” he responded, “Well you always say, try it once and if I don’t like it, I don’t have to eat it!”  I think my heart just about broke apart with pride. 

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2007. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: One Pot Meals, Pasta, Vegetarian

I love sweet white wines.  I’m not a, um, wine-y, or rather, a wine snob, wine person, connoisseur, whatever.  I chose this because I liked it, plain and simple; it didn’t get worse with what we ate, which is complementary enough for me!

Simple Caesar salad: hand torn Romaine (to give it that rough, romantic feel to it, hahaha), grated Parmagiano-Reggiano, and homemade Caesar dressing, recipe found here.  (Scroll down a bit- it’s very good!)

For our main course, I whipped out my duck recipe but used my cast iron skillet and was super pleased with the results.  (BF keeps trying to scour the pan, saying it’s dirty and we need to wash it with soap…. wince.)  I served this over shiitake risotto, which I accidentally overcooked, but it still came out tasty.  The duck’s skin was so crispy.  Yum.

Last but not least, dessert: FreshDirect heavenly chocolate souffles, homemade whipped cream, and a measure of Johnnie Walker Gold from the bottle in the freezer.  So good.  So delicious.  Yummy.  A non-recipe for the homemade whipped cream- superfine sugar, heavy/whipping cream (I used 36% fat) and beat it until it gives up.  Haha just kidding.  I used my immersion blender with a whisk attachment and you’ll know when it’s ready.  You’ll just know. 

I hope everyone had a fantastic Valentine’s Day!

Happy eating as always, every day!

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2007. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Desserts, Duck, Sauces, Vegetarian