Monday, May 4, 2009

Freebie Reviews

Wow, am I ever behind on the reviews. To save you a barrage of product reviews, I thought I'd power through some in one post.

Going way back, let's start with tea. The Tea Spot (Boulder, CO) offered some product samples, telling us to pick 3 flavors from their website. We got one of the three flavors we picked...and a couple of flavors that we definitely didn't pick! Let's start with the tastiest one...

Red Rocks (caffeine-free) was shared by all during March when my sister's family came up for a visit. We nibbled our cake and sipped this great tea made from red tea, vanilla, and almonds. This company uses all loose leaf teas, so when I say almond...I mean literal slivers of almonds! It was really great!



The others were a Mate Lemon Chai (Could there be a worse flavor combination? Think "Theraflu") and Earl of Grey (which might have been great, but I do not like earl gray which is why I didn't choose it). But I would like to try some of their other products and may even order a full tin of the Red Rocks!

Next...

It's all the rage right now in health food diets. Full of antioxidants and mysteriously exotic (thought to be the "forbidden fruit" of Eden)...pomegranate juice is in! Pom Wonderful sent me a whole case of cute little bottles filled with the dark red juice. Drinking it straight is a bit like drinking cranberry juice...the same bittersweet flavor, though not quite so bitter as straight cranberry! It is used in various meat dishes (especially Mediterranean dishes) as a sauce component. We like to add ours to a mixture of frozen berries in our smoothies.

Next...

An enormous package arrived on my doorstep at least 14 inches on all sides. What could it be? How about a small package of pasta? Good guess. Buitoni let us sample some of their new Wild Mushroom Agnolotti pasta...what looked to be rounded ravioli shapes. My hopes weren't too high as I rarely buy prepackaged foods. There was even a contest to come up with a sauce. But after I cooked them up, I drizzled them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some fresh parmesan cheese. And they were fantastic! We all really loved them. I don't think they needed much sauce, maybe something a little creamy but definitely not a red sauce. Check them out.

And lastly...

Did you know that the cookie company Mother's went out of business in early 2008? I didn't. But that's probably because I don't buy items with hydrogenated oils or 1/3 of my daily allowance of saturated fat in one serving. However, the letter accompanying my Circus Animal cookies informed me that they were bought out by Kellogg's and to fear no more because Circus Animal Cookies are back.

Alright, I guess I'll eat a few...mmm...they did taste good. But allow me to hide them from my children! They did indeed remind me of my childhood (my dad lovingly calling them "dead animal cookies" just to gross us out). I don't know if I should endorse these or not on account of their position perpendicular from my blog's angle on food. But, like I said, they were tasty.

I suppose with reviews like that, I'm not likely to get many more. Oh well...I just lack the ability to suck up (a terrible trait to have when we lived in China, let me tell you!).

Last words...

PASTA=GOOD,
RED ROCK TEA=GOOD,
POM=GOOD,
MATE LIMON CHAI=EWW,
CIRCUS COOKIES=GOOD BUT OH SO BAD

3 comments:

Jenn@slim-shoppin said...

I love Earl Gray tea, that's my favorite.

I'll have to check those out.

Jenn said...

I got the cookies too. I wish I had gotten the pom and buitoni. You definitely powered through them. lol

Diana said...

Ooh I forwarded this to my husband. Mother's animal cookies are his favorite cookie, he was really upset they didn't at least release the recipe when they went out of business. Of course, I've been trying to get him to eat less sweets, maybe I shouldn't have sent this to him!

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