Ronzoni - Penne Rigate

Ahh, Ronzoni. Compared to Barilla and San Giorgio, this is usually cheaper at my grocery store, but online they're all basically about the same. Ronzoni does taste a little cheaper to me, though -- less firm, less eggy, more smooshy somehow. So why get it? Well, there's a few reasons. One is that it cooks very quickly, 5-7min for these. Another is that unlike Barilla, they don't seem to make lentil/chickpea pasta, so my allergy fears are actually reduced with Ronzoni even though Barilla has a good nut allergy policy. Lastly, noodles are basically noodles, and these are perfectly serviceable noodles. They do fly everywhere when you pour them out though!

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Life Savers Fruit Variety

This is different from the prototypical 5 flavors I'm used to -- it has like 8 or 10 flavors included, which is wild. A lot of different red ones that I'm not sure I can distinguish. I only tried a few flavors, but basically, these are a solid hard candy but nothing to get super excited about. They're fine. The hole is good in case I choke. 

Mango-Melon: I certainly wasn't expecting to like this one, which is peach-pink colored, but it basically tasted like a mild watermelon (or canteloupe?) flavor. Pleasant, with no gross undertones. 7/10

Cherry: This tastes just like a Luden's Cherry Cough Drop, which is a tasty cough drop but not quite candy tier. Good, but a little odd. 6/10

Unknown red flavor: This was fine, and not cherry, but I do not know what flavor it was. It is red. 6/10

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 6/10

Dean's Sweets - Chocolate Snow People

Aw, mine didn't come with little bows, that's heckin' cute! I got the smaller size here, which is 'medium' size, in all three types of choco. Chocolate is a good winter food as it doesn't melt then, so I support the snow people.
Anyway, the dark choco is a strong flavor, as always, rich and cherry-noted, but it's just too hard to chew! 6/10
The white choco is much softer, which is huge, but I also just love the taste of white choco much more. More palatable for a young lady with childlike taste, I guess. 7/10
Then the milk choco is somewhere in between - it's softish but still a little tricky to chomp. Tasty, like a fairly creamy milk choco. 7/10

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Sheila G's Brownie Brittle - Salted Caramel

Whew, this is a stressful product, because although it says "nut free" on the bag, online it looks like they're may-contain city. So I emailed them and apparently the 1oz bags are safe, and the other sizes aren't. Very fast email response! So, they tasted basically like dry bits of brownie - not amazing or that unique, really, like crispy chocolate flavored cookie bits, but still good. The "caramel" chips embedded throughout weren't that distinct in flavor or in texture, but still fun to have I suppose.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Dean's Sweets Aztec Hot Chocolate

I waited to drink this 'til I wasn't alone, because it contained "Aztec spices", which is very ambiguous. Not nut spices, which is a relief, but still! Anyway, I gotta be honest, this was very very weird. It was spicy, like...hot pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, carob. And then chocolate. It grew on me a little as I was drinking, especially when still hot. OK, but ultimately just...weird. (I guess I'm a vanilla girl).

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Twinings Cold Brewed Iced Tea - Peach

I would say: I like it! Tastes like peach tea, obviously not sweetened snapple or anything, but certainly peach > mint for tea, and I think black > green tea as well. Pleasant.

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 6/10

Rice Krispies Treats - Chocolatey Drizzle

Despite the "Chocolatey Drizzle", this tasted very much like your standard variety Rice Krispie(s) Treat. Maybe a teensy bit worse, but perhaps chalk-up-able to the fact that I had only an individual one with no clear expiry date on it, so who knows how old this thing was. Anyway, Rice Krispies are good, very sweet and with a fun texture. Not as tasty as your homemade ones (I should make some!) but still a great snack. And it doesn't look like they currently make a flavor with PB, which is comforting.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10

Pappas Wine Co. Pinot Noir, NV

Red wine, my fateful friend. My first instinct is that this tastes like LSA, and events with my friend Janey. Basically it makes me nostalgic and sad. I don't think I like red wine, I think every time I drink red wine. "Bleh, so tart, so much tannin" is my first taste-instinct. But it grows on you, always, woodsy and warm. I do notice the 'tobacco' notes, which I choose to recast as 'dirt, wood'. Not a huge cherry flavor like some reds have, but it's there a little bit. Basically a standard red wine in the end, with all that entails. As a pro, they answered my message promptly to say there are no nuts in their wines, which is huge for my enjoyment. Drinking this cold on day 2 was a little less tasty, more acid and less oak (and more heart burn). But I was also cranky then, so maybe we'll stick with our initial assessment!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Twinings Cold Brewed Iced Tea - Mint

Yep, this sure is mint tea all right. A very minty flavor. I suppose this is more fun cold than it would be hot, but nevertheless, I do not love the flavor. Green tea maybe is not for me.

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 5/10

Cella's Dark Chocolate Covered Cherries

Ah, these are a classic in my family, because my dad likes 'em. Or at least I hope he does, because at Christmas he always got between 10-30 boxes. Nowadays he gets less because we have fewer family members, but it's still a tradition! I typically steal a few for myself because there are so many, even though I don't especially like them. I'd much rather have a truffle, for instance!! But, these are a Tootsie (subsidiary?) product, and they have that nice peanut-free logo on them, which I appreciate more and more every year. They're very very sweet, and the inside has an ice-cream cherry with about a teaspoon of sugary goo. I don't love dark chocolate but maybe I'd prefer the milk chocolate if I ever had 'em. Either way, these are a pleasant treat but I certainly wouldn't want hundreds of them!

Overall
Cost: 6/10 (About 4$ a box at Weis)
Taste: 7/10

2019 Italia Foto Wine Co. Pecorino

Hmm. There's a lot of these Italia Foto Co. wines, which seems promising, but I couldn't find anything about this as a winery/distributer. I think it's hyperlocal, which means there's no way to find out about allergy info. Which I normally wouldn't bother about but now I'm so paranoid. Anyway, I drank this at my parents' house and I didn't die, but it still gets a demerit for being inscrutable!

As a wine, this is pretty interesting. The bottle says there is a honey flavor, and indeed, there really is one! I never had honey notes in wine before, but it's nice. Otherwise it's a pretty general white wine, with milk peach/apricot type fruit flavor. Not too acidic or too sweet, which is nice. If only they had allergy info!

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [19$]
Taste: 7/10

fancypants Peppermint Chocolate Cookies

 

These are apparently only available at VNF, I couldn't find 'em anywhere else online (and online is all there is for me right now). This company makes other flavors that are on Amazon though, or potentially in stores. I had never heard of it til I got this as a Christmas gift, and it's nut free but with a far-off expiry date so I figured they wouldn't be that great. But I was wrong, these are great! They're very similar to Girl Scout Thin Mints in taste, except there's no chocolate coating and there's chocolate chips instead (which are subtle but fun). Plus these are lower-cal, and safer! Wonderful. I really liked them and am interested to try the other flavors too. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 8/10

Dean's Sweets - Peppermint Bark

After that bad VNF pretzel bark, I'm learning that "bark" just means "rectangle of chocolate, possibly with other stuff on top of it". So this is chocolate with crushed candy canes on top. And it is good.

White Chocolate: This is my preference; the candy cane is very crunchy (I mean, you know what candy cane is like - you can't just bite into them like a pizza) so small bites are best. It's tasty, a nice mint flavor, refreshing. 7/10

Dark Chocolate: Unlike the White version, the predominant flavor here is the chocolate, not the mint. In fact I could hardly taste the peppermint. The chocolate itself does have a nice rich cherry flavor, and now it has crunch to it! Lol. The chocolate is definitely nicer when it's thin like this (compared to just a dark chocolate shape) but it's more of a chocolate treat than a peppermint treat. So, not as good as the white chocolate, although visually this one looks much prettier! 7/10

Overall
Cost: 4/10
Taste: 7/10

York Peppermint Chocolate Hot Cocoa Mix

Not too bad! What I learned from making this: 1 min is not enough time to heat up water. Anyway, this tasted a little bit thinner/watery-er than other cocoa mixes (which I always make with water), but it was still a pleasant restaurant-style mint choco creamy drink. I thought it was best at the beginning of drinking and at the end, perhaps because of the extra powder that concentrated in both cases. Refreshing and not a super strong flavor.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10

Organic Valley Cheddar Stringles

You know, the name "Stringles" sure implies that these would be....string cheese...but they aren't string cheese, they're just cheese. At least, this cheddar flavor is that way, even though the mozzarella ones are stringy as expected. Very weird branding. They should be called "Rectangles" instead!! So, other than that, these are good strong cheddar cheese logs, but I wanted string cheese darn it.

Overall
Cost: 5/10 (About 4$ for 6 Stringles)
Taste: 6/10

Vermont Nut Free Raisin Clusters

So, these are really just chocolate with some raisins in it, poured into these mini-muffin liners. Nothing super fancy, but there's a decent number of raisins throughout, and the milk choco is good and not too firm to bite, so these are good! Just not super creative.



Overall
Cost: 4/10
Taste: 8/10

Vermont Nut Free Buttercreams (Milk)

Apparently I'm pretty into buttercreams. I got these from my auntie for Christmas, but it was only the milk chocolate ones (sorry for the inaccurate picture). I suspect I wouldn't like the dark choco ones as much, though! Anyway, although when these were in the Grand Assortment I didn't like them as much, now I like them. They are cool. A little smaller than truffles but basically like truffles; inside is sugar + butter ("creamed" butter??) but it kind of tastes like an extra thick and sweet marshmallow filling. I don't think these were quiiite as tasty as the Dean's Sweets Vanilla Buttercream, but it's similar in spirit and I like it a lot. It reminds me of these chocolate covered marshmallow eggs that my parents got special for Easter, back when I ate may-contains or whatever. Nice.

Overall
Cost: 4/10 (About 2$ per piece, yikes!)
Taste: 8/10

Vermont Nut Free Pretzel Caramel Bark

I had pretty lofty expectations of this, but I did not get what I expected. This is frankly mediocre chocolate, soft (stale?) tasteless pretzels, and "caramel" that was pretty much indistinguishable from the chocolate. I think it might have just been very old? Not sure, but I wouldn't risk getting this again. Alas.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

2019 Iconic “One Shot” Napa Valley White Wine Blend

This label is just darned adorable. One shot for this little panda to become airborne! To be totally honest, the wine itself was nothing special for me -- not sweet at all, pretty tart. However, I contacted them to ask about allergies and they were super prompt and understanding, and said they don't use any nuts at all! So that makes all their wines way way cooler and more enjoyable. Plus, the art is just the best. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10 (18$)
Taste: 7/10

Pringles Wavy - Sweet & Spicy BBQ

These aren't too bad! I usually don't love Pringle. But these are spicy after all, and the wavy texture makes them less Lays/Cat Litter reminiscent. They aren't really a conventional BBQ flavor, more of a "spicy tomato" flavor, but I like them well enough. 

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 6/10

norr organic Skyr - Plain Non-Fat

This was oddly watery inside, but it smelled/tasted normal, maybe that's just how it is. Stirring solves this issue, anyway. This is less than 100 cals but it tasted identical to the full fat version to me, so I like this even better! I added a handful of blueberries to it, which was nice. Good eatin'. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Tostitos Crispy Rounds

Nice to meet you, Tostitos, my name is Amanda. Just kidding, we know each other very well by now. These I got a massive package of because that's all she sold, and luckily none of the little bags arrived popped open or super crumbled. They do expire in ~2 months, though, so I've been eating a lot of these 3-serving "mini" bags. Such is life. Anyway, these look really similar to the "bite size" tostitos in the blue bag from the picture, but they are actually not the same -- I think these are bigger circles (not bite size). The coloring of the bag makes me think these are yellow corn chips and the others are white corn, but I honestly don't know if that's right. Anyway, they taste like tortilla chips. I do like the smaller bag sizes; they're more reasonable for a solo me, and these chips are serviceable vessels for dip -- not too oily or broken or anything like that. The taste of tortilla chip on its own never woos me, though. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Barilla Linguine

Hmmm. I ordered a 4 pack of Fettuccine and I ended up with a Linguine in there! I think it was a blessing in disguise because I like variety, but I'm still a tiny bit annoyed just on principle. Anyway, linguine is like somebody took spaghetti and smooshed it a little. I like that. I like it better than fettuccine, actually, at least for red sauce which is all I have. So, not bad all in all. There sure are a lot of pasta shapes.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

A La Mode Cranberry Apple Tart Ice Cream

Hello, fun fall flavor! These don't have any ingredos or nutrition info on them, and since it was a limited flavor it's not on their website anymore either. Shoulda ate it faster I guess! But I digress (although I wish they'd just print out the info to send in the mail since this costs like 15$/pint tbh). I thought this tasted basically like a ...McDonalds Apple Pie flavored cookie. To be clear, I like this. It has a strong "apple pie spice" flavor in these kind of buttery dough apple pieces? The ice cream itself is maybe cinnamon flavor? I didn't get a ton of cranberry flavor overall, mostly "apple tart", although there were a few craisin? pieces mixed in. The ice cream wasn't very melty, especially compared to the chocolate flavors -- I don't know if that's a real difference or just pint by pint. Still, even though it was harder to scoop, it was tasty! I liked it.

Overall
Cost: 3/10
Taste: 7/10

Wild Made Fruit Punch Fruit Roll

The taste of this was okay, and the texture was very thin yet super firm to bite into & hard to chew. Not chewy, more like beef jerky or now and laters, but thin. Weird! I think this is better than the average fruit strip just because it's different, but certainly not perfect. The taste was mainly grape juice flavor, which I like just fine. Better than apple boring snoozers. Not really a fruit "roll" and not really fruit punch flavor, though.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Barilla Penne

Penne is a good noodle shape. This says it takes 11 min to cook, but in my opinion it takes a teensy bit longer than that; they're still a little too firm/chewy at 11min. Other than that, these are fun to eat, you can put 'em on your fork prongs! They're a good alternative to elbows. I'm a fan. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10