Guittard Akoma Extra Semisweet Chips

 

It occurs to me that I can make my own chocolate candies and choco pretzels, if I can use nut-free Guittard! Soon I'll have time... until then, I'm noshing on these dark choco chips. They're the small size (i.e. regular chocolate chip size) and would be so good in a banana bar. 

According to Guittard, "Akoma means “heart" in Adinkra, the symbol-based language of the Ashanti people native to modern-day Ghana". More Ghana lore for you. Except Adinkra isn't really a LANGUAGE, chocolate company (although it is very cool). There's something kind of interesting about the choco/coffee naming practices Western companies use, like the more local/specific you get with your branding the more posh (bc foreign? authentic?) your product is. No Akoma Hershey Kiss, you know? But the pink package is pretty. So. These taste like very good dark choco. Not too bitter. Dairy free for my dear dairy allergy friends out there. 9 servings. Good. If I had a heart, it'd be a little fuller. 

One more thing: what in the heck is "extra semiweet"? I genuinely don't know if it's extra-semi or extra-sweet. I guess extra-sweet given the world knowledge that the dark choco snobs stick to 80+%, and this is pretty sweet for dark choco therefore, but I wouldn't say EXTRA in any particular direction. Very odd little modifier. And it's not extra chips, either!! 

Overall
Cost: 4/10 [10$ish]
Taste: 6/10 

Ocean Spray Cran x Watermelon Juice

Hmm. This has sugar added, but sometimes a sweet drink is OK. Unfortunately, I'm just not in the mood for it. I think watermelon juice on its own (which is really fun and good and probably goes with sugar) or cranberry juice on its own (which I wish to be unsweet) would both be better than this slightly bitter watermelon combo. At least it is just a small bottle, 100 calos and a little snack. Less sugar than a smaller martinelli apple juice, even! But at the same time, it's giving liquid medicine if you mouth-squint. So. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10 

Family Brand Carrots

If they ever make an AI of me, I assume it will just review different brands of Canadian carrots. Here's yet another one. Family brand is not a great name. If one person can be a family, which I have to assume they can, then isn't every brand a family brand? Anyway, these tasted like carrots. 5 in a bag, no issues. I don't have any other food because it snowed again and the state was on Driving Restriction. Alas. Maybe next week. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10 

Prego Parmesan Basil

Occurs to me that there are a lot of sweet things I don't like for being sweet. Maybe I'm internally inconsistent. No, no, couldn't be. Anyway, this is one such. It's also not on the Prego website (aka Campbell's website), so it's probably discontinued, nearly expired, and bad. Furthermore, what IS on the Prego website is a bunch of "protein" pasta sauces loaded with pea protein, which will kill me. This isn't one of those sauces, but the risk of cross-contam or mislabeling is enough to make me hate and fear this, sugar aside. While I'm piling on, it also says "contains 40% daily serving of vegetables", which is so absurd because that can only refer to tomatoes, and as any linguist will tell you, a tomato is not a vegetable. Let's try to ignore all those things for now.

The taste is a little bitter. Like the vomit-flavor of a Hershey bar, so say the haters. I do note the parmesan, but not really the basil. Even among Pregos, it's not a favorite. Plus it's probably heartburn city. Will I finish the jar? Probably. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [2.50]
Taste: 5/10 

McCormick Poultry Seasoning

Don't mind me, just making some Monday night stuffing balls on account of every holiday ever happening this week. It turns out poultry seasoning is just: Thyme, Sage, Marjoram, Rosemary, Black Pepper, and Nutmeg. I could have made my own poultry seasoning. But I don't know the secret ratios.... that's how they get you buying. 

Anyway, it tastes good. Like stuffing balls ought to taste. Cheers to me. Would season again.

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

two-bite filled red velvet cupcakes

Early Happy Valentine's to me! (and you, I suppose). Time to celebrate with these Canadian nut-free cupcakes. Sadly they are one of the most toxic edibles around in terms of the ingredos (artificial, red 40, intense fat/sugar content), but may I repeat: nut-free cupcakes. I wasn't sure what "filled" would mean, but it turns out there is a little blop of frosting on the inside, like a Twinkie! (or ho-ho? whatever the chocolate twinkie equivalent is, IDK, that segment of the market is closed to me). Honestly the taste is kinda overwhelming/weird/not great?? Two-bites is too few to really figure out the components. Let's try to break it down:

Top frosting: supposedly cream cheese frosting, but tastes exactly like the extremely sweet vanilla frosting they always have on these things (or on a store bought cake, etc). Very very sweet, too sweet, but OK in tiny amounts. There is also red sugary sprinkle stuff on top, which is cute and I think just powdered sugar. Ah, there is the tiniest tangy note at the end, so it really is cream cheese flavored, but it's like, the vitamin water of cream cheese flavor. I would think there was something slightly expired about it if I didn't know it was cream cheese. 

Cakey bit: Yes, it is red velvet color (dark red), and very moist. Also very sweet. Basically chocolate flavor, but slightly black forest-y. But also was too sweet. Might be okay on its own though.

Inner frosting pocket: I think it's just the same as the top frosting but it's honestly impossible to tell. Too soft/small of a cakey to be sure. Like trying to taste fig newton filling without the outside bit (impossible).

My general assessment is just: these are way too sweet!!! If you crushed up one of these and blended it into unsweetened frozen yogurt or something, it'd still make a crazy sweet dessert. (Would like to try that though. I miss froyo. sniffle.) And I like very sweet things, a lot!!  But somehow the attempt at complexity in flavor & design makes the sugar content more egregious, I guess. Still I do like that they're making different flavors and stuff. The more nut-free desserts the better, it's just, I wish they were better. Ah well. Keep at it, Canada! And send us your nut-free Mars bars while you're at it!! 

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [5.50$ish?]
Taste: 6/10 

McCormick Rubbed Sage

I like my sage like I like my elbows... rubbed. This is an odd duck. Of course there was no reasonable fresh sage at the store, so I resorted to the dried version, of which you can get ground or rubbed. No leaf. Why no leaf? They have other herb leaf (dried). Mysterious. I guess the rubbing releases the flavors.  I used about one tsp of this in my good ol' pumpkin pasta, and it was as if I used nothing at all. Needs more rubbing! No allergy or freshness complaints, though. Smells like sage. Sage is a medium good herb. All is well.

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [8$ish, but a BTGOF sale also]
Taste: 6/10