Spice World Garlic Bulbs (3 pack)

More like HELL WORLD. Maybe it's just because I buy a lot of it, but of all the things my grocery store most often is out of, garlic is #1. Given no single-serve normal bulbs, the only other (fresh) option was this suspicious pre-bagged 3 pack of verrrry small cloves. I popped into it at home and discovered every bulb was 80% green shoot inside. Horrible experience. Sprouted, small, AND too many per purchase. Maybe I just had some bad luck in buying, but I think I'd rather suffer a garlicless dish than return to this poison well. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10 

Signature Care Unflavored Electrolyte Solution

Well, this is awful. I'm not sure what I expected from a store brand unflavored electrolyte drink, though. It probably tastes like how you'd think it would taste (if you had taken time to think about how it would taste, self). But I've been vommin' and all the flavored electrolyte drinks have either artificial sweeteners or citrus (both forbidden by brain experts, and currently, me). It says "tastes best cold!" which worries me about how it tastes warm. Here we have a very salty water (so far so good), but it's also a little sweet. Oh no. I'm a little worried this will increase my vommin' more than it increases my electrolytes. But now we know!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

Gerb's Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Oh, no. Despite how unappealingly laryngeal these look in the picture, the real deal is even worse! They're basically black with occasional flecks of brown, red, and (mold?) white!! But they're brand new and supposedly last years, so I foolishly added some to my wrap du jour. Mistakes were made. They're So Salty and also So Tough and also taste like putrid earthy fungus. The ingredients are clean, though, and the company has a great allergy situation. Maybe I need to rehydrate them for a really long time first? I have a very large bag of these. Oh dear. At least I can still experience a range of taste experiences with my limited diet!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

You Love Fruit - SuperBerry Fruit Leather

Uh oh! Allergy alert: this has mango (sus) and goji berry (VERY SUS) and it gave me Allergy. I got a "grape jelly" feeling aka "associated with PB" feeling. No bueno. Never again the goji berry (or mango for that matter) times. I do like the format though -- a different non-goji or mango flavor would be great!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

DeLallo Garlic Mushrooms

I was so nervous to eat these that I waited to visit my parents to try them! Even though the label is safe, the website doesn't say "peanut free", and that's spooky. But I like mushrooms so I wanted to at least try them. The good news is: I don't really like them. I had one and thought "yep, that's enough." They're mushrooms but in vinegar, like a pickle. I like mushroom but I don't like pickle. The texture is good, I guess, but yeah. Not for me. Hope I don't die!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

Ortega Creamy Queso Sauce

Sadly I must give this a heavy Nay-so. It's bad, guys. And I love queso! This tastes like the horrible little tostitos queso that I gave away a few months ago. Or the weird alfredo pasta roni with a chemical tomato vibe. Just terrible. Not cheesy, but artificial and toxic to the taste.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

vlasic Sweet Gherkins

God, I hate pickles. I used one (one!!) of these in a recipe that served 8 and it was all I could taste. The texture is fine, but the taste is just like -- a pink necco? and pickle? and vinegar? all at once!? So overpowering. Augh. I wish I liked them because they're very cute and remind me of my cousin at holidays, who clearly got a pickle gene I did not. I will keep them in case another recipe comes up (please no!) but I really can't handle snacking on them. Because they are bad. Worse than non-sweet pickles for sure.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

Progresso French Onion Soup

Oh no. To be fair, the only French Onion soup I've had 'til now has been on cruises, as far as I remember. But it's delicious there, like hot oniony cheese and broth. This was very far from that, even though I melted provolone cheese on top and made toast. It actually made me feel pretty nauseous and I couldn't finish it (although I did eat most of the cheese). The flavor was just weird -- too sweet? Too fake? I'm not sure, and nothing in the ingredients stood out, but it was just unpleasant. Soy free though! :p

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

Lay's Wavy Jerk Chicken Chips

Lay's? More like Not Okay's. These taste like corn chips with cinnamon sugar on them, which is very weird and not what I like at all. Is that what jerk chicken tastes like? I didn't think so, but if it is, that's nasty.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 3/10

Project 7 Birthday Cake Gum (sugar free)

I don't want to be rude, but this gum is bad. Maybe if it weren't birthday cake flavored, it would be OK. I already don't like (1) sugar free gum, because I'm not diabetic and it makes me feel bad inside, (2) gum because it's loud and annoying and gross, (3) birthday cake flavored things (see: Oreos) because they are always worse than the original thing, and (4) companies that are all 'gluten free' 'vegan' etc with no mention of nut allergy info. I assume these are safe because there IS a soy allergy warning, but who knows, the website/online packaging I've seen is really variable.

All that aside: this tastes bad. I guess it tastes like sprinkles or old frosting, but mostly chemicals and weird. It isn't overly sweet, I'll give you that, and the package is cute and I like that it reseals. But the taste is sadly bad. I'm not sure how long lasting it would be because I can't chew it for more than a few minutes without spitting it out. I am pretty sure I will just throw out this package rather than finish it, which is not a ringing endorsement. Maybe other flavors, or non-sugar-free flavors, would be better.

Overall

Cost: 5/10

Taste: 3/10

Vlasic Purely Pickles - Bread & Butter Chips

Oh, god. I bought a 6-pk of these because I thought they would be a little spicy and not sweet. But instead they are just sickeningly sweet. I get no flavor besides sugar and vinegar. It's truly terrible. I can't believe I have 6 jars of these. I am trying to eat them anyway, but I shouldn't. What does "purely pickles" even fucking mean!??! I thought there was no sugar!! Argh!! Amazon really led me astray on this one with the item description. No allergens, and yet, it's just so bad. I also don't like pickles, of course, but these are SIGNIFICANTLY worse than a pickle from a burger or pizza or relish or any other pickle except sweet mini gherkins which are similarly horrifying because they are sweet. Ew.



Overall
Cost: 4/10 (I spent like 30$ on these pickles; granted I have approx 500 of them but still, they didn't come in single jars or I would have done that)
Taste: 3/10

Homebrew Pickle Mix - Snappy Apple

So, it doesn't look like this pickle mix is even made anymore, which is a blessing in my opinion. Here's the situation: I don't really like vinegar or pickles, even though I've been trying my best to acclimate to them. But more than that, I really really dislike sweet/savory mixes. Pick one, food! And this was a pickle (ick, so savory ... but also apple (sweet?) so it was very offputting to me. The product itself is fun though, you just put some fruit in a jar and boil the packet with water, vinegar and sugar and then refrigerate it all for at least a day.

It was a super easy process and it seemed to go off without a hitch. The problem I have is more with the idea of pickled apple in the first place. They taste like a sweet and spicy pickle, except also an apple with a little cinnamon/clove added. Pickle + apple pie is not a combo that interests me. So now I have a lot of apple pickles left which I will try to foist on unsuspecting visitors. But at least I tried something new! Bad news: I still have a pineapple and onion pack left, both of which I am dreading. Maybe if I can come up with a larger dish that could incorporate them??? Is there such a thing?? Advice welcome.



Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

Lay's Fried Green Tomato Chips

Yikes! I like trying the fun new flavors Lay's periodically comes out with, especially because they usually have the small bags of them available at Subway, where I guess I spend a lot of time. But this year's offerings didn't wow me. First up we have these fried green tomato chips, which sounded good, but instead had a strong flavor of...plant? Tomato stem? I'm not sure, but I don't like it, and it didn't really taste like tomato. I did get that Lay's cat litter vibe, too. On the plus side, the ruffles are fun! And, inexplicably, my boyfriend likes these.



Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 3/10

Brooklyn Organics Craft Ginger Ale - Cola

So, this is made by the Bruce Cost Ginger Ale company, and I like their nice gingery sodas. But this is sugar free, so it gets a new line name (~Brooklyn Organics~), and it has stevia and no caffeine. What? What's the point? It's also cola flavored, which is weird. So my preconceptions of this drink are not good. Unfortunately, the drink is also not good. I think it's really just because I hate stevia, though -- it gave me a massive headache and has a weird flavor to me. If you use stevia as a sweetener regularly, then you'll probably like this! The ginger is strong and the cola flavor is normal cola flavor. At least it's only 10 calories! :P




Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

Hungry Man Veal Parmigiana

Mistakes were made, dear readers. I like the turkey hungry man OK, but all the rest have just been bad news. You'd think it's hard to screw up Veal Parm, especially with so much fat + salt, but alas, this is not a tasty meal. I didn't even finish it! The brownie is good, and I ate that, and the green beans are OK, but a little too buttery. The pasta is OK too, I think, but there were only like 4 noodles so it's hard to judge. The veal pieces (2) were really bad. The breading is standard, but the meat is just....crumbly and chewy and not good. Just not good. Very "frozen patty"esque but in the worst possible way. Don't buy this again, self!!! D:

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 3/10

Maruchan Sweet N Sour Chicken Yakisoba Noodles

So -- I like these little noodle things, they make me smile a lot. I thought I'd try this because "how can you mess up sweet and sour?" Now maybe I wasn't thinking clearly, because it's really horrible. Sweet chicken might be OK, but sweet noodles? Not a good combo. I ate some of this when it was warm and I thought "ehhhh". I put it in the fridge the next day for a new perspective and thought "nooo". So yeah -- get the regular chicken flavor instead!!

overall
Cost: 8/10
Taste: 3/10

Mott's Hot Spiced Cider - Hot Apple Pie

Ewwwwwwwwwwww. I was intrigued by the idea of pouched cider, and I generally like apple cider so I had to give this a shot. But it tasted like a candle and not something humans should be drinking. It was really strong and perfumey and terrible. Easy to make, though! Maybe it was just this particular flavor, but I'm not sure if I want to risk another one anytime soon.

Overall
Cost: 8/10
Taste: 3/10

Orville Redenbacher's Spicy Nacho Popcorn

OK, so I like microwave popcorn and I like spicy and I like nachos. However, this smells TERRIBLE. Oh my gosh, it smells so much like spicy garbage. HOWEVER, if you turn your nose away and just eat it, it basically tastes like a spicy buttered popcorn, which is ok. I'll finish the pack in this non-smelling manner, but I will not get this flavor again! However, I will try a new and less spicy flavor soon, because the texture and everything is very good.

Overall:
Cost: 8/10
Taste(&smell): 3/10

lean cuisine - beef and broccoli

I can't really review this accurately because it has a ton of sesame seeds in it, which I hate!! The broccoli and beef strips were really tasty though, but because of all the seeds the rice just tasted like a big clump of seeds.

Cost: 6/10
Taste: 3/10

Stouffer's Macaroni & Beef

Apparently, this is a frozen food classic. Well, I'm sorry, America, but this is absolutely disgusting. It's not the quality that's the problem - the noodles are cooked fine, the portion size is fine - but the flavor is, in my opinion, 100% terrible. The sauce and the beef have a strange flavor: it isn't tomato sauce, it isn't cheese sauce, and it isn't a mixture. It's a bit like canned ravioli mixed with ketchup and chili sauce and some chunks of tomato. I won't be getting this again - but hey, some people like it!



Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 3/10