2022 Castelo de Terena Red

Sorry for the multi-day break from bloggin', food fans. Nothing terrible happened to me, I'm just in a funk! Work stress, friend stress, car trouble. Adulthood, am I right? Anyway, this is a fine wine. Pretty sweet, cherry notes, and not too tart or sharp. Kind of a weird yeasty vibe at first, but it mellowed with time. No complaints, but nothing revolutionary either. 

 The same is true of the Beef Short Rib stew -- not crazy hard to make, but really fatty! Yikes! There must be a better meat for this. Also the potatoes needed more time to cook. But I actually used the wine in the recipe, which was neat. And as promised, it was better the second day. I froze some too, so hopefully that's not terrible. Good comfort food, anyway, which I needed.

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [15$]
Taste: 6/10

DeLallo Ditalini Rigati

Unlike other DeLallo stuff, I don't live in fear of the Plain Pasta, because there's only one ingredo (wheat) and website is very clear that this is made in a nut free facility. So, huzzah! I never loved Ditalini, at least as a plain noodle, but they are mighty compact which is convenient for storing and measuring. And the cook time is 9min, which is less than the bigger shapes. These are definitely less weird tasting than the whole wheat pastas (although of course less healthy too). I enjoyed it! They were RIBBED, which made them more substantial than other ditalinis I've had. Decent even with just oil + cheese + tomato, yay.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

DeLallo Original Crostini

These are really cute and (supposedly) don't contain nuts, but I was terrified so I waited until my parents were visiting to try one. So far so alive, but it's only been 30 minutes or so. Anyhow, these are very cute. Little toasts! And they're individually wrapped into their serving size of 6 toasts, which I like. The taste is a bland crunch. Similar to stale bread, I guess, which is of course what toast is. Not super scary tasting, but not special either.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Sargento Off The Block Mozzarella

I thought this was quite good -- above average for shredded cheese, for sure. The shreds are soft and big pieces, and mozzarella is among the tastiest cheeses. So, yeah. Good cheeser.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Vanilla Spice Cheerios

This is a huge box, and it expires in less than a week! Freakin' Target burned me. These are fine. They taste like cheerio -- sort of a mix of the apple cinnamon cheerios (but less sweet) and the multigrain ones (different shades of brown, a bit boring). Not much vanilla, really. They made me a bit nervous due to the appearance, but it reads safe and I lived. It's OK, but there's better cereals!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

2020 Château Riviere Minervois

These French wines might be too fancy for me. I like the sample US/AU ones with pretty labels. Anyway, it's got a really strong flavor when you first open it, whew. I was worried the cork was too porous and it went bad, even. Tart, complex, like a pear smoked jerky or something. Maybe not my favorite. It does mellow after a few days, but it's also very acidic then. So, a big meh from me! 

The pairing of Eggplant Parm was attempted, but I clumsily and tragically dumped my whole baking sheet of breaded eggplant slices to the oven floor. So I only had the scraps of eggplant left to work with, which threw off the whole recipe and my mood. Life is pain, friends. At least it saved me some calories, I guess, IDEK. So, there was a lot of sauce and only a little eggplant, which was very sparsely breaded. Also cheese. It made my mouth burn and made me very itchy and nervous, which is stupid 'cause I've had all the ingredients before except the dried basil, which is, yanno, basil. I guess heavy tomato sauce and cheese will do that to you. It tasted fine and would probably have been really solid before I dropped it, but not worth it for the stinging mouth and possible heartburn maybe.

Overall
Cost: 4/10 [25$]
Taste: 5/10

Hershey's Solid Milk Chocolate Bunny

This is gonna sound hella ungrateful, since a nut-free chocolate holiday snack is so rare and special, but I wish this were hollow!!! Ha. My parents got me this, though, which is very sweet. He has the look of an elegant bunny. And the taste of an inelegant Hershey's Bar. Not the greatest choco, and it's just so thick. Therefore my hollow wishes. But he's fun all the same.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10