Overview forfood

The candy man

Reese's, you’ve done it again.

Of all the candies out there, Reese's is hands down my favorite.  Whenever they try something new, I’m willing to try out.  Expanding from their traditional cups and Reese's Pieces, I tried their version of a Kit-Kat called Reese's Sticks and 3 Musketeers with Reese's Whipps, and along with about a half dozen more products they’ve released over the years.

But what they’ve done recently was a stroke of genius when they’ve combined their Big Cups by adding Reese's Pieces in them.  Yes, one product is cannibalizing the other to make one delicious treat that has peanut butter on top of more peanut butter.  And as you’d expect, the texture is delicious when you bite a Pieces in half, and then chewing a Pieces when you’re already munching on the Big Cup.  Truly a gift from the gods for us mere mortals.

It’s because of stuff like this is why, in my book, you Reese's are number 1.

Redemption

This post is a little late (a few weeks to be more specific) but things on my side have been busy as of late, so this site had to suffer in the back seat for a little while.

I went back to Dunkin' Donuts and this time the experience was better than my inaugural visit.  This time I received the non-mocha version of their Iced Latte.  It wasn't French Vanilla, but it was close enough being just plain vanilla, and with it the taste being much better than that trash-tasting mocha stuff.

And to complement it were two Reese's Peanut Butter Squares.  The inner frosting is where this desert shines as it has an incredible peanut butter flavor to it where you immediately think of the peanut butter cups it's trying to be.  Delicious, but I'll probably pass with it next time as it's too expensive to have on a regular basis.  Although, I guess it wasn't meant to be a regular as each of the squares were packaged in a nice box.  So nice in fact that I didn't wanna take them out of the box as they were presented so well!

But this isn't the end of me exploring the menu at Dunkin' Donuts.  The adventure continues!

Double D in da house

A Dunkin' Donuts just opened near my job and of course I had to check it out.  One big reason was because the franchise is fairly new to the California market, so I never had their donuts before.  They started in Orange County about a year ago and slowly spread outward until just last week when they opened one near me.

Even though they were never here until very recently, their TV commercials still broadcasted in our area, giving a "you can see but you can’t touch" mentality, making you want something from their menu even more!  We got Yum Yum Donuts, which I think would be the closest comparison to DD, but seemed more like a lower tiered version of them.  But no offense to Yum Yum as their donuts are pretty good.

I couldn't go in during the grand opening as it looked way too crowded, so I decided to wait until the weekend to swing by.  I kept things simple by ordering two strawberry frosted donuts with sprinkles and an iced latte.  The results: mediocre.

The donuts were good, but for the iced latte I wanted French Vanilla, but instead I got a Mocha flavored drink; which for me Mocha tastes like ashes.  Bleh!  I was able to choke down about half the cup until I was forced to toss it away because it tasted so nasty.  So as you may have suspected, for my first time trying Dunkin' Donuts, it wasn’t the awesome experience I was planning it to be.

But even though this order was bad, I'm sure there is a drink for me that I'll like.  Based on what I see on their website they have a good selection to pick from, so I'll give them another shot and see what the next drink is like.

DIY

I try to keep a balanced diet, but sometimes things just get too bland.  Take for example the salads I eat.  Lately they’ve been just lettuce, sliced carrots, and some shredded cheese.  No frills, but they are easy to make and get the job done when checking the list off for a healthy meal for the day, but I’ve been craving something else.  Less healthy meals. (Gasp)

When talking about salads, I really love to get the Southwest Chicken Salad from Jack in the Box.  It’s crammed full with veggies, sides, and includes a strip of chicken, but with it having a premium cost of being nearly $7.00 for just the salad alone, it’s impractical to buy on a regular basis; at least it is based on my budget.

So I decided to make my own version of Jack’s salad by going to their website and jotting down everything that’s included with it.  I then went to the store and bought everything needed for it.  Now it’s not as easy as slapping everything together as my previous salad was.  This one involves some prep work and some of it is terrible doing this time of year as the oven is needed to cook the chicken breasts.  It’s both literally and figuratively not cool as we’ve lately had temperatures in the upper 90s with some triple-digit temps here and there.  Blargh.

Anyways, in the end it’s all worth it as it is really good and closely matches what I get if I bought it from JitB.  Included is a mixture of both iceberg and leafy romaine lettuce, shredded pepper jack cheese, black beans, sliced grape tomatoes, roasted corn (which I had to prep by using a frying pan to roast it), "Santa Fe" seasoned tortilla strips, a tiny bit of salsa flavored ranch dressing to give it a mild kick of spice, and one sliced strip of a chicken breast to top it off.

I like it because it adds more veggies, and of course nutrition, to the meal and is very filling, which is something salads normally don’t do for me when I make them.  And with me making them, I’m saving money in the long run.  Sure, there’s more calories with this kind of salad, but if the alternative is me going and getting a burger, fries, and soda, then the salad doesn’t look all that bad.

The next major thing I need to fix is my mid-day snacks as those have slid down the health meter to candy and soda which help with the late morning slump.  Let’s see what healthy alternative I can come up with for that.

Does a body good

Yecch, didn’t notice until now that the bottom shelf of my fridge has started to look like a dairy vending machine.

More like: “T'eggo my Eggo”

Oops. I may have gone a tad bit overboard with the Eggos.