Dove Peppermint Bark Dark Chocolate Promises

I love dark chocolate and peppermint bark, so the combination of the two was a hard temptation to resist. I usually like Dove Dark Chocolate, which is surprising because it has milk fat and besides Dove I only really like dark chocolate without milk fat or milk of any sort. Normally I buy peppermint bark with milk chocolate even though I do not like milk chocolate that much, but it does not seem so bad when with the peppermint.

I was quite excited about the Dove Peppermint Bark Dark Chocolate Promises that I had one not long after getting back from Fry's with them. I was quickly disappointed. The dark chocolate part is minimal compared to the peppermint white chocolate top, but that is not the real problem. The main and major problem is that it is not very pepperminty. I expect to really smell and taste the peppermint when I eat peppermint bark, so this was a major disappointment, especially since Dove tends to be considered a great chocolate brand by me. Certainly is not worth the high price Dove chocolate usually sells for.

Chung's Vegetable Spring Rolls with Sweet and Sour Sauce

I bought Chung's Vegetable Spring Rolls in the frozen aisle at Safeway a few weeks ago. Finally got around to trying them today. They are easy to make in just 2 minutes in the microwave. While they cook in the microwave thaw the sauce packet or packets in a bowl of warm water.

The spring rolls were pretty tasty in my opinion. I liked that they did not get crispy because I used the microwave, but I imagine you could have crispy ones if you used the oven to cook them. The dough is a little thicker than I usually think of for spring rolls, but does not affect the flavor in my opinion, as they are still stuffed with plenty of veggie filling.

I like that the spring rolls are conveniently packaged in a tray with each separate. This makes it easy to only make a few without having to try to break them apart, which tends to happen with stuff packaged touching in the freezer for a long period of time. There are three little sweet and sour sauce packets to go with five spring rolls. One packet is almost enough for two, in my opinion, although I like two as a serving size and it would be better if there were only four or there were six spring rolls.

Only thing I do not like about Chung's Spring Rolls is the sweet and sour sauce. Immediately it tasted wrong to me. The pineapple flavor is too strong making it too sweet and not a good balance of sweet and sour like the sauce should be.

Kroger Star Wars Fruit Flavored Snacks

I have not had fruit snacks in a while other than the occasional gushers and fruit by the foot. Today at the grocery store I decided to buy some of the Kroger brand since they were on sale and I had a taste for them. They have various character packaging and I am pretty sure they are the same fruit snacks in different shapes. I picked up the Star Wars ones, although the Veggietales ones were pretty cool as I love that series.

Overall I like the taste of the fruit snacks, but they are a little too sweet and the difference between the colors and flavors is minimal and they all kind of taste like some sort of fruit blend like fruit punch drinks. Not really much nutritional value other than 100% daily value of Vitamin C. Biggest thing, though, is that there are only six pouches in the box and each pouch does not have that much in it. I will go with Gushers in the future. They seem more substantial per package and have more interesting flavor and if I buy when on sale they are not that much more expensive.

Banquet Apple Pie

Before I became a vegetarian I enjoyed Banquet's pot pies. I still wish they made a veggie pot pie, but the new fruit pies caught my attention. Today I finally got around to trying the apple pie.

The pie is a nice individual serving size just like their pot pies. The crust tastes the same as the pot pies and to some extent that does not work out very well for the overall taste of the pie. Perhaps it is just because I am used to the crust taste with a savory filling that makes it seem odd with the sweet apple pie filling. The filling itself is average apple pie.

Overall the Banguet Apple Pie is not anything spectacular. However, it is a reasonably priced individual sized desert that is still big enough that you could share for a small dessert for two, especially if you top it with ice cream. It is also convenient that it can be microwaved and ready in less than 5 minutes.

Skittles Fizzl'd Fruits

Skittles Fizzl'd Fruits is another one of my CVS finds recently. They look a lot like Sour Skittles when you first look at them, as they have a powder coating. The powder fizzes in your mouth and is kind of a fun sensation. I love fizzing candy, so this is something I enjoyed eating even though I find Skittles to be kind of too sweet with little real flavor. I still prefer fizzing hard candies for a fizz candy fix, but I have a hard time finding those and these are not too bad of an alternative, especially since I now know Skittles are vegetarian friendly.

I am a vegetarian and I kind of do not care about the little things (eg. gelatin and okay even sometimes the big thing of fish) and rarely read candy packages, but a few weeks ago someone was telling me what candy they avoid because it has gelatin and they mentioned Skittles. I never really thought of Skittles as having gelatin not that care, as I happily ate Sour Patch Kids as if they were not vegetarian until I finally realized they actually were and began eating them even more!!! So, when I bought the Skittles Fizzl'd Fruits I actually did first read the ingredients and realized they are in fact vegan. Yes, Skittles used to have strict vegetarian and vegan unfriendly ingredients, but not anymore.

Warheads Sour Chewy Cubes

Warheads Sour Chewy Cubes
Originally uploaded by kjscrafts

I saw these little bags of Warheads Sour Chewy Cubes candy at CVS the other day for $0.33 each. I decided to try them because they sound like Sour Patch Kids. They do have similar consistency, but they just are not as tasty. The main thing is they are not sour at all. Of course, neither are Sour Patch Kids exactly. However, for something from Warheads I expected more sour. I guess the clue to them not being as sour as the hard Warheads is that the sour meter on the back says sour and not extreme or super sour.

Overall I think they are a nice small package alternative to Sour Patch Kids, but I still prefer Sour Patch Kids and I get way more for my $1 buying them at the Doller Tree than these little not even an ounce packs of Warhead Sour Chewy Cubes.

Pretzel M&M's: Salty Yes, Sweet Yes, Crunchy Not Always

I had heard about the Pretzel M&M's a while ago and finally found some today at Target. I am a big pretzel fan, so I had to try them. However, I ended up being kind of disappointed in them.

The M&M's shell part is the normal M&M, which is not anything special to me, as I do not really even like that type of chocolate (is it even real chocolate?). The pretzel part for the most part was good and the salty part right after you get through the shell is kind of nice. The crunchy pretzel part, though, is not always there, as some pieces seemed kind of soggy.

The biggest issue for me with these is not the taste, though. It is the fact they are so close to perfectly round that they roll like crazy. Makes me think of that song about a meatball rolling away. The frustration of not being able to just dump them out on the table without them rolling like crazy puts it over the top to being too annoying and not all that awesome tasting for me to want again. Probably a good thing, since it is not a healthy snack.

Trader Joe's Mushroom Turnovers

Last week I found these Mushroom Turnovers in the frozen food section of Trader Joe's. They are pretty easy to make in the oven. They come in a nice tray that has them broken into about two servings. They make a decent snack or appetizer.

I liked the crust, which was not too crispy. I like having things like this soft and not crunchy, but if you want it more of a crispy crust you could leave it in the oven for maximum time rather than the minimum time like I did. The flavor is pretty good if you like mushrooms. The onion aspect is pretty non-existent, though. That did not bother me, as I am not into having a lot of onion in things, but it could be disappointing if you read the front box and expect the onion flavor to be distinct. Only thing that would have made it better is some cheese in the filling.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians The Lightining Thief Limited Time Airheads

I am always looking for the latest Airheads limited time flavors. Airheads are my brother's favorite candy and every time I find a new promotion one I get them as a treat for him and I also try the limited time flavors. I mostly like the limited time movie tie-in promotions because they usually have interesting things inside, such as the holographic surfboard images for Surf's Up.

The Percy Jackson & the Olympians The Lightning Thief Airheads just have a little decoder card paper pamphlet, so kind of boring. The special Limited Time flavors are Riptide Rush and Blue Poseidon. Riptide Rush is a yellow Airhead. It is basically just the lemonade Airhead flavor. The Blue Poseidon flavor is blue and I think it is much like the blue raspberry flavor, although it light blue and has dark blue spots in it. It looks different, but I think it is just a different look and not a different flavor.

Overall kind of disappointing, as both are regular Airheads flavors. Most of the time they are, so not actually surprising. The real disappointing thing is the movie tie-in thing stinks and is not a fun collectible thingy.

Sour Patch Bunnies

On Sunday, I was looking through the ads and found CVS advertising Sour Patch Bunnies on sale. Sour Patch Kids are my all time favorite candy, so I just had to try these. The Sour Patch Bunnies come in individual sized bags. There are about 36 of these little bags per package. Each bag has about six Sour Patch Bunnies inside.

The Bunnies are about the same size as Sour Patch Kids. The colors are a little more pastel looking. Probably to tie in with Easter being a pastel color holiday. The bunnies are kind of blob looking, though. They do not have much detail, although you can kind of tell the effect they were going for and it definitely is a different look than the regular Sour Patch Kids.

Taste wise they are the same. They just look different and way weirder. It is a fun Easter egg filler for Sour Patch lovers like me, though.