Food In Real Life

Grands! Homestyle Buttermilk Biscuits

Looks: It didn't bake up quite as flat as the one on the packaging, but overall color and texture are close enough. 4 out of 5

Taste: Like a little circle of heaven. Just kidding - it was good though; warm, chewy, with a crusty outside. Really, what else is there to say about the taste of a biscuit? 4 out of 5

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Pillsbury Crusty French Loaf

Looks: As you can see, my loaf was lopsided. Maybe that's intended, to make it seem more authentically homemade, but I found it offputting. Who wants to eat a lumpy loaf? Nobody. Besides that, the bread didn't brown to the same tone of brown as the bread on the packaging did, but that could have been due to cooking time. 4 out of 5

Taste: Good for coming out of a can. The crust was flaky, and the bread was chewy and not too dry or too moist. However: there's something off about Pillsbury bread products thought that I always taste - maybe it's a preservative or whatever they use to keep it from sticking to the can, but every time, there's a slightly-off aftertaste. It's not enough to spoil the taste itself though, so I give it 4 out of 5

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Hormel Homestyle Meat Loaf & Tomato Sauce

Bonus picture of the entire meatloaf, post-cooking:

Looks: I did not expect this to score any higher than a 3, but what can I say? Once it's sliced, the meatloaf in the box matches the meatloaf on the box. 5 out of 5

Taste: While it's not the best meatloaf I've ever had (that honor is tied between my mom's meatloaf with cheese on top and the lamb meatloaf at Santorini), it's surprisingly good for only taking four minutes to microwave. It was a little oily, and the meat grind was overly smooth, but I would probably buy this again if I'm ever in the market for pre-made meatloaf. 3.5 out of 5

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