Food In Real Life

Announcement: Updated Website

Over the past few days, I’ve finished moving Food In Real Life off of Tumblr and onto a new Web host running the Crowd Fusion software. This change paves the way for some fun new features I have planned for the upcoming weeks, but it’s possible that you’ll encounter some bugginess.

If you notice any weirdness on the website, would you be so kind as to email me at food@foodirl.com so that I can fix it? I would be ever so grateful. Even if you don’t have any problems, I’d love it if you could just comment on this post so that I know you’re seeing these new postings.

And to keep this post on topic and not completely boring, here is a picture of what a microwave meatloaf looks like after cooking. (The full post with ratings and a review will be appearing sometime next week.)

Smart Stuffers Turk’y with Cranberry Stuffing

Today’s Food In Real Life is LightLife’s Smart Stuffers, comes courtesy of my brother Aaron. (You might remember the LightLife brand from their previous appearance on FoodIRL via SmartBacon. You probably don’t remember my brother Aaron, since you’ve never met him.)

Looks: The colors are pretty much spot-on, but there are not nearly enough cranberries in the cranberry stuffing. The ratio of turk’y to stuffing is as advertised. 4 out of 5

Taste: I was pleasantly surprised by how much the stuffing actually tasted like real stuffing. I mean, that sort of thing can’t be easy to fake. I expected it to be really dry, but it wasn’t. It also had the right texture and an appropriate amount of spices. I bet you could give it to someone who eats stuffing every day, and they wouldn’t know the difference. Oh, and the turk’y tasted more like chik’n, which was fine with me. 5 out of 5

Kashi Baked Apple Spice TLC Bar

Looks: Nearly identical to the one on the box, minus the flying. A little bit darker, probably a little drier. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: How do I say this nicely… This TLC (“Tasty Little Cereal”) bar is, how you say, NVG (“Not Very Good”). It’s really dry, and the apple spice filling doesn’t have much flavor. It’s not a complete loss, as it’s still gives you something mildly flavored to chew on, but the “T” in “TLC” is a definite misnomer. 1.5 out of 5

Velveeta Shells & Cheese Cup

Looks: I’ve always been wary of Velveeta macaroni products, if only for the reason that after you add the cheese sauce (but before you stir it in), it looks like Chester Cheetah has taken a dump on your lunch. But I do have to say that after stirring the cheese “sauce” in and waiting the recommended two minutes, the macaroni inside does look very similar to the shells on the package. Maybe a little waterier, but very close. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: About eight years ago, I tried Kraft Easy Mac for the first time, and I hated it. Ever since then, I’ve completely avoided microwave macaroni and cheese cups. There must have been great scientific advances in the field of microwave macaroni since then, because this Velveeta Shells cup is actually very good. There’s not very much of it (only 220 calories worth), but it tastes as good as if you made it on the stovetop. 4.5 out of 5