Healthy Choice Tomato Basil Penne

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Healthy Choice Tomato Basil Penne

Looks: If you had access to all of the individual ingredients, you could maybe construct what is shown on the box, but for a meal that includes the instruction “stir entree and replace film cover,” you’re never going to end up with a pasta dish as displayed on the box, with the sauce and cheese nicely poured over the top. The noodles are the correct shape though and the sauce is the right color, so I guess that’s something. 2.5 out of 5

Taste: Ask my wife, she’s the one who ate it. (Hey, you’re not paying to read this, what did you expect?) Ok, I asked her and she said “The noodles were a good texture and the sauce was flavorful. I had to add my own cheese. I give it 4 foods out of 5. Wait, what scale does your little blog use?”

Knorr Rice Sides (Chicken)

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Knorr Chicken Rice Sides

Looks: The texture and rice grain size are right on, but the little orange bits on the package are really brown, and the whole dish has a slightly yellowish-green (more yellow than green) tinge that I only see when looking at it side-by-side with the packaging. 4 out of 5

Taste: There’s nothing wrong with the taste – the rice is soft but not too soft, the sauce is just the right consistency (although it took 14 minutes to cook instead of 7), but the dish doesn’t really taste of chicken. I think it tastes how “chicken flavor” is supposed to taste; much like how “blue raspberry” flavoring doesn’t taste like raspberry, but it’s a taste that is universally recognized as blue raspberry. Where was I? Oh right, it’s a pleasing dish, a good complement to a chicken entree. 4 out of 5

Eggo Bake Shop Twists (Apple)

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Eggo BakeShop Twists - Full

Eggo BakeShop Twists - Cut

Looks: The outside of the product is almost exactly the same as the one pictured on the box. The inside, however, looks nothing like the packaging. Rather than two solid tubes of apple filling, the pastry contains two flat apple stripes, and the solid breading surrounding the filling is actually crumbly and cakey. (So crumbly, in fact, that I couldn’t make a clean cut to show the filling.) 3 out of 5

Taste: The twist is sweet, soft, and tastes like apple pie. (The sugar on top is a nice touch.) The only bad thing about this pastry is that it’s gone in three bites or less; it would have earned a full 5 out of 5 if it were two feet long. 4 out of 5

P.S. Eggo – if you do introduce a two-foot-long version of this pasty, I would like to be the first to know. Thanks!

Weight Watchers Oatmeal and Raisin Cookie

Today, we have our first reader submission. Thanks Anne for sending in the photo and description below!

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(Oatmeal and Raisin variety pictured on the left.)

Weight Watchers Oatmeal and Raisin Cookie

“The other Weight Watcher snack products closely match the picture, so I was surprised to see such a discrepancy. The package does say that the picture is enlarged to show texture, but there isn’t much texture to begin with, nor were any of the cookies chock full of raisins either. As a cookie lover, I might as well just spring for the bad fatty oatmeal cookies or make my own with raisins a-plenty, as this package of 9 cookies was $3.49 Canadian. A poor value.”

Looks: If half of your product name is “raisin,” half of your product better be raisins. 3 out of 5

(If you’d like to submit your own Food IRL, head on over to the Reader Submission Form. Include a photo, and optionally (but ideally), a description of how the food tasted.)