Special Halloween post that has nothing to do with Halloween

 Hi, everyone!

Happy Halloween!

This post has absolutely nothing to do with Halloween because I wasn't totally sure what to post about for Halloween, but it's my favorite holiday, so I thought I would post some of my favorite foods today! The food photos will also be interspersed with photos of fall that I love.

These foods also happen to be some comfort food for me, so yeah! I'm super excited!

Please note that this is just a hodge podge of my favorite foods, so be warned.

SUSHI!!! Basically, if there was one food I could eat every day for the rest of my life, it would be sushi. I LOVE sushi so much!

On my birthday each year, my boyfriend takes us to our favorite sushi place and we order the sushi boat. Basically, we pick two rolls from a list, and then the chef chooses the rest for us.

It's expensive, but totally worth it for a special occasion.

I eat sushi from time to time throughout the year, but never anything as special as this. It's just the best!

Avocado toast.. I know, I know.. It's a very millennial thing, but it's so yummy. 

I make it with some sort of fresh bread from the local bakery, avocado, roma tomatoes (usually), a poached egg, dill, chives, and usually Classic hot sauce from Heatonist.

For this one, I added smoked salmon, and it's was TASTY! I think I should have chosen one or the other in terms of egg and salmon, but still super yummy.

This was another attempt at avocado toast... it was actually the first attempt, and it was still really good. I made some mistakes with this one as you can see, but it was still worth it for sure. Messy, but delicious.

I love avocado toast because it's mostly healthy and filling, and I feel good after eating it.

Woo! Fall!

Charcuterie boards, oh how I love you!

When we do these boards, we go big... as you can see.

We typically get a four or five types of cheese, three or four types of meats, grapes, lingonberry jam, a couple types of crackers and a couple types of breads, mustard (for my boyfriend), and either a red wine or a sparkling cider if we aren't wanting alcohol.

I shouldn't have a large portion of this (dairy), but that's why we only do it like once a year. It's a special occasion type thing, and it's well planned out beforehand. It's a lot of food, so there's always leftovers, and we could go smaller, but, why would we? It's soooo worth it!

This right here is my favorite meal. Salmon and asparagus. We sous vide the salmon with butter and spices (usually dill and a few others), and then I cook the asparagus basically perfect each time and add just a tad of butter and salt.

This photo shows a stuffed bell pepper, which is good, but we usually end up doing stuffed mushrooms on the side instead. Sometimes we'll do a potato of some kind, but my favorite is the stuffed mushrooms.

Asparagus is my favorite veggie, and salmon is just my favorite in general, so it's perfect. And cooking the salmon in the sous vide makes it so tender and flavorful!

If you've never had a meal like this, I highly recommend it!!

Believe it or not, I actually took this photo. I took it outside of a rest stop on the way to vacation a couple years ago. It's one of my favorite photos I've ever taken!

Beef ramen! OMG!

This one is from a local ramen restaurant that is my favorite restaurant in town. The beef ramen is a bit spicy, but so good! The beef is tender, and just genuinely incredible!

This is the seafood ramen from the same restaurant as the beef ramen. I tend to prefer this one because I get to control the spice level, and the broth in this one is even more flavorful than in the beef ramen. There's a lot of different toppings, which is just lovely.

I LOVE IT!

AHHH MORE FALL!

I'm sure there are more that I can't think of off the top of my head, but these were all the photos I found in my phone.

Honestly, my mouth is watering right now. I'm so hungry!

I guess I'll have to settle for Halloween candy... WAH

Okay that's it... HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!!!

Bye :)

You've got to be artichoke-n me

I can't believe that's the pun I chose.......

Welcome back! Here's another Good & Gather post.. I just can't stop myself! This stuff is so good like 90% of the time!

Today's post if for the Artichoke and Parmesan Phyllo Cups. I've previously had the brie and jam ones and enjoyed them so I wanted to try these, too.

I love spinach and artichoke dip so much, and I was super excited to try it in a different way!

I tell you what, these things are so tempermental in the oven. You leave them in for one second too long, and BOOM! BURNED!

 These were so good! I'm incredibly impressed with how tasty they are. The creaminess, the artichoke flavors, the crunch of the pastry.... SO GOOD!

If the brie and jam ones aren't for you (understandably), then these are good route to take. They are salty but not too salty, and they are just so satisfying to bite into. There's the crunch and then smoothness of the filling.

I highly recommend these! I give them 9/10.

**I save 10/10 for things that REALLY blow my mind.**

That's another post completed. Thanks for reading, everyone!

Bye! :D

I'm a bit chili

Welcome back to another Target Good & Gather post...

It's like this is all I'm eating anymore, but I'm not mad, because overall, I'm quite impressed.

Today, we are going to discuss the Jalapeno Cream Cheese Wontons. 

Yes, I know, it's a lot of dairy. I've been very lax lately in my trying not to eat dairy. It's a personal decision I've been making because I need comfort, and dairy is a big comfort for me. Don't judge me.

First, let me just say that this idea is incredible, and each part of these are great! But I have my issues...

The sweet chili sauce? Delicious!

The wonton? Delicious!

The jalapeno and cream cheese? DELICIOUS!

Unfortunately, all together, it just doesn't work.

Much to my surprise, the jalapeno was STRONG and spicy! I had to pause after eating each one because it kept shocking me how spicy they were.

And the wonton was nice and crispy... a bit too crispy for my liking, but I can get over that.

I think that the actual wontons could have been great by themselves, but adding in the sauce was just too much. The sweetness of the chili really clashed with the jalapeno, and the spice that was in the sauce also clashed with the jalapeno. It was really disappointing.

And I tried to eat the wontons by themselves, but I was really missing the sauce aspect.

So it's hard to eat either way. I think if they had included a separate sauce instead of the sweet chili sauce, it would have been really helpful. But they didn't, and it made me sad.

I hate to do this, but I have to give it a 3/10. It had all the right elements that just didn't come together.....

They do have a version without the jalapeno that's just cream cheese, so I'll have to try that one and see if it's better.

That's it for this one! 

Thanks for reading!

Byeeeeee!

 

You're bacon me happy

Helloooooooo

Welcome back to the party.

On this episode of me eating foods I shouldn't have...

MAC AND CHEESE BITES WITH BACON!

 My dumbass forgot to take a photo after I took them out of the oven, but... they pretty much look like they do on the box (not the one in upper left hand corner, though). They just look like little fried balls.

So I'll be real, I wasn't really expecting much with these. I've never thoroughly enjoyed mac and cheese bites in the past because they're always disappointed. The pasta inside is ALWAYS overcooked and the cheese isn't cheesy enough; the cheese is more like cheese wiz or something, and doesn't have a good pull like mozzarella sticks or something.

The flavor of these was alright... no big deal, but they were fine.

The bacon flavor was relatively strong but was basically just bacon bits.

So between overcooked pasta, a lack of pasta, and bacon bits? I give it a 4/10.

The only real saver here was the breading, which was surprisingly good!

If you see these at Aldi, go ahead and give them a shot if you're interested. They also had a buffalo flavor instead of bacon, but I don't like buffalo, so I didn't get that, but feel free to try them. I'm sure, like this one, that the buffalo one is fine.

Okay so that's it for this one! Have a great rest of your week!!!

Bye :)

A chicken lays an egg on the top of a hill... that's how egg rolls are created

Please excuse the horrid joke in title... 

WELCOME BACK!

We are back to our regular programming right now: frozen meals! *The crowd goes wild!*

I tell you what, I am soooo impressed with the Tattoed Chef frozen meals. They're just so damn tasty!

Today, I tried one that I was originally hesitant about, but decided to go for it. Plant Based Egg Roll Bowl. That's a mouthful.... literally ;)

I'm not a huge fan of egg rolls, which is why I wasn't sure I wanted to try this, but I'm glad I did!

 

Man, it looks so gross but it tastes quite good.

It's surprisingly spicy, but there's so much depth of flavor! I love all of the ingredients really except for ginger, but that ginger flavor isn't that potent, which I appreciate. 

And I gotta tell you, after now having it a few times, their plant based beef is just BOMB! It's so good!!

If you're interested in trying a plant based beef meal and you enjoy some spiciness, this is a really good way to get into it. You don't even notice that it's not real meat in any of their dishes, but this one made it especially difficult to notice that it wasn't real beef. 

The sauce and the veggies... .YUM!

I give it 9/10!

I highly recommend this one for sure!

Okay that is it for this. See you all next time!

Bye!

Friggin piss water

Hi, everyone!

I have been dreading this post because.... I really kind of regret spending money on this product...

So, for the last couple of months, I have seen ads like crazy for the Bud Light Seltzers.. specifically the ~fall~ flavors. I've seen then in end caps at grocery stores. I see them EVERYWHERE. So I just had to finally buy them and try them.

I didn't go into it with high hopes because... it's Bud Light. I mean, it's not a good drink. It's piss water to me. I can understand why people like it (it's hella cheap), but it's definitely not for me.

These came in a variety pack with three cans per four flavors. I don't think you can get them in individual packages, which is why I got all four flavors lol.

So without further ado, I am going to rank them from best flavor to worst.... here we go....

Pumpkin Spice:

I think I was expecting this to be worse than it was, so I was pleasantly surprised that they were slightly successful with the pumpkin spice flavor.

Mind you, it wasn't great. It had this weird like sour brown sugar flavor in the background that I didn't appreciate, but I drank all three that were in the variety pack.

This is the only flavor that my boyfriend actually took two sips of.

Overall, 4/10... it was fine. 

Apple Crisp:

This is actually the one I was most excited about. This flavor is the main reason I bought the variety pack... I wanted to try this one! I love apple crisp and I've enjoyed apple flavored alcohol beverages in the past.

It wasn't great. Again, the sour brown sugar type flavor just really took over, and I barely tasted the alcohol. It was fine I guess, but I wasn't super into it. I did drink all three of the cans because it wasn't disgusting, but it was.... a beverage.

I'd give it a 2/10... 

Are you sensing a theme here? I said best to worst... we still have two to go LOL

Maple Pear:

Why... just why....

The pear is non existent, and the maple is NASTY. 

I could see how maybe someone out there would like this one, but oof.. It's not good.

I would have loved just a simple pear flavor or even maple and apple or something. Pear is such a delicate flavor and adding maple is not going to do the pear any favors. Maple, as you all probably know, is a very strong flavor, so the pear just disappeared.

And let me tell you about the smell. It just smelled like bad maple syrup. It was terrible!

I think I drank one and a half of these cans before I had to just dump them out. So fricken bad!

I give it 0.5/10 simply because they got the maple right and someone out there might be able to enjoy it.

Last and certainly least...

Toasted Marshmallow:

This one is a crime. An absolute crime.

There are so many people that need to be fired. Whoever came up with the concept for this needs to be fired. Whoever came up with the formula and flavoring needs to be fired. And the people that tasted this and thought, "Mmmm yes, let's sell this to our customers" need to be fired.

I am appalled that this exists.

It's quite literally one of the most disgusting things I've ever put in my mouth. I would rather waste two and a bit hours of my life watching the "new" Fantastic Four movie again than drink this again.

I drank one of these..... I chugged it. I literally looked at my boyfriend and said, "It's not so bad if you don't taste it" while cringing....

And the smell... I'm gagging just thinking about it.

-3529048392057190890432/10. It's that bad. I can't say it enough.. it's THAT BAD!

If you enjoy, and I mean really enjoy any of these flavors, there's probably something wrong with your taste buds, but if you enjoy the Toasted Marshmallow flavor, please go get some help, because it's a crime.

I understand there are people that enjoy Bud Light and other Buddweiser products, but they're not for me, and that's okay. But I cannot imagine ANYONE really enjoying these as a whole. I feel like I've been pranked, to be honest....

So there's that... what a waste of money...

Okay byeeeeee

These pumpkins are so ghourdgeous!

Welcome back!

I'm taking a step away from frozen meals for the next couple of posts, I think. 

While shopping at Aldi a while back, I cam across this box of chocolate pumpkins. And... I couldn't not get them! Look at them!

Ignore how bad this photo is, but I wanted to also make sure to show you the flavors that are offered inside.

I don't crave chocolate all that often anymore, but I love fun new things, and I saw these and had to get them. They weren't super expensive, so that helped allow me to feel okay getting them.

I mean they are just too adorable!!!!!!!!!!

I handed one to my boyfriend, and he didn't realize it was edible. He thought that it was going to be a silly little decoration that I randomly got. So he was shook when he realized it was chocolate because it's just so perfect!

Now, onto flavor... meh.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't like mindblowing. And there really wasn't a great distribution of flavors. There was three of the crispy milk chocolate cream, two dark chocolate creams, two salted caramels, and then one each of the vanilla cream and coffee ganache. That's unfortunate because the coffee ganache was the one I was most excited about!

But the chocolate is quite clearly high quality, and the flavor is good. It's just not magical like I was kind of expecting.

However, the cuteness factor made this purchase totally worth it. If I was the type of person that had parties, especially in the fall, I would ABSOLUTELY buy these and just have a plateful of them out for my guests.

Overall, I think I'd give it 5/10. I don't think I'd buy them again, but they're okay.

That's it for this one! I hope you are all have a great start to October, and I'll see you on the next one!

BYEEEEEE