Ants prefer Rudi's to Udi's 10000:1.
I never had ants attack my Udi's bread. This morning I found a swarm of ants all over the inside of my bag of Rudi's. Yuck. Glad I got it on sale with a coupon to boot.
Never had ants in my Udi's bread. Must be that evaporated cane juice. Does Udi's have that? I know Udi's isn't SWEET at any rate. Still, I was disappointed to throw out most of a loaf, especially since it's such a pain in the ass to find the stuff.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Rudi & Udi: Why You Got the Same Name?
I've been a pretty dedicated Udi-eater these past few months. Safeway recently started selling their bread for a good price, so I was going there to get my bread rather than the few other shops that have it on hand most of the time (Vim & Vigor, Kokua, and Whole Foods generally have it in stock). Paying $5.50 was way way WAY better than the $7+ the other shops charged. It made me feel like a human being again. Almost.
Then they printed off a coupon for me to use. The coupons I got were, oddly, not for anything I'd actually bought but for KINDS of the things I had bought. So there I was with Sargento cheese and Udi's gf bread, and I had coupons for Kraft cheese and Rudi's gf bread. Since the coupon was for $2 off, I thought it might be worth it to try out Rudi and see if he (or she, I guess) was any better than Udi.
Then they printed off a coupon for me to use. The coupons I got were, oddly, not for anything I'd actually bought but for KINDS of the things I had bought. So there I was with Sargento cheese and Udi's gf bread, and I had coupons for Kraft cheese and Rudi's gf bread. Since the coupon was for $2 off, I thought it might be worth it to try out Rudi and see if he (or she, I guess) was any better than Udi.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Conte's Frozen Pizza: Florentine and Margherita
http://www.contespasta.com/specialty.htm#
Frozen pizza is something I enjoy eating sometimes. I do make a lot of pizzas, but I don't like always having cheese and sauce and toppings on hand. Sometimes I just want to pop a pizza in the oven and enjoy.
I tried Amy's frozen cheese pizza. The cheese was all right, though there wasn't much of it, but the crust was too gritty and slightly bitter, like brown rice.
I tried Glutino and it was "okay," but not super. Kind of like a really cheap frozen pizza, except it cost $8.
I went to Whole Foods and spied a different variety of pizza that looked actually delicious. Conte's makes some pasta items that also look interesting, but with my limited kitchen resources, I haven't been able to try them.
The first pizza I took home was the Mushroom Florentine. It was $11 and as one person I ate it in two servings, which means $5.50 apiece. Not bad. The size isn't huge, but probably comparable to Amy's. I would guess 10" since it fits in my 11" skillet.
I don't think I let this one cook enough, because it had almost no flavor. It's hard to cook in a little skillet, so the crust wasn't singed enough. When I re-heated the other half, keeping it on the bottom of the skillet rather than on the rack, it tasted much better. But what I think was still lacking in this case was a clear ... sauce. If it had had sauce in it, I think I would have liked it more. There was just nothing salty or flavorful enough to pop out and enhance the flavors. I'm not sure what it "needs," but the somewhat flavorless crust and cheese and mushrooms together just kind of melded into one big ball of bland.
Given that, I thought the Margherita flavor would be better.
It cost the same and was the same size as the Florentine pizza. Margherita is a traditional flavor of pizza, with tomato and basil. (It's supposed to be like the Italian flag.) The picture shows giant tomato bits on top that almost could mislead you into thinking that the pizza has pepperoni on it. Actually, when I opened the pizza I expected to see tomato. No, it was just cheese.
This time I let it cook more than I did the last time. It definitely made the crust tastier. It needs to brown/singe just a tad on the bottom, in my opinion. Basil is just an interesting flavor, and the pizza is quite basil-y. This one was, in my opinion, better tasting than the other just because it had enough "different" flavors for them to stand out.
You'll also be glad to know that these pizzas do NOT have an overabundance of sauce (something traditional frozen pizzas often have) and have plenty of cheese.
My big, giant complaint about these pizzas is ... the box. When I was trying to pick one out, the boxes all felt weak and encased in ice, I picked one that didn't have any ice on it, but by the time I got home (about 30 minutes) the box had basically ... melted. It was soaked and torn and misshapen. The same thing happened with the next pizza. I feel like for all that the pizzas are pretty good, the packaging is made out of ... paper. I buy a lot of frozen foods and sometimes wait 40 or 50 minutes or even an hour to get home. I don't have a freezer and store everything in the coldest part of my mini fridge, or cook it as soon as I get home, so the thawing isn't a huge deal. But oftentimes I get home 40 minutes later or whatever, and the food is STILL TOTALLY FROZEN. And the boxes are holding up fine.
So I don't understand why the boxes in this case just disintegrate. It's peculiar.
Frozen pizza is something I enjoy eating sometimes. I do make a lot of pizzas, but I don't like always having cheese and sauce and toppings on hand. Sometimes I just want to pop a pizza in the oven and enjoy.
I tried Amy's frozen cheese pizza. The cheese was all right, though there wasn't much of it, but the crust was too gritty and slightly bitter, like brown rice.
I tried Glutino and it was "okay," but not super. Kind of like a really cheap frozen pizza, except it cost $8.
I went to Whole Foods and spied a different variety of pizza that looked actually delicious. Conte's makes some pasta items that also look interesting, but with my limited kitchen resources, I haven't been able to try them.
The first pizza I took home was the Mushroom Florentine. It was $11 and as one person I ate it in two servings, which means $5.50 apiece. Not bad. The size isn't huge, but probably comparable to Amy's. I would guess 10" since it fits in my 11" skillet.
I don't think I let this one cook enough, because it had almost no flavor. It's hard to cook in a little skillet, so the crust wasn't singed enough. When I re-heated the other half, keeping it on the bottom of the skillet rather than on the rack, it tasted much better. But what I think was still lacking in this case was a clear ... sauce. If it had had sauce in it, I think I would have liked it more. There was just nothing salty or flavorful enough to pop out and enhance the flavors. I'm not sure what it "needs," but the somewhat flavorless crust and cheese and mushrooms together just kind of melded into one big ball of bland.
Given that, I thought the Margherita flavor would be better.
It cost the same and was the same size as the Florentine pizza. Margherita is a traditional flavor of pizza, with tomato and basil. (It's supposed to be like the Italian flag.) The picture shows giant tomato bits on top that almost could mislead you into thinking that the pizza has pepperoni on it. Actually, when I opened the pizza I expected to see tomato. No, it was just cheese.
This time I let it cook more than I did the last time. It definitely made the crust tastier. It needs to brown/singe just a tad on the bottom, in my opinion. Basil is just an interesting flavor, and the pizza is quite basil-y. This one was, in my opinion, better tasting than the other just because it had enough "different" flavors for them to stand out.
You'll also be glad to know that these pizzas do NOT have an overabundance of sauce (something traditional frozen pizzas often have) and have plenty of cheese.
My big, giant complaint about these pizzas is ... the box. When I was trying to pick one out, the boxes all felt weak and encased in ice, I picked one that didn't have any ice on it, but by the time I got home (about 30 minutes) the box had basically ... melted. It was soaked and torn and misshapen. The same thing happened with the next pizza. I feel like for all that the pizzas are pretty good, the packaging is made out of ... paper. I buy a lot of frozen foods and sometimes wait 40 or 50 minutes or even an hour to get home. I don't have a freezer and store everything in the coldest part of my mini fridge, or cook it as soon as I get home, so the thawing isn't a huge deal. But oftentimes I get home 40 minutes later or whatever, and the food is STILL TOTALLY FROZEN. And the boxes are holding up fine.
So I don't understand why the boxes in this case just disintegrate. It's peculiar.
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