Shopper's Choice Brand Mini Pies 4 Pack

Thanks to Harold from our janitorial staff who brought this item to our attention. This must be a new brand as nobody here has seen "Shopper's Choice" before. Sort of a generic name - and the price is also quite nice. Most importantly, the little pies are excellent. Inside the box are four individually wrapped mini-pies - shaped like turnovers. The Dutch Chocolate ones are awesome - and we will be trying the others soon. Once again, the staff here went into a feeding frenzy and we forgot to photo the actual pies before they all had been eaten. The FPT management has scheduled a staff roundtable meeting to discuss and solve this ongoing problem. Please bear with us.

The Hibachi House Microwave Chicken & Rice Bowls

On a recent group shopping trip we found this unique frozen/microwavable item. Hibachi House offers a variety of styles of LARGE portions of white rice and chicken breast strips. The staff chose to sample the General Tsao's Chicken but there are 2/3others as well. Normally this sort of item would not even be considered for review as they are generally overpriced and bland. Hibachi House has broken the mold - this is true restaurant quality meal - and the portion is huge covering one dinner plate in a colossal mound. Price is fair running around 5.00 on sale and 6.50 normal.

Yes, we know there is no picture of the actual food above but staff got busy on this and then there was nothing left to photo. Will get another soon and post.

Pringles Goes Premium New Pringles Select Brand - Sold In A Bag Not A Can

Pringles is now offering an upscale gourmet version of their 'potato crisps' called 'Pringles Select' and comes in a variety of flavors. We tried the parmesan garlic flavor here at the FPT test kitchens and indeed found them to be pretty tasty. They are still not called 'chips' (legally they cannot call them chips as they are made from a dough) but have much more body than regular offering of canned/tubed Pringles.

Keep in mind the price of these are also upscale. They seem to run around 3.00 on average per bag, which we had issues with as to how full it actually was in relation to its size.

Other flavors of this new offering are: Sun Dried Tomato, Szechuan Barbecue, Cinnamon Sweet Potato, Parmesan Garlic & Honey Chipotle Barbecue.

FYI: The picture above is of a 'pringles select', we just had a can near us when we took the photo and it made a good stand.

The odd thing our thinktank decided was that these are not called anything individually - like a chip or a crisp, leaving us to think they are called 'selects' when speaking of an individual one.

The Mystery Meal Contest Is On - A Loyal Reader Has Sent This Photo For You To Identify!

Game on. Use the comments button to name this plate. The most correct answer will win an assortment of fast-food coupons and condiments. Chicken and pasta is a good try - but a more specific answer will be the winner. This is an app. 5-day event with the closest guess winner announced this thursday evening.

Heide Candy Company Since 1869 - Still Making The Good Stuff - Red or Hot Raspberry Dollars

An American standard in the candy business, Heide is a legendary producer of a variety of candies. Most are packaged in the 'movie theater size' boxes and can be found from 99 cents to around 1.50 for a nice healthy sized portion.

Take a look at the picture above where they have a dollar sign right on top of each piece of candy. These are raspberry dollars, but they also have red hot dollars. Leading us to think that they use the same 'machinery' to produce both - an excellent example of strong management and good business. Why have two machines if you are just swapping flavors?

We here at the Fat Pride Times hope Heide continues to spoil us with their candies for another 100 plus years.

Alligator Chili Recipe - Tested and Ingested!

From the man whom brought you the BBQ Rabbit post, we now have a tested and proven excellent reciped for Alligator Chili. We trust our reader Magnum's palate, however we are arranging for a Fed-Ex overnight of this stuff as we must try this ourselves.
Recipe is as follows:
2 pounds of alligator meat
1 cup chopped onion
1 large green bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 jalapeno peppers chopped up
1 or 2 tablespoons chili powder
garlic powder to taste
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste
2 cans (approx. 16 ounces each) crushed tomatoes
1 can (16 ounces) tomato puree
1 can (16 ounces) dark kidney beans
2 cans (approx. 16 ounces each) Bush chili hot beans
that is the ingredients
cook on low for about 8.5 hours
preheat the meat and sautee the veggies in the grease

Many thanks to Magnum for his fine contribution.

From Reader 'Magnum': - MMMM We Have BBQ Rabbit

Our longtime East Coast correspondant checked in with his latest culinary venture. Marvel at this wild bbq rabbit picture - it was 22mb when we received it, so we shrunk it down some. If you would like an original please contact Gerry in the media lab.

Reader Spots New Con Queso: Tostitos Monterey Jack Queso Dip

While the staff here has not seen this new offering from Tostitos, one of our regular readers spotted it in the grocery store and took a picture for us. He was a little excited, thus the shaky picture - but we appreciate the chance to sneak a peek very much.

Freschetta "Pizza Amore"New Baking Tray Introduced!

Freschetta Pizza, allready respected around here as a great frozen pizza, has a new unique oven safe baking tray. Makes for an easy in and out of the oven and easy servings. How the tray does not melt in the oven, I have no idea - so we are just going with it. Pictured above is the 6-cheese variety, from box to oven to done.

Crim's Standard Pizza Bread Recipe

This is your standard pizza bread.

All it really takes is some leftover rolls, some prego tomato sauce (my favorite canned sauce),and some supermarket mozzarella.

Slice your rolls in half and cover them in tomato sauce and some mozzarella. I like a lot of sauce and light cheese, but this can be created to cater to anyone pizza taste. I ended up slicing them into smaller pieces to make my life a lot easier.

I usually make this when there is not much lying around, as it makes perfect for drunken nights, or just a quick meal to fill your belly.

Nice work Mr. Crim.

The Fat Pride Times: Our Heinz Commercial Entry For The"Take 2" Television Contest

The staff here has been working long days this week to catch up from the holiday season, and entering this contest was at the top of our list - right after cleaning up the mess from the benders that went on in the test kitchens again this year. The video could be sharper and the production values are low - we know this. If you can do better, please do so and we will post your clip right here for all to view.

Another New Doritos: Sizzlin' Picante Flavor Limited Time Offering

The staff here at the FPT was able to get our hands on one of the "Sizzlin' Picante" limited edition flavors from Doritos. This was a small snack sizer in a unusual purple color bag. While we have really enjoyed the other recent new Doritos flavors, this one did not have much of a personality. The chips just tasted hot, not flavorful hot, but just temperature hot. When we looked over the chips for photos for our media library it appeared that some of the chips had more of the "flavor dust" than others - meaning that one chip would taste hotter than another. Not much to get excited about here - not the next X-13.

Charm City Cakes: Redefining What We Call A Cake

Charm City Cakes is an amazing business out of Baltimore, Maryland in the USA. The leader is Chef Duff who creates things that are redefining how the world views 'A Cake' as a concept. One of our regular readers pointed out his work to us and we encourage you to visit the website linked below for a great time.

Chef Duff has done many many television appearances and has had lots of press during his established career. However, we think that his appearance on the "Food Network Challenge: Rice Krispie Treat" must have been exciting.

Want a cake from Charm City? Book early as possible. The website states that he is booked - not taking new orders - until March 2008.

This all leads to Chef Duff's new tv show on the Food Network "Ace of Cakes" which has begun airing.

Charm City Cakes

Guest Recipe From Etathed"Simple Chicken Nacho Dip"

Simple Chicken Nacho Dip. I made this for the first time today. Thought it would go good with some of my award winning soft tacos.

1 CAN CHICKEN
1 CREAM CHEESE
1 CUP RANCH DRESSING
1 CUP HOT SAUCE
1 CUP CHEDDER CHEESE

Mix all that stuff up in a baking dish and bake at 350 until the edges brown.

Took longer than expected to bake and turned out pretty decent. And now a few observations..... I think i the one cup of franks was a bit much. 1/2-3/4 cups should do it, as it was overpowering in this mix. It is not a "hot" issue as i do not find franks "hot" it is just that the distinct franks flavor is too strong in such large quantities. Extra ranch may be another way to go.

I also think it could be improved on by substituting beef, perhaps taco meat, in place of the chicken, as the chicken seemed rather tasteless amidst the other ingredients. I believe a taco meat or chili sauce could really ad some body to this dip. So I believe there is a future to look into with this foodstuff.

If i were to grade this dip i would give it a C. However it is truly simple to make, thus i am going up it to a B-.

Heinz Top-This TV ChallengeHome Made Commercial Contest2nd Round Due To Popularity

The good people at Heinz has so much interest in their 'Top This TV Challenge' make your own Heinz catsup commercial that they have opened up round two. They are calling out for video submissions with the winner receiving 57,000 and a spot on national television!

This second round began accepting videos on December 14th and runs thru March 14th. We expect this to be a fierce battle and we will be submitting an entry from the FPT Test Kitchens. Heinz judges will pick 10 finalists and then the public will decide the winner by voting via the website linked below. This website also has much more info and videos from the first round to watch.


Heinz Top This TV Challenge Take Two

Twice As Much Ketchup Packets - Heinz Understands Our Needs!

When our intern Randy came back the other day with burgers and fries for the staff from a local Mom & Pop burger barn he had something in the feedbags that really was a big hit with us here. Heinz now offers a 'Twice As Much' ketchup packet.

As we all know, those standard old ones were hardly even worth the effort of tearing each one open. We do not expect these to become the standard free packets at other burger places as they must cost the restauranteur perhaps twice as much as the standards. The place we got them from makes homemade style burgers and fries and it costs about 6.00 to get a decent burger and big sack of homemade fries.

Respect to Heinz for a truly innovative and useful new condiment packet portion. The packet you see above measures 4.25" x 1.33" in size and has 0.635 oz(18g) of product.

The McDonald's Rap From FastFoodFreestyle.net

Pumpkin Egg Nog PhotoThanks To Unknown Reader

As the calendar year comes to an end, the staff here always tries to do a 'winter clean-up', where we go thru not just our foodstuffs but also our files. Jacob, who has been on level 3 of our test kitchens for over a year found this picture sent anonymously from a reader. The maker is 'HOOD' dairies and we wish we had some to sample.

Hopefully this will help you remember to get some nog on your next visit to the grocery store.

NEW - Poppin' Jalapeno DoritosGuest Review By Ethadad

I like a jalapeno in just about any form.......fried slices, jalapeno poppers with cheddar or cream cheese, or as a topping on some super nachos, and today I can add Poppin Jalapeno flavored Doritos to that list.

Don't know how long these have been on the shelves, but i saw them today for the first time and had to give them a try. Though they contain some artificial flavor, they have a very real jalepeno flavor. These do not come across as "hot," like the Fiery Habenero flavor. In fact the lack of overpowering heat lets the flavor of the jalapeno come through, and it works. These would go really well in a Doritos Collision Bag paired up with something like a cool ranch flavor, or maybe even the original nacho cheesier. I highly suggest trying these, if you haven't already.

Michelina's Budget Gourmet MeatloafInteresting Ingredient Found

On a recent shopping trip our acquisitions staff came back with one item that immediately started up a debate with the staff. The item is Michelina's Budget Gourmet Meatloaf, which was on sale for 1.00 per box. The sub-name Budget Gourmet is a high standards oxymoron to live up to and so we heated this up right off the top.

We found the meatloaf to be acceptable for the price and would be great to have 10 of these in your garage freezer for unexpected benders.

The most interesting thing about this foodstuff is the ingredients listing, which is very long. The main ingredient is water - interesting, but not as interesting as the last ingredient of FISH(anchovies). This is now the second time we have found fish in items that one would never expect (see some flavors of Pringles).

If someone know what is the real deal on this please comment below.