Rice is Nice! Yes, I know I haven’t changed out the Cheap Eats food poll in nearly a year. I just kept putting it off in favor of reviewing things like cans of vienna sausage. You know how it goes.

I guess I wasn’t too surprised that Rice came in first place in our poll on food staples. A full third of respondents (759 voters) picked rice as their favorite food staple. It’s definitely one of the most versatile dry goods to have stocked in the cupboard. We have at least 3 different kinds at all times - it’s usually sticky rice, plain white rice, and then jasmine or some other sort of mix.

What’s sort of funny is all the hub-bub that’s been going on fairly recently (probably before I even put the poll up) with the price on bags of rice skyrocketing. I know at certain stores (Sam’s Club, etc) they were limiting the number of bags per customer for awhile. I never would’ve thought that could happen. When NPR started to devote coverage to the price of rice not being nice (haha), I certainly started to pay attention.

As for the other staples, I was surprised at how high Potatoes came in. I personally love potatoes, but I thought they would come in last. 660 respondents (about 29%) cast their vote for the humble potato. Bread came in third with 470 votes (about 21%) and Beans brought up the rear (hmm.. beans DO tend to make curtain call appearances near my rear) with 374 votes (about 16%).

All of these staples are great for Cheap Eaters. I tend to have nearly all of them around at all times - with the exception of bread because it doesn’t last as long as the others do, especially with how humid it is in the summertime. For beans, I have both canned and dry. Potatoes I nearly always have as fresh - I try to store them in a cool dark place to extend the shelflife.

OK - the new poll is up to the right. This one has to do with clipping those pesky, time-expiring but essential supermarket coupons. To Coupon or not to Coupon - that is the poll question…

I wish companies would email me a little earlier than like the day before an event - but anyway Friday June 6, 2008 is National Doughnut Day so Krispy Kreme is giving out a free doughnut of your choice. I guess I shouldn’t complain about them telling me about it since I’ve already gotten free doughnuts from them earlier…

Actually, I think someone might have told me about it - I just got busy and forgot.

I know they actually give out free doughnut samples once in awhile (when the light is on?) But for free doughnut day, I think they’re giving out not just the plain glazed. Not that it would matter to me - I still like the original ones best.

Have a nice doughnutty weekend.

I have to make a short post today, since I have to get to a meeting in a bit. So we’ll go with Leftovers for Lunch again and hopefully I’ll get another post in later in the week. This is yesterday’s lunch, another combination of leftover “Parent’s” cooking and something made at home.

Sorry, this isn’t as a good photo as a few of the other Korokke ones I’ve made. The potato and meat based fried croquettes are really popular at my parent’s house, and they heat and crisp up really well in the toaster for nearly a week afterwards.

The Yakisoba, which is a little like Japanese chow mein, is half homemade and half storebought. They have sell the noodles, which are the fresh variety and not dried, and the dry sauce mix at the store for very cheap - about $1.50 or less for a three pack. They completely kick the ass over any dry ramen varieties. But they aren’t very good for you, of course. If you haven’t had it before, the taste of the sauce is a bit strange - very worcestershire sauce-like. We take 2 packs and add to that some sliced pork, carrots, celery, onion and whatever green veggies are around. Not too bad for dinner and leftover lunch the next day.

Yep, two posts in one day again (I just moved the lemonade one forward in time so that it’s first). I seem to always catch these promotions at the last minute. This one is not so good anyhow, because you have to buy a drink. They call it “free”.

It’s already too late to get the biscuit breakfast sandwich, but for the rest of today (Thurs May 15, 2008) you can get a free Southern Style Chicken Sandwich at McDonald’s when you buy a medium or large drink.

I was wondering, what is it that makes this a “Southern Style” sandwich, is it just the coating on the chicken? Or is it the pickles?

Mm.. Crunch ‘n Munch. To make a short story longwinded, I was casting about trying to think of something to review for Earth Day. Something that would really speak to the heart of the matter about Us destroying the ozone and whatnot. I was going to be a real Green Hero by calling attention to the plight of Mother Earth.

Instead, as usual I caved to the pressure of cheap, preprocessed food bought at the Dollar Store. Truth be told, awhile back I stocked up on a number of different Cheap Eats items at the Dollar Store to review (the people who work there must think I’m insane buying all that random food). I guess Earth Day can wait another week. Not that I don’t think about the state of the environment.

So, about the Crunchity ‘n Munchity… I was going to insert a joke here about people having the “munchies” after ingesting the afterburn from certain plants, but since this is a family friendly website I decided against it.

I’ve been eating Crunch ‘n Munch, since the 70s or so. Made by ConAgra (who bought the rights from Franklin Nut Company?), this is pretty much in a similar vein to Cracker Jack and Fiddle Faddle. I’m not sure what it going on with the rhyming in all three of those names.

Cracker Jack is probably the most traditional and popular of the three, and for some reason I don’t think I’ve reviewed it yet. I’ll probably try get a hold of some if I can find it for cheap. Fiddle Faddle - I know it’s similar and I used to eat it that back in the day as well . For the life of me, I can’t remember how it was different than Crunch ‘n Munch - I think maybe it didn’t have any peanuts?

The Crunch ‘n Munch formula is basically clusters of sugar syrup coated popcorn with peanuts embedded in them. I got the “Caramel” variety which is different than the original flavor of Buttery Toffee. They also have an almond version of it.

I have to say that I was pretty pleasantly surprised with the flavor and quality. A side note: everyone thinks that stuff at the Dollar Store is “past it’s prime” and that’s how they can sell it for cheap. But so far, I haven’t had too many instances where the product was not fresh. This box of Crunch ‘n Munch tasted pretty fresh to me.

Continue reading “Crunch ‘n Munch” …

Gah, I hate it when I find out about these freebees at 11:30pm right about when I’m about to go to bed. Since the deal is for tomorrow April 8, 2008, I almost didn’t post it. I also had a hard time trying to cobble together the graphic above, since their site is nearly all in Flash. I really don’t like Flash, but that’s a grumbly story for another late night.

Ok, so at participating Jamba Juice locations tomorrow from store open until 10am, you can get a free 12oz. “Breakfast” product which includes Juice, Juicies, Chunky Strawberry, Granola Toppers or Yogurt Blends. I have no idea what all those are since I never go there - but hey whatever it is, it’s free. One important note - when they say not all locations are participating they mean it. If your Jamba Juice is in an airport, university, Safeway, VONS, Pavillions, Target or in Hawaii then it’s not valid. Whew. Ok, I’m going to sleep so enjoy your free Jamba Breakfast and tell me all about it if you happen to pick one up…

Well, let me tell you - I had a whole production planned for April Fool’s. This involved changing the website to look like it was bought by Google, buying a domain name (cheepeatr.com) and installing social networking (web 2 point blow) software, and then youtubing myself sitting naked in a bathtub full of caviar saying, “How do you like me now, suckahs!”

I had actually planned to do something funny like that since about last summer or so. But as it turns out - I’m just not a funny guy. In fact, I’m so un-funny that on the Funnilee Scale, which is measured similar to the Scoville hotness scale but in units of funnyness - I rate a little higher than a bell pepper.

I don’t know about you, but being as funny as a bell pepper means I have a hard time coming up with laughy joke production things. It’s true I can be funnier than Saturday Night Live, but hey, that bar is set REAL low…

Also, it turns out that I have no funny friends to inspire me to new funnilicious heights. You see, I have been living in a cave for the past 2 years and while the benefits are decent (low incidence of predators in the area, running stream just outside), the walk to the comedy club where all the other alien bears hang out to get their funnybones tickled is just too far to make it on an average day.

The other thing is that I can’t really leave the cave for long periods of time right now because I’ve left my flying saucer double parked in front of the meadow where we’re gathering specimens to take back to Betelgeuse. The Alpha alien bear really gets PO-ed if he notices anyone doing that, so I’ve had to keep an eye-tentacle out. Last thing I want is to have it impounded by the Galactic Bear Force and be stuck on this godforsaken planet for another year or so.

So in lieu of the hilarity that normally goes with April Fool’s, here is a nice picture of Alien Bear Ramen defaced by myself with a light sky blue Photoshop pen. It is the best I could do on such short notice with the computer in the cave, but I figure it gets the point across. Happy April Fools, earthlings.