I like Macaroni and Cheese.

I also like eating a nice package of rotten beans every so often.

In other words, you should not trust me. Everything I say, or do, is suspect. Call the National Guard, or at least Alton Brown’s food police. Hide your women, your children and your sweaty, foot-long kielbasas.

Nothing will save you, no one will come to your aid if you scream while I force feed you a whipped cream out of a can and slap you silly with slabs of Spam.

Oh, excuse me – wrong blog.

I’ve reviewed Mac ‘n Cheese box products before, such as the generic Albertson’s brand of Macaroni and Cheese. What strikes me the most about re-reading that review is NOT the extent to which I debased myself with junk food, but how far I’ve come (or sunk) as far as helpful reviews and posts go. Wow, what was I thinking back then? Or, perhaps, what the hell am I thinking now? No wonder I get hate mail from older fans of Cheap Eats…

Well, for some reason I’ve never reviewed the Easy Mac variety of the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese products. Let’s be honest – there isn’t going to be too much difference between the normal Mac ‘n Cheese you cook on the stove and this little cup of Mac ‘n Cheese. I guess the main difference is you get to avoid washing a pot, and you get to throw away the styrofoam cup in the landfill.

I’m just going to say right now that I AM the stupid type of sucker consumer who will buy this little cup of microwave Mac ‘n Cheese that costs 80 cents when I could be getting a full box of Mac ‘n Cheese for 25 to 35 cents. I AM that idiot, and that is why you should not trust anything I say dinosaurs were killed by asteriods.

But you know, my impulsive buy finger had already triggered and the little tubby was in my cart. Oh well. Actually, what I was most interested in was whether or not microwaving the noodles would be the same as cooking it on the stove.

I’m pleased to report that it pretty much turns out the same. The sauce consistency and taste was nearly identical. I microwaved it for 4 minutes as opposed to 3.5 because my nuker is notoriously sluggish. Maybe because of that extended time, the noodles were slightly less firm than usual. But in all other respects, it tasted identical.

It’s sorta nice, also, to be able to nuke and eat this in front of your sexy single co-workers. “Look at me,” you’ll say. “I’m so confident in my social life that I can eat this in front of you all.” Instead of eating it while sitting at home on a Friday night in the bathtub like you usually do.

Now, I’d guess one good thing about having a smaller container is portion control. Overweight America, rejoice! This is truly a “snack” as opposed to a full meal. I snarfed it in about a minute. Having a smaller size is probably a good thing considering the crud that goes into the sauce. However, I know some people really enjoy turning their tongues and faces bright radioactive orange. And you can only do that after you eat cups and cups of the stuff, preferably without a spoon.

I’m trying to think of what else to say. But you know what, there’s pretty much nothing else: Instant microwavable macaroni and cheese cups, on the expensive side compared with the normal boxes.

Ok, well, I HAVE heard that there is a worldwide conspiracy among the Tubular Bells rebel alliance to take over the world by releasing hordes of tubular bell shaped instant pasta laced with 6th level wizard Geas-virus spells. But, remember, you didn’t hear it from me.

Price: $0.79 for 2.05 oz.
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 4/10

[Editor's Note: I swear I do not have a cassette tape copy of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, and that I didn't listen to it over and over again in high school when I really should have been listening to New Kids On The Block]

Dear Candy Fiends … I mean Freaks … I mean Froods … I mean Friends.

Yes, that’s it.

Dearest Candy Friends,

Please don’t get mad at me when I say that the most interesting thing about these Yogurt Dots to me was the fun open/close boxspout. To be honest, the only reason I picked up this movie-sized box for a buck at the Dollar Store was for the novelty factor. That and I thought maybe I would finally get to review a candy that no one had tried before.

Not so, as reviewers like Candy Addict and others have already written up their opinions. Ah well, you snooze you booze.

As I was saying the most interesting thing to me about the candy was the box, which has a closeable spout that folds shut like farking origami or something. This blew my mind. You can tell I don’t eat candy too often. It’s like that episode of Spongebob where Patrick and he order a giant screen TV just so they can play with the box. Not that I ever watch Spongebob, or relate to his spong-i-ness (though I feel rather holy at times), or aspire to be the greatest Crabby Patty Fry Cook in the world, or put up posters of Gary the Snail on my wall.

No, no. I’m completely Absolutely Normal. In fact, you can call me Ab-Normal, ey?

Come on, keep up here.

If memory serves me correctly, my first encounter with Tootsie’s Dots was not while watching Dustin Hoffman, but giving my young molars the workout of their lives while watching people get chomped by sharks. You might be wondering what I was doing watching Jaws at that young age. All I know is that I wished I had serrated mofo teeth like Mr. Jaws, because those Dots were harder than hell.

So, I was sort of expecting these Yogurt Dots to necessitate multiple trips to the dentist. Instead, it seems they’ve gotten all soft and squishy on me. They taste (and look) more like a sugarless gumdrop. I’m sort of glad for the new softness, but they have a bad habit of clinging to your teeth. Again, I’m not a candy eater so I don’t know – maybe you’re supposed to swallow them whole? Wait… gaghg. Nope, scratch that idea.

There were five “flavors” in the box. I only know what they are because it’s written on the box: Strawberry, Banana, Orange, Blackberry and Lemon-Lime. Let’s be truthful here. The average, non-zen candy eater would probably not be able to tell what they were. It’s kind of like the descriptions on wine labels that read “hint of cherry plum dingbats with pinecone needle floral notes.” The flavors tasted more like Red #40, Yellow-ish Orange, Orangey Orange, Grape and Green. To be fair to them, when you’re putting these your mouth in the theatre and chewing them up, I think you’ll be paying more attention to the sharks eating naked bathers on the screen than whether the purple flavor is grape or blackberry.

Actually, I confess when I ate them slowly – as in less than one every 2 seconds – I COULD make out the flavors. I guess it’s true that I should stop and chew my food. Thanks, mom.

The yogurt part of the dots was actually quite pleasant, in a sour-ish milk kind of way. In fact, it actually kept me eating nearly half the box while watching all those Spongebob re-runs. Not.

The price at the dollar store is decent for the large amount of Dots that you get. I dunno how much a box like this would run at the movies, but I heartily suggest that my guy friends sneak the box into the theatre in your pants. Just tell them you have a Spongebob Squarepants medical condition. (Gals, you’ll never know how lucky you are to have a purse.)

In conclusion, I could think of hundreds of other uses for these Yogurt Dots besides eating them. Earplugs or nipple enhancers come to mind. But because I’m a completely Ab-Normal person, I would suggest you simply put them in your mouth and chew them while watching man-eating sharks chew on delicious, delicious people. Yum.

Price: $1.00 for 8.5 oz.
Found At: Dollar Store
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10

[Editor's Note: I do NOT like Spongebob Squarepants. I do NOT like Spongebob Squarepants. I do NOT like Spongebob Squarepants. I DO NOT like Spongebob Squarepants. Oh all right, I watch it occasionally...]

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, there was a Bag of Chips. These chips were called Pringles Bold Crunch, and they were of the Jalapeno variety. No, I’m not going to stick the “N-yay” on the “n” in Jalapeno, because I’m too lazy. Anyhow, were these bold? Yep. Were they crunchy? Quite. Did they have a Jalapeno taste? Indubitably. And were they Pringles?

NOPE.

And, this IS their story…

OK, I have to admit I’ve been suffering writer’s block after a can of Juanita’s Pozole fell out of the sky and hit me on the head. Actually, it fell out of the kitchen cabinet but since my high cabinets were made for aliens 8 feet tall, and aliens tend to fall out of the sky, I guess you could say that an alien can of Juanita’s Pozole hit me on the head after falling out of the sky.

Thank you very much for the scattered applause.

I had originally written up a fake interview with a Mr. Bold C. Pringles. The C stands for “Crunchy”, or at least that’s what he told me. You know how it is. People lie sometimes just because they think they can get away with it…

In the interview, I was going to have Mr. Pringles go postal on me, or at least call me a lazy, good fer nothing product reviewer. I was going to make him all in your face bold and crunchy, booyah! He was going to berate my chip eating skills and tell me to go back to the dollar store and return them because I didn’t deserve to eat them.

I was going to finally muster up the strength to launch my own counterattack: these Pringles ARE NOT PRINGLES. No they’re not. I don’t care how delicious they are, they’re not fricking Pringles, no sir. They don’t look like Pringles. They don’t really taste like them. And they’re not in a can, they’re in a bag.

FAIL.

But you know, I’ve learned something today. No one cares about fake interviews with products. Unless they’re really awesome. We should just eat or use the products and then type up a short single spaced paragraph on the Smith Corona (not beer you idiot) in which we discuss exactly what we liked and disliked about it. We shouldn’t bring any emotion or idiocratic (that’s not a word) idiosyncrasies into the conversation.

Instead, we should sit properly at the table when eating our chips and talk about them rationally with our friends and neighbors. For instance, the heady aroma of the Jalapeno (sorry, again no N-yays) that tickles my nose as it wafts out of the bag. And the powdery pifflepuzz of tangy seasonings that glossen each wittle chip goodly. Forsooth, the wunderful crackle and munch of the compressed potato snackling as it slides dutifully down the throat. Verily thy capsicum, it tingles the tongue or bung. But oh ye small but bold chipple (or nipple), why dost thou surface be uncurvaceous and non-stacking? Get thee to a cannery, why woulds’t thou be a breeder of flat chips? Woggle, woggle the pringlebones think they’re bold and munchy but hey-ho your price has skyblocketed while you become uncannedeth!

And so on.

Price: $1 for 5.5 oz.
Found At: Dollar Store
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10

[Editor's Note: Sorry, this was another one of "those" reviews. I suffer from Glossolalia occasionally. It only goes away if I write a review out of it, generally of the Reverse Flowers for Algernon variety. Companies hate me for this incoherence. I receive 4 or 5 emails a month telling me how weird or strange I am or smell. I can't help it, my jeans are blue. But seriously, these are pretty decent chips, but they're just not Pringles. Damnit, Pringles come in a can - the end.]

Once upon a time, there was a group of people called the Denver Nuggets. They partook in a sporting activity where the objective was to repeatedly throw an air-filled rubber sphere into a peach basket with the bottom cut out. At the same time, another group of people called the Los Angeles Lakers would try and stop them from throwing the sphere into the peach basket. In fact, they would try and steal the sphere and then, bouncing it along the floor, would run toward their OWN personal peach basket. They would try and loft the sphere into that peach basket. This, of course, was a very exciting activity and billions of other people watched these groups of people try and throw the sphere into their peach baskets.

This is not their story.

However, these ARE Beef Steak NUGGETS that you see above.

I was originally trying to use a joke about Chicken McNuggets as a segue, but it just didn’t fly. Get it? Fly?

Yes, I am a very bad joke/review writer subsisting on dollar store food.

To tell you the truth, these Beef Steak Nuggets (and apparently they are “Original”, because no one has ever made dried cubes of beef jerky before) have caught my eye more than once in the dollar store. But I’ve always resisted the temptation to get them, because I have a sort of “non-dried meat” rule from these discount stores. The last time I was there, however, I accidentally knocked one of the packages off it’s clip in the aisle header.

I took it as a sign.

Note to dollar store owners: you should make sure all the clips fastening these packages to the hangers are loose beyond belief, because when people knock them off they usually pick them up and might possibly buy them.

Or not.

This is a small flat 1.5 ounce package of dried beef jerky cubes. I have to admit I was a little confused at the product description on the back, which states they’re “smoked over mesquite wood”. However, the ingredients state “smoke flavor powder” and even the front of the package says “natural smoke flavor added”. I’m not sure how they can say they’re smoked over mesquite wood, unless maybe they light a little twig of mesquite kindling underneath just so that they can say it on the package. Or maybe I’m just crazy and reading too much conspiracy theory into it.

As with all dried meat products, the price per weight is tremendously expensive as is to be expected. Even with a dollar store item like this, there are exactly 10 cubes of beef in the 1.5 oz. foil pack. Interestingly, it’s claimed on the front that there is “50% more free”. I’m thinking, geez you mean to tell me that normally there are only FIVE nuggets in a pack?

It’s sorta weird how the package makes the beef cubes look “wet”, when in fact they’re dry like normal beef jerky. This is actually what gave me great hesitation in the first place – the beef in the picture looked like wet stew beef. Or Alpo. You take your pick.

I was also very interested to see a small note at the bottom which said “Attention: to enhance freshness and taste, this product is packed with an oxygen absorber packet inside. This packet contains harmless non-toxic minerals, but should not be eaten.”

There was no such absorber packet in mine.

Not that I was THAT disappointed. I wasn’t going to try eating the non-toxic minerals, but hey, you never know.

As for overall smell and taste – I was rather disappointed. The meat had an extremely processed smell to it, but if you’ve had mass produced beef jerky products before, you know what I’m talking about. The smoky smell was not strong at all – maybe they should put more of that powder in.

In my opinion, the spices were weak. They tended toward the very sweet. Now, I know America has this fascination with sweet food, but please, keep it out of my beef jerky. This almost tasted like teriyaki beef. If you’ve had asian beef jerky before, it tasted like that, but even sweeter in my opinion. Too much brown sugar here. Besides the horrible MSG aftertaste floating in my mouth, I did notice an afterglow of black pepper powder, which was more pleasant.

The texture of the beef nuggets was rather tender. I think they’re keeping in mind the toothless generations (older folks and babies) when they made these. It does say they’re “enjoyed by Moms, Dads, and Kids alike”. They’re equal opportunity beef steak nugget producers. Me, I like a beef jerky that’s so tough it threatens to rip your teeth out of your gums when you try and bite off a piece. I likes me a dried cow slab that fights back. The thicker pieces did have a bit more chew, but on the whole I was pretty disappointed.

In conclusion, I wouldn’t buy these again. I actually had to chuck about half of it into the can because I couldn’t stand the sweetness in them. But you’ll like these nuggets if you like sweet dried beef. Maybe you can take them to the next Nuggets peach basket game.

Price: $1.00 for 1.5 oz (10 pcs)
Found At: Dollar Store
Cheap Eats Score: 4/10

I’ve been sort of sitting on these Burger King Onion Ring Snacks. I don’t mean actually sitting on them as in squatting and placing my butt-rear directly over these holes, er, rings, er, roundish snack things. (Hey, that rhymes!) I mean I’ve kept them in the dollar store food Cheap Eats review cache for a rainy day. They just seemed like such an easy review to put up, and I had great gasping plans for them.

But seeing as I’m gasping in other ways due to the 98 degree heat today, I figured I might as well have a go at them. Give it the old college try. You know. Cram as many onion rings into my mouth as possible and then sit back and watch a hockey playoff game or two. See if I can shoot a stream of pee through the ring. Purely puerile things that stifling heat makes you do.

These are Burger King branded snack chips that are supposed to be the equivalent of their onion rings. Now, I haven’t been to BK in awhile, although it’s not because I dislike the food. I’m sorta ambivalent toward their offerings, no lingering hate here. Apparently, they have made a mess of their commercials though, according to the preliminary results of the “Worst Fast Food Commercials” poll that’s running. I haven’t seen too many BK commercials at all lately – it’s kinda weird.

But anyhow, these onion ring snacks actually look surprisingly close to what I’m assuming their real onion rings would look like. They’re sort of the size of the smaller onion rings you might get in an order, from about 1-2 inches in diameter. That’s 1-2 inches across, for those of you who failed math like I did.

I actually find it quite interesting that the rings are not all the exact same size. They must have some sort of onion-ring-diameter randomizer function embedded into the extruder machine. I bet you it’s patented, which is unfortunate because I was just about to submit that idea to one of those “Invention Patent” websites and watch the pennies roll in. Jingle, jingle.

I guess the big question you’ve been patiently waiting for me to answer is: How are these compared to Funyuns?

Besides having a name that’s 95% better grammatically speaking (I can only imagine how many gallons of paint one has to gulp in order to come up with a proper butcherizing of the name “Funyuns”), the BK Onion Ring snacks are decidedly darker and browner in color. The texture of the outside of the ring looks very similar to the breading on an onion ring. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the appearance.

They also appear to be “chunkier” than Funyuns – I know real onion slices are pretty flat and skinny, so maybe they’re trying to imitate a really thick batter. Actually, if they were shooting a(nother) remake of “Honey I Shrunk The Kids” next door (and they’ve been known to shoot Hollywood drivel films all around our area), I might be tempted to think these were Cinnamon Cheerios cereal props. They look an awful lot like them.

As far as texture goes, they aren’t that dense like Cheetos, but are more like cheese puffs. Not as light as the puffs, though – I would say they fall somewhere in between. They have a nice crunch to them – I want to say they’ve got around the same crunch as Funyuns do. Dang it, I keep typing FunyuMs. Stupid ‘N’ and ‘M’ close together on the keyboard. Where’s my Dvorak…

As for taste, they’ve got a good strong onion flavor – no doubt enhanced suitably by a few tablespoons of MSG. But not the worst tasting onion chips I’ve ever had. I wish I had some Funyuns so I could test them side by side. If memory serves me correctly, and it never does, I think Funyuns were actually saltier than these BK Onion Ring chips. I was quite surprised I didn’t have to immediately take a drink after eating these. Well, OK, I did have to run to get a drink after about six of the rings. That MSG sort of creeps up on you all sudden-like.

In conclusion, I think that I was suckered into buying these onion ring snacks just because they had the Burger King name on them. In that respect, their evil corporate marketing machinations worked beautifully. I’m going to have to take some of those new Name Brand De-Sensitizer pills I’ve been hearing so much about. But I guess I was fairly surprised that the actual product was decent and they went to some trouble to make it interesting instead of just slapping their name on a bunch of baked cornholes.

Sorry, I meant corn rings. And I just realized I used the words slapping and cornhole in that sentence.

Sigh, time to call it a day – the heat is Funyunizing my brain.

Price: $1.00 for 3 oz.
Found At: Dollar Store
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10

[Editor's Note: I apologize for not being able to come up with a suitable joke incorporating "Have It Your Way" and cornhole ring. These things just do not come naturally to me.]

Once upon a time there was a young boy who could breathe underwater. He was about to be captured by government agents when he was rescued by a round-faced, blonde, breadmaking cheerleader who was invulnerable to all forms of bodily damage. Save the breadmaker, save the world.

This is not their story.

(It is, however, a part of the most recent episode of Heroes in case you should like to watch that.)

This story, instead, is about these Baby Cheddar Pepperidge Farms Goldfish that I bought on a whim while at Tarjey. What does it have to do with Heroes? Like talent in an American Idol show – absolutely, positively, nothing.

I was actually trying to think of some “baby” jokes or cultural references to spew forth like I Love The 70s/80s slurm. But my brain was severely distracted by round-faced, blonde, breadmaking cheerleaders last night. So I didn’t get to make a whole list.

Ok, maybe just a few – Babyface. Ooh Baby I Love Your Way. Laughing Cow Mini Babybel. I’ve Got You Babe. Babe (The Pig). How is babby formed?

Oh yes, and Octopus Mom lives close to me. I should pay a visit and offer her a bag of these mini goldfish – there’s so many in a bag that each of her cephalopodic babbys could have a tentacle full.

But, as usual, I digress. I’m actually a huge fan of the standard Pepperidge fan goldfish. I haven’t really tried too many other flavors. I just know the pretzel ones make me thirsty. Yes, those pretzels were making me thirsty. 20 Magic Bonus Points if you got that reference.

I thought these babbbbby goldfish were going to be really tiny – sort of like how mini M&Ms are baby versions of their chocolatey parents. But to be honest, there wasn’t that huge of a difference in size. And since the flavor and texture is identical, I’m not sure why I would buy this instead of normal Cheddar Goldfish.

In retrospect, I should’ve bought another bag of normal sized goldfish so I could compare them side by side. It’s been awhile since I bought a bag of goldfish crackers, so I don’t even remember if the normal ones have missing faces as well.

That’s right, some of these goldfish have no eyes or mouth – just like the poor saps on Fringe who were victims of a scar tissue virus gone awry. I don’t know why they mix these together in the bag – I’m all for goldfish species equality (witness the “Colors” Goldfish that Pepperidge Farm also sells), but I was getting confused while eating these. When I’m eating a goldfish, I like to make eye contact with him. I like to let him know that yesh, Mr. Homo Sapiens Carnivorous is definitely in charge of chomping here. I don’t want him to try and hide behind a blank expression (like our former president, zing).

Ok, so I admit after eating just about a whole school of these, it did seem like you could cram more of them in your mouth than the normal variety. I wonder if you could get in the Guinness Book of World Records that way – it should be easier than cramming people into a phone booth. I would still like to see the two sizes side by side, so maybe I’ll buy a bag of both next time. I’ll just eat a few of each and give the remaining to the octuplets next time I see them.

I just read back this review, and it doesn’t make any sense. Fun.

[Editor's Note: I know I'm probably wrong about the translation of "breadmaker", no need to write in long emails about that...]

Price: $1.66 for 7.2 oz bag
Found At: Target
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10

“Tings are a fun snack mon, Tings are made with love, humor and nutrition in mind. Tings are cool mon.”

Sorry, just quoting this package of Robert’s American Gourmet Tings. I don’t really speak like that. Or wait, I DO.

Or rather, some of my relatives do. My late aunt used to prounounce the word “thing” as “ting”. She also used to pronounce “think” as “tink”. They don’t say “mon”, though. I think it’s a Hawaiian thing (and not a Jamaican thing) cause my dad and uncle do it as well. Who knows – I’m just a mainlander. I mean a cheaplander.

But anyway, the wife got me several packages of these Tings the other day. I tink, I mean, I think Robert’s American Gourmet got its start with salad dressings first in the mid 80s. They later moved into snacks like: Pirate’s Booty, Veggie Booty, Smart Puffs, Tings, Dude’s Chips, Chaos, made with organic ingredients, Antique Potato Chips, Soy Crisps, Awesome Party Chips, and Blue Organic Tortilla Chips.

I think I’m eventually going to have to try them all. The names are great, especially the Pirate’s Booty. But how is the product itself? Let’s just say that if there was such a thing as Naked Cheetos, Tings would be it. These are a bit more “corny” tasting than normal Cheetos but have the exact same structure and texture. I actually enjoyed not getting cheese powder all over the place.

The ingredients listed are: Corn, some kinda oil, nutritional yeast and salt. Sounds ok so far. The funniest thing (to me at least) is on the back it says “Nutritional Yeast added for enhanced nutrition“. I don’t know why this struck me as hilarious. Sort of like saying “Tomatoes added for better tomato flavor.”

I guess with snacks, probably 95% of the food is the packaging. This is just another repackaging of the enormous stocks of excess corn that the U.S. produces (sorry Iowa, I just read Omnivore’s Dilemma and I’m not feeling very good about your corn just now…)

But for crunchy corn sticks, Tings are pretty good. Not as good as say, Bugles, but infinitely better for you. And we wouldn’t have gotten them if it wasn’t for the packaging. It worked.

Still, I’m not yet ready to call myself a “Ting Head” which is the moniker that they suggest fans of Tings take on. I like the taste, but it’s too expensive for just plain corn. If it was 50 cents, I’d give it a better score.

For real, man…

Price: MSRP: $0.99-1.50 for 1 oz pkg
Found At: Various Stores
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10