The Long And Winding Road

As we become more (hopefully) in tune with the needs of other cultures and beliefs we begin to see a change in how our foods are prepared (and marketed).  I don't think many people are phased when they see that a meal is now Kosher or vegetarian and though it's slowly being adopted, more meals are now also coming Halal.  For a meal to be Halal the animals who's products are included, need to be ritualistically slaughtered and other foods need to be natural and not processed, so whole grains, fruits, veggies and fish among others.  A Halal meal isn't going to taste any different than a non-Halal meal and because of the guidelines, you're actually getting a better quality ingredients in the dish.  Lets see if that adds that extra kick to our mac n' cheese.


The Review

Brand:
Saffron Road Macaroni & Cheese

Stamped Halal, like a prime grade of beef.  I like it!

Sweet Mac-atoes

Americans love food.  Americans love eating out.  What is the best way to capitalize on our mid-lines?  The buffet!  There is nothing quite like a buffet restaurant.  Warming trays of food, as varied as can be protected by sneeze guards going on for 50 feet... before you even see the dessert island.  While here on the west coast, buffet restaurants aren't as popular as they used to be, entrepreneurs have made a shift towards a "healthier" buffet based around salads.  What could go wrong with a salad buffet?  Leafy greens and cheese and croutons and bacon bits and more cheese and some ranch dressing. Oh look, 800 calories!  But we're not here to talk about how I make salads...

While the focus of these restaurants is the salad line, they offer breads, soups and some pasta dishes, including our specialty, macaroni and cheese.  Every time I'm at the local salad buffet, I see kids eating up the mac n' cheese.  Hopefully I find it as tasty as they do.

The Review

Restaurant:

Sweet Tomatoes (also known as souplantation in some parts of the coutry)



I wouldn't know if the tomatoes are actually sweet.  I don't really like tomatoes.  I guess that means you'll have to take it on good measure that their tomatoes are sweet, or take it up with their lawyers.

The Return Of The Cheeze

I'm an equal opportunity mac n' cheese eater.  I'd hope that has come across by now and even if I've had one bad variety of mac by a company, that if the same company makes another variety it'll get the same unbiased shot as it's relative(s) did when it was prepared.   I've marched from one tray to the next for all the Amy's Kitchen varieties that I've come across thus far and each tray has left me far from impressed.

I didn't create this blog to review bad mac n' cheese.  It was created with the mindset that because there are so many varieties that there have to be some great ones out there and maybe I can do some funny writing on this journey of discovery.   I REALLY want to eat good mac n' cheese.  Bad mac's may lead to funnier reviews, but they don't lead to full stomachs.

Today's review is for the fourth (and final as far as I can tell) variety.  Did Amy fare any better this trip through the microwave?

The Review

Brand:
Amy's Kitchen Macaroni & Soy Cheeze

O.K. Amy's, we've not had the best relationship so far, but I'm not letting that dissuade me from giving you ANOTHER chance.  Don't let me down!

Mac For The Friendly Skies

The airport is one of the best business rackets in our society. Don't allow people to bring in foods or beverages and then not allow them to leave. A trapped consumer now gets to pay a huge premium for the same goods that are half the price outside of the airport. America, gotta love it!

I recently went to Vegas for a convention and as we sat and waited for our flight home, we got hungry and wanted dinner. I noticed there was a food court as we headed towards our gate so I went back to score some overpriced fast food. One of the restaurants had a huge picture of Mac n' cheese on their big light up menu... I knew what I was having for dinner!


The Review

Brand:
Villa Pizza's Mac & Cheese

I had never heard of Villa before, but if you know Sbarro's, then you're in the same ball park.

Sporting A Bowtie

It took almost two months, but I finally started to run out of prepared mac n' cheese options at my standard grocery stores.  Lucky's, Safeway and Target (all of our local Target's now have reasonably large grocery store sections in them) are no longer giving me fresh lunch fodder for the blog.  I've begun to cast my net wider, in hopes of finding new macs before i'm stuck on a strictly stovetop and recipe routine.  Fortunately I live in the Bay Area and we've got a number of regional chains and a huge population that enjoy high quality foods that not only keep these smaller chains alive, but allow high end grocery stores like Whole Foods thrive. 

While Whole Foods is expensive, many of the items they carry justify the higher prices.  Hopefully some of these more expensive macs are worth it.  With a focus on organic and healthier items many of the brands seen at Whole Foods are ones you're not going to find at your local grocery stores and because of that, I'm heading down a path fraught with danger for someone who isn't normally very adventurous when it comes to food.

My lunch today was made by a company named Blake's.  Blake sounds nice enough, let's hope his mac n' cheese is too.


The Review

Brand:
Blake's Mac & Cheese with Chicken

Well Blake, if that's actually your name... let us see how your mac n' cheese is

Portable Green

Vegetables are good for you.  We all know this.  We also know that mac n' cheese doesn't pretend to that it's good for you.  Cheese and pasta?  Fat and carbs?  Good in moderation, but not something you should be eating all the time (well except me, I've made it a job of sorts).  I've had a pair of kids meals that come with veggies thanks to Kid Cuisine and Elmo as well as Helen's Kitchen which gave me broccoli and non-meat nuggets but I have yet to experience any that have come with veggies IN the mac n' cheese when all you need to do is add water.  Velveeta has conjured up a broccoli version for those health conscious mac n' cheesers.  Lets see if it's done any better than our other w/ veggies options.

The Review

Brand:
Velveeta Rotini & Cheese: Broccoli



Green means healthy!



The C in KFC Stands For Cheese Right?

Fast food restaurants haven't seemed to really pick up on America's meal.  Maybe it's because it's very hard to fresh prepare quickly or maybe the cost to have ones that just need to be heated are just too high and the profit margins too low.  America's biggest chicken chain KFC however knows that fried chicken really benefits from a mac n' cheese side dish (and mac n' cheese with a breaded chicken is quite tasty) and as such they've provided an option for hungry Americans for years.

The Review


Product:
KFC's Macaroni and Cheese

Staring at this mac n' cheese for too long will lead to blindness.  The orange of it is just so damn (unnaturally) bright!