Bringing Bacon Back

I've gotten to dig my fork into a fair number of mac n' cheese meals these last 10 months.  The one thing that at first thought didn't scare me a bit, but now scares me quite a lot is the addition of meat to a meal (that isn't a frozen meal).  My Archer Farms real bacon experience taught me that it's potentially a very dangerous thing. So much so that I think even Target/Archer Farms is having a difficult time with them because I've not seen those bacon carbonara bowls on shelves but for one or two days every few months at any local Target since I did my review.

Finding that another brand was giving bacon the ol' college try had me very cautious about the potential outcome.  Armed with a camera phone and their customer support 800 number I was ready to give Kraft's bacon bowl a shot.

The Review

Brand:
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Homestyle Sharp Cheddar Cheese Sauce And Oscar Mayer Bacon

Big money, no moldy.... STOP!

Price:
$2.12 at Target

Packaging Description:
(On Front)
Rich & creamy Kraft cheese sauce and macaroni topped with delicious bacon bits.

(On Back)
N/A

Preparation:
*Remove the paper cover and place it to the side. Normally I'd say to just toss it straight into the recycling, but it's got the preparation instructions on it, so wait until you've finished making your bowl, THEN toss it into the recycling.

A cute plastic film with elbow noodles on it. Maybe I could get this design on a shower curtain or something and make a themed bathroom.

*Peel the plastic film off and remove the three pouches inside and place them to the side. 

Now this is a seasoning I can get behind.

*Find the seasoning pouch and tear the top off.  Dump the contents onto the uncooked elbow noodles.

Add caption

*After you've added the powder to the pasta, take it to the sink and fill it with water to the fill line that is visible on the inside of the bowl.

Just a little clumpy.

*Take your fork and mix up the powder, noodles and water.

Fork has been set to spin cycle.

*Place the bowl into the microwave, setting it to cook for 4 1/2 minutes.  Once cooked, remove the bowl by it's handles.  It will be HOT!

Well those noodles sure look wet and cooked now.  Good job seasoning packet!

*Grab the foil pouch that has the cheese sauce in it and open it by any safe means (teeth, fingers, scissors used properly with the supervision of an adult...) and squeeze the contents onto the cooked pasta.

Look, A cheesy face! I'm reaching out to sell this to that online poker site that loves the iconography in food and retire a millionaire.

*Take your fork and mix the noodles and cheese sauce up.

*Grab the remaining pouch (labeled bacon pieces) and open it, checking first that there is no mold or other possibilities for food poisoning before doing anything else.

Success! No mold!

*Sprinkle the bacon pieces over the pasta.

The pouch had more bits than this, I just stopped sprinkling to take a picture.

*Commence with the nomming!

Taste:
Out of the microwave I wasn't privy to any 'cheesy' smell.  While I thought that seasoning packet would have done some kind of smell enhancement, it did not.  After cooking the pasta with the seasoning powder and seeing no discernible difference I wasn't sure of the purpose of the seasoning packet.  Once I added the cheese sauce, it picked up a moderately cheesy smell (for a little while at least),  The noodles were just a little overcooked.  The sharp Cheddar cheese sauce didn't taste distinctly 'sharp', but it was cheesy.  Those bacon crumbles were hard and almost crunchy (it's hard to explain, but there was no crunch that one would expect from bacon that was hard like that) and gave the bowl a distinct bacon smell once added, but didn't give the bowl a very noticeable bacon taste.

Final Score:
Not getting food poisoning is always a bonus. While it may be a bit strange to open up the summary paragraph with that statement, I was quite happy that I wasn't going to have to make another call to a customer hot line to report a bad meal.  This was a very run of the mill mac, with a sharp cheese sauce that was only slightly sharp and bacon that really didn't give the bowl much of a bacon taste (even though the smell was there), leaving for an underwhelming bowl all around.

Nutritional Information:

Serving Size 1 package (104g)

Calories 350
Calories From Fat 90
Total Fat 10g (15% Daily Value)

Saturated Fat 4g (20% DV)

Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 15mg (5% DV)
Sodium 920mg (38% DV)
Total Carbohydrates 51g (17% DV)
Dietary Fiber 2g (8% DV)
Sugars 4g
Protein 13g