Monthly Archives: March 2016

News: Lucky Charms Wants You to Adopt a Leprechaun for St. Patrick’s Day

https://twitter.com/LuckyCharms/status/708699107045613568

For Lucky Charms, St. Patrick’s Day is pretty much Christmas. Since the entire philosophical foundation of the cereal is “magically delicious marshmallows served with a smile by a cherubic leprechaun,” it’s no surprise that the brand is doing something special for March 17th’s upcoming day of green.

Sadly, my idea for a hybrid Lucky Charms/Shamrock Shake minty beverage has been ignored once more (that’s okay, my arteries weren’t ready anyway). Instead, The goofy looking cartoon Lucky is doing an appropriately silly social media campaign.

By visiting the Adopt a Leprechaun site and tweeting #AdoptALeprechaun at Lucky Charms’ Twitter account, you, too, can become the honorary stepfather, stepmother, or maybe even step-elf to one of many leprechauns.

In return, you get a biography of your leprechaun and the chance to print a button with Lucky’s grinning mug. I still can’t tell whether this new Lucky looks more like an Adventure Time character or a Fairly Oddparents character.

As for Cerealously, at the time of this writing our adoption request is still pending. But we’ll be sure to share on our Twitter when the lil lad or lass is named.

EDIT: Here he is!

Lucky Charms isn’t the first cereal brand to offer a chance at adoption—Barbara’s Puffins have long featured a box label mail-in system for adopting endangered puffins, and we have two under our name.

If my knowledge about leprechaun biology is accurate, our soon-to-be leprechaun should be able to ride one of those puffins like the world’s most adorable Air Force pilot.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go buy a box of Lucky Charms, a Shamrock Shake, a blender, and a coffin for myself.

Review: Post Honey Bunches of Oats Crunch O’s: Honey and Almond

IMG_1315Could it be? Do I really no longer have to waste my time mixing Honey Bunches of Oats with Honey Nut Cheerios to create my favorite FrankenCereal creation: Honey Nut Bunches of CheeriOats?

There are few cereal combos I love more than the sticky, nutty rings of Honey Nut Cheerios tag-teaming it with the crispy flakes and earthy, rich clusters of Honey Bunches of Oats. But think of the hassle it takes to prepare a bowl: I have to grab a box, pour it into a bowl, then grab another box, and pour that one too! Even Atlas couldn’t shoulder this burden.

Oh, and did I mention that I have to physically mix the two with my spoon like some antiquated pilgrim on her butter churn? C’mon, it’s the 21st century, people!

But no longer, because Post has released Honey Bunches of Oats Crunch O’s, in both Honey and Almond flavors. These cereals combine the Honey Bunches we know and love with crunchy oat ovals, thus maximizing my morning laziness.

But do the flavors of these cereals stack up to my manual concoctions?  Well churn my butter and call me Jebediah, because we’re about to find out. Continue reading

Review: Kroger Peanut Butter Chip Mates Cereal

IMG_1306Seriously guys, we have to talk about Peanut Butter Chip Mates.

Generic brand cereals are often seen as the crunchy butts of every breakfast table joke (I just wanted to type the phrase “crunchy butts”). Even though they are the breakfast of champions on a budget, these obvious rip-offs have goofy names like “Honey-Nut Scooters” and “Crispy Hexagons,” as well as sub-par flavors that melt away faster than a muffin in a rainstorm.

And yes, I’ve seen a muffin in a rainstorm before. It ain’t pretty.

But not Peanut Butter Chip Mates. No, Peanut Butter Chip Mates doesn’t need your pity, nor will it ask for it.

Peanut Butter Chip Mates is here to slap those preconceived notions about store brand cereals right out of you.

Peanut Butter Chip Mates is here to slap you so full of doughy peanut butter cookie flavor that you’ll be on your knees in front of a box of Marshmallow Mateys, begging for forgiveness. Continue reading

Happy National Cereal Day 2016: Dan’s Cereal Top 10!

Screen Shot 2016-03-07 at 1.19.11 AM copy
That’s right, fellow cerealists, the greatest day of the year has come once more! March 7th is National Cereal Day, and it’s better than 25 Christmases stuffed into a Thanksgiving turkey that’s been strapped to a 4th of July firework and launched into a jack-o-lantern carved to look like the Easter bunny.

Today, cereal munchers everywhere are paying loving tribute to the fun, delicious, and ever-nostalgic breakfast classic that faithfully serves us 365 days a year (or 366, on years like this one).

Since Cerealously was only born in July of 2015, this is our first National Cereal Day as a blog. Despite this, I want to do a brief throwback to National Cereal Day 2015, when General Mills sent a few lucky cereal fans this rockin’ jigsaw puzzle that is way too cool not to share with the Internet.B_hNkTRUcAAvvIt

I will say, though, that even though this jigsaw puzzle is cool, it was difficult enough to put together that Jigsaw from Saw must have been the one who designed it. If you can imagine a slightly sweaty grown man hunched over and swearing while trying to fit a Lucky Charms horseshoe piece into a Cheerio-shaped hole, you wouldn’t be far from the truth.

In reality, I was much sweatier.trix-sunrise-chill-pie-photos-1-HR

This year, General Mills teamed up with the Food Network’s Justin Warner to develop a bunch of exclusive cereal recipes. I’d love to make one, like the above Trix Sunrise Chill Pie, but we all know that my “baking session” would end 10 minutes later with me passed out on the kitchen floor, face down in a puddle of milk with a half-eaten box of Trix spilled around me like fruity crime scene giblets. You can check out this and other recipes here.

Meanwhile, no National Cereal Day would be complete without a contribution from Gabe Fonseca, a friend of Cerealously and a binge watchable cereal YouTuber. Gabe made this awesome tribute video for his channel, which features a whole bunch of cool people sharing their favorite cereals. Look closely, and you might even catch yours truly in the video.

Just don’t blame me if my face makes you go blind.

But Gabe isn’t the only one who’s ever asked me what my favorite cereal is. In fact, I get asked it so often, that I wanted to properly celebrate National Cereal Day here on Cerealously by counting down not 1, not 5, and not even 8.125 of my favorite cereals. No, it’s time to rank my Top 10 Cereals of All Time!* Continue reading

Review: Kellogg’s Krave Brownie Treat Bar

IMG_4491I’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again.

Krave is a divisive cereal. Most people either think it tastes like dog food, or they wolf it down like hungry canines at chow time.

Personally, I love the stuff…with milk. When munched straight out of the box, Krave is usually too bland and mealy for my tastes. But with the addition of milk, each piece becomes a soft, biscuity chocolate lava cake, oozing with fudgy goo.

That’s why I had doubts about trying this Krave cereal bar. Would I end up having to inject it with a syringe full of 2% to make it palatable?

But then I saw the word “brownie,” and my fears went away. The word “brownie” conjures up happy images of Grandma’s homemade dessert and cheerful Girl Scouts peddling delicious, definitely not homemade dessert cookies.

So I had to give it a try anyway. With a name like Smucker’s Brownie, it has to be good. Right? I’ll still make sure to have the nurses prepare a Nesquik IV drip, just in case. Continue reading

Review: Kellogg’s Finding Dory Cereal

IMG_4485Just keep staring. Just keep staring. Just keep staring.

…aaaand, I’m blind.

Photos don’t do it justice, but this box of Finding Dory cereal is bright. I think the shiny holographic box design could even bring down planes if angled correctly in the sunlight.

Your move, TSA.

In fact, the distracting solar flare of this cereal box is the only reason I’m reviewing it at all; I was attracted to it in the grocery store like a moth to a flame. Or perhaps like a guppy to an angler fish. Or maybe even like a kid to one of those oil puddles that reflects neat rainbows.

I usually just sit back and make fun of generic oats and marshmallows movie tie-in cereals, but truth be told, I haven’t actually tried one in awhile. Maybe my laughter is unwarranted. Maybe there’s a tasty reason Kellogg’s has rehashed this formula time and time again.

So here’s your shot, Kellogg’s. Dazzle me with that Pixar magic. Continue reading

Cereal Time with Gabe Fonseca: Honey Bunches of Oats and Sugar Smacks Cereal

Well, looks like it’s time to renew my monthly subscription to HBO. And no, I’m not talking about getting my Game of Thrones fix—I mean Honey Bunches of Oats! With two new episodes in cereal squire Gabe Fonseca’s Cereal Time YouTube series, we wanted to share both with you. Cereal Time takes an in-depth look at a different cereal lineage each week, and it’s chock full of vitamins, minerals, and occasionally King Vitaman.

Honey Bunches of Oats takes the honey-soaked stage first. As Gabe describes, Honey Bunches of Oats have humble beginnings, ever since 1986 when good ol’ Vernon Herzing first mixed 4 different Post cereals into a single Frankenstein’s cereal monster (not to be confused with Franken Berry, of course). Honey Bunches first started as “Battle Creek Cereal,” and even though I’m a Michigan native and would have loved for that name to catch on, it was the much more literal “Honey Bunches of Oats” that finally stuck (both literally and metaphorically: honey is sticky!).

Maybe “Battle Creek Cereal” sounds too much like a cereal killer horror movie. Continue reading