Tag Archives: non cereal

Review: Steak ‘n Shake Breakfast Cereal Milkshakes (Cinnamon Crunch & Honey Smacks)

Whoever first decided to pair milkshakes with cereal deserves a monument. Only a giant marble shake cup will do, preferably filled with liquid platinum and gold nuggets to stand in for soft serve-soaked cereal nibs. It’s an unexpectedly genius idea: sure, cereal and milk have an esteemed history, but you don’t generally associate an indulgent dessert like a milkshake with anything breakfast related—unless you had a bad night at the casino and want to make one last terrible 4am choice.

Now I may revoke my celebration of the breakfast shake’s inventor if this confection enables the shuddersome creation of cereal-infused cheese, but for now, let’s celebrate this golden age of shakes by uniting sugared cereals and cold cream cylinders in holy gastro-matrimony—at a place that’s literally 50% founded on milkshakes.

Yes, Steak ‘n Shake has 5 new Breakfast Shakes—technically 4, because one is Caramel Latte and you can tell the other shakes are only bringing him along because their moms made them (I’ve been there, buddy…as Caramel Latte). I intend to review all of them—Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Krispies, Cinnamon Crunch, and Honey Smacks—eventually, but based on how late my shake-seeking partner and I made it to The House of Beef and Lactose, I didn’t want to be up until 4am with a sugar-addled brain and an abdomen swollen to the size of a cow’s first three stomachs.

Because at that point, I’d feel terrible enough to go back for a fifth. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, 7 rating, cinnamon, honey, kelloggs, non cereal. Leave a comment

Sep. ’17

Review: Quaker Green Apple Fig Oatmeal with Antioxidants

“Aw, I gotta play with that guy??” Green Apple whines. “But Mom, he’s totally uncool! Fig always gets picked last when we play fruitball—a total poindexter.”

Yes, I imagine figs as the unpopular kid in the brutal playground hierarchy of the personified fruit world. I mean, fig has what: fancy mostarda and some under-celebrated cookies named after the inventor of calculus? I don’t blame you, Green Apple: if Momma Quaker forced me to go on a playdate with Fig, I’d turn sour too.

Yet here we are anyway: about to dive into a steaming bowl of Quaker’s newest instant oatmeal flavor: Green Apple Fig. If you’re wondering why I’m using so many colons in this review, the answer’s simple: with 4 grams of fiber and enough infused antioxidants to take a true crime TV channel off the air, this Green Apple Fig oatmeal is all about the colon.

And now that we’ve gotten my token crude joke out of the way, let’s dig in! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 5 rating, apple, non cereal, oatmeal, quaker. 3 Comments

Sep. ’17

Review: Halloween Chocolate Fudge Printed Fun Pop-Tarts

Halloween is about the little things.

Ask any full-blooded (or at least fake-blood-slathered) Halloween lover, and I’m sure most will agree. While haunted houses, parties, and handing out candy on The Big XXXI Day itself are the holiday’s main events, savoring little spooky moments is the key to feeling merrily macabre from the start of back-to-school season ’til the end of back-to-the-cardboard-box-ghouls-in my basement season.

These bite-sized boos can be anything—or anywhere. Glimpsing a well-loved plastic goblin in a thrift store. Marathoning all the Halloween movies and spending the next week fearing any mention of William Shatner. Camping out in a Spirit Halloween with an industrial carton of Whoppers and flipping through old Goosebumps books until the staff gets scared of you.

Or maybe it’s just eating one (or thirty one) of Kellogg’s “new” Halloween Chocolate Fudge Printed Fun Pop-Tarts. It’s long been a Pop-Tartian tradition to adorn their Chocolate Fudge flavor with full Hallo-regalia (why Chocolate Fudge, I don’t know—maybe because it’s pretty much a king-sized candy bar that’s socially acceptable to eat for breakfast?), but previous years have only seen this ghost-er pastry wearing orange frosting and crunchy sprinkle shapes.

But now Kellogg’s has beautifully spurned their sprinkled tradition in favor of something somehow even better: printed scary shapes on every neon orange-blasted, baked fudge rectangle! Drink that box art in for a minute while I grab the plates, glasses of milk, and altars to worship that top cartoon ghost at.

He looks like a spectral Pikachu tail. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, chocolate, halloween, kelloggs, non cereal, pop-tarts. 3 Comments

Aug. ’17

Review: International Delight Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Coffee Creamer

If you’re like me, coffee is as much a cornerstone of every balanced breakfast as a bowl of cereal—and the two pair perfectly like yin and yang. Seriously: just picture a yin yang, with one half being coffee with a dab of cream and the other being milk with a single Cocoa Puff.

My love affair with bitter coffee and sweet cereal is pervasive, so much so that I couldn’t resist reviewing a buzz-worthy new coffee product that brings all the whimsical childhood spirit of a breakfast cereal into the comparatively adult territory of caffeinated beverage flavor-enhancing agents: International Delight’s new Reese’s Cup Coffee Creamer.

I hope you’ll forgive me for not reviewing an overtly cereal-related product on this blog—though I promise this post will end in me pouring the stuff on cereal—but I’ve been meaning to branch my content topics into other breakfast staples, too. If you hate this idea, let me know in the comments. Or if you love this idea and want me to tackle Eggo waffles, scrambled eggs, or scrambled egg-stuffed Eggo waffles next, let me know that, too.

But while you gather your spoons and pitchforks, let’s revel in some socially acceptable liquid candy! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, chocolate, non cereal, peanut butter. 7 Comments

Aug. ’17

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites

Before eating Generals Mills’ new Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites, you are required—by intergalactic law, I’m assuming—to listen to Yello’s ’80s hit “Oh Yeah” and mentally replace all instances of the words “Ohhh yeahhh” with “Doughhh yeahhh.” Only then may these goo-oozing (goozing for short) Cinnamon Toast Crunch-specked doughnut holes roll off your plate and directly onto your taste buds.

Okay fine, if you have poor wi-fi or are enjoying your Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites from a submarine, the Parisian Catacombs, or a coffin you were prematurely placed in—alongside your favorite microwave—I’ll give you the pass on the song. But since these microwaveable freezer aisle treats are one of the season’s most hyped-up cereal confections, they deserve some sort of ceremony.

So while you arrange the cinnamon scented candles into a doughnut shape with an effigy of Dunkin’ Donuts’ Fred the Baker in the middle, I’ll ceremoniously devour mine. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, cinnamon, general mills, non cereal, toast crunch. 1 Comment

Jul. ’17

Review: Quaker Overnight Oats – Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch

Is it just me, or has the humble coconut been having a quietly nutty couple years in the breakfast aisle?

Before 2016, we rarely saw the milk-stuffed tropical sphere appear at breakfast time—unless we watched Monty Python’s Holy Grail while eating our Saturday morning munchies—but now it seems like every Girl Scout, superfood, and massive anthropomorphized consonant is paying homage to the fruit with translucent slivers of coconutty love. I can’t say for certain just why there’s been a coconut resurgence. Perhaps it’s piggybacking off the coconut oil fad, but I like to believe it’s because Super Mario Sunshine’s 15th anniversary is next month.

Regardless, it unfortunately doesn’t feel like any recent coconut breakfast food really nails the coconut experience—Nature’s Path’s latest Love Crunch flavor comes closest, but even then, the dark chocolate is the star of the show.

I know what you’re probably thinking: “Oh, since this is his introduction to a Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch Overnight Oats review, that must mean this new Quaker product finally breaks the ‘weak coconut streak’ like a cracked coconut over a marooned cartoon islander’s head!”

Wrong. Sorry to break the bad news, like a cracked coconut broken over a…you know…but this second flavor of Quaker Overnight Oats I’ve tried (after the borderline heavenly Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven) doesn’t get coconut right, either. But what it does get right is that other nut in its name. Boy, does it ever. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, almond, coconut, non cereal, oatmeal, quaker. 4 Comments

Jul. ’17

Review: Quaker Overnight Oats – Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven

I don’t remember learning about Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven in Sunday school. Is that where young folks who like to eat breakfast like senior citizens go when they die? If so, the whatever higher power is up there can hurry up and smite me, because there’s nothing I secretly love more than eating bowls full of fibrous cereal and grapes that got the shrunken head treatment.

Hey, something’s gotta balance out all the Cinnamon Toast Crunch I eat, um, for science.

Yes, Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven was my natural first choice when presented with Quaker’s four new Overnight Oat flavors. The little cups of oats, which you’re supposed to pour milk on and refrigerate for 6+ hours before eating (my condolences to the world’s insomniacs), also come in Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch, Blueberry Banana & Vanilla Bliss, and Orchard Peach Pecan Perfection.

Why each flavor sounds so euphoric and zen, I don’t know, but I do know I’ll now forever picture the Quaker Oat guy’s face on the Buddha’s plumply smiling body. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, non cereal, oatmeal, quaker, raisin. 4 Comments

Jul. ’17

News: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites are Coming Soon to the Freezer Aisle. And Your Stomach!

(Update: We reviewed Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites!)

I go nuts, you go nuts, we all go nuts for bite-sized, Cinnamon Toast Crunch-encrusted doughnuts!

General Mills formally announced their new summer product lineup yesterday, and while all the traditional cereals mentioned, like Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Blueberry Chex, have already been on shelves long enough for me to shamefully eat a family of family-sized boxes, one frozen novelty somehow avoided early distribution or online news leakage: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites!

Coming soon to grocery freezer aisles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch are soft, cinnamon sugar-dusted doughnut holes filled with cinnamon filling that turns warm and gooey when heated. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Cinnamon Toast Crunch doughnut, and it’s not the first time we’ve seen a filled cinnamon doughnut hole—these seem like a spiritual successor to Taco Bell’s Cinnabon Delights.

But it is the first time we’ve been able to savor sweet, doughy cinnamon swirls in every bite within 30 seconds of open packaging. That’s how long it takes to make a Cinnamon Toast Crunch bite in the microwave, an I’m thankful.

Because that’s just enough time to scarf down an appetizer bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in anticipation.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cinnamon toast crunch, news, non cereal. 2 Comments