Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes Review

When I was a little kid, my mom never let us have sugary cereal. Usually our breakfasts consisted of hot cereal such as oatmeal or Farina, with a glass of milk, and yogurt for "dessert." However, at least once a month my brother and I slept over at our Nona's house. My aunt and uncle are only 9 and 7 years older than me, so when my brother and I were in preschool they were in middle school, and we considered them the epitome of cool. But other than getting to hang out with them and spend time with our grandparents, we also loved sleeping over because Nona always had the best "special" breakfast cereal on hand. Lucky Charms was my very favorite. I loved everything about it... the brightly colored box, the leprechaun, and the colorful marshmallows. But I loved lots of other sugary cereals as well. The only time my mom broke her healthy breakfast rule was when we'd go on vacation. Then she'd buy packs of those miniature cereal boxes, consisting of cereals like Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Krispies, Apple Jacks, Froot Loops, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. We'd eat them for breakfast, but we'd also eat them straight out of the boxes as snacks.

Anyways, as an adult, I indulge in my favorite cereals whenever I want! That is the good thing about being an adult. Lucky Charms is one of my first choices. I was excited when I saw a new kind of Lucky Charms on the cereal shelf...

LUCKY CHARMS FROSTED FLAKES!

It combines two of my favorite cereals into one brand new cereal!

It would have been cooler if they had Tony the Tiger on the box with the leprechaun. But that is neither here nor there,

Of course I bought some. I didn't even wait until breakfast the next day. When you're a grown up, you can eat cereal any time you want!

One of my favorite things about Lucky Charms has always been the smell. Mmmmmmmmm...

Here's what it looks like in the bowl, as colorful as always.

What else can I possibly say about it? Both the Frosted Flakes and the marshmallow Charms tasted just as delicious as I remembered them. I ate two bowls. Of course you know what the best part is... drinking the cereal milk afterwards! In this case it was Rice Dream, but it was still awesome.

Lucky Charms Frosted Flakes, you're my new best friend!

Little Debbie Star Crunch Review

And now for a review I've been waiting a while to do... the product that started it all!

One day not long ago, my aunt was staying overnight at my apartment. We were hanging out, like people do, when we got the munchies. Unfortunately, I didn't have as many snacks on hand as I usually did. But the day before I had bought a box of Little Debbie Star Crunches at Winco. Winco is a grocery store in a larger town where we sometimes go for groceries when we get tired of shopping at our small town's one store. My aunt had never tried a Star Crunch. I promised her she'd like it. When I'm right, I'm right! She thought it was amazing! We each had one, and we ended up splitting the last one. That is when my aunt told me that I should be a connoisseur of munchies. And since I love blogging and tend to start a blog for every separate aspect of my life, I immediately started brainstorming ideas for Angel In Munchieland!

The reason it took me a while to review Star Crunches is because I had to wait until I went back to Vancouver. This time I found them at Wal-Mart. I didn't notice until I got home that it was a Big Pack, which meant the Star Crunches are larger than the usual ones.

Here is what the box looks like, in case you want to keep your eyes peeled for it.

If you're eating Star Crunches, it should not be for their nutritional value, but I'll show you the ingredients and nutrition information anyways. 

 Here is what a Star Crunch looks like when you take it out of the package. It is basically caramel and crispy rice held together with chocolate... exactly what it looks like!

When you bite into it, it is delightfully vhewy, but also crunchy. Can something be both chewy and crunchy at the same time? Yes, it can! It is like a combination of a candy bar and a cookie. Here's what it looks like when you take a bite out of it. Can you see all of the rice and caramel?

The Big Pack Star Crunches are more filling than the regular ones. I could definitely only finish one of these before I felt full.

These may be the perfect snack for when you have the munchies! I hope I can find them again next time I go into town.

Sprinkled Donut Crunch Cereal Review

I've been hearing on Twitter all about some of the new cereals that have come out around the holidays such as Sugar Cookie Crunch. I'm staying with my parents for the holidays, so when my mom asked me what to get from the grocery store, I requested Sugar Cookie Crunch. She couldn't find it, but my dad came back with this instead.

I decided to give it a try... although I had to hide it behind a section of the newspaper while I ate it because my five-year-old nephew is not allowed to eat sugary cereal for breakfast. (He is allowed to eat a pecan pie cookie five minutes after eating his nutritiously plain Cheerios... but I digress...)

I noticed Cap'n Crunch's logo on this cereal right away. It had been about twenty years since I'd eaten Cap'n Crunch. (My biggest memory of Cap'n Crunch is that my brother and I once got this decoder thing that looked like a brown wallet, and it had a little window with a red filter on it. You could hold it over something that looked like a bunch of red dots but had a message written in blue, and you'd see the blue message. Also it had the Morse Code typed on one side of it. Cereal box prizes were so much better back then. But again I digress...)

I poured some into my bowl, and this is what it looked like... sort of like yellowish circles with colored sprinkles.

When I tasted it, the taste of Cap'n Crunch came flooding back to me. I always loved the taste. It was different from most other cereals... it was sweet and corny. Today was no different. It also reminded me of how super crunchy Cap'n Crunch is.

The bottom line is, Cap'n Crunch Sprinkled Donut Crunch is Cap'n Crunch. It smells the same, tastes the same, and crunches the same. The sprinkles are for decoration, but don't add any extra flavor that I noticed. So, if you love Cap'n Crunch, you may want to buy this... but if you don't like Cap'n Crunch, or are indifferent towards it, you can invite another sugary cereal mascot to breakfast instead.

Dr. Pepper Made With SUGAR!

I am what you may call a long time, die hard Dr. Pepper fan. Dr. Pepper has been my favorite kind of soda since the first time I tried it, as a child at a fast food restaurant while on vacation with my family. My brother and I were only allowed to drink pop without caffeine at the time, and my mom mistakenly thought there was no caffeine in Dr. Pepper. I was hooked from then on! I've been famous among all of my friends and acquaintances for my love of Dr. Pepper. In fact, at every job I've had, when there was a gift giving occasion, at least one co-worker gave me a case of Dr. Pepper.

One day I read about Dublin Dr. Pepper. I don't understand all the rules of bottling companies, but here's as much as I understand: A bottling company in Dublin, Texas was one of the first to bottle Dr. Pepper. Bottling companies for a large company like Dr. Pepper were independently owned and were each allowed to sell, and profit from, the soda they made, within in a certain radius. In the 1970's and 80's, most companies began using high fructose corn syrup in their products instead of actual sugar. There were a few holdovers, including the Dublin Dr. Pepper company. The Dublin company used their use of real sugar as a marketing point, which ended up drawing in more business than just within the radius they were allowed to sell it in. People were even able to order Dublin Dr. Pepper through the mail. I did it a few times, and it was pretty awesome!

The Dr. Pepper company created a new "Heritage Dr. Pepper" that used its use of real sugar in their marketing plan, although they used beet sugar instead of cane sugar. It didn't take off as planned. So they ended up suing Dublin Dr. Pepper and stopping them from selling any Dr. Pepper outside of their allotted area, including through the mail. I read one article that said you can still buy Dublin Dr. Pepper in at the bottling company, under the name "Dublin Original." I must someday get to Dublin, Texas!

Anyway... Dr. Pepper now, once again, sells a retro type of Dr. Pepper It comes in green cans and says "Made With Sugar" on the front. I was happy to give it a try!

First, I thought I might compare the ingredients of Dublin Dr. Pepper, Made With Sugar Dr. Pepper, and Dublin Dr. Pepper. I found a partial image online of the back of a Dublin Dr. Pepper bottle, which helped me do so. Lets take a look.

Ingredients of Made With Sugar Dr. Pepper: Carbonated water, sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural and artificial flavors, sodium benzoate, caffeine.

Ingredients of regular Dr. Pepper: Carbonated water, High fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural and artificial flavors, sodium benzoate, caffeine. Basically the same thing, except for the high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar.

Ingredients of Dublin Dr. Pepper: Carbonated water, imperial cane sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, artificial and natural flavors, sodium benzoate, caffeine. Here, the big difference is that they specify "imperial cane sugar," whereas the Made With Sugar kind just says "sugar." This may mean that they still use beet sugar instead of cane sugar. I don't really know what difference that would make, but the Dublin company found it important enough to call out.

Okay. now it was time to taste test it. I was happy to oblige.

It definitely tasted different from regular Dr. Pepper. It is hard to describe the taste. I would describe it as fuller, perhaps, and the words "darker" and "lower" come to mind, if that makes any sense. It has almost a mild rum taste to it. If you've ever had a Coke or Pepsi in a glass bottle from a Mexican grocery store, or if you've ever tasted sarsaparilla pop, you might understand what I'm talking about. However, compared to my memories of Dublin Dr. Pepper, it is not quite as different as Dublin Dr. Pepper was.

I wish so bad that Dublin Dr. Pepper still existed so I could compare them more closely! It is actually possible to find it on Amazon for about $250 for a six pack, but the price is a little steep... plus I'm not sure I want to drink antiquated pop.

For now, if given the choice between regular Dr. Pepper and Made With Sugar Dr. Pepper, I'd probably choose the Made With Sugar kind. I tend to prefer things that are more genuine, or things that are older, over things that are newer or cheaper. And it does taste more real. If you try it, please let me know if you agree!

Here is my Made With Sugar Dr. Pepper as part of my complete lunch!

Angel's Mom's Potato Chip Cookie Recipe

In the spirit of the season, I thought I'd share some of my mom's Christmas cookie recipes. These are going to be relatively short posts, because I am spending some time with my family over the holidays rather than sitting around writing reviews... but I can always find some time for cookies!

This is not necessarily a Christmas cookie, but my mom tends to make it at Christmas. They sort of do resemble snowballs, so you could serve them at a holiday party and call them Snowball Cookies or something. My mom said she got it from a guy she used to work with.

INGREDIENTS
1 lb butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups of crushed potato chips
Powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

• Cream the butter and sugar until light in color and thick.
• Add the vanilla and flour, and mix thoroughly. 
• Fold in the potato chips. 
• Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. 

• Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. 
• Cool completely. 
• Dust with powdered sugar. 
• Eat. 

The result is a ball cookie that is crisp and crunchy on the outside, and soft on the inside. It is both sweet and salty. This is the kind of cookie that you can easily eat until you're ready to pop! 

If anyone tries this recipe, I'd love to hear what you think of it! 

Friendly Farms Eggnog Yogurt Review

A few weeks ago my mom told me that she read that Trader Joe's had eggnog yogurt. Since I was planning to come visit her for the holidays, she promised to buy some eggnog yogurt for me to taste. When I got here, she told me that she had gotten some eggnog. However, she found it at Aldi, not Trader Joe's. For those of you who haven't heard of it Aldi is a discount grocery store owned by same family that owns Trader Joe's. Although the two stores are run independently of each other, many people have noticed that Aldi often has similar products to Trader Joe's. (Aldi stores can be found in California, and many midwest and east coast states.)

I'm still hoping to get my hands on Trader Joe's eggnog yogurt, but for now, I tasted Aldi's Friendly Farms brand.

When I peeled back the foil lid of the container, here is what I saw. It looked a little bit like plain or vanilla yogurt, with a slightly more yellow tinge. I smelled it, and definitely noticed it had an eggnoggy smell.

When I tasted it, the first thing I noticed was the very creamy texture that is typical of Greek yogurt. I also noticed that it didn't have a strong eggnog taste. I had been worried that it would be too sour, like some yogurts are, and that the sourness would not go well with an eggnog flavor... but it was not very sour either. It tasted like vanilla yogurt, with a subtle eggnog overtone. My mom said that it tasted a little bit custardy.

Since we often put nutmeg on our eggnog, my mom had the suggestion to put some nutmeg on the yogurt. It added a nice touch!

We both agreed that it was good yogurt, and kind of fun to have at Christmas time. We would definitely buy it again if we saw it in the store. It isn't something that we'd go crazy missing if we couldn't have it again. But if you happen to live in one of the states with a Trader Joe's, it is worth checking out! 

Angel Makes Banana Dream Pie

A while ago when I was visiting the Rice Dream website, I saw this recipe for Banana Dream Pie. It looked so easy and yummy, I decided I had to try making it! Some of my favorite desserts are based on bananas. For example, my mom makes an awesome banana cream pie. I also love making Banana Manna (I'm not sure if that is really what it is called) which involves layers of Nilla Wafers, vanilla pudding, bananas, and whipped cream. I was hoping the Banana Dream Pie might be a vegan version of these!

The recipe starts with mixing half a cup of sugar, five tablespoons of corn starch, and two cups of Rice Dream, in a pan over medium heat. You have to stir it constantly or you'll end up with little burnt chunks. This is basically the same process as making custard or pudding using milk. Corn starch is a great thickener. As you can see, I'm stirring with a spaghetti strainer, because my large spoon was in the dish washer.

The recipe says to keep stirring until it becomes very thick. As soon as it started to boil a little, it became thick very quickly. The color also changed, from cream colored to translucent white. It looked like it would make a fun slime recipe! 

The next step is to take this mixture off the burner, and put half a pound of firm tofu in a food processor until it is smooth. I don't have a food processor, or even a normal blender. All I have is a hand blender. This blog is all about using what you have if you are not a real chef in any way. So, hand blender it was! I chopped the tofu up with a knife first to make it a little easier to blend. After blending, you pour the sugar/corn starch/Rice Dream mixture and blend it some more. 

The bad news is, not only do I only have a hand blender, but the motor must be broken or something, because while it did a great job blending, it made a horrible screeching noise the whole time. It freaked my cat out so badly that she jumped off the table, knocking down a pile of papers and my Dr. Pepper. I was worried my neighbors were going to call the police, thinking that I was being brutally murdered up here. So I had to cut the blending short, resulting in a mixture that was lumpier than your usual pudding. I can never resist tasting things when I cook, so I tasted this. I was not too thrilled about the taste at this point. It reminded me of vanilla custard baby food. 

The next step was the pie shell. To simplify things, I was using a Honey Maid graham cracker pie shell. 

The directions say to chop up two bananas and layer them on the bottom of the pie shell. I had four bananas that were very ripe, so I chopped up three for the bottom of the pie shell. I decided to mash up the fourth banana and add it to the pudding mixture, in hopes of sweetening the taste.

Then, you pour the custard mixture into the pie shell, right on top of the bananas. 

Then I realized that the list of ingredients on the recipe had called for vanilla extract, but I had forgotten to add it. Oh well... that is life for an absent-minded chef! The final direction was to put the pie in the refrigerator and let it chill for at least two hours. 

Based on the taste of the pudding I'd had, I have to admit I was not overly excited about tasting the whole pie. I figured it would taste like Rice Dream, tofu and bananas. However, I am willing to make sacrifices for the sake of this blog. So I took my finished pie out of the refrigerator It looked similar to how I left it. I cut a slice, and topped it off with some Almond Milk Reddi Whip. 

Oh, gosh! It was yummy!

Somehow in the chilling process, the tofu, Rice Dream and bananas had merged together to create the pudding they were always intended to be. It was sweet, creamy, and banana-y.

It was not my mom's banana cream pie. Like I always say, if you taste new things expecting them to taste like other things, you are often disappointed. So I did have that to contend with. But it was, on its own, a delicious dessert.

This is something I can imagine making to bring to potlucks when I want something that vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores can all enjoy together. Something that will make people say, "Wow, this is vegan? It is so good!"

The true test is when I bring the rest of the pie over to my aunt and uncle's house later today. I will update this blog entry to let you know their thoughts on it.

For now, here is the final note.

Awesome Vegan Key Lime Pie Recipe

During my Imperfect Produce Unboxing video, I showed you that I had gotten six limes in my box, and I mentioned that I would think about making a vegan key lime pie. I did some research, and found a great recipe on the vegan food blog, From My Bowl. Are you excited to see how it turned out?

First of all, though, please remember that, unlike the blogger who developed this recipe, I am really not a chef. A lot of what goes on in this blog is me learning from experience. And I did learn something here!

So, the first part of this recipe involved squeezing the limes to get 1/2 a cup of lime juice. I do not have a juicing apparatus of any sort, so I was doing this with my bare hands. Also, I had a cut under one of my fingernails which I obtained in a goat-related incident earlier this week. Have you ever squeezed limes by hand when you have a tiny cut? You might as well take a knife and chop your finger off. It is painful. I did the best I could, because sacrifices must be made for the sake of the blog.

You're also supposed to add 1 teaspoon of lime zest. Unfortunately, I do not have a zesting tool, and my cheese grater was in the dish washer. So I decided to skip the zesting part. (Note to self: Get a juicer and a zester.)

I did end up with a half a cup of lime juice, somehow. The next ingredient is an entire can of coconut milk. It has to be the super creamy, full fat kind. If you are ever looking for coconut milk in the store, you can find it with the Asian foods. Do not get confused and buy the coconut "milk" dairy substitute. They are nothing alike. Look for a can similar to this one.

This is what it looks like inside the can. I can never resist tasting stuff, so I tried a little bit. It has a pleasing, creamy texture, and an obvious coconut taste. I have heard you can use this stuff to make dairy free ice cream, and that will be one of my next adventures... but I digress...

So, next, all of the coconut milk, plus the lime juice, needed to be mixed together in a sauce pan, along with 5 tablespoons of cornstarch, a pinch of salt, half a cup of sugar (it said maple syrup or liquid sweetener, actually, but I had neither of those so I just used regular white sugar) and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. (Yay, I didn't forget the vanilla extract this time!) 

The next part is similar to the Banana Dream Pie recipe I made earlier. You heat up the mixture at medium high heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. 

This is when I made a mistake. When I made the Banana Dream Pie filling, it had thickened up very quickly when it started boiling. But when this mixture started boiling, it didn't seem to thicken up as much. I forgot to read the part where the recipe tells you that it will continue to thicken as it cools. Instead, I thought it would be a good idea to add more cornstarch. Cornstarch is the main thickening agent in these recipes. Unfortunately I got a little wild with the cornstarch and tossed in way too much. I probably ended up doubling the amount of cornstarch. It did thicken very quickly after that... a little too quickly. I cut my losses by taking it off the heat. 

I was using the same Honey Maid graham cracker crust that I used for the Banana Dream Pie. I dumped the mixture into the pie shell. 

The next direction was to let it chill in the refrigerator overnight. As I learned from the Banana Dream Pie recipe, a lot of magic happens in the chilling process. So I was glad to put this pie into the fridge, and shut the door for the night.

The next day, it was time to try it.

As you may be able to tell from the picture, the excess cornstarch had caused the filling to take on a gelatinous consistency, and the back part of the crust just sort of tumbled off.

My aunt was on hand to helpfully and very thoroughly document the pie eating process for me.

There were a few obvious things I noticed, due to my own mistakes. The first was that the filling was a lot thicker than it should have been. Next time I will do my best to not dump half a box of cornstarch into the mixture. Second, it was not quite as limey as the lime pies I've made in the past using the traditional recipe. That may be because I didn't add the lime zest, and may be because I've used more lime juice other times.

Other than that, though, I think the coconut milk was an amazing substitute for the usual egg whites and condensed milk used in key lime pie. It was delicious. It was sweet and sour. It reminded me of summer time.

After the holidays are over... I'm actually thinking either National Pie Day on January 23 or National Pi Day on March 14... I will redo this recipe and try to follow directions better. As for the rest of you, if you are looking for a great Key Lime Pie recipe (or regular lime pie recipe, since these are obviously not Key Limes, but Key Lime Pie sounds a lot better than Plain Lime Pie) I encourage you to try this one out. Thank you, From My Bowl blogger!

If you're interested in trying Imperfect Produce and getting imperfect but perfectly usable fruits and vegetables delivered to your door on a regular basis, please use my referral link. We'll both get $10 off!

Gardein Seven Grain Crispy Tenders Review

When I first became a vegetarian, one of the things I would "cheat" with sometimes was chicken nuggets. Chicken nuggets are a basic comfort food for many of us who grew up eating them, either in our Happy Meals or at home when our mom cooked the frozen, dinosaur shaped ones. These days I look for vegetarian "chicken" nuggets in the grocery store whenever I can. Today was the first time I tried Gardein's Seven Grain Crispy Tenders. I found them at the grocery store. I've mentioned before that I live in a small town with only one real grocery store, so it great that they seem to be carrying more and more vegetarian and vegan foods.

Anyways, my picture of the bag came out blurry, but you can visit their website to see the ingredients and nutritional information. The top of the bag says, "Always vegan." and if you look at the ingredients list you can see that it is true. That is good to see, because some vegetarian products are not vegan.

One thing I wished, when I saw the cooking directions, was that they had a microwaveable option. I'm a little lazy when it comes to cooking (and other things) and when I'm hungry I'm not always patient enough to wait for the oven to preheat and then wait 16 minutes for my food to cook. They do have a :quick" option that involves microwaving the crispy tenders for thirty seconds or so to defrost them, and then transferring them to the oven, but it only saves about six minutes. In this case it actually seemed easier to just bite the bullet and do the regular oven method. (There is also a toaster oven method, but I don't have one of those.)

Here's what they looked like when I took them out of the bag.

The serving size is only three, by the way. My appetite is always bigger than the serving size!
I put them in the oven for eight minutes, then turned them all over, and then cooked them for another eight minutes. Here's what they looked like when they came out.

I like to dip my fake chicken nuggets. Sometimes I like Ranch dressing, but I also like ketchup. I've mentioned before that my favorite kind of ketchup is Portland Ketchup, which is popular where I live. I talked more about it on my Veggie Corn Dogs post.

They were super hot and smelled delicious, so I was glad to settle down and eat them!

The first thing I noticed was the texture. The outsides were crispy, and the insides really reminded me of chicken nuggets. Not the cheap "pink slime" kind, but the good "all white meat" kind. They felt and tasted just like chicken! They were especially good with the ketchup. I think my cat was confused, because she kept begging for some, but when I'd tear off pieces for her, she just looked at them funny. She kept standing up and trying to touch the ones I was eating, but she didn't actually want to taste them! My dog, however, was completely fooled and ate several bites without questioning them.

Here they are as part of a complete dinner.

I could have eaten six more of these. In fact, I can't wait for lunch time tomorrow so I can have some more! The best part about them is that I can eat something I love, without having to eat an animal. Chickens like to be out in the sunshine, pecking the ground for bugs and chasing each other around... not getting made into nuggets!

Little Debbie Swiss Rolls Review

By now everyone probably knows that I love sweet snacks like cookies and cupcakes. Although a lot of people in the world are strict Hostess fans, I am on Team Little Debbie. If given a choice between a Hostess HoHo and Little Debbie's version, a Swiss Roll, I will choose the Swiss Roll every time!

If you have never tried a Swiss Roll, let me introduce you. Here is the box that it comes in.

Here is what it looks like in the plastic wrapper. Have you ever noticed that a lot of these snack cakes come two to a package? Even if the serving size is one, you're pretty much forced to eat both of them, unless you have a friend around to share with. In this case, luckily, the serving size is two. 

Here is what it looks like out of the package. It smells like delicious chocolate!

When you bite into it or break it in half, you can see the roll of cream on the inside. What makes Little Debbie Swiss Rolls better than HoHos, in my opinion, is that they taste fresh and have a moist texture. So yummy!

They fill you up very quickly though. By the time I finished both of the Swiss Rolls that were in the package, I was so full! It is a good thing... otherwise I'd eat thew hole box in one sitting!

Daiya Vegan Cheezy Mac Review

Macaroni and cheese is one of my all-time favorite munchies. Whenever we go out to eat, I am known for ordering macaroni and cheese. I love trying out new restaurant's versions of the old classic. I am not sure that I'll ever find a restaurant with vegan mac and cheese as delicious as the real thing... but I wondered if I could at least find something to stand in for the Kraft kind I make at home. Then, at the grocery store not long ago, I stumbled across this.

I know that Daiya is a brand that makes dairy-free cheeses, but I had never seen a vegan mac and cheese made by them, or anyone else, before. I decided to try it. 

If you want to take a look at the box, with the nutrition information and ingredients and all that, here you go. 

The ingredients seem simple enough. The pasta is made of rice, and the cheese is made from a bunch of random ingredients mixed together to imitate actual cheese. The only alarming thing I see on the ingredients is the sodium. That seems to be a reoccurring theme for prepared foods... the sodium! No wonder I'm always thirsty!

Anyways... the preparation for this cheezy mac is similar to the usual kind that you'd make at home. You boil the water and add the pasta. The only difference is that instead of having to add milk and butter to the powdery orange stuff like you do with Kraft mac and cheese, this cheese sauce comes already made in a little packet. You pour it in after draining the pasta. 

I tried the pasta without any cheese sauce first. I noted that the taste and consistency was about the same as regular pasta. The noodles were a little smaller than the elbow noodles in Kraft, though. They were like very small shells. 

When I mixed the cheese sauce in, this is what it looked like. 

Its hard to see in the photo, but the orange color wasn't as bright and artificial looking as most boxed mac and cheeses are. Other than that, it looks like the usual mac and cheese. 

Then it was time for the taste test. 

It tasted a lot different from Kraft and other boxed mac and cheeses. But that is not to say it wasn't good, or cheesy. In fact, it reminded me more of homemade mac and cheese, or the kinds I've had in restaurants. Maybe because the consistency and taste of the cheese sauce is more like a homemade cheese sauce. It was pleasingly gooey. And the taste was closer to a sauce made with real cheese than to a sauce made from milk, butter and a powdery substance. 

Was it good? Lets just say, I went back for seconds. In fact, I ate the entire box! 

One of the important things to remember when trying new foods is that, if you go into it wanting it to taste like something you're already familiar with, you'll probably be disappointed. If I had expected this to taste just like Kraft or other boxed mac and cheeses, I probably wouldn't have liked it. But I tried it with an open mind, and I was glad I did! I will definitely be keeping my cabinets stocked with Daiya Deluxe Cheezy Mac!