Living in a Cereal World

Last month I tried the Honey Crunch flavor, so now I bring you the Almond Crunch O's. Well, not literally. But anyway, what was most notable for me was the lack of almonds. At first I thought, maybe it's like Honey Nut Cheerios where the nut flavor is in the O's--but that's not the case. Then I checked the picture on the front of the box: there's supposed to be almond slices. Finally, right before started typing this I remembered that I did see a few almonds two days ago; that wasn't a review bowl so I didn't make a note of it. I'm sure the almonds are all in the bottom of the box and I'll be pouring Almond Almond Almonds on top of something else. I should also note a surprisingly strong cinnamon flavor in the oat clusters. Always a plus.

It is. So. Hot . I had to run to the store yesterday around noon--bad idea. It was like walking through an oven. Seriously. I thought to myself, now I know how my apple cinnamon quick bread felt. But enough about me. More new cereal! You know chocolate isn't my most favorite thing, but it's Kashi and I was curious. The little wheat "biscuits" were smaller than I remember, so either it's been awhile or Kashi redesigned their cereal along with their boxes. And it had to pass my sniff test. Any chocolate cereal had better smell like chocolate when you open the bag. It did. Okay, so what about taste? Of course it tastes like dark chocolate. My only issue was the texture. It felt a little bit gritty for some reason. Maybe it's unavoidable with all the wheat wrapped around the filling. It's not a dealbreaker. It's going to take me forever to eat this, though, because I really only want a hint of chocolate, not a full bowl.

Remember how I memorialized Honey Graham Life  in the very first year of this blog? It had already been gone a few years but it was still my favorite cereal of all time. Luckily Maple Brown Sugar Life came along and was a more than satisfactory replacement. I always looked forward to buying a box roughly once a year (I eat a lot of different cereals, that's how long it usually takes to come around again). But now it seems this flavor has run its course and a new Life has been introduced -- Vanilla. So which vanilla was it going to be? Vanilla frosting? Vanilla ice cream? There's an artificial vanilla your tongue is primed for after so many years of eating cereals and what-have-you. Finally I settled on "vanilla bean/Life cereal." You know how Life has always had that weird burnt oat aftertaste? That's the main reason I didn't like it as a kid. Nothing else I can think of tastes like that. And even though the box clearly states that it's "multigrain&

Sometimes I plan my purchases: what to buy, when it fits into schedule/kitchen space, where to find it. And other times I just pick stuff up on a whim. This was one of those whims. I saw the flavor first--Apple Blueberry? I'm sold. I'm pretty sure I've seen the Back to Nature brand around but I've never really paid any attention to it. And it's a pretty good granola. More flake-y/piece-y than cluster-y, but cooked longer than some granolas for a nice toasted color. Also, I know I've tasted the apple bits but I still haven't seen them. Somehow I've been otherwise occupied every time I've eaten this. So far. Now I'll have to make a point of paying attention. Oh, and I will definitely try some of their other flavors.

Earlier this year I reviewed the first Nature Valley (flake) cereals: Honey Oat Clusters  and Chocolate Oat Clusters . Now they've added Raisin Oat Clusters to the lineup. But they could've added more raisins. Isn't that my usual complaint--where's all the raisins? And then they're usually at the bottom of the box? Well, this time it really does seem like there's just not a lot of raisins going on. There's the little corn flakes and the heartier wheat flakes and just enough sweetness--even apart from the raisins. But I could've used more raisins. I guess I could always sprinkle a few raisins on there if I really needed it.

For the items I don't feel warrant their own entry: 1. Pineapple Iced Tea . I wanted a drink for a crowd for the 4th, and this one made just enough for the pineapple imbibers. I didn't use all of the juice because I needed to save some of the pineapple chunks in something , so it didn't have as much flavor as it could have. But my brother appreciated that it wasn't overly sweet. 2. Old-Fashioned Macaroni Salad . Two requirements: I needed a lot to feed that same crowd, and I wanted pickles in it, since my grandma uses pickles in hers. And, boy, did I get a lot of macaroni salad. It took three days to finish. 3. Chili-Lime Grilled Chicken . For a change of pace from all the grilled sausage and beef the day before. The marinade leaves behind a hint of lime, and the chili powder and cumin give you a little spice. 4. Roasted Fingerling Potato Salad . For when you have leftover fingerling potatoes and don't know what to do with them. The lemon-thyme dressing is s

So for the July 4th get-together (actually this past weekend) I thought I'd contribute an apple pie. It doesn't get much more patriotic than that, right? Except for Flag Cake, maybe, but I was on pie duty. Anyway, I wanted to make a deep dish apple pie to feed a large crowd and I wanted to try a new recipe. So I went through my recipes and found this Deep Dish Apple Pie  by Sara Moulton from last fall. I have another recipe that requires pre-cooking half of the apples but this is the first one I've seen that calls for cooking down all of the apples. And it's a lot of apples. I think I had nine. Another first for me was using Macintosh apples. They're big but squat and fat and described in the article as being "applesauce apples"--which means now I'm going to have to try to make applesauce. But back to the pie. As I poured the cooked apples out to drain I noticed they smelled really lemony. Like lemon cleaner lemony. So I'll admit to adding a fe