Truffles' secret: Peanut butter

By now, my love of chocolate and peanut butter combined is well-established. Butterfingers, Reese's Cups, really even just a big ol' spoon of peanut butter paired with a square of dark chocolate will do in a pinch.

During the holidays, my favorite thing to make are Buckeyes, those peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate like a homemade Reese's Cup.

Well, last week the folks at Jer's Handmade Chocolates sent over a box of three chocolate truffle-like confections and asked me to give them a whirl for the blog. Sure, I thought. Why not?

I bit into one and whattaya know? Kind of like a Buckeye because they've got that peanut butter-based center, but kicked up a notch or two or 10. Soooooo delicious and creamy.

These are made with natural peanut butter and various add-ins, like the Pretzo Chang-O's center with pretzel bits and chocolate. The Toffee Break has, you guessed it, toffee bits. Holy Yum!

Seriously, these are really worth the indulgence. They're easy to order from the Web site, and last I checked my calendar, Easter will be here before we know it....I hope my husband is reading this. (Hint, hint.)

Exeunt snackers

You might have noticed a distinct lack of posting lately. Well, the rumors are true: The time has come for us to (snack) pack it in.

We had a blast braving the wilds of modern snackery. Many thanks to everyone who stuck with us. You can find the four of us in various and sundry places in tbt* and the St. Pete Times -- and lurking about the ice cream aisles of Tampa Bay.

Happy snacking!

More deep-fried Fair delights

Last week I brought you a review of some of the new foods at the Florida State Fair. (Not to mention an audio slideshow. And here's my review from last year, in case you're curious.)

But on Saturday, I was off the clock. My paycheck had been (urp) earned. So it was time to go back to the fair for fun, and pick up some of the fair foods I actually, you know, like. Here's a sampling.

Pork butt on a stick

Say it again, aloud. "Pork butt on a stick." Sounds delectable, no? It's really quite good -- a big ol' slab of hog skewered on a wooden poker, crispy in all the right places, juicy in all the others, coated with a thin layer of BBQ sauce and wrapped in tin foil. This is usually my main course at the fair, as I love (1) barbecue, (2) things on sticks, and (3) using the phrase "butt" when ordering.

Grade: A

Saratoga chips

I have to admit, I'm fascinated by how these things are made. A guy clamps a potato to a device that looks like it could have been used in one of the Hostel movies, then it gets sliced beyond recognition and dumped into the frier, then coated with cheese and, um, reddish flakes that look like bacon bits, but are not. It's big and unweildy, the sort of thing that would be much better at a football game, where you could sit in the bleachers and just let 'er rip. It's impossible to walk and eat it.

Grade: B

Strawberry shortcake

Can't attend the Florida State Fair or Strawberry Festival without getting some strawberry shortcake. I'm honestly not the world's biggest fan of fair shortcake, though. It feels cheap -- too saucy, not enough whipped cream, and overly reliant on those little circle sponge cakes you can buy at the grocery store. Give me real cake, real whipped cream, and loads of real strawberries. Then you'd have a strawberry-based product worth writing home about.

Grade: B

Pork rinds

Pork rinds need better marketing. For one, no one wants to eat a product whose name includes the word "rinds." Second, there's too much of a negative Southern stigma attached to pork rinds, sort of like the Moon Pie and the R.C. Cola. Sophisticated Yankees simply don't dig 'em. But they should. Someone needs to make pork rinds sexy. (You'd have thought a presidential endorsement back in '89 might have sealed the deal, but no.) Someone needs to get a bag of rinds into Lindsay Lohan's hands, stat. (Either way, the ones they serve at Cracker Country are pretty good.)

Grade: B-minus

Deep-fried Snickers

This is it. My favorite fair food. This is the deep-fried delicacy by which all others must be measured. The Twinkies, the Reese's Cups, the cookie dough -- all pale in comparison to the king of the candy bar, Snickers. It's hot but not too hot, messy but not too messy, gooey but not too gooey, and the flavors (chocolate, peanuts, nougat) all mesh perfectly with "fried." Whoever first thought of this, I'd like to shake your powdered-sugar-coated hand.

Grade: A-plus

The deep-fried delights of the Florida State Fair

They call me the Brass Belly. Ol’ Ironguts. The Food Lion.

Okay, fine, they don’t really call me those things. But they should. For on Day One of the Florida State Fair, I sat out to taste-test as many of this year’s new flash-fried abominations unto Atkins as I could lay my greasy mitts on.

And I did it all in the first four hours.

Here is my report.

Walking tacos

In the Pantheon of Lazy Ideas, there should be a plaque on the wall honoring “walking tacos” — fun-size bags of Fritos or Doritos with beef and taco fixings dumped inside. These things are so simple, so unabashedly silly-looking, that you wonder how anyone thought customers might pay good money for it.

But my walking taco ($3) was amazingly portable, and very tasty. The texture reminded me of cereal. Meat cereal.

These things are so simple, you could probably make them at home with any ingredients you choose. In fact, this “walking” concept opens up a whole world of culinary opportunities. How about a scoop of ice cream plopped in a bag of Oreo crumbles? Or a blob of peanut butter in a bag of chocolate chips? Or a can of soup dumped into a bag of oyster crackers? Stop me if I’m going too fast for you here.

Grade: A-minus

Deep-fried bratwurst

Picture a corn dog strutting around the gym like he just worked his pecs, and you’ve got a good sense of what the deep-fried bratwurst ($3) is all about. Mine took a few minutes to make, presumably because the demand for deep-fried sausage had not, at 11 a.m., hit its peak. It tasted like a corn dog — maybe a little spicier, with a hint of cheese.

“Slightly phallic,” added my companion, photographer Carrie Pratt. Indeed.

Grade: B

Pizza on a stick

The latest addition to the on-a-stick family of fair foods is the pizza on a stick — a slice of pizza wrapped around what looks like a paint stirrer. These things are enormous, the size of calzones, which might explain why mine one cost an outrageous $8. Mine was bready and messy, and it tasted like DiGiorno. Plus, the marquee sign featured varieties like veggie and beef, but my only options were cheese and pepperoni. Look for this one near the rides, not the midway. If you dare.

Grade: C

Fried fruit on a stick

This is a line of fresh fruit, impaled on a stick and deep-fried in batter. Just as Mother Nature intended. My skewer had one grape, one cherry, one strawberry, one pineapple chunk and one apple slice. I thought they were pretty good — hot, like pie filling, and a good way to get your daily dose of Vitamin C. (Just play along.) The taste of the batter overwhelmed the taste of the fruit. And at $4 apiece, you don’t get much for your money.

Grade: B

Deep-fried cookie dough

When something is billed as being from “the same people that brought fair-goers deep-fried Pepsi,” you know it’s worth a taste. Sadly, these nuggetlike wads of chocolate-chip Pillsbury goo don’t quite live up to expectations.

Cookie dough tastes terrific when it’s cold or when it’s fully cooked. But these batter-dipped gobs just tasted like not-quite-done cookies. They were gooey and messy, and without the chocolate chips, there wouldn’t be much of a taste to them at all. At $4 for four dough-drops, it’s tough to call this is an improvement on the deep-fried Snickers bar.

Grade: B-minus

Cedar Key steamed clams

Because, you know, a hot carnival midway is definitely where you want to get your fresh shellfish. Dave and Cris Feigin brought their shellfish from Levy County to add a little Florida flair to the festivities. For my $6, I got a heavy Styrofoam carton full of clams still in their shells. They tasted fine, but in the portability department, it’s definitely a couple of notches below the walking taco. You’d better sit down and free up both hands if you want to get the most clam for your buck.

I ate mine sitting on a 25-cent massage chair. It was definitely one of the weirdest places I’ve ever eaten steamed clams.

Grade: B

Authentic Hispanic cuisine

Time constraints, modesty and the limits of the human digestive system prevented me from trying all the authentic Mexican, Colombian and Puerto Rican dishes on display at the fair’s La Plaza Hispanic Village. But I did pick up a horchata ($2), an iced, sweetened glass of cinnamon rice milk. I thought it was good, if sugary. It would have better in a blender. Or maybe with vodka.

Grade: B-plus

Deep-fried fudge

There were rumors floating around the fair that someone was selling deep-fried fudge. But none of the fair employees or deep-fry divas I spoke with knew anything about it, either. So if you happen to see it out there this weekend, let me know how it is.

I’m going back on Saturday. Hopefully, my appetite will return by then.

***UPDATE!!!***

If you want to hear what a man sounds like the morning after eating a wheelbarrowful of deep-fried fair food, I recorded a voiceover for a slideshow (containing even more pictures!) put together by the good folks at Tampabay.com. Click here to check it out. (I like the Benny Hill-esque background music. Makes me sound smart!)

(Walking taco, fruit on a stick, bratwurst and author photos by Carrie Pratt) 

Hulk Hogan's Pastamania!, and other celeb treats

No, I've never tried the glorious canned pasta mentioned in the title. But I get a kick out of the name and the promotional photo of Hulk Hogan grinning above a bowlful of pasta, which you can see at Cracked.com's 11 Most Pointless Celebrity Products. Other pointless products include: The Michael Jackson Premium Chocolate Bar and fighting video game Shaq Fu.

Not to be outdone, the Onion A.V. Club has compiled its own list of B-list-celebrity-endorsed foodstuffs. There's some overlap with the Cracked list and nothing quite as brilliant as Pastamania!, but Smokey Robinson Down Home Pot Roast and Dwight Yoakam's Chicken Lickin's Chicken Fries And Buffalo Style Bites are still pretty funny.

A 100 calorie pack that DOESN'T suck.

Let's get one thing straight, folks.

I think 100 calorie packs are better used as garden mulch. The cardboardy cookies usually taste like bark chips, so why not put them to practical use? Place a decorative yard gnome atop your Chips Ahoy squares. A trickling fountain among the Chex Mix. A rain-slicker clad ceramic goose beside the Lorna Doone lawn lumps.

I'm jaded. I've never had a 100 calorie pack that doesn't make me want to eat 300 more calories, right away, until I'm large, chocolaty, and in charge. Until now!

My clever podmate, Alicia, who provides the newsroom with delicious cornbread, tossed me a bag of Oreo Candy Bites recently in... wait for it... a 100 calorie pack! 

They're actually good! It's like, if you dipped Oreo chunks in white and dark chocolate coating. They don't taste like total sawdust. They taste like candy, with firmly packed chocolate sawdust inside. A marked improvement from most varieties of low-cal treatage. Plus, there's all sorts of fab ingredients listed, like SUGAR, SALT, BEESWAX, and SHELLAC. Yes, shellac. You know it's gotta be tasty!

They're no Snickers bar, but I, an affirmable crank, say give these a shot.

Grade: B

photo: St. Pete Times

The Rambo of Potato Chips

Flimsy, flaky, flat, thin potato chips are so pointless. Why eat the Pee-Wee Herman of chips when you can have the Rocky, the Rambo, the Ah-nold?!?

If I'm going to indulge my inner carb monster, I want 'em brawny, thick, strong, with all kinds of crazy grooves and definition. (Clearly, I've been spending too much time at the gym...but I digress)

Kettle Brand offers the best thick-cut potato chip out there, with their Krinkle Cut line. I've tried two flavors of the Kettle Brand so far, the Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper and the Dill & Sour Cream.

I love that each chip is irregularly shaped and different sized, which makes it seem like I cut these potatoes by hand, sliced them, fried them up and seasoned them.

And the salt and pepper ones had these very visible, tasty flecks of black pepper. It really tasted and looked as if someone had gone to town with a pepper mill just before sealing the bag. So good!

Same goes with the Dill & Sour Cream - tasty bits of dill seasoning, just the right touch of sour cream flavor. With Lays, I actually could "eat just one." With these, not so much. My inner carb monster kind of jumped out of my stomach and demanded more and more...(Just be thankful you weren't there for the scene. Scary, really.)

I like these so much, I'm on a mission to try the other flavors, like Island Jerk and Classic Barbeque.

Grade: A

And a postscript: Awhile back I tasted all the test flavors for a Kettle contest to pick a spicy new flavor. I picked my favorite as Death Valley Chipotle. Well, guess what? So did the rest of America, proving my Snack Pack instincts are dead on!!! Kettle announced recently that Death Valley Chipotle won the flavor contest.

A non-oxymoronic breakfast cookie

I rolled my eyes when I saw a box of Quaker's Morning Minis at the supermarket. After all, it's not often that you see a breakfast product described as "chewy bite-sized cookies." Even the most non-health-conscious parent might think twice about buying breakfast cookies. (For the sake of research, however, I did not think twice.)

But it turns out the Morning Minis are pretty decent. I tried the Cinnamon Sugar & Oats flavor (despite having been disappointed by Quaker's cinnamon mini rice cakes). They're less cookies than breakfast-bar nuggets, with a soft-but-dry oaty texture. The cinnamon isn't overpowering, and the icing drizzle blends in well with the cakey part.

Best of all, one 130-calorie pouch (about six nuggets) has 3 grams of fiber and only 1.5g saturated fat. And the first two ingredients are whole grain rolled oats and whole wheat flour. (There's also corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil, though they're playing the game of saying 0g trans fat and "adds a dietarily insignificant amount of trans fat.")

I'm not advocating eating these for breakfast every day; I won't be getting them again, and for a pointlessly sugary breakfast you're better off having a Kashi waffle with a little maple syrup. But as snack treats go, you could do a lot worse.

Grade: B

Things No One Asked for, Part II: Burger in a Can

This one is all over the World Wide Intertubes, but I had to make sure the Snack Pack put in its two cents. It seems a German company has brought us one step closer to Willy Wonka's vision of meals-in-a-gum-stick: Introducing ... Burger-in-a-Can.

Now, the gag factor here is obvious. But beyond the grossness, what gets me is the sheer logistical challenge. How do you put a burger in a can? Is it an oversized can? It would certainly have to be an unusual shape; you'd practically have to retrofit your whole can factory to introduce a nonstandard can like this!

Are you supposed to heat the burger first? Or is it like boxed Indian food that you can take camping and eat right out of the box in a pinch? Do the tomatoes come in their own little pouch? If not, wouldn't the whole thing be a soggy, soppy mess? How can meat even stay fresh enough to last on a supermarket shelf? Unless we're talking straight up Spam material, which come to think of it is probably a safe bet.

Other things I like about this product? It's taught me that the German word for "carbohydrates" is "kohlenhydrate," and the German word for "fat" is "fett." (Heh heh: That means -- nerd alert! -- that the Star Wars character is really Boba Fat.)

Now, I've seen this product posted on several blogs already -- but I haven't seen anyone actually test it out. So Snack Packers, I'm looking to you to be pioneers. If anyone is brave enough to order one of these, or knows someone in Germany who can pick one up, I'm offering a bag of Snack Pack-approved Sahale and other goodies-to-be-named-later for photographic evidence of you opening, unpacking, and eating a Burger in a Can.

I know you can do it!

Sugar-free Delicious Junk carbon offsetting

I am going to eat a lot of Delicious Junk on Sunday. I know this, I accept it, I embrace it.

It will be delicious because I will savor every bite, be it greasy or fatty or sugary. But it will be "junk" as in, not good for me. As in, exactly what the nutritionists put on the "Don't" list.

Sure, I'll teach my spin class on Friday morning and my healthy oatmeal breakfast; I'll be in the gym again Sunday morning. But it won't cancel out the Delicious Junk.

I know this, I accept it, I embrace it.

Still, I'm trying to keep up appearances, ya know? I mean, what good would these Carrie Bradshaw-worthy pink BCBG stilettos I'm wearing today do me if they were stuffed into ginormous, Delicious Junk-filled legs?

So today, when I spotted a sugar-free offering by Hershey's, I actually bought a bag. I did this with great skepticism. You can make my feta cheese "reduced fat" or my Red Bull sugar free, but chocolate without sugar? Puh-lease! (Insert eye roll here)

Yet the Caramel Filled Chocolates, 30 calories and 2 grams of fat per miniature bar, were not gag-inducing. There wasn't even as strong of an artificial sweetening aftertaste as I anticipated. The caramel filling had a nice, Cadbury Egg filling-like consistency. The chocolate was creamy and melted well in my mouth.

If anything, it was slightly too sweet - no doubt all that "maltitol" and what not. I'm not sure whether this will wreak havoc on my digestive system as some sugar free stuff is known to do, but for now I'd give these a GRADE: B-.

In other words, it's not as awesome as a really good, real sugar chocolate bar. What in life is, really?

But I like to think of it as Delicious Junk Offsetting, like carbon offsetting for the Super Bowl Sunday snack splurge.