Saturday, May 01st, 2021 | Author:

Dunkin Butter Pecan
I like to try the new flavor swirls Dunkin comes out with periodically, and the most recent was butter pecan.

Dunkin Butter Pecan

It was ok, but my favorite is still french vanilla. An interesting thing I noticed, however, is that the ratio of coffee to swirls seems off for the small and medium sizes. Unless I know for certain I like the flavor, I prefer to get the smallest size possible in case I don’t like the drink, but they make that impossible. I got a small once when trying the irish creme and it didn’t taste like anything at all! I complained to corporate and they threw enough points on my account to get a free drink, so I got a large and it was great! I got a medium yesterday to try the butter pecan, and while I could taste the flavor, it was pretty weak. Now, maybe the flavor itself is just weaker than the french vanilla, but I’m starting to think there’s no point in getting the smaller sizes unless you request an extra pump of the swirl to compensate for this discrepancy. I never have to do that for the large size because the flavor is perfect with the standard number of flavor swirls.

Rao’s Marinara
Everyone and their brother raves about this marinara sauce but we never bought it because it’s $8 per jar. We found a sauce we liked at our local grocery store, Caputo’s, but lately it’s been completely out of stock (it’s their house brand so my guess is they’re not producing it lately).

Raos

We were at Costco last month and they had a double-pack of the Rao’s on sale ($11 for two) so we said screw it, let’s give it a shot. Tried it the other day, and while it’s good, it’s not $5.50 good. I wouldn’t want to use it on spaghetti in the future anyway because it seems to be missing something, but I could see it being really nice for lasagna.

We also picked up a jar of Meijer brand marinara (less than $1 after coupon) that we’re excited to try. I hope we like it since I’m not sure whether Caputo’s is ever going to restock their sauce or not and we don’t care for Classico, Prago, or Ragu. Maybe I should start making my own sauce…

DoubleTree Cookies
Another everyone likes it but to us it’s just MEH is DoubleTree’s signature cookies. They revealed the recipe a year ago so people could make them at home during the pandemic. I was going through my old Food Network magazines and found it in there. I happened to be craving cookies so I decided to give them a shot. I mean, they aren’t bad by any means; they just aren’t as good as my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. My cookies don’t require walnuts, which you cannot really taste anyway, either. So I think I’ll stick to my cookies. The only thing they have over mine is you can freeze the cookie dough balls and make just a handful at a time. I don’t think that would turn out as well with all the oatmeal in my cookies, but admittedly I haven’t tried it. I did refrigerate them once to bake the following day and didn’t like how they came out, though, so that’s what makes me think the freezer option would be a no go.

Lay’s Chips
Back in March I snagged a bag of Lay’s Crispy Taco chips out of pure curiosity.

Lay's Crispy Taco Chips
This is what I had to say about them on Facebook:

These are some of the strangest chips I’ve ever tried. They really do taste like tacos, down to the individual flavors of ground beef, lettuce, and sour cream specifically. They remind me of the hard-shell tacos your parents made growing up. So on one hand they’re kinda blah, yet for some reason I couldn’t stop shoveling them in my mouth anyway even though I’d never buy them again. I think they’re laced with crack or something.

I just so happened to open the bag the last day of the contest they were running, and won a free bag!

Winner

I got my coupon the other day and got the biggest bag I could find of the Salt & Vinegar flavor from Walmart.

Key Lime Pie
Speaking of Facebook, someone in a local group asked where the best place to get key lime pie was, and someone else suggested making it from scratch using Nellie & Joe’s Key Lime Juice, so I decided to give it a shot. Not only was it easy, but it was definitely better than some of the key lime pie we’ve had at restaurants.

I’m putting a screenshot of the recipe here for safe keeping.

Key Lime Pie Recipe

Taco Bell
When Taco Bell took potatoes off their menu I was done with them. The only thing, besides nachos, that I ever ordered there was the spicy potato soft taco. As many people know, they recently brought back the potatoes so I was quick to go there for my fix. And then we found ourselves there three days later so I could try the beefy potato-rito (which was awesome).

Taco Bell Beefy Potato-Rito

We took a break from TB for a bit, but we were back there a few weeks later so I could try a chalupa with potatoes. Yum! Now I actually LIKE Taco Bell whereas before I just tolerated it. We’ve eaten there more in the past two months than all of last year and the year before that. I still can’t wrap my head around people eating there multiple times a week, though. I am, after all, trying not to blow up too quickly. It’s not working, but I have to make a little effort…

Category: Food
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