Andrew Taylor

From a young age, Andrew subsisted on mostly artificial foods: McDonald's, Fruit Roll-Ups, Soylent Green. It is thanks to his hummingbird-calibrated metabolism, however, that he has not only survived, but somehow thrived on the finest food-like substances scientific progress has to offer.

Now that he's all grown-up and working nights at a small-town newspaper, he's eating five frozen meals a week and finding, thankfully, that man has made significant strides in frozen food technology since he ate Kid Cuisine monstrosities in the late 1980s. He even enjoys a lot of what he eats! And some of it is kind of good for him! Also, he's a Leo.

Andrew also reviews video games, music and underwear (among other things) at Andrew Taylor Recommends.

Latest Reviews by Andrew Taylor:

Tombstone Light Vegetable Pizza

December 17, 2007 | Reviewer: Andrew

Tombstone Light Vegetable Pizza Price: $3.00 on sale
Serving: 1/5 Pizza, 4.6oz.
Calories: 230 per serving
Fat: 9%, 6g
Cholesterol: 3%, 10mg
Sodium: 21%, 510mg
Protein: 13g
Carbohydrates: 10%, 31g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
Weight Watchers Points: 4 Points

Tombstone says: Nothing, really, but it makes a point of pointing out that this pizza has half the fat of other meatless frozen pizzas. And apparently it’s a good source of calcium (20% DV, not shabby).

Andrew says: The only pizzas this site has reviewed before, I believe, are Kashi pizzas and Amy’s Kitchen pizzas, so rather than shock the system with some cheese bomb pizza, I thought I’d give Tombstone’s light pizza option a try. Also, it was on sale.

When I was a tot, I abhored Tombstone and other frozen pizzas. Back in my day (the late 80s), Pizza Hut had yet to become crap pizza with far too much oil, and thus was a wonderful dining experience. Compared to the old hand-tossed or pan pizzas at Pizza Hut, frozen pizzas had no flavor and no body.

But then, in the last several years (read: college), I acquired a taste for frozen pizzas. Thin-crust, rising crust, stuffed crust, it was all good, and it was relatively cheap. Among the “cheap” brands, Tombstone took the top spot in my heart for its wide variety of toppings and crust styles. To this day, the Tombstone BBQ Chicken is one of my favorite frozen foods of all time.

I’d never bothered to try the light ones because I’m already pretty svelte, but the toppings on this vegetable pizza (including broccoli! green onions! red bell peppers! black olives!) struck me as a potentially interesting and different pizza experience.

And it was! I’m not exactly sure what they did to the traditional Tombstone pizza to make it qualify as Light, but I did notice the crust was a bit more crackery, which is no big deal to me. Other than that, the onions and olives played nicely with the peppers and mushrooms and … whatever else was in there. I especially liked the fresh onion flavor of the green onions. It wasn’t an overpowering onion flavor like some other onions I’ve had on pizza. And the cheese was plentiful enough to cover the pizza and didn’t peel off in one sheet like some cheap pizzas.

My main complaint with the pizza is that, other than the onions, it is a bit light on the flavor. I generally sprinkle my frozen pizzas with crushed red pepper stuff to spice it up, and this pizza benefited greatly from that. You can get pizza-style spices at any grocery store for cheap, so if you’re not already augmenting your frozen pizzas with sprinkled spices, you should be soon. And if you’re counting calories, you can start with this pizza.

Filed Under 4 WW Points, Frozen Pizza Reviews, Three Stars, Tombstone Pizza | 6 Comments

Taco Bell Fiesta Steak Bowlz

November 14, 2007 | Reviewer: Andrew

Taco Bell Fiesta Steak Bowlz Price: $2.00 on sale
Serving: 1 bowl, 9oz.
Calories: 290 per serving
Fat: 8%, 5g
Cholesterol: 10%, 30mg
Sodium: 33%, 790mg
Protein: 15g
Carbohydrates: 14%, 42g
Fiber: 24%, 6g
Sugar: 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Per Bowl

Taco Bell says: Mexican-style rice, refried beans, steak strips, smoky fiesta sauce with onions, red bell peppers, and green bell peppers

Andrew says: The terror I felt when I beheld this non-frozen, non-refrigerated, Taco Bell-sponsored meal is indescribable. Tally it up: shelf-stable meat with spicy sauce and refried beans and the Taco Bell name on the packaging. Would a real-life zombie be more or less scary?

Honestly, I do love me some Taco Bell. I always go for the double decker taco or a Baja beef chalupa if I’m feeling saucy. I also enjoy the “Mexican” “pizza” and the empanadas, which is essentially Taco Bell’s version of the McDonald’s apple pie. Taco Bell is what I thought it was: it’s cheap and potentially a gastrointestinal disaster. It doesn’t disgust me or surprise me, but it nearly always satisfies.

Still, though, with Taco Bell’s reputation as a slapdash fast-food outfit, the idea of shelf-stable food (yikes) with the Taco Bell name and all the baggage that carries (what is this meat made of, anyway?) is intimidating. But because Abi was kind enough to send me this food for free to review, I dove in with only a fork to protect myself.

The packaging makes it look as though you can expect about a third of the bowlz’s volume to be taken up by the meatlike steak strips. This is not actually the case. I didn’t bother to count how many strips I consumed, but I’m going to bet it was fewer than 10. Perhaps eight? And due to the monochromatic nature of the meal (brown rice, brown beans, brown sauce, brown meat and peppers dulled to a brownish red or green), when you’re done heating it up and you go to stir it, you’ll probably do what I did and stir it all up into a beany, rice-y, meaty paste.

How did it taste? How DIDN’T it taste! Uh, well it didn’t taste much like anything I’d order at Taco Bell in real life. The beans and rice are true to the Taco Bell canon, but the steak bits are small and unsatisfying, not at all like the steak bits you get when you splurge for the steak gordita or chalupa (I’m not kidding, those steak chunks are quite tasty). The spice is generic and doesn’t even approximate the drive-thru Tex-Mex appeal of a Taco Bell dish.

Overall, I’m impressed the dish didn’t make me go blind or give me the Ebola virus, and considering that, I can’t really recommend humans willingly consume this.

Filed Under 5 WW Points, Beef, Taco Bell Reviews, Zero Stars | 18 Comments

Betty Crocker Warm Delights Molten Caramel Cake

November 2, 2007 | Reviewer: Andrew

Betty Crocker Warm Delights Molten Caramel Cake Price: $2.00 on sale
Serving: 1/2 bowl, 3oz. plus water
Calories: 150 per serving
Fat: 2%, 1.5g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 30%, 730mg
Protein: 5g
Carbohydrates: 10%, 30g
Fiber: 5%, 1g
Sugar: 20g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 per serving, 6 per bowl

Betty Crocker says: A warm delicious, single-serve dessert that’s ready in minutes straight from your microwave! Now you can treat yourself to a warm indulgent dessert without all the preparation, time and clean-up!

Andrew says: First of all, I must offer my most humble apologies to Ms. Crocker for flubbing her simple instructions on assembling this mini cake. The gist of it is, you dump a packet of chocolate cake mix into the provided bowl with a quarter cup of water and mix well, then pour the soft, gooey caramel icing in pretty patterns on top of the well-mixed batter and heat, uncovered, in a microwave for about a minute and a quarter.

What happened is this: I fumbled with some measuring cups (yeah I know you should use a measuring glass for liquids, that’s beside the point) and found the one-third cup cup, for some reason completely forgetting Betty’s words. I didn’t realize my folly until well after I’d added the ample caramel goo. No matter, I thought, we shall press on for science.

Speaking of caramel, the icing is really very nice: sweet and warm and more than enough to coat the top of your mini cake batter. What happens as it “bakes” in your microwave is that the batter churns up underneath the caramel goo and swirls it throughout the nascent cake. This pleases me.

Once the cake is done, it really is advisable to — as the packaging says — let the cake sit for at least 5 minutes before consuming it. The cake got awfully hot for only spending 1 minute, 19 seconds in my microwave at approximately 780 feet above sea level (science!). Warm caramel and chocolate = good. Scalding hot caramel and chocolate = hospital.

When it was cool enough to eat — but still quite warm — I was heartened at the results, even in spite of my measuring mishap. The cake itself was very, very, very moist. The chocolate is subtle and melds well with the caramel. Even though the cake itself is chocolate, you’ll notice the name of the cake makes no reference to its chocolate nature; the caramel is the star.

In fact, as I worked my way around the rim of the cake bowl and toward the middle, I found a quadrant of the pastry that was about 70 percent caramel goo and 30 percent chocolate goo. This, too, pleases me.

All in all, this is a good way to spend about 10 minutes from start to last moist forkful, particularly if you’ve got a hankerin’ for warm, sweet, choco-caramel goo fusion.

Filed Under 6 WW Points, Betty Crocker Reviews, Cholesterol Free, Five Stars | 6 Comments

Gits Methi Matar

October 17, 2007 | Reviewer: Andrew

Gits Methi Matar Price: Provided by Gits Foods
Serving: 1/2 pouch, 5.3oz.
Calories: 224 per serving
Fat: 25.4%, 16.5g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 22.2%, 534mg
Protein: 6.9g
Carbohydrates: 4%, 12g
Fiber: 4.8%, 1.2g
Sugar: 0g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Per Serving, 10 Per Pouch

Gits says: A very popular vegetable curry made of a combination of fenugreek leaves, green peas & fresh cream. And much liked by connoisseurs. Along with the aromatic taste of the fenugreek leaves and the green peas, the natural delicate flavors of Methi Matar are enhanced by a subtle aroma of spices and seasonings. Its slightly chewing consistency creating a dish which is as tasy as it is wholesome.

Andrew says: A few weeks ago, if you would have told me I could eat delicious Indian food out of a non-refrigerated silver pouch, I’d have told you to take your lies elsewhere. Now, though, I know this is no lie.

I’d never had Methi Matar before I ate this, but I feel well-versed enough in the Indian spice set to tell you this is a very authentic tasting dish. I get the feeling, due to its simplicity, that this is a dish meant as a side, or as one in a series of savory, soupy concoctions to greedily sop up with flat bread, but even alone, it’s wonderful.

The fenugreek leaves (the methi) add kind of a bitterness, but the peas (the matar) are sweet. There’s cumin and cinnamon, there’s clove and nutmeg. It’s a cornucopia of wonderful flavors. And I can read all the ingredients on the back of the box. Oh yeah, it’s all natural, kids! All in a space-age silver pouch.

The peas make up the bulk of the body here, and they’re just fine. I happen to love peas, so, you know, this is a good deal. The whole dish is a deeper green than pea green, but the flavor is somewhat orange, if you get my meaning. It’s spicy and warm and it warms you up with its flavor. You could eat it straight with a spoon (as I was part of the time, for scientific purposes), but it really cries out for some kind of bread medium. I had the last bit of it with some crusty, locally made artisan bread due to a lack of naan in my home and it was good even with that.

If you can find this in the imported food/ethnic cuisine section of your local market and you’re down with tasty Indian dishes, give it a shot. You don’t even need freezer space!

As of this review, these products are only available at Amazon.com Gits Store in 10-packs, though it appears that this particular product is out of stock. The price comes to $2.13 a pouch and the products are all eligible for Super Saver Shipping. So, you could buy a whole lot of Indian food and a book and get your shipping for free!

Filed Under Cholesterol Free, Five Stars, Gits Indian Food Reviews, Product of India, Vegetarian | 6 Comments