Price: $3.79
Serving: 8 pieces, 3oz.
Servings Per Bag: 6
Calories: 150
Fat: 7%, 4.5g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 14%, 330mg
Protein: 2g
Carbohydrates: 8%, 24g
Fiber: 10%, 3g
Sugar: 0g
Weight Watchers Points: 3 Points

Alexia says: Fun and flavorful, Alexia’s New Waffle Fries are a delicious interpretation of the European Classic, Pommes Gaufrettes. Lightly seasoned with Sea Salt, Pepper, and just the right amount of onion and garlic, Alexia Waffle Fries make a fantastic snack or a great accompaniment to your favorite entree

Abi says: My original review notes from this meal say only:

Fries of awesome!!!!!!

I am not an egregious user of exclamation points, so you should trust me when I say that these are the best frozen fry products I’ve ever tasted. After lackluster experiences with both the Alexia onion rings and the Alexia potato wedges, I wasn’t expecting such a fun eating experience.

Before we really get into how these taste, you should know that yes, there are about 6 servings in the package and yes, 8 fries will be enough. I know, it doesn’t seem like it will work, but these are waffle fries. They are hefty.

I don’t know how it is for you, but there’s something about waffle fries that makes me feel like a kid again. They are fancifully shaped and somewhat reminiscent of county fairs and boardwalks. Fortunately, these waffle fries are more than fit for adults, too. They were not at all greasy, so you could definitely have some folks over for a movie or drinks night and heat up a pan of these in the oven. Except, you won’t want to do that. No, instead you’ll be wishing that these came in a resealable bag because you’re going to have them with your lunch every day for a week except that you won’t get six servings out of the bag because on Friday you’ll say to yourself “I could eat all of the fries left in this bag, no problem.” And you would be wrong because eating all of them and a corn dog will totally make you sick and you will regret it.

When gorging doesn’t come in to play, Alexia waffle fries are delicious in every context. I tried these plain, with ketchup, dipped in homemade fry sauce and drenched ranch. Flavorful and fantastic alone or with a sauce, I should try sprinkling these with parmesan and forego dipping altogether.

I’m not sure than another frozen fry can ever measure up, but I’m okay with that possibility so long as these fries exist.

Price: $2.50 (on sale)
Serving: 1/3 bag, 3.67
Calories: 230
Fat: 19%, 12g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 10%, 230mg
Protein: 10g
Carbs: 9%, 28g
Fiber: 17%, 4g
Sugar: 3g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Alexia says: Alexia Onion Rings combine sweet Spanish onions with a delicate all natural Japanese style Panko breading giving them a light, crispy texture that is bursting with real onion flavor.

Abi says: I bought these not just because they were on sale, but because they are described on the front of the package as ‘Crispy Golden Onions with Sea Salt’. I am currently in love with sea salt, so you could probably package freeze dried brussel sprouts and label them ‘Chou de Bruxelles avec Fleur de Sel’ and I would try them.

This package of sea-salted onion rings contains three appropriately side-dish-like servings, so I ate them on three separate occasions, each time heating them up in the oven at high temperatures, but for different amounts of time. It was very scientific.

I have an accurately heated oven, so my concern lay mostly with the large time span that could be used to cook the onion rings. Since I wouldn’t be frying them this time around (are they fried by Alexia? I do not know), I knew that it would require patience to get a crispy coating, patience and the magic of Japanese bread crumbs. Which if you think about it is sort of funny. Our culinary culture hails these Japanese bread crumbs as the Best Thing Ever! but supposedly they (Japanese people - specifically Okinawans) also live a gazillion years because they don’t eat bread, horrible, horrible bread. But back to onion rings.

On the first go-round, I cooked the onion rings for the mid-range of time (about 15 minutes, I think), flipping them halfway through the cooking process. This was a disaster. Half-cooked onion rings are soggy and limp, meaning that they resist any efforts to be flipped and fall apart. This results in separate chunks of breading and onion rings, which is exactly the opposite of what I’d like to eat. I finally pulled the rings out when they’d reached immense hotness and the approximate color of the onion rings on the package. They tasted good (I ate them plain and with ketchup) but the sea salt wasn’t exactly evident (read: Where are you, Fleur de Sel?) and I had to pick up separate pieces of somewhat slimy onion and not-quite-crispy breading. It was quite annoying because doesn’t Panko=crispity crunchiness? And aren’t onion rings meant to be a single unit, not a series of alternative bread-onion-bread bites?

On the second try I just tried flipping the onion rings later in the cook cycle. This resulted in a crispier onion ring (perfect crispness), but also a complete lack of onion. That’s right, the onion was just missing. At first I thought that I had a defective onion ring

On the final attempt I decided that the onion rings could go without flipping and would be cooked for a bit less time than the second try. These ones turned out fine on the outside (sogginess was finally banished!), but the insides were completely devoid of onion. Again. I was not a happy baker. Also, I was tired of eating onion rings that were only marginally better than the super-processed ones from Burger King.

Where did I go wrong? Was I just down to the last of the bag? Had I overcooked them to the point of onion evaporation? Is it possible for crispy breading and tender onion to exist in the same decadent appetizer? You would think so, but Alexia’s inclusion of onion powder makes me wonder just what sort of magic is involved in making onion rings. You’d think that the actual onion was enough.

Price: $3.50 on sale
Serving: 1/5 bag, 3oz.
Calories: 120 per serving
Fat: 5%, 3.5g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 12%, 270mg
Protein: 3g
Carbohydrates: 7%, 19g
Fiber: 8%, 2g
Sugar: 0g
Weight Watchers Points: 2

Alexia says: Alexia Oven Reds combine delicate and creamy Columbia Basin Red Potatoes, Olive Oil, robust Parmesan Cheese and Roasted Garlic to make this beautifully delicious yet trans fat free culinary creation.

Abi says: Store bought frozen potatoes: Friend or foe? Discuss.

On one hand, it is so freaking easy to chop up some potatoes, toss them with a bit of olive oil herbs and salt and call it a side dish. On the other hand chopping = ugh and who wants to wait 45 minutes for roasted potatoes when we could have potato wedges in 20?

These are the questions I ask myself whenever I consider braving the frozen potatoes section at my local supermarket. Fresh and frozen potatoes are both cheap, but frozen potatoes take half of the time and don’t involve potential over or under-seasoning. Or blood loss.

While I was at Whole Foods the other day, picking up a replacement Amy’s Cheese Pizza Pocket, I decided to go beyond Alexia’s Pesto Pizza Pockets and try out their potato wedges. After reading the backs of all 6 packages of potato wedges, I settled on the Olive Oil, Parmesan & Roasted Garlic Oven Reds. Like me, they were raised in the Columbia River Basin. Unlike me, they are encased in a plastic bag.

The package states that it contains five servings of potatoes. This is an acurate portrayal as I actually got four hearty servings out of the bag. It wasn’t so much that I planned on eating the last two servings all at once, but more that I realized there was nothing edible in my house, the more it seemed that potatoes would do just fine for a lunch.

From my willingness to eat simply these potatoes for lunch you might deduce that I enjoy them a great deal. No deerstalker for you, I’m afraid. These potatoes, which might be marginally better for the environment than the ones from Ore-Ida (or not, because ‘natural’ definitely doesn’t equal ‘organic’) have some sort of weird flavor action going on - straight from the bag. I literally found myself making funny faces when I breathed in the odor of the frozen potatoes.

“Are they rotten?” I wondered, my head whipping back from the bag in a visceral reaction borne of instinctual terror. Then I figured that I just wasn’t used to ‘All Natural’ frozen potatoes or frozen olive oil or something of that hippie ilk. While the potatoes were baking I read the ingredients label and found the item that was causing me such confusion: cheese powder. These potatoes don’t taste like parmesan cheese and rosemary. No, they taste like the child of a bag of Smartfood and a poorly maintained spice cupboard.

Fortunately, this is a problem easily solved with homemade aioli liberally seasoned with smoked paprika. Ketchup works too.

Price: $2.50 (on sale)
Serving: 1/2 package, 3oz.
Calories: 220 per serving
Fat: 17%, 11g
Cholesterol: 3%, 10mg
Sodium: 13%, 310mg
Protein: 9g
Carbs: 8%, 23g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Alexia says: White Meat chicken and cheese with tomato sauce in a tender fried crust.

Abi says: Alexia makes junk food for people that shop at Whole Foods. Want some tater tots or oven fries or pizza rolls? Look no further than Alexia foods. This isn’t to say that the things they make aren’t good (you just try to figure out those negatives!), but this is to say that these items are priced considerably higher than their counterparts at regular grocery stores. I guess that’s the price I have to pay for sustainable chicken farming.

Alexia Pesto Chicken Pizza snacks may be hoity-toity pizza rolls, but they are still deep fried then frozen. I prefer to bake mine to get a crispy exterior, but an in-office experiment showed that they are also quite edible in microwaved form. These pizza snacks are not particularly pesto-ey and the chicken is only in the tiniest of shreds, and basically that photo on the front of the box is a lie because 2/3 of the filling of each ’snack’ is air, but if you are looking for a delicious way to burn your mouth, these will do.