Review: New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits & Backup QB vs. JFG: NFL Week 9 & Let’s Talk About Halloween, People
Junk Food Nation, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! So I’m sure all of you have noticed that I haven’t really blogged about anything Halloween specific leading up to today. Yeah, I know – I’m sorry about that. Things have really busy around the JFG household, and besides the ONSALUGHT of pumpkin spice / apple pie / etc. – flavored items that started coming out in AUGUST, there hasn’t been any new CANDY per se that I haven’t covered yet. In a lot of ways, I get so focused on Halloween-specific new foods, etc., that I lose sight of the “holiday” itself, and I sort of feel BEHIND on what’s going on.
So today, *I* have some questions for YOU. Get me caught up on Halloween people – answer some of these questions in the comments below:
- COSTUMES: What are people dressing up as this year? My Facebook is now filled with pictures of my friends’ kids dressed as everything from duck to lion to TMNT character to duck again. What about YOU, though? Are a cosplay wizard with a perfect Minecraft costume? Or do you go the funny route? If you like, tweet me a pic @junkfoodguy. No men dressed as babies, though, please. THAT is the worst costume ever.
- CANDY: Is giving FULL size candy out now the norm, or are people still going FUN size, or worse, BITE size? If I lived in a house, I’d like to think I would spend enough to be able to give out FULL size bars, but let’s be honest, that ish is pricey. $1.00 a candy bar? HOW IS THAT A DEAL, GROCERY STORE?? The problem with FUN size is that parents end up feeling guilty and just giving out 2-3 FUN size bars per kid. That might end up being even MORE expensive than the FULL size bars. YOU’RE KILLING OUR MARGINS, DEAR.
- X-RAYING CANDY: Wait, do parents still check candy for dangerous things anymore? When I was a kid, we used to always get lectures warning kids about pins and razorblades in our candy. Which IS effed up, if psychos out there actually did that. But what do parents do these days? Actually use an x-ray machine or something? I had a friend who used to go out Trick or Treating, and then his parents would throw all that candy away and just give him store bought stuff they purchased. “BUT THAT WAS ALL MY HARD WORK, MOM!” Shush – go wash your hands and feast on this Costco size bag of Smarties I got you.
Anyways, I wanna hear your comments about these topics and Halloween in general in the comments below. Help me out here – get me up to speed on what’s the State of Halloween these days.
FOOTBALL TIME! Here’s the tally so far regarding the season long bet between me and the BackUp QB:
| Backup QB Picks | JFG Picks | |
|---|---|---|
| WEEK 8 | 7-6-1 (7 pts) | 9-4-1 (9 pts) |
| SEASON | 53-55-5 (57 pts) | 55-53-5 (67 pts) |
TEN POINT LEAD! TEN POINT LEAD! Yeah, that’s all the crowing I can muster right now. Going into sugar shock over here.
Week 9 marks the halfway point in the season, and the BQB’s lock is CHIEFS -10: ” I don’t care who’s playing QB for the Jets. They’ve been atrocious in all but one game this year (two weeks ago against the Pats), and the Chiefs are sneaky-good, up to fourth in Football Outsiders advanced metrics. They’ll feast on an inept Jets team all day on Sunday.” Check out the rest of the BQB’s picks here.
My LOCK OF THE CENTURY…OF THE WEEK… is the Chargers (pick) over the Dolphins. What? The Junk Food Guy is picking the Chargers again? BIG SURPRISE – I feel like I’ve made them my lock a few times, and most of the time they’ve let me down. DON’T BLOW IT, SAN DIEGO. Who cares if it appears that no one else except for Antonio Gates can catch anything. Sigh…I’m going to lose again, aren’t I?
The rest of our picks here:
| GAME | Backup QB Picks | JFG Picks |
|---|---|---|
| Bucs @ BROWNS | Bucs +7 | BROWNS -7 |
| Cardinals @ COWBOYS | Cardinals +3 | Cardinals +3 |
| Eagles @ TEXANS | TEXANS +2.5 | Eagles -2.5 |
| Jets @ CHIEFS | CHIEFS -10 (LOCK) | Jets +10 |
| Jaguars @ BENGALS | Jaguars +11 | BENGALS -11 |
| Chargers @ DOLPHINS | DOLPHINS (pick) | Chargers (pick) (LOCK) |
| Redskins @ VIKINGS | VIKINGS (pick) | Redskins (pick) |
| Rams @ NINERS | NINERS -10 | Rams +10 |
| Broncos @ PATRIOTS | PATRIOTS +3.5 | PATRIOTS +3.5 |
| Raiders @ SEAHAWKS | Raiders +15 | Raiders +15 |
| Ravens @ STEELERS | STEELERS (pick) | STEELERS (pick) |
| Colts @ GIANTS | GIANTS +3.5 | Colts -3.5 |
The line were weird all over the place this week, unless my lines are just wrong. Three games were pick ’ems. Four double digits spreads? OOF.
Today’s junk food: New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits!
New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits: The Money Shot
New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits are the other of the two flavors of Sandwich Biscuits that Quaker has released. I reviewed their strawberry variety a couple weeks ago. Let’s go through the pictures and get right to the review.
New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits: 180 cal per package
New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits: Wait, what’s honey doing in there?
New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits: I couldn’t get the glare out and needed to hold down the package
New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits: THE BISCUIT
New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits: NOT a ton of creme inside…
New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits:… but loaded with vanilla flavor!
I liked the New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Strawberry Sandwich Biscuits, so I already expected to enjoy these New Quaker Oat & Yogurt Vanilla Sandwich Biscuits. Opening up the package, the smell of vanilla came wafting out so pleasantly. They smelled REALLY good – as someone who enjoys vanilla bean, these hit the spot, aroma-wise.
The key to these is the surprisingly good oatmeal biscuits. Hearty and flaky at the same time, they tasted sweet with plenty of good oatmeal flavor. Now that I noticed that the ingredients mention crispy rice, that helps explain some of the crispness to the cookies. Nice and thick – definitely a good chew.
The crème, despite my thinking there wasn’t very much of it, packed pretty substantial vanilla flavor. Really sweet, but not cloying like how Oreo crème can be. But LOADED with vanilla flavor – there was no mistaking it, no moments when my brain was like, “Wait, is this general sweetness or is this actual vanilla.” No, this WAS vanilla – the vanilla bean-y flavor was very clear to my brain, and I liked it a lot.
All in all, I think these were even BETTER than the Strawberry version. I’d DEFINITELY buy these again.
Happy Halloween everyone! Stay safe out there.
PURCHASED AT: Safeway, Waterfront Metro Stop, DC
COST: $2.50
Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.
Sincerely,
Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 28 Comments
Did you read about a drill that pierced through the subway tunnel in NYC? Close call! Drill came close to the train and it was occupied with passengers! That gives me the chills because I use this train line fairly regularly not often but once a month
http://gothamist.com/2014/10/31/huge_drill_f_train_oopsy.php
Also did u have the chance to go to Target to redeem the gopicnic breakfast kits? Expires today! It would be fun to see u reviewing these and adding humor.
I tried all 3 kits and this what I thought:
Veggie spread kit- not too bad. More like a light snack. Salty rice crisps the dip was okay like warm philly cream cheese veggie flavor. the nut/fruit blend was bland and boring.
Chocolate almond butter croissant kit- so dry croissant! I toasted it and it was a smidge better. The almond butter is good little tough side. The apricot fruit strip was the best thing almost like fruit roll up but OMG! way better.
Turkey Sausage kit- ICK! The turkey sausage was simply disgusting. Chemically processed and it was like eating mushy slim jim. The applesauce is good unsweetened which I always like. The trail mix was okay but blah the cinnamon almonds were good.
@Alek: Thanks for the reviews! Never did get to try them myself – never made it to a Target – but based on your take, I’m interested in those veggie kits.
@alek: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1. My party where I get to spend 3 hours passing out candy was last Saturday, where I dress up as a pirate (and get to come home with the leftovers :-)). Today I’m wearing a vampire T-shirt I got from donating blood and looking forward to going to bed at a decent time for the first time this week (sometimes it stinks working nights!)
2. I have 2 candy buckets. 1 Mars fun size for little kids, 1 dum-dums for the high schoolers who have no business being out. I could see giving out full size in a close knit neighborhood, but I live on a cul-de-sac and everyone in the area parks at one end of the street and hits our neighborhood whether they live here or not.
3. My mother checked through my entire candy bag. What she looked for I don’t know, but it seems like she deemed a Snickers bar bad every year. It didn’t take me too long to figure out that there was nothing wrong with that particular piece.
@Jessica: TWO candy buckets! Genius strategy. It sounds like your mom just collected a candy tax. 😉
PS: What do you think of Maddon on the Cubs????
@junkfoodguy RE Maddon…there’s something that went on in the background we will never know. So I don’t even know where to begin. But at least it’s an NL team we don’t face as often.
here in WA state there is a fear of pot laced candy… so it evolved from razor blades!
I think most kids go trick or treating downtown – most of the houses do not get kids going door to door -that didn’t stop me from buying any candy at Walgreen haha.
@Jamie: POT laced candy??? Whoa.
Everyone is going as a Frozen character this year. If you think you are not a Frozen character, you just don’t realize that you’ve subconsciously chosen a Frozen character. Everyone is a Frozen character. If they are a duck, they are a duck from Frozen. Frozen Iron Man. Ebola nurse? Ebola nurse from Frozen.
That Transformer costume kid wins Halloween. He is not Frozen Optimus Prime. He is also not going to get enough candy if he has to go through the whole act at every house.
Earlier this week Walgreens had already gone full blown Christmas with the remaining Halloween stuff tucked away in a little clearance area. Grabbed myself a Gingerbread Russel Stover Santa, didn’t try one last year. At least Walmart will wait until closing tonight to rip the Halloween candy off the shelves and dump it into a pile by the door at clearance prices. Target will just keep reducing the prices slowly until they really need the space for Christmas stuff and all that’s left are horrible off brand candies (Choco-fun generic chocolatey-flavored confection snowman that is totally not Olaf from Frozen!) for 80% off.
Just can’t stop picking against the Chiefs, can you? You picked the Chiefs once, in week 1, and got burned when they slept through the Titans game. You have picked against them every week since and they have covered every. single. week. For a team without WRs, they’re not doing badly.
@Dana: Ebola nurse from Frozen – LOL.
So true re: that Transformer kid. Plus, that’s gotta kill his knees. Even if he is like 5 years old, I figure at some point he’d be like, “Dad, stop telling to transform. I wanna go home.”
and yes, YES, I keep botching the Chiefs pick – which is so weird, because I keep predicting them to make the playoffs!
I’ve always hated costumes. In fact, I’ve only ever owned one item that would be categorized as a costume, and I used it every Halloween as a kid. It was just a rubber head/mask thing or a baseball with a face. I would put it on my head and run around the neighborhood acting really eccentric.
As far as giving out candy goes, I am by no means indiscriminate. I keep a box of awesome candy like full bags of Swedish fish, huge butterfingers and snickers, king size Reese’s cups, etc. behind my door. Then I have a default box with the normal candy Halloween mix you get at any grocery store. Lastly, I keep a box of unbelievably awful things that nobody wants, like peanut chews and old Walnettos and stale candy corn and erasers. I silently judge every costume that comes to my door and whip out the box the kid deserves. Epic face paint, funny/creative costume, the whole sha-bang? That kid’s getting a full pack of starburst. Coming as “yourself” or one of the thousand other Frozen characters? Say hello to a box of raisins, loser.
@CannedWalrus – Say hello to a box of raisins, loser. – LOL
Erasers??? That IS harsh. But giving out full bags of Swedish fish????Holy crap, I wanna come to YOUR house.
I get very few (if any) trick-or-treaters so that means they get treated like little kings and queens. They can enjoy several full-sized bars of whatever I have on hand. Maybe a few packaged Rice Krispies treats, fruit snacks and cookies, too. I’ll throw in anything I’ve got in the pantry. When I was a kid, I remember this one elderly couple that used to give out king-sized candy bars. I’m sure it cost them a fortune, but it was a great memory for me! As for these cookies, I agree they’re quite tasty. The strong vanilla flavor of the crème is perfect with the wholesome cookies.
@Heather: Yeah, were you the one who told me to seek out these vanilla ones? I am super into them….as I stated in the review, I liked them better than the strawberry and would probably buy them again. These were really good.
Hey – picking against my fish!
But you are right, one week they are world beaters and the next they are the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.
Happy Halloween all!
@MArcP: Well, the Fins DOMINATED yesterday. Bad for my picks, but good for my FF team as I had Tannehill with Cutler on BYE. Quite frankly, I might roll with Ryan T. for the rest of the season over Cutler anyways.
Yeah, that game was sick. They are very Jekyll and Hyde but progress is definitely coming. That was a complete team win.
My home is a highly trafficked Halloween area. Even so, I’m never at home when the trick-or-treaters go around and have learned from experience that if I leave a bowl of candy the first a–hole kid older than 12 takes the whole thing. >:(
So, I don’t even give any candy out.
At my job just about all of us dress up. We even have costume competitions between the different entities of the business. It’s a lot of fun!
@Brit: So what costume won the top prize this year?
Halloween is so fun when you get free candy sometimes I get eccentric candyz and think about reviewing them
@Jes: What are some of the best candies you rec’d this year?
I remembered when Lifesaver candies used to have $1 off 1 coupon I would run to stores when these were a dollar and swooped many of them. Then when trick-or treaters came I would give them literally the whole bag of lifesavers! I had about 70 of these and it was not very high volume trick or treaters. Yeah I was very highly praised that night. I spent about $1 in taxes for 70 bags.
@Alek: LOL – that’s great!
@junkfoodguy First prize went to the Workers’ Comp department which had a job related term (WC fee schedule) written in the form of Scrabble letters.
Ya, sometimes the judges suck… 🙁
@junkfoodguy Yep. That was me. Glad you liked them!
We always try to do homemade, creative costumes. Last year my son went as an Upside-Down person (clothes on upside down, with a smiley-face balloon stuck in his hooded sweatshirt). It looked like he was doing a perpetual handstand. It got lots of double-takes! This year he was Link from Legend of Zelda.
@Jeni – I LOVE the upside down idea!