Food Critic

I often let coupons guide my buying decisions at the grocery store. Lately, I've let certain commercials/plugs guide that as well. I love Kroger for groceries, by the way. And, if you have a Kroger plus card, you can create an account online at their website. By doing so, you have access to bi-weekly/monthly rotating coupons that you can load on your plus card. The coupons will be taken off your bill automatically at checkout. I've done it. It works. The one downside is they generally don't have a lot of coupons on things that I use. But I have found one or two that were helpful to me.



Now, I'll move on to the critique. The first product that is new that we recently tried is Yoplait Smoothie found in the freezer section.
Christopher and I have tried the tropical mix (shown) and the strawberry banana mix. Both are delicious. It does make two servings as stated on the package. We use our Magic Bullet to make one serving at a time using the Magic Bullet blend cups. It only takes one half cup of milk for each one, blend, and done. The price tag is a bit high I suppose (I can't remember exactly, maybe $3.20 or something like that), but for the convenience of having what you need in one bag I think it's worth it. We'll definitely buy and eat this again.

Product number 2 under review is Simply Potatoes. We picked up this item on special in the refrigerated section of the store. I'm not sure where you would see it regularly, but on this trip, it was out in the center with their sale items. Anyway, as I intended to make us a big breakfast on Saturday morning, we picked them up and tossed them into our cart.
As you can see from the photo, they brown pretty well. And, overall the cooking time is as stated on the package. I did find it a bit different working with unfrozen hash browns. As far as instant potatoes go, I've always been an Ore Ida gal. What I like about these is that they are definitely not oily, and I didn't even use as much oil as suggested on the package. What I did not like was the taste. They were pretty much the blandest potatoes we'd ever eaten. If you prefer not to eat frozen potatoes, I'd say just get a whole potato from the produce section and make your hash browns that way. We will not be buying this product again.

Last critique of the day: Folgers Black Silk coffee. I bought this because of the coupon. The store had marked the price down by a dollar, and the coupon was for a dollar - so I figured it was a good time to buy at two dollars off the regular price.
The verdict is this stuff is just plain good. Prior to this tasting, I was a fan of Maxwell House and would always go to that before Folgers. However, Black Silk may have made me a convert. I like the full flavor of the coffee without the bitterness that some dark roasts have. I do recommend it, and we'll definitely get this one again.