Lunch today is Evol

Today’s lunch was the fire grilled steak bowl by Evol.  Once again we have another bowl situated meal with a rice and bean base.  Now what makes this bowl different than the others is that it is all natural and gluten free.  I’m really going to show my lack of education here, but I’ve never had a problem with gluten so putting gluten free is not really a selling point.  What is a selling point, besides the promise of all natural, is that it uses ingredients like black beans and cilantro.

From the packaging: “Fire grilled steak, black beans, cilantro lime rice, red & green bell peppers, roasted corn and cheddar cheese – All topped with an insanely tasty cilantro lime pesto sauce.”  Just reading cilantro twice won me over.  Yes I’m crazy about it.  I love cilantro and onions drenched in lemon and lime on top of tortilla chips as a delicate dance of flavor and texture.  Throwing pesto in is a complete tease.

I am happy to say it looks like the packaging, however that’s not really saying much, but hey at least they are honest.  The steak is tender and the peppers thankfully outnumber the corn.  The black beans pair nicely to the rice which cuts the thick starchy feel of black beans.  The cilantro flavor is as promised permeated throughout.

Now to the building blocks of my lunch, how does this meal stack up?  Well with a typical 400 cal. From a beef dish it will take a chunk out of your daily allowance but, it makes up for it in protein, 20 grams.  Unfortunately the fat content is also at 20 grams but, only 3.5 are saturated.

In short, while delicious eat sparingly.  Still it is much better than a big mac!

Rock Flops and Other Strangeness

Once again we gather Tuesday night to watch the only reality game show where the goal is to become a complete monster, the SYFI favorite, Face Off.  With a short recap of the loss of Daniel last week to a slimy, fish looking dragon we bust in on our little monster makers making small talk.  It just seems so forced and dry when they are out of the lab.  Not to worry, soon they are called in for the first foundation challenge since the season opener.  I was wondering when they were going to bring back immunity challenges.

The foundation challenge brings our wonderful little minions into a garage where we meet the guest judge Patrick Tatopoulos.  With all his work on projects like Underworld and Stargate, the arena of action is like a second home to Patrick.  With his knowledge of creature and bikes he introduces an array of motorcycles and a challenge to create the creature that rides it.  What transpires is a trip from huh to cool to uninspired, because of the amount of people still in the game we don’t really get to see every ones makeup up close.  We do get a look at a bumble bee warrior from Tess, a primal/tribal post-apocalyptic princess, a ride to hell, and a ghost rider with a green and black color scheme.  The winner of the immunity prize?  Daren for his post-apocalyptic princess.

Let me take a moment right here.  I understand the time crunches and the need for instant turn out of the foundation challenge.  Given only a bike to create a character, the challenge poses the need to pull from the curves and bends of the machine.  This is why I loved Daren’s design.  He used the curves of the metal in the bike to inspire the coils of the hair and the bold copper color to accent a grey color scheme.  The exposed mechanics gave a great canvas to the idealist “mad max” mode of transport.  The only drawback is, that like most of the people in the competition this year he relies heavily on wardrobe.  He does give a complete makeup, but for this challenge, the wardrobe sold the character.

With immunity in the bag Daren can breathe a little easier as they move into the spotlight challenge.  The contestants are met with a room filled various odd shaped and colored guitars.  Working in teams of two the monster mavens must make a makeup that generates a character that is being taken over by one of the guitars.  The relief is that this week they get to pick their own partners.  Now as people swoop in on one another, I assumed no one would want Daren.  I wouldn’t a partner with immunity, if they don’t like our make-up, I would be the one leaving.  Well, George was willing to take that risk apparently as it seemed no one wanted to work with Matt or Tess who end up smashed together. 

Daren and George:  Daren picks a clear guitar with a few wooden accents, much to George’s dismay.  George’s lack of confidence in Daren’s design is so apparently obvious to everyone, except Daren.  Still on and on without too much incident the two work away at what would become at first bizarre and then quite incredible.  I give this gruesome twosome amazing props to be the only group to not try to build a creature with a guitar built into them.  Their white and wood painted creation was the only character to embody the guitar instead of morph into one.

Corinne and Graham:  From the “hip” guitar comes a paisley acid trip.  Yet another partnership that seems to work almost in sink as the two build an interesting take on bizarre hippie culture.  What I really loved about this creation was the paisley design in the skin.  Adding a pointed wig brought a lovely bit of whimsy that turned him from man into instrument.

Matt and Tess:  From the unlikely and unwanted pairing of these two sprang forth something foul.  They created a “rockabilly goat.”  The only thing missing at the reveal at my house was the little Asian guy in back going “Ha… GGAAAAYYY.”  This thing was an absolute mess.  It was like hell boy and Gary Busey had a three way with a goat, which wouldn’t be so horrible if it weren’t how it fell apart under a mild head shake.  Looking back on the creation of this “monstrosity” it’s clear it was doomed from its conception.  With Tess breaking down every other moment and Matt’s subpar painting skills, this team was bathed in fail.

Cat and Niko:  So fun story, apparently these two are dating… I’m trying to remember if I heard that before without looking back.  Well, a lid for every pot I suppose right?  Imagine if these two go to the finale together… Or better yet break up while filming… The tension in my made up drama is so much more intense than the spark between these two.  Their creation had about as much electricity as their relationship does.  They made the stereotypical bull demon.  The interesting part of this creature is that he is a solid form, which is a huge gamble when considering the amount of time it takes to sculpt and set the molds.

Chloe and Tanner:  It’s so angry! I mean angular.  The points on this red mess seem to go every which way but loose.  Both the caul and the face are so over worked in this piece that it detracts from the overall look.  The dark red and black begs for shading and the points on the face beg for shaving.

Rashad and Tyler:  This creation was so literal that it worked.  They worked hard to incorporated the actual mechanics of the guitar into a clear chest plate and cords into the face sculpt.  From far away the speckled design doesn’t translate in my opinion and the guitar neck horn type things jutting from the caul seem hokey at best.

In the end Daren grabs a full win for his work on the head sculpt of the guitar goddess while Tess is asked to pack her tools and leave.  If you ask me it’s been a long time coming and wasn’t a bit surprising.  The surprise is that I do not have a favorite at all yet.  I just want a contestant that I can care about.  Hopefully next week something will come along to melt my face off.     

Galley of the spotlight challenge    

Taste like chicken... and paste...

Today’s lunch was a Healthy Choice Café Steamer; this one was the “Top Chef Season 10 Challenge Winner” Crust less Chicken Pot Pie.  I like the concepts behind the line because the flavors and textures are generally left more intact than with traditional Nuke foods.  This one promises chicken tenderloins with carrots, corn, peas and dumplings in a pot pie sauce, and when I put it together that’s pretty much what it looks like.  I think they choose soup, stew looking meals to hide the fact that at the end of the day it’s really a gelatinous mass.

Where to begin with the fail pile?  Well, I think putting out a positive note the vegetables were fresh tasting and reasonably crisp… until you look at the ratio.  There are far too many carrots and an overwhelming amount of corn.  Corn being nothing more than a fattening agent, it always irritates me when I open one of these and it’s a huge bowl of corn with little else for any real nutrition.

The sauce is a thick, chicken stock based cream sauce, nothing too spectacular in its creation really.  Looking at the ingredients, the words cornstarch and flavoring are all over it.  I think this explains why it seemed so condensed.

The chicken was moist enough, but seemed void of any real seasoning unless dredged through the goop.  On its own the texture fell apart nicely, which is a nice change from typical dry chicken one gets out of the microwave however with all the changes in microwaved food containers you only really get dry chicken from overheating leftovers.   

The most disappointing of all was the dumplings, large white mounds of dough that seemed to overcook in the steam basket and therefore be unable to soak up any broth.  Biting into one of the deceptive looking dumplings yielded something more foul than how they looked.  How they tasted…  Globs of paste like dough coated my mouth in a disappointing array of yuck…

“At least I’m eating healthy” I thought as I chomped into another bite of food glue.  Wrong!  Not only is this thing backed with filler and artificial ingredients its 300 cal of cornstarch and salt.  Sure there are 20 grams of protein but the 40 grams of carbs are so not worth it.  And what’s worse is the intense stomach cramping that followed a short time later.  I think if I were to do this again, it would be to serve a large bowl to someone I truly believed to be full of shit.  Blah!       

Another noms review

We kicked off dinner tonight with a new product, at least to me that is, by rockstar.  It's the rockstar sparkling energy cherry citrus.  This is a zero sugar, zero calorie drink with"natural caffeine."  The caffeine is derived from green coffee beans.

I will say this the first few sips were extremely crispy.  The bubbling spring of nom nom nom didn't disappoint.  Unlike my tradition sugar free rockstar, this blue can of awesome kept it's fizz.  Another huge contrast is the lack of smell.  Most of my rockstar drinking experience there has always been a strong, sweet stench that reminds my mother of a medication... What medication she doesn't know but still a medication.  The sparkling energy has a sweet scent but, it doesn't linger.

As for the taste, the sparkling energy is pretty sparkly.  The carbonation was so strong that the bubbles were almost anoying as they seem to block flavor at first.  Once I overpowered the bubbles, the flavor was very light but more citrus than cherry, seeing as I love cherry this was a bust.

All in all if you like the sugar free line, this is a cleaner option... But it's still soda.

Moving on to the meal... I settled on another lean cuisine honestly good, what can I say? I had a sick three year old...

So this was the pomegranate chicken recipe.  A whole chicken breast, pomegranate glaze, green beans, yellow beans, ribbon cut carrots, and a whole grain pilaf with currants on a plate of yum.  This obviously turned out better than my beef experiment.

First the chicken was juicy and tender, almost falling apart on the fork.  The sauce, and I'm no fan of pomegranate, was a bit too sweet.  It was almost candy like which was sad because the chicken really was a nicely prepared cut.

The vegetables were fresh tasting and the yellow beans were a pleasant addition to the traditional carrot and green bean medley.  They were in need of a seasoning but after a few bites of the sweet sauce the bland beans were a welcome change.

The pilaf and currants, well they end up dredged in the candy sauces and feels like a clunky starch shoved under the chicken.

Now I have to admit it was pretty good, but as far as good for you?  The beef dish gets the upper hand.  This has 9 grams of fat and 390 cal, but the killer is 19 grams of sugar.  Even with 23 grams of protein the huge counts of carbs just seem to blast any hope of a truly good meal.  Bummer... Still better than a burger and fries.  

 

Lean and looking lousy....

This weekend I purchased a new Lean Cuisine “Honestly Good” meal.  It seems to be their new line with all natural ingredients, no preservatives and minimal processing.  The picture on the box alone was making me hungry in the frozen food section of Target.  I selected a few flavors and todays happened to be pineapple black pepper beef.

The photograph, don’t worry I posted one on the bottom so you can look at what sounded so absolutely divine, inspired the idea of tender beef and chunks of luscious pineapple.  What transpired… well, let’s just say microwave is a cheating, lying, whore!  That picture is also included at the bottom of this disaster.

Pushing beyond the unappealing look to this culinary abortion was something I had to do, not for the betterment of my review, for the fact that it was noonish and I was starving!  Swiping up a fork full of long grain rice and veggies I held back a moment.  With a stiff upper lip I chomped in.  This was not bad.  I mean it wasn’t in five star culinary heaven, more like 3 star I can deal with this as an alternative to fast food (which is generally disgusting anyway).

With only 8g of fat and 320 cal don’t expect epic portions but, with 23g of proteins and 26g of whole grains you are looking at something that is a lunch time experience that won’t leave you regretting a decision.   I did like the use of uncommon veg like wax beans and yellow carrots, but the slivers of almond just seem sporadic and unnecessary.  The beef itself was over cooked but, I think that was my microwave and the fact that the dinner had been sitting and thawing before I nuked it for a like 2 hours because I was too busy to shove it in the freezer.   I think some of this was major user error… The sauce that pulled in a lot of pineapple flavor but the black pepper was clearly lost in the mix somewhere, which was a shame because I love black pepper.

What I really loved about the meal was the “Honestly Good Giving.”  This is a program that honestly good does with local farmers to donate a portion of the vegetables grown for these meals is donated to local communities.  This is in addition to their “partners” program.  The ingredients for the dishes are supposed to be grown from local farms like George Chiala Farms in Morgan Hill, Ca.  I like the idea of local growers, not sure that it is true but the idea is lovely.

All in all I will try it again in an effort to discern if it was my microwave or if this is really a halfway-decent tasting, unappealing-looking mother trucker.    

  

Ninja Please...

We open on our guys in a desperate situation of no work and bills piling up, like that’s anything new for Shawn and Gus.  So what do you think they spend their free time doing?  That’s right, coming up with ridiculous crimes to solve that haven’t really happened.  Between Shawn and Gus, they come up with plots based around puppets, competitive eating, and suggestive hot dogs… all around it ends in the phrase “Ninja please…”  Thanks for that Gus.

Meanwhile in the coroner’s office of beautiful, murderous Santa Barbara Woody works away at his latest “patient.”  In comes an imposing figure with a creepy Cajun accent and he attempts to roll out a body.  Woody explains that due to the body being a John Doe, he cannot allow the man to take it and then we get a gun.  Our dopey coroner is taken hostage by Cyrus, an ex con who was trying to make a life for himself.  It turns out the body is a murder victim “Wilson” who he had beef with in jail and Cyrus believes he is being set up.  Woody is quick to try to help Cyrus and begins an honest dialogue.

The precinct is swamped as Chief Trout rallies the officers for a standoff when Shawn and Gus arrive.  As true to his character Trout dismisses the two and assigns Lassie to a ridiculous detail far from the scene.  Trout is blowing the situation out of control as he readies for a hail of bullets, he intends to shot first, and you thought Han was bad.

With the dynamic dunderheads locked out of the police department we see the return of the half beard scheme.  I’m so disappointed in these two I expected way more by this season.  However it did get them into a holding cell which is a good start, at least they are inside right?

Woody talks Cyrus into asking for Shawn and Gus explaining they are not cops so he can trust them.  Of course he also talks him into asking for American cheese and seedless grapes so we know where his head is.  Cyrus explains to the creators of psych that he crossed paths with the deceased in a halfway house but, he didn’t kill him at all.  He explains he has a wife that loves him and doesn’t want to be railroaded back to jail.

Cyrus’s P.O. and wife arrive in the station and Trout makes it clear he is trigger happy and more than willing to shoot to kill.  Trout decides to let Woody have his pills delivered by Lassie, inside the bottles is a tiny camera and now it’s very real to Juliet that if she doesn’t slow Trout down they might lose Woody in the crossfire.  Seriously? How has Trout not been jailed before now?!

Shawn and Gus arrive at the halfway house under the guise of a Vato and his P.O., every one welcome Emilio Estevez Estavieez… Or Shawn in a bandana and grey plaid bottom up with only the collar button done.  They are let in and given a rundown of the facility by Rocko explaining the Maurice runs the house but he’s not in right now.  Leaving Shawn and Gus alone in the deceased room they find pictures of him and Cyrus’s wife.  Uh-oh.

Confronted with the evidence of the affair she cops to it and explains she had broken it off because he was hanging out with bad people (Like adulterers?).  Still the two decide that they need to go back to the half-way house to confront the man in charge, Maurice… Unfortunately, he’s not too talkative on account that he is deceased as well.  Bum bum bum…  In his room they find a lottery ticket which proves Maurice was looking the other way on letting Wilson break the house rules about going more than 10 miles away and later than 9pm.  

To slow down Trout Juliet decides to go in as Woody’s estranged daughter in an attempt to talk Cyrus into letting Woody go.  This ends in a disturbing “the birds and the bees” talk between the two that makes even me uncomfortable.  Woody convinces Cyrus to let him and Juliet autopsy the body to prove that he is innocent due to a large amount of sulfuric acid in the body’s wounds proving that Wilson was not killed in Cyrus’s home thus clearing him of circumstance evidence.  Meanwhile Trout moves in quickly forcing Juliet to place herself between Cyrus and Trout.

The acid leads Gus and Shawn to a fertilizer plant and ultimately the scene of the first murder.  It is here where Shawn using his acute sense of observation pulls it together and calls it into Lassie.  It was the P.O. who caught Wilson sneaking around and making money on his old life (what that was I’m not entirely sure) and demanded a cut, then in turn bribed Maurice to look the other way on the rules.  When Wilson tried to go straight the P.O. was already in too deep and so he killed the two coconspirators to keep the whole “stinking” thing quiet.  Now after all of that you’d assume they would get a hero’s accommodation right?  Oh no, they all get fired… Well kinda fired, Shawn and Gus were never really hired so it’s hard to fire them.  There is justice in Santa Barbra however when Trout in turn is fired for nearly killing Woody… so there’s that.

I cannot express my disappointment at this season enough.  Where did my fun cast of eccentrics go?  The first episode of the season was awesome, now it just feels like forced pseudo wit.  Come back to me psych!  I miss you!  Most of this show has turned into a grandiose idea of how to bend logic.  Hopefully we get chief Vick back and we can go back to our brave Shawn and Fashionably astute Gus solving crimes by placing a finger to their heads and bantering 80’s lyrics.   

Here there be dragons... kinda

Sorry I’m so late everyone, and by everyone I mean the people that drift in and out, I’m finally getting a chance to sit down and get this review out.   So I, like all small children had a dream, my dream was to make monsters.  I wanted, with every little beat of my heart to design those little things that seem to go bump in the night so loudly that you hide under your blanket and pray for day light.  Naturally, I became a book keeping mom.  That’s close right?!  So when Syfi put forth the series Face Off I was giddy, and then I watched it… To date it has been a total hit and miss for me, there are nights where I want to cry, it’s so beautiful, but most night I want to scream “What the fuck are you thinking?!”  Tuesday night was no exception.

                                                                                                                                     

We open with the prospect of the season’s first individual challenge.  I’m actually really excited that we are moving out of team challenges; it allows each person’s work to flourish or fail.  This week we are doing dragons.  Normally the “ren faire” geek in me would squeal with unbridled passion; however I have never truly been too much of a dragon fan.  True, they are huge scaled beasts of perpetual scaled, and fiery awesome in theory, that theory does not translate well as a monster makeup.  As a CGI or maybe an animation you don’t worry about things like weight or physics, in a limitless world everything is possible in the makeup game, you just have to make it look like anything is possible (without ya know, breaking the laws of gravity, physics, nature in general).   The twist on these dragons is that they breathe other things besides fire like Ice, slime, acid, sand blah blah blah the explanation of the challenge never really thrills me.  What I did like however is that they used “Point Doom” to give out the challenge.  Now this is a famous spot for a few movie shots but the one that made my heart go pitter-pat is that it is the scene backdrop of the last scene of the original Planet of the Apes film.  Here are my props to you Face Off for your use of epic location!

 

So off we go with our inspirations of crazy scaled goodness, most of the creatures looking like human lizard hybrids on paper (muy disappointing).  This crop of monster masters really seem to not be getting that the first day needs to be a firm step into the molding room.  It’s only week three right?

 

So right away there is a major blunder/sin/boo boo what have you, with Tess brilliantly sculpting only half the face for her quilled disaster.  Now she gets to play catch up with the other side and try to make it seamless, good lick with that.   Chloe seems to be very unconfident this week, where is my sculptor from the first week?  This week she has a mold debacle and only has a head.  Nicko’s chest breaks apart as he attempts to remove it, safe to say everyone’s got molding issues this week.  Everyone Tyler who as he puts last touches out decides “hey I’ve got time, I’ll just sculpt the best wing profile ever in the history of this show… no biggie.”  The models enter to be dressed and Chloe is scrambling to paint as Tess freaks out about her broken leg pieces.  These two should never work together unless it’s being filmed for biggest whiners. 

 

Chloe decides to cover half her makeup in rags and doesn’t paint any of the back then drapes fabric all over the model.  It’s a sea horse in a dress really.  I have never been so disappointed in someone with beautiful hair in my life.  Let’s just entitle the whole episode “How Chloe fails”, or even better “Sand Blasted Sea Horses Caught in a Net of Ugly Green Chiffon…” the first on is probably best…

 

Tyler’s looks amazing, if you define amazing as a frozen turkey buzzard.  Literally, it looks like a lizard mated with a buzzard on a glacier and the baby spits ice.  The wing span and construct was pretty cool though.  I think he looked to the skessis for inspiration.

 

Tess turned in a purple, quilled Halloween project from a high school larper.  You can see where the face was applied, there is no caul, the model’s hair is sticking out of the back of this oddly built feather headband.  I don’t even want to begin to understand where it was going.

 

Tanner turned in an angry red frog, with big chunks of rock coming out of odd angles.  What got to me was that the bright yellow eyes were lop sided.  It was a cool build, decently painted, and presented effectively, but that run away eye killed it.

 

Rashad’s tarred beast seems to take up the stage.  No really, shits big.  I was impressed that he built up the individual scales.  I think that it shows his versatility to work in differing mediums and gives him a chance to display all his skills.  He makes up for his lack of experience with his ability to learn and utilize many differing processes.  Then he goes and gives it the worst under-bite in history…  Good job bud… *Face palm*

 

Niko is a no go, picture a naked mole rat screwed a porcupine and they had a terracotta pot colored baby.  That’s all you can really say.  There was effort in the sculpt, but for the over work the rest just resisted coming together at all.

 

Matt, I have no words.  It was a cone head with scales.  That’s all.

 

Grahm I was completely against, I can admit that.  In my defense he presented the idea that he was going to build a slime-dog-lizard-bull-blegh, whatever that meant.  I kept yelling “Man bear pig!”  What he presented was horrifyingly awesome.  The slime, the puss sacks, the green sick color… oh look it’s lunch time J.

 

George, who should have gone home last week!  Dear, sweet George gave us a red and black view of hell this week.  He wanted to embrace a hell, and fire, but I don’t know if it’s just me but all it did was ring in as demon.  Awesome looking demon, and in some cultures they may be the same, but a dragon that was not.

 

Daran’s acid spitting thing shall be filed under reasons to never wear fur pants.  The concept was there but the execution clearly was lacking.  I would have gone more into bone details, the bottom jaw just looks unfinished.  Try better next week man!

 

Daniel’s slime sea creature, because nothing about that had anything to do with a dragon, just made life un-comfy with too much bright yellow and time spent on sculpting what looked like fur-feather scales.  To clash completely he dressed her in a tacky floral kimono with no base in any realm of dragon.  This saddened me because the drawings had huge fins added to the face that would totally help. 

 

Corinne’s monster/ dragon disaster looked like it was a punk rock character from the show Dinosaurs, and if you don’t know that show look into it on Net Flicks.  The Mohawk of spiked weirdness sitting atop an oddly shaped head just hurts…

 

Cat had my vote this week; I’m a sucker for ice and sex.  She brought forth a beautifully ice sickled dragon slice of sex appeal.  Then I looked closer, the blending will bleed your eyes.  So wrong… The coat was amazing though, so you know there’s that.

 

In the end Tyler clenches a win with his amazing winged profile and Daniel is sent packing for his lock of anything remotely dragon, and poor taste in kimonos.  I sure hope the idea of getting worse before it gets better ends its stride with this episode.    


Gallery of the dragon flops