Episode 4/Transcription

Ursula: *giggling*
Kevin: It is Sunday, ladies and gentlemen, and listeners and odd people, which means we're --
Ursula: We're assuming most of our listeners are odd people, if you're listening willingly.
Kevin: There's that. And it is time for Kevin and Ursula to eat cheap, coming to you once again from our kitchen; we're surrounded by border collie, beagle, cats, I mean, the usual zoo --
Ursula: Plus we have the windows open 'cause the weather's really nice, so it is entirely possible that either a deer or a bird will crash into the window, setting off the beagle. It will be epic.
Kevin: It will be epic, and I promise if that happens we'll cut that out because you reeeally don't wanna hear that, it will hurt really bad.
Ursula: Oh, I don't know, I think they should hear the beagle bay at least once so they know what we have to live with.
Kevin: That's fair. This week we are eating, so that you don't have to, or at least if you don't want to, some Trader Joe's Chicken-less Stuffed Cutlets, with black beans and corn in a smoky tomato sauce; we'll be having some Thai Joe's -- can you tell we went to Trader Joe's this weekend? -- Thai Joe's Lemongrass Chicken Sticks...
Ursula: Lemme say for the record, Trader Joe's frozen food aisle is actually usually pretty good. This is one of the specimens from it.
Kevin: Yeah, it's -- those -- these are currently in the oven baking right now, and then we have, for the really really budget, Betty Crocker Bowl Appetit Garlic Parmesan Pasta. 
Ursula: Trader Joe's stuff tends to run somewhere between three to five, sometimes a bit more; the Bowl Appetit you can get for a buck ninety-nine at a Target near you.
Kevin: Yes.
Ursula: You get what you pay for. *chuckles*
Kevin: Yyyes. And there will be -- again, there will be pictures posted of all of these items, I will take pictures and post them to the Flickr stream.
Ursula: You might wanna take pictures of the Bowl Appetit now, 'cause I'm pretty sure we have to dismantle the packaging in order to make it work.
Kevin: Oh yeah, yes, I should take pictures of all of these, here, we'll stand them up. Also, we have a thrown-together, since we couldn't find any dipping sauce in our cabinets -- shocking, isn't it? -- a homemade dipping sauce for the lemongrass chicken sticks. 
Ursula: It does not come with dipping sauce. It suggests you use your favorite dipping sauce, which we don't have; my favorite dipping sauce is actually one whose name I can't remember but it's made by a couple who are Hawaiian and Jewish, and you can usually find it in the marinade aisle. It's -- they have a Hawaiian version and -- I think it's called Soy Vey, I'm not sure. It is --
Kevin: Soy Vey? Ohh.
Ursula: I believe that is what it's called.
Kevin: *groans*
Ursula: It is delicious, and it makes an excellent marinade for pork loin too, if you feel really really adventurous and like cooking a pork loin. I did that once in my life. And it was pretty good and I decided I never needed to do it again, 'cause you know how bloody long it takes to prepare a marinated pork loin? Jesus H. Christ.
Kevin: It's a surprisingly long time to marinate something.
Ursula: It took hours!
Kevin: Yeah! Yeah, well, the idea is to let the marinade get into the meat and flavor and soften and...
Ursula: No, I mean the bit where I put it in the -- I assembled it and tied it up and put it in the thing and read the instructions, that took hours. It sat in the fridge overnight, I didn't care about that.
Kevin: Okay, okay, okay. So the lemongrass chicken sticks are actually in the oven right now, and then the dipping sauce that I have whipped up just because we didn't have any other dipping sauce -- and I'm unsure about proportions 'cause it was mostly to taste -- there's some honey --
Ursula: Tulip poplar honey from our local trees.
Kevin: Yes, from a friend of mine I used to work with at RedHat --
Ursula: Their bees, not the friend themselves.
Kevin: Right, yeah yeah yeah. Their bees. Uh, there's also soy sauce, a little Thai fish sauce, I threw in a little white vinegar, there --
Ursula: Ground ginger --
Kevin: Some ground dried ginger, a little kosher salt, not that you needed much after the soy sauce -- did I say white vinegar already?
Ursula: I think you said white vinegar already. And there might be some other stuff in there, 'cause I'm staring at it and it's kind of rippling oilily. Sesame oil.
Kevin: Sesame oil.
Ursula: Yeah. 
Kevin: Oh, and a grind or two from my pepper grinder, and then I just whisked it until... it stayed.
Ursula: This is advanced black magic cooking, be afraid, I would not try this myself.
Kevin: And I'm only -- and it was completely improvisational and... until it tasted close to what I thought will taste good with the lemongrass chicken sticks. So there's that.
Ursula: I'm going to start by making the Chickenless Stuffed Cutlet, which claims to be ready in two minutes. I will say, I'm not usually a fan of faux meat, I like my meat to be real authentic meat, I would prefer the meat had been treated well, but things like tofurkey just strike me as an abomination, if you want to eat tofu, tofu is a fine food in and of itself, by itself, without making it into an inferior meat product. 
Kevin: And there are plenty of meat substitutes out there, tofu of course being the most common, and I'm sure we will go through a whole selection of them as we're finding these easy-to-heat-and-eat kinds of things. Some are good, some are bad, some I just don't care for at all.
Ursula: Okay, I see already a problem.
Kevin: You see a problem.
Ursula: Yes. This says, "Pierce bag," but the cutlets -- this is a very peculiar object, Kevin is taking a photo --
Kevin: They're vacuum-packed.
Ursula: It's two blobs of basically a goose-egg shaped and sized...
Kevin: They're squishy!
Ursula: They look kinda like artificial boobs. And...
Kevin: They do a little, only in some sort of sauce.
Ursula: Well, and then there's baggies of sauce, but all it says is "Pierce bag", so now I'm confused, do I pierce the chicken-boob bag or do I pierce the sauce bag?
Kevin: Let me read the, um...
Ursula: It says "Pierce bag". No matter how much you stare at it you cannot wreak more meaning from "Pierce bag" than is already there.
Kevin: This is, um... yes. Yes. ...We could switch to the stovetop. "In a saucepan over medium heat cook covered three to four minutes." Okay, timer --
Ursula: No no, we're going to -- it says "Microwave is best", so I'm piercing everything.
Kevin: All right, all right. So, yes, carefully with a fork, do not go... through all the... way -- well, ladies and gentlemen, here it is, we're not even ten minutes in -- not even eight minutes -- barely seven minutes in, and we are already risking life and limb by the microwave. While she's --
Ursula: *stabbing the bag* Die! Die! Die more!
Kevin: She's not stabbing at me, thankfully, but... uh, I will also say, as I'm reading the packaging -- let's see, the...
Ursula: Two minutes?
Kevin: High for two minutes, yes. It is labeled --
Ursula: May God have mercy on us all.
Kevin: It is labeled on the back as a "quick meal" and as vegan. Let's see. The chickenless cutlet -- "water, soy protein, vital wheat gluten, natural flavor" -- so this is not gluten-free, just be aware of that -- "modified vegetable gum, potato starch," lotta starch... Only nine carbohydrates. *scuffling noises* And as you can hear, the beagle has found a cat, that's what the scattering in the background is; pardon us while we take care of that.
Ursula: *in background* Gir, leave the cat alone.
Kevin: Yeah, we'll probably edit this bit out.
Ursula: *in background* Gir!
Kevin: Um... while she's dealing with that and we're waiting on the microwave -- or maybe I'll leave it in, because I'm just -- you can see how we live our life when we do these things. How's the microwave going?
Ursula: A minute there and a minute on the stove, so they'll be done simultaneously.
Kevin: They will be done simultaneously, so that will be interesting.
Ursula: Except that we have to leave this to let -- oh, it doesn't even say "Let cool", it says "Let rest for one minute".
Kevin: All right, so the oven is done, I will do the oven -- ow, that was my knee --
Ursula: Once again, recorded live.
Kevin: Thank you. *singing wordlessly* Woo, they're sizzling! *clatters*
Ursula: This is fairly idiot-proof cooking, I can do this, this is just put stuff on a cookie sheet and preheat an oven, it's not like where you fry something in a pan and it's a little terrifying and, you know, hot oil is erupting at you and there's screaming and Kevin is screaming and jumping around and trying not to yell fuck.
Kevin: So, we gotta label this one with an Explicit tag.
Ursula: All of them, I believe, had to be labeled with an Explicit tag. Whoa! What was that?
Kevin: I don't know, it just went phoom.
Ursula: I think one of the chicken boobs exploded.
Kevin: Four seconds. Smells good, though. Smells great.
Ursula: Are you sure that's not the chicken sticks?
Kevin: No, it's not the -- the marinara sauce has exploded in the microwave, ladies and gentlemen. Ohh no, our microwave's now a casualty.
Ursula: Oh God, that's... oh, dear.
Kevin: Well --
Ursula: We now unequivocally do not recommend Trader Joe's Chicken-less Cutlets.
Kevin: Let me get a picture of that. All right! So it went boom.
Ursula: I feel bad, because Kevin just cleaned the microwave like a week ago.
Kevin: I did just clean the microwave a week ago, and I'm... kinda sad. So, all right -- so, for our first tastings, lemme go get the knife.
Ursula: I am a little afraid of the chicken boobs. They look... I don't know. I don't trust them. I think they are plotting.
Kevin: *grunts* There we go. They're warm.
Ursula: Did you let them rest for one minute?
Kevin: I -- uh, no, I've sort of been looking at the carnage for a minute -- so in terms of resting, yeah, there's probably been a minute between taking them out of the microwave, discovering the mess, taking the picture, going back to the microwave...
Ursula: We could pause it while we clean the microwave.
Kevin: Yeah, we're gonna pause it while we clean the microwave. In the meantime, let's taste while we've got them here and they're fresh, 'cause it's gonna take more than a minute to -- all right, okay, now I have a chicken boob --
Ursula: -- ow --
Kevin: -- ow, hot -- I'll get out the other chicken boob -- all right, so, the sauce... the sauce is tricky. The sauce is what exploded, the actual -- I'm surprised the chicken cutlet compartment didn't go asplodey-splodey -- ow -- yep, warm -- in fairness, the chicken cutlet sauce is pretty good, the explodey-splodey marinara -- did you pierce the marinara packets?
Ursula: Yes!
Kevin: Hm. 
Ursula: I stabbed them both.
Kevin: Well, one exploded and the other one didn't, so I'm gonna try and squish out some marinara here on the remains of the packaging and -- all right, wow, that's messy -- very messy.
Ursula: All right, I am cutting open a chickenless cutlet. It is sort of like a chickenless Kiev, I guess, except it has this kind of black-bean and corn filling...
Kevin: Mm-hm, yep. It does not cut easily with a fork, you will require a knife for this. *eats* Wow. I can believe it's not chicken.
Ursula: Yes, that's fake chicken all right.
Kevin: Mmhm.
Ursula: I suppose, if you're a vegetarian and you can't get real chicken and you're really craving something that is almost but not quite chicken, this is... not quite chicken.
Kevin: Not quite chicken. It may be better if we have -- had more marinara, but about two-thirds of the marinara is spread out across --
Both: ...the microwave.
Kevin: Wow.
Ursula: Well, you can finish it if you want.
Kevin: Well, I'll probably snack on it as the... cleaning and the preparation of the next bit goes on.
Ursula: I have to say, this is bland, flavorless, and texturally unappealing. I do not recommend.
Kevin: Yeah, I can't --
Ursula: In addition to the exploding bit.
Kevin: In addition to the exploding. Now, on the other hand, we have here the lemongrass chicken sticks, which are... "chicken, cabbage sugar, cornstarch, lemongrass", I mean, can't go wrong with that. Without the dipping sauce, not bad; mm! All right.
Ursula: They're pretty good with the dipping sauce, actually. Whatever the hell the dipping sauce is.
Kevin: I really like that you can really taste the lemongrass in it, without the dipping sauce. Let's see how I did on the dipping sauce, since I sort of made that up as I went along. Not bad.
Ursula: Mm. I could get this in a restaurant and not go "what the hell are they trying to put over on me?"
Kevin: Fair. That's fair. This is -- these are actually reasonably not bad, definitely have a Thai flavor, which I -- have a Thai sauce, instead of making up as I go along, but -- mm.
Ursula: Despite being Thai, they are not spicy at all, for the most part. I mean, there's a little bit of a... 
Kevin: Well, there's a hint, but...
Ursula: There's a hint, but I, who am a colossal spice wuss, can eat these without, you know, any concern.
Kevin: Mhmm. Most of what I'm tasting is the lemongrass.
Ursula: Mhm.
Kevin: And there's chicken in there, but it's not overwhelmingly chicken, it's more like the chicken's there for texture. And protein.
Ursula: They're pretty tasty.
Kevin: These are not bad.
Ursula: I would eat these again, which is a good thing, because we bought two boxes.
Kevin: Oh good! 
Ursula: Now, for our final dish --
Kevin: Hold on. We're going to take a short break, and we're going to clean the microwave, before we go to our final dish.
Ursula: Yes, that's a good idea.
Kevin: So --
Both: We'll be back momentarily.
Ursula: I wish we had a word from our sponsor, but we don't have a sponsor. If you would like to sponsor us --
Kevin: *busts out laughing* 
*the pause is not noticeable*
Kevin: While we were cleaning, my oldest son came down -- say hi --
Raymond: Hi.
Kevin: Hi. Uh, and he was wondering about the chicken cutlets. And we said, you know what, this is a golden opportunity, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna see what you think of the chicken cutlets. We were not impressed.
Ursula: Have him try the chicken sticks --
Kevin: I'll have him try the chicken sticks next, yes. So. Chicken cutlet.
Raymond: Yes?
Kevin: Taste it. Tell me what you think. He's chewing... you don't have to take the thoughtful pose, no one can actually see what you're doing. 
Ursula: *laughs*
Kevin: We have to narrate it. The important question here is, would you eat it again?
Ursula: Would you eat it at all?
Kevin: Would you eat it at all? Would you have it for dinner?
Raymond: Yes, yes, and yes.
Kevin: Yes, yes, and yes. So you actually like this.
Raymond: Shoulda been cooked a little more.
Kevin: No, it's cooked -- is exactly how it's supposed to be cooked.
Raymond: Really?
Ursula: Try one of these in the sauce.
Kevin: Yeah, they're -- there's absolutely no meat in that. This, on the other hand, is the chicken sticks, try a chicken stick; it is lemongrass, it is Thai...
Raymond: *more enthusiastically* Really?
Kevin: Yeah, uh-huh! Give that a try --
Raymond: *pleased* Ahhh.
Kevin: -- how's the microwave coming? Okay, the microwave is coming. That's -- ooh, ow. Ah! Glad I wore the heavy stuff. All right. Yes, that's homemade dipping sauce, I sort of made it up, so it's not like a commercial -- we can't buy that in stores and I doubt I'll ever be able to make it taste like that again.
Raymond: Ah.
Kevin: If you want to try it, try it.
Raymond: 'S good.
Kevin: Mm-hm. There we go. There's some crunching. The beagle is looking hopeful. Well, there's a question for you. Long as you --
Ursula: Will the beagle eat fake chicken?
Kevin: The beagle will eat the fake chicken and look for more. Beagle... apparently will eat tofu.
Ursula: This does not surprise me.
Kevin: No.
Raymond: This is tofu?
Kevin: That's not tofu, that's chicken. This is -- not tofu, but it has absolutely no meat in it.
Raymond: That's... ah.
Kevin: So how -- what do you think of the lemongrass chicken stick?
Ursula: Do you like it?
Raymond: That was the very first time, I want to try again, and yes I will have it for dinner if I ever get the chance to!
Kevin: All right then! Now we know. Off with ya.
*another unnoticeable pause*
Ursula: And we're back. And the microwave is somewhat cleaner, although I feel really bad, I couldn't get it as clean as Kevin did a few weeks ago. That marinara sauce is persistent.
Kevin: And it'll come off eventually, and we can get the real scrubbing, but for now, we're not going to have marinara sauce crusted to it in a couple days, so I'm not worried about it.
Ursula: Yes. And just for the record, the beagle will eat the tofu chicken thing --
Kevin: Yup, yup.
Ursula: And we, however, unlike the beagle -- well, I at least give it a two out of ten, uh... al dente noodles.
Kevin: Two out of ten noodles?
Ursula: Yes. It was not actively repulsive, which would be a one, but it wasn't good, the texture was poor, and it exploded.
Kevin: See, I'd consider the exploding a bonus on that one --
Ursula: *laughs*
Kevin: -- so I was gonna give it a four for -- in terms of taste it was mediocre, it was average, the exp-- you know, texturally, it was processed food, so I -- but the explosion at least gave it some excitement; other than that it was not very exciting. And... kinda chewy. On the other hand the lemongrass chicken sticks, those get an eight noodles?
Ursula: Eight out of ten al dente noodles. 
Kevin: An eight out of ten al dente noodles, as we keep snacking on those and I'm glad we bought a second box, 'cause we'll have those for dinner later this week. All right, you're unwrapping the noodle bowl.
Ursula: Yes. "Bowl Appetit." Now this wants you to "add hot, not boiling, water up to, not over, fill ledge". So I'm gonna have to nuke water, because as usual our local water will not get hot enough to do anything impressive.
Kevin: In a reasonable amount of time. It will get hot enough if we give it twenty minutes and we sit here and we talk for twenty minutes about... nothing, or everything, and people don't seem to mind when we talk about nothing and everything, but I only have so much to work with here, so.
Ursula: Yes, we have a limited supply of nothing to talk about and we don't want to burn it all up in the first few podcasts.
Kevin: This is a fair assessment.
Ursula: On the bright side, the one thing I will give the chickenless cutlet?
Kevin: Yeah?
Ursula: It does appear to be compostable, being entirely made of organic non--
Kevin: I guess that's true, being non-meat, being completely vegetable or simulated meat and vegetable matter, it can very easily go into our compost heap, which... will feed our plants next spring?
Ursula: Yes.
Kevin: When it's time to grow our own... Maybe we can try lemongrass this year. We've, we...
Ursula: I think we could grow lemongrass.
Kevin: I think we -- yeah, I think lemongrass grows...
Ursula: Yeah, but I think we'd need to get -- doesn't it grow on water? I think we'd need to get like a, we'd grow it in the pond or something. 
Kevin: Nah, I don't think so, I think I have some Thai friends who keep it in pots in their restaurant.
Ursula: Hmm. 
Kevin: So. Man, these lemongrass chicken sticks are good.
Ursula: If it came with its own dipping sauce I would give them ten out of ten.
Kevin: I agree. If the refrigerator hadn't died last winter, we might still have that hoisin dipping sauce we had, which went really well with these.
Ursula: Yes. By the way, if you've never come home from an extended trip and discovered that your fridge stopped working while you were gone?
Kevin: *dramatic shuddering groan*
Ursula: It's an exciting experience which you should have at least once in your lifetime just so later on when bad things happen to you you can look back and say "At least the fridge is still working."
Kevin: And we got lucky, it happened in the winter. 
Ursula: Yes.
Kevin: I have had friends who have had this happen to them in the summer. In the winter we can take all the things that need to be refrigerated -- that may still be frozen in the freezer -- or may not be -- and put them on the back deck in a safe place, because it's winter! It's not getting above thirty-some degrees outside. Which was useful. The only problem was, overnight it was getting twenty-some degrees, so I would get up in the morning and I'd have to defrost the milk before the kids could have breakfast. They... didn't wait for me to defrost one morning, and so the milk was, um... Frozen milk is interesting, even when it's pourable; it's... exciting and kind of gross. All right, you've poured the water --
Ursula: I've poured the water. I've poured it to, but not over, the fill ledge.
Kevin: Okay. Up to, but not over.
Ursula: Oh wait, "Stir until well blended."
Kevin: So she's going to stir until well blended. Excitement abounds today at Kevin and Ursula's house.
Ursula: This is basically some dried noodles in powder, so... I mean, I'm trying to get some of the clumps out, but it's opaque now that the powder is starting to dissolve, so it's not really...
Kevin: It's not really... dissolving? Mixing?
Ursula: Let's just say you can tell this was a buck-ninety-nine meal.
Kevin: All righty then.
Ursula: All right, now, "Microwave uncovered on high." 
Kevin: Microwave uncovered on high.
Ursula: "Four to five and a half minutes or until tender."
Kevin: All righty then. Why, hello beagle! The beagle is hopeful he's going to get another piece of something to eat, since we actually tried a food on him this time, mostly to see if he would even bother with it. The beagle is apparently a fan of the fake chicken. There is no way we're going to let him have a lemongrass... chicken roll. Uh-uh, that's mine, all mine. ...You're eating the last one.
Ursula: Also, he's allergic to chicken, so it would be very irresponsible of us as pet owners.
Kevin: That's true, he's allergic to chicken and we don't want any... harm to come to him...
Ursula: Frequently we do wish harm upon him, but only when he's pooped on the floor, and we really love him and will be very sad when someday he explodes.
Kevin: When he explodes or when he just... stops... beagling.
Ursula: It will be very sad, there will be weeping.
Kevin: Yeah. ...I wonder if he'll smell better when he's dead. ...Sorry, sorry.
Ursula: I don't think he could smell much worse.
Kevin: So!
Ursula: Now that we have proved we are reprehensible pet owners --
Kevin: Horrible, horrible pet owners.
Ursula: So let's see, what else are we going to talk about? Do we want to discuss the frying cheese?
Kevin: The frying cheese. Goodness gracious me, the frying cheese. We can discuss the frying cheese.
Ursula: Yes, this was a --
Kevin: -- fascinating piece of cheese --
Ursula: Yes.
Kevin: -- discovered in, um --
Ursula: -- Trader Joe's --
Kevin: -- in the Trader Joe's cheese section. Trader Joe's has a great cheese section, at least the ones near us, routinely with some specialty cheeses we don't see at the other grocery stores, and we've got some very fancy grocery stores including a -- this wonderful place in Chapel Hill called the Southern Season, where you can get the most incredible cheeses inclu-- incru-- bleah! In-clu-ding mizithra --
Ursula: I am a fan.
Kevin: -- which is delicious. Um, the frying cheese itself looks like a sort of a generic yellow cheese, that has been pre-fried a little bit --
Gir the beagle: Owooo! Owooo! Aowooo!
Kevin: Ahem!
Ursula: That's what we live with on a daily basis; that was the beagle beagling off after something.
Kevin: Yeah, probably a cat.
Ursula: Anyway, so, the frying cheese.
Kevin: Where was I? The frying cheese. So it's a yellow cheese, it looks like it has at least been pan-fried or roasted in some way once, the instructions say "Cube and microwave fifteen to thirty seconds on high until cheese is soft and shiny, or cube and sauté over medium heat for one minute on each side until cheese is soft. Top with jam, honey, and walnuts or syrup." 
Ursula: I have to say that it tastes kind -- if you've ever lived in the Midwest you've had deep-fried cheese curds, which are food of the gods, in -- they are Fair food, they are delicious, I once nearly made Kevin miss a plane to Michigan because I had to stop and get cheese curds in the Minneapolis airport, which he was very good and didn't yell at me about even as we ran down the concourse with cheese curds.
Kevin: Oh, I would've yelled. I would've yelled for days if we had missed the flight, 'cause there are only two flights to Upper Peninsula of Michigan a day; if we'd've missed that one, we'd've been stuck there for --
Ursula: For about eight hours. But --
Kevin: Assuming we could get on the next flight.
Ursula: But I had cheese curds, which is the important thing as far as I'm concerned, because once you move away from the Midwest it's very hard to get cheese curds unless you can find an A&W somewhere near you, which is the only chain that sells them.
Kevin: Fair.
Ursula: This is a lot like a cheese curd. It has that same taste, that same slightly bland cheezus tex-- cheese ish texture, while not being quite entirely what you expect of a cheese?
Kevin: Myeah, yeah, yeah.
Ursula: And, it is in the most white-trash redneck way possible, delicious. When you fry it and put thimbleberry jam on it, oh my god, your arteries clang shut, it's actually really really tasty. I'm sure there are more calories in it than I care to contemplate, it will someday be featured on that blog This Is Why You're Fat, but --
Kevin: Oh, I don't know about that. And it's really actually easy to prepare because it's very easy to cut, you can cube it, you throw it in your frypan with a little vegetable oil, olive oil, bacon grease -- I'm a big fan of using bacon grease for frying, especially if we've been cooking bacon at the same time, 'cause hey! why not just keep using it all instead of throwing it out or -- 
Ursula: I feel we should mention at this point that Kevin has dropped thirty-five pounds in the last few months.
Kevin: Surprisingly enough. And I'm still eating bacon and frying things in bacon fat, and it's mostly because I cut out carbs --
Ursula: -- and high fructose corn syrup --
Kevin: -- and high fructose corn syrup, and refined sugars. So you cube this, it cubes very easily, you fry it, it fries really quickly, you just kinda keep it moving, you apply it to a plate and it's soft cheese with toasty sides.
Ursula: And then you put jam on it and if you get a jam that's got some tartness to it to contrast it, the thimbleberry works very well --
Kevin: Yup.
Ursula: It's really actually v-- unbelievably tasty.
Kevin: I'm kinda curious about trying it with honey and walnuts at some point. Or we could have it with -- we could try it with pancakes or waffles, because we'll have leftover syrup that we could...
Ursula: That said, one pack of cheese runs, this was three dollars --
Kevin: Oh. Yeah.
Ursula: -- and it's more than enough for two people as part of a brunch, I mean you gotta have other stuff with brunch -- 
Kevin: -- yeah, yeah --
Ursula: -- it's yummy but you're kinda burnt on cheese if you split it between two people.
Kevin: And if that's all you have, yes. Of course the other thing is, of course it's $7.99 a pound, so the other trick is that, you know, if you wanted -- if you're going to feed this to a lot of people, it may be worthwhile to find out who actually other than Trader Joe's has it and if you can get larger sheets of it. Although it may just be, as best I can tell, a generic cheese that's been specially treated. Wow, that's, um... that's somethin' right there.
Ursula: I have removed -- Kevin is commenting on the Bowl Appetit.
Kevin: That's -- wow.
Ursula: Which I have removed from the microwave using both hands, as it says on the packaging --
Kevin: I'm gonna take a picture of that. That's just -- that's... well, there's the -- yeah, there's the two differences, I'm gonna get a closeup here so that you can sorta see how it looks nothing like on the packaging, I very rarely have found foods that come out looking like they do on the packaging.
Ursula: I have to say the lemongrass chicken sticks look fairly close.
Kevin: That's true. Maybe not as loose on the ends, but fairly close. It smells... I thought I smelled maple syrup there for a second, am I'm -- does that mean I'm gonna have a seizure or something?
Ursula: No, it means you have that one disease.
Kevin: Oh. 
Ursula: The, the...
Kevin: Maybe.
Ursula: The... no, I'm thinking of jumping Frenchmen of Maine disease.
Kevin: Jumping... Frenchmen of... Maine disease?
Ursula: There's actually this fascinating disease in the annals of medical anthropology called Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Disease, which was identified because it was mostly found -- it was, you know, back in the 1600s I think, maybe 1700s -- and it was mostly discovered among French fur trappers who were working in Maine and it caused spasms and whatnot, and -- you can look it up on the internet, I'm not making this up -- and it was called Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Disease.
Kevin: *blank pause*
Ursula: They probably have a better name now.
Kevin: ...Probably. Um, either that or something in the kitchen might actually smell like maple syrup.
Ursula: Now that I think about it, the disease that involves maple syrup was the one where your urine tastes like maple syrup and I don't wanna know how the hell people determine that --
Kevin: I'm not, no, yeah, that's, that's -- Sugar content! They analyze the sugar content. That's all I can come up with. Anyway!
Ursula: We are sampling the -- well, I am sampling the --
Kevin: Yeah, you sample first. The sauce is not thick at all; is it creamy?
Ursula: I'll let you know in a minute.
Kevin: All right. I'm going to start, 'cause the --
Ursula: It's very hot.
Kevin: -- as with the usual on these noodle bowls, the tops dry out very quickly so you need to kinda stir it, and while she's sampling now, I'm gonna attempt to skewer or somehow get a fork full of these little -- slippery little sons'a--!
Ursula: It's very salty.
Kevin: Very salty?
Ursula: It's extremely salty.
Kevin: All right, let's see how we're doing here, lemme just... mm. Mmhm, mm... There's a hint of something.
Ursula: I think it's trying to be parmesan.
Kevin: Yeah?
Ursula: It's not trying very hard.
Kevin: No. It's -- you're right, it's a little salty. It's a little... I wouldn't call that creamy, I wouldn't even call that a cream sauce...
Ursula: And there are actually instructions on how -- what to do if you would prefer thinner sauce.
Kevin: I couldn't see this sauce -- I want thicker sauce.
Ursula: Yeah, well, you're boned.
Kevin: This sauce is -- yeah.
Ursula: Suck it up.
Kevin: Thank you so much.
Ursula: I was narrating for Betty Crocker there.
Kevin: *mildly* Hey.
Ursula: She's not as nice as the packaging would make you think.
Kevin: The noodles are either -- they're oversoft, in this particular case...
Ursula: I might have overcooked it.
Kevin: Followed the instructions. The problem with these -- any of these types of bowls or whatever, is actually it's very easy to overcook the noodles. The problem is that if you undercook them, they're not al dente, they're... crunchy. Like eating little toothpicks.
Ursula: I have to say, I am not terribly impressed with either texture or taste.
Kevin: No. It's a generic noodle bowl with a -- *coughs* 'scuse me! It's a generic noodle bowl --
Ursula: With a wet --
Kevin: -- anuric --
Ursula: -- salty sauce that... resembles parmesan in much the same way that powdered Kraft parmesan cheese resembles parmesan, in that --
Kevin: It's not even parmesan. It's sort of like they took an alfredo sauce and added lots of water, and dried... green onion --
Ursula: Chives.
Kevin: Yeah, dried chives. And the chives have been devoid of all flavor.
Ursula: Yeah, I can't recommend this one; on the other hand, it's not actively disgusting. It's just... it doesn't really taste like much.
Kevin: It's bland.
Ursula: It's bland and a little salty.
Kevin: It's safe. 
Ursula: You know, if --
Kevin: It's safe for middle America.
Ursula: If you were, for example, an extremely finicky nine-year-old who only ate white foods, then this would be a perfect sort of dish. 
Kevin: Quite possibly, yes. If you are a incredibly cheap system administrator who's going to eat at his desk for lunch, you have better options, I mean, it's --
Ursula: But you won't look back on the day with horror for having devoured it.
Kevin: Nnno.
Ursula: You will just go "lunch was memorab-- unmemorable".
Kevin: Yeah. If I'm a high school student after school looking for a snack, this will work.
Ursula: On the other hand, if I'm a high school student after school looking for a snack, cardboard with the word "food" written on it will work.
Kevin: I... wasn't really going to say this. And if I'm a cheap college student, this might be a step up from a diet of nothing but ramens because that's all I can afford. 
Ursula: Yes, that might actually -- if you could get 'em in bulk 'cause again, two bucks is a little spendy for a meal when you're a college student, but --
Kevin: Yeah.
Ursula: -- if you can get 'em when they're on sale and you get 'em two for one or something?
Kevin: M-hmm.
Ursula: It won't kill you and it's a nice break from ramen.
Kevin: That it is. And as it's getting --
Ursula: I'm gonna give it... three out of --
Gir the beagle: *howling*
Kevin: Ahem!
Ursula: I'm going to give it three out of ten al dente noodles. 
Kevin: Um, I'm gonna give this one one out of ten al dente noodles. I've had better, I've had cheaper, I've had better and cheaper. I've eaten these regularly, and they still refuse to excite me.
Ursula: All right.
Kevin: All right, so. Lemongrass Chicken Sticks was...
Ursula: Eight out of ten noodles.
Kevin: Eight out of ten noodles. The Betty Crocker -- um, what flavor is this?
Ursula: Bowl Appetit Garlic Parmesan.
Kevin: Garlic Parmesan. 
Ursula: Split the difference... two outta ten noodles?
Kevin: Two outta ten al dente noodles.
Ursula: And the cutlet -- I think if we split the difference, three out of ten noodles for the Chickenless Trader Joe's Cutlet, which came with exciting exploding action.
Kevin: Explo-- yes, yes, that was... it was the Kung-Fu Grip of Exploding Action. In our microwave. No, wait, that didn't come out right.
Ursula: That didn't make any sense!
Kevin: No, that made no sense.
Ursula: Um, it was the kung-fu grip of... something.
Kevin: Of something.
Ursula: Yes. In that, much like the kung-fu grip in your action figures, it seemed like a really cool idea and then once you got it it didn't actually work very well and it wound up kind of pinching a little.
Kevin: See? It was the Kung-Fu Grip of... whatever.
Ursula: Only because I can rationalize like a motherfucker.
Kevin: There you go.
Ursula: All right.
Kevin: And again.
Ursula: Thank you, Internet, for bearing with us, and we will see you again next Sunday with more exciting cheap food, more improbable rating scales, more baying beagle in the background. Yes, I've been watching Ninja Warrior lately.
Kevin: Yes she has. Also, you may send your questions or comments to kevin@sonney.com -- k-e-v-i-n at s-o-n-n-e-y dot com -- 
Ursula: Or you can just comment on my blog at ursula... vee... Just go to redwombatstudio.com and hit the Blog link, it's there somewhere.
Kevin: That's it exactly! So until our next recording, have a good one, and We Ate It So You Don't Have To.
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