Today’s pizza review: Signature Select Pepperoni Pizza on Ultra-Thin Crust

Wait, this is a Safeway store-brand pizza?

Okay, so this is a Safeway house brand, as you can see in the photo to the right. First thoughts upon taking it out of the box: “Wow, this has a lot of pepperoni on it!” And indeed, that is what it tastes like — oodles of greasy yummy pepperoni, and a fair amount of cheese to go with it to keep it from becoming totally obnoxious.

Too bad about the sauce. It is completely overwhelmed by all this pepperoni and cheese. I have no idea what it tastes like. As for the crust… it’s nicely crunchy, but that’s all it adds. It is basically overwhelmed and adds nothing.

Still, if you love pepperoni and cheese, this Safeway brand pizza will definitely fill your craving!

– Badtux the Pizza Penguin

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FOOD!

Cajun style beans. They was good.

Recipe:
1 pound of beans of choice (red, pinto, but *not* lima!).
1 pound of sausage, preferably spicy Portuguese sausage or real andouille from South Louisiana.
1 bell pepper, diced.
1 can Rotel diced tomatoes and chives.
1 teaspoon garlic granules or 1/4 clove of garlic diced finely.
1 teaspoon red pepper
1/4 cup Tapatio hot sauce (or Tabasco, but you’ll need to add 1 teaspoon of black pepper and 1 teaspoon of salt in that case, since it doesn’t have the black pepper or salt that’s in Tapatio).

Soak the beans overnight before cooking. Drain and rinse until they rinse clean, then cover with about an inch of water in a non-stick pot and toss in the can of Rotel and the diced bell pepper and the garlic and the red pepper but NOT the hot sauce or salt. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook covered for an hour or so. Add the sausage. Cook another hour or so. Add the hot sauce and, if not using Tapatio, salt and black pepper. Cook for another hour or two, the more the merrier. If you need to add water, bring it to boiling in another pot then add it. Once you think it’s done, which you’ll know by testing beans and seeing if they’re tender, remove the cover and boil it down until it’s a thicker mix.

Serve over rice. Add additional hot sauce if needed. (Personally, I scale right up to having 1/2 cup of hot sauce in the pot during cooking).

Note — this is my own recipe based upon what I had in my pantry and refrigerator at the time. It worked out fine :).

– Badtux the Culinary Penguin

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Safeway Eating Right Soy Protein Burgers

These things are sold in the freezer section at Safeway, and claim to be microwavable, exactly what any good bachelor needs — burgers that don’t need firing up the grill but, rather, can be nuked in the microwave in a few minutes after getting home from work. So I brought a box home, and cooked one pattie by nuking it in the microwave for 2 minutes

The general consistency is cardboard, leavened by Worcestershire sauce (which made a friggin’ mess on the microwave plate as it boiled out of the burger during nuking). Still, placed on a hamburger bun and dressed up with ketchup, yellow mustard, hamburger dill slices, and random salad greens, it was acceptably edible for the bachelor who is, well, baching it. I had two of them, which didn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth or anything, though clearly they aren’t real hamburgers. They could maybe be confused with McDonald’s hamburgers though. For what that’s worth. Yellow mustard, ketchup, and pickle will make even cardboard edible enough for a bachelor.

In short: If you’re a bachelor in a hurry needing to nuke a couple of burgers inbetween getting home and leaving for a hot date with a woman, this will fill the hole in your tummy. Fine cuisine it ain’t, but edible it is, and proof that enough Worcestershire steak sauce, ketchup, mustard, and pickle will make even cardboard edible.

— Badtux the Culinary Penguin

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Camping gear – what worked, what didn’t

I’m getting pretty close to the “perfect” camping gear, but here’s what worked and didn’t for last week’s trip:

First, the stuff that worked well:

• Kelty Light Year +30 sleeping bag: When I washed it in down wash, it got fluffier and warmer. Huh, imagine that. It worked fine for the temperatures that I encountered, the coldest of which was about 40F. Indeed, my biggest problem was overheating.
• Coleman portable LED lantern: This is the small flat 2-LED one. It hangs up in my tent via its little lanyard hook and provides plenty of light to read by.
• SVEA 123 gasoline stove: This is a classic design dating to the 1950’s. Unlike the modern gasoline stoves it has no pump or anything, just a wick inside the tank to carry gasoline up to the area near the jet where it can get vaporized. In the colder windier temperatures it was a bit of a pain to get primed because the jet stalk has to get heated up hot enough to vaporize gas before it’ll do the dirty deed, but really, it only has one moving part — the flame adjustment knob — so it’s not as if it could get broken or anything. Some kids got out there without anything to cook their weiners on, so I let them use my frying pan and the SVEA and it worked fine for that too.
• Snow Peak titanium pot and mug. These nest and are very compact and durable. I used the pot to heat up things like canned chili, the mug to heat up water for freeze-dried dinners and hot chocolate.
• Petzl Tikka XP head lamp: I had some battery issues (see below) but the headlamp itself was a trooper, lightweight and plenty of light for what I needed.
• Fenix P2D flashlight: This flashlight is almost small enough to carry on a keychain, yet is extremely bright when you need some extra light on the subject beyond what the TIkka XP headlamp can put out. The downside is that the lithium batteries that it uses are expensive if you don’t buy them in bulk from a wholesaler like I did, and they don’t last long at full brightness. But then, it’s not as if I run this flashlight at full brightness for very long anyhow — the TIkka XP is my normal light source when not in the tent.
• Tarptent Rainbow tent: This is one well sorted little tent. It looks small on the outside, but inside it has plenty of room for one person and some miscellaneous gear scattered around. It’s well ventilated (to the point of draftiness) but you can use jackets or other gear to direct the draft away from you if that’s a problem and in warmer weather, you want that draft to keep you from overheating. There are gear loops in exactly the right place to hang up your little LED tent lantern to either read or light up the interior of the tent while setting up your sleeping pad and bag, and the roof is plenty high and wide to sit up and exit the tent without bumping the wall or top of the tent. The semi-freestanding setup (with the two trekking poles) saved my bacon at one campsite where there was slick rock beneath an inch or two of soil, and all in all it’s just a very well designed and well-sorted little backpacking tent with no weaknesses that I have thus far discovered.
• 2006 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited: Simple as dirt. Reliable as dirt. Goes anywhere sensible. Has plenty of room to haul gear and supplies for a 1 week trip without being overcrowded, unlike the short-wheelbase Jeep. Isn’t outrageously long and wide like the new 4 door Wrangler.
• REI storm-proof matches. These things work where nothing else does. High wind, rain, you name it, these things sneer at it and will get your lantern or stove lit.
• Camelbak “double hump” day pack: This is just big enough for a 100oz water bladder and essential supplies (e.g. spade and T.P. as well as a first aid kit!). Much more convenient than carrying a conventional day pack and water bottles.

Things that did *not* work out too well:

• Phoenix “wind-proof” butane lighter. More like, “flame-proof” — I could rarely get a good flame out of the thing, especially when there was any wind (so much for “wind-proof”!). Mostly I ended up using my REI matches to light my stove.
• Generic 1-mantle propane lantern: To be fair, I think the problem is with running low on propane, but it would stay lit for a while, then poof to an orange glow rather than a bright white glow. It worked fine on previous trips. I’ll have to try it with a new propane cylinder.
• Energizer AAA 1000mah NiMH batteries: They’re worn out and no longer hold a charge yet I’ve only charged them maybe 50 times max. Bummer. My Tikka XP would only run a couple of hours per set of batteries before the little green “need new batteries” light started flashing and the headlamp itself started getting dim. I had two sets, I had to recharge them every day (my Jeep has an inverter and I brought the recharger with me of course). Time to toss these and get some new batteries.
• Wal-Mart blue foamy sleeping pad combined with Therm-a-Rest Prolite 4: The Wal-Mart foamy was used mostly to insulate the feet from the ground, but was always trying to roll back up and was hard as a rock under my feet. Next time I haul along my nice thick full-sized Therm-a-Rest air mattress and quit trying to be fancy with the sleeping pad. I might have to use the Wal-Mart foamy + Prolite 4 setup when I’m motorcycle camping, but my Jeep has plenty of room for the big air mattress, so I might as well carry and use it.

Finally, food that worked out well:

Note that I try all of my food before I carry it into the field, so I had good luck with everything I ate. Some highlights:

• Dennison’s Hot & Chunky Chili on pita bread, topped w/Cheeze-Whiz: Pita bread carries well. Top it with chili and some Cheeze-Whiz(tm) after a hard day of hiking and you have the food of the Gods. Note: Needs a dash of Tapatio hot sauce, but not as much as you’d think.
• Beef Stew freeze-dried entree’: Once again, add a dash of Tapatio. This is comfort food for the soul on a cold and windy day.
• Cajun Red Beans & Rice, Ham, and Sausage MRE: Mmm. Not available in the current MRE meals, alas. Once again, a dash of Tapatio (or the included Tabasco) does it good.

For my December trip I’ll take the thicker sleeping pad and the REI Sierra Dome tent, which is more airtight and better suited for cold windy weather as compared to the drafty Tarptent at the expense of being big, bulky, and much harder to set up than the Tarptent (which is ludicrously simple to set up — stake out the four corners, stake out the two “beaks” which really aren’t all that critical, and you’re done). Oh well, it was cheap ($89 at REI Outlet).

— Badtux the Camping Penguin

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Bachelor’s Cookbook: Cheesy tuna casserole

This one is a bachelor classic because it dirties only one pot and takes about ten minutes to prepare.

Ingredients:

• One blue box Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (or any good quality Mac’n’cheese)
• One can tuna
• One can cream of mushroom soup.
• Five cups water

Bring the water to a boil in a mid-sized pot big enough for the macaroni and water. Dump the macaroni into it (set the cheesy powder aside!). Cook for 7 minutes, then dump into collander to drain. Dump the cream of mushroom soup into the pot, put it on a very low heat, and stir half the cheesy powder into the cream of mushroom soup. Dump the macaroni back from the collander into the pot on top of the cream of mushroom soup, then the remainder of the cheesy powder, and stir vigorously until well mixed. Dump the (drained) can of tuna on top and stir well until well mixed. Serve with a side salad of fresh greens and veggies.

— Badtux the Culinary Penguin

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Pizza comparison: Frozen vs. Little Caesar’s

As you know, I did a long frozen pizza bake-off. I found that the best frozen pizzas were actually quite tasty, not at all like the stale lardy pizza-like manhole covers of yore. The average price of the frozen pizzas that I tested was approximately $5.50 apiece, so we aren’t talking about 50 cent Totino’s pizzas, but we’re still talking cheaper than the typical $11-$15 pizzaria pizza.

Recently, however, a pizza chain called “Little Caesars” opened up a shop near where my iceberg is currently docked, and advertised a $5 “Hot and Ready” pepperoni pizza. If you go there between 5PM and 8PM, they also advertise a $6 “Hot and Ready” thick-crust pepperoni pizza. So how does this “Hot and Ready” pizza compare to the best frozen pizzas?

Well… badly.

Crust: This is actually the best part of the Little Caesar’s $5 pizza. It tastes like fresh bread, exactly like pizza crust is supposed to taste. The crust on the $6 pizza, on the other hand, tastes more like grease. The crust on the $6 pizza is utterly inedible.

Sauce: Too little, and somewhat watery, without the tang of the best sauce (the tangy sauce used on the Schwan’s Freschetta and Red Baron brands). The lack of sauce is especially pronounced on the $6 pizza, where the taste of greasy crust is all you can taste.

Cheese: Too little, and little flavor. Nowhere near as good as the rich flavorful cheese flavor on the Kraft pizzas (Digiorno and Tombstone). Maybe as good as on the Red Baron pizzas (Schwan’s doesn’t do cheese as well as Kraft does, hmm, go figure). But if so, only barely.

Pepperoni: You get maybe two pepperonis per slice. All of the best frozen pizzas had more pepperoni.

All in all, my rating is: $5 hand-tossed: Edible. Barely. And only because of the nice bready crust. $6 thick-crust: Inedible. Utterly inedible.

The one and only reason to buy one of these pizzas is if you’re in a hurry and not willing to wait the 14 to 24 minutes needed to bake a good-quality frozen pizza. Otherwise, if you are wanting a thick-crust pizza buy a DiGiorno Rising Crust Pepperoni (NOT the “garlic bread” crust one though, that one is nasty) or the Freschetta Naturally Rising Crust Pepperoni. If you are wanting a thin-crust pizza, get the Freschetta Brick Oven Pepperoni or the Red Baron Ultimate Pepperoni Thin Crust pizzas. All of those frozen pizzas are far, far, far superior to the Little Caesar’s pizzas. Indeed, they are so yummy that just writing about them I’m *almost* hungry for a pizza, despite being somewhat pizza’ed out after eating pizza for 10 days over the course of two weeks. But I shall resist, because 10 days of pizza also equalled 5 pounds of weight gain. Ah well, the sacrifices that a penguin must make for science’s sake…

— Badtux the Pizza Penguin

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Frozen Pizza bake-off: Day 10

Okay, this is the last of the edible frozen pepperoni pizzas available at my local supermarket. It’s a rather unusual one in that it appears to be the last-man-standing of stuffed-crust pizzas.

At one time there was a whole hoard of stuffed-crust pizzas. Cheese-stuffed, sauce-stuffed, garlic-stuffed, crap probably even catfood-stuffed. Nowdays, though, there’s this one last survivor in the supermarket: Tombstone Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza (Pepperoni made with Pork Chicken and Beef) More 40% Cheese than Tombstone Original Pepperoni Pizza made with 100% Real Cheese.

So what does it taste like? Well, what do you think? It tastes like, duh, cheese. Pretty good cheese, actually. The crust does a good job of complementing the cheese too.

The other toppings are more mediocre. The sauce is plentiful but rather bland. There is a lot of pepperoni on this pizza — they stole the Schwan notion of putting little baco-bits of pepperoni as well as round disk pepperoni onto the pizza — but it isn’t the best quality pepperoni around.

Still, this pizza has a rather pleasing blend of flavors. It isn’t the Digiorno Rising Crust or Freschetta Brick Oven pizza (the two top pizzas in this contest), but it’s still quite tasty, especially if you like cheese.

— Badtux the Pizza-lovin’ Penguin

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Frozen Pizza bake-off: Day 9

Sadly, we are coming to the close of this series of food-like product reviews. I have only one more frozen pizza in my freezer, then I have exhausted the supply of edible frozen pizzas available at my local Safeway and Food Saver stores. Sorry, I do *not* intend to do an in-depth review of Totinos or Tony’s pizzas, neither of which is edible enough to justify any more review. I also will not review “fancy” pizzas (i.e., those with meats on them other than pepperoni), which rules out the California Pizza Kitchen imprimature (which actually is a Kraft-produced pizza).

Today’s pizza is the “Freschetta Naturally Rising Bake To Rise Crust Pepperoni Pizza”.
This is a good rising crust pizza, but the crust lacks just a tiny bit compared to the Digiorno rising crust, which is still “the” standard by which rising crust pizzas must be compared. Still, it is quite good, and has one advantage over the Digiorno pizza — it has slightly more pepperoni. Still not enough to match the amount of sauce and cheese on this crust though. The sauce is Schwan’s typically peppy sauce, used on all their pizzas, and in good quality to offset the bready taste of the crust. It is a better tasting sauce than that on the Digiorno pizza. The cheese isn’t quite as good as on the Digiorno pizza though, probably because Kraft (the maker of Digiorno) is a cheese whiz.

All in all, I have to rank the Digiorno just a hair better than the Freschetta. But it’s close. Real close.

My personal favorite is still the Freschetta Brick Oven pizza, which has a wonderful toasty crust. But that is more because I prefer thinner-crust pizzas. If you like thicker-crust pizzas, this is certainly a worthy pizza to honor your oven with.

— Badtux the Pizza Penguin

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Frozen Pizza bake-off: Day 8

Today’s Pizza is the “TombStone Original Pizza Pepperoni Made With Pork Chick And Beef Made With 100% Real Cheese”. (Whew!). Unlike the other pizzas tested so far, this did not come in a box. It came in shrink-wrap with a cardboard back and a paper front.

The cheese on this pizza is good. It is abundant and has a pleasant cheesy taste that goes well with the bready taste of the crust. The sauce is abundant but somewhat thin in taste, not the tangy sauce that the Schaum brands use. The pepperoni…

Ah yes, the pepperoni.

I was surprised to find a vague medicinal aftertaste upon my first bite into this pizza. Yet this rather nasty taste went away as I ate towards the outside crust. But then it came back again when I started on the next piece. But then it went away.

After some experimentation, it appears that this taste is the grease from the pepperoni. It runs down to the center of the pizza, which is why my first bite, near the center of the pizza, had this rather odd and obnoxious aftertaste, the taste of rancid chicken grease.

It’s a pity, really. Other than that rather nasty taste near the center from the pepperoni grease, this pizza has a lot going for it, especially if you like cheese. It isn’t as good as the Frescheta Brick Oven pizza, but then few pizzas are. It is, rather, a solid well-conceived well-balanced pizza… except for that rather nasty and medicinal-tasting pepperoni grease.

I have to, therefore, reluctantly give this pizza a grade of “F”. It’s a shame that Kraft (the maker of this pizza) cannot put a good-quality pepperoni on their pizzas. Rancid chicken grease is not appropriate for any pizza with even the vagues pretensions of being edible, and as long as the pepperoni has enough chicken fat in it to produce that rancid chicken grease flavor at the center, this pizza is disqualified from the edibility sweepstakes.

— Badtux the Pizza-lovin’ Penguin

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Frozen pizza bake-off: Day 7

Yes, ladies and germs, I’ve re-stocked on frozen pizzas and am back in the saddle again!

Today’s pizza is the Freschetta Brick Oven Fire Baked Crust Italian Style Pepperoni. This is thus far the best balanced of all the pizzas. The crust and cheese are especially good, the sauce is not quite as good but is plentiful, and the pepperoni is abundant without being overwhelming. While I still personally prefer the Red Baron Thin Crust Ultimate Pepperoni because I love the kick of all that pepperoni, I must admit that the Ultimate Pepperoni kinds overdoes it with the pepperoni — the taste of the pepperoni overwhelms everything else. Not so with this pizza. There is plenty of pepperoni, but not too much. Unlike the DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza, which has a great crust, but not enough pepperoni to balance it out.

One hint though — cook it on the rack, and if the back says “baking time 12-16 minutes”, cook it for the 16 minutes. Getting the crust nice and toasty is the secret to this pizza. Yes, the cheese on the edges will start looking a bit overdone. But that’s okay. It’s all good. You have to get the crust well toasted in order for it to balance out the flavors of the rest of the pizza, and a slightly toasty taste to the cheese on the edges doesn’t hurt the taste of the pizza at all.

— Badtux the Pizza Penguin

Want your favorite frozen pizza reviewed? Here’s the ground rules: 1. It has to be a PEPPERONI pizza. Not one of them fancy multi-meat kinda pizzas. 2. It has to be available from a regular grocery store in Santa Clara CA. And 3. It cannot be a Totino’s pizza! ICK! Anyhow, leave a comment if you see your favorite frozen pizza missing!

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