Chimayo Joe

Air fryer mania continues for me. I've had six versions of tater tots since the last time I posted on the thread. Alexia Yukon Select Puffs are my favorite of the six. For me they've had the best combination of texture (exterior & interior) and flavor. They're not heavily seasoned, so some people might find them a bit bland. With ketchup I think they're fine, and that's how I tend to eat tater tots. Cascadian Farm Spud Puppies are okay. I was expecting better. They're unusual in that they start out more brown than any other tater tots I've had. Interior texture seemed a little odd to me. I agree with Katie that they're not that flavorful. Alexia Crispy Seasoned Potato Puffs have a lot of flavor. I think these are the Alexia puffs Katie was talking about. They're not what I'm looking for in a tater tot most of the time, but I could see myself buying them again for a change of pace. With pepper, garlic, sour cream, and chives, these are the most seasoned of the tater tots I had. Texture of these was good. Kroger Tater Bites were second most seasoned of the six. I thought they were pretty good, both flavor and texture. Might be a good choice for people who find the Alexia seasoned puffs too seasoned and the other tater tots not seasoned enough. O Organics Potato Puffs were just bland. Too bland even for ketchup to save them. Ore-Ida Golden Tater Tots were the only ones that weren't new to me. They were pretty much as I had remembered them being. Okay with ketchup but rather mediocre. I'd like to try these but don't know when or if that's going to happen. Signature Select Tater Puffs (Safeway store brand that has been out-of-stock everytime I've looked for them) Grown in Idaho Super Crispy Tots (I don't think any of my local supermarkets carry these) Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Tater Tots (stores here carry just about every Ore-Ida product but I've never seen these)

https://www.chowhound.com/post/final-goodbye-chowhound-1098935

LOL at Kim's comments. Kim REALLY hated them. I agree that the coconut flavor is very faint. What I had is probably not new and improved. Maybe I was just in the mood for fake maple flavor. FWIW, I don't buy a lot of Oreos, usually just to try the different flavors. Even the ones I like, I tend not to buy again, so I probably won't be doing a second bag of Coconut Caramel to see if my sense of taste was off-kilter.

How long have caramel coconut Oreos been available? I had some of those a couple of weeks ago and thought they were pretty good.

The bowl method has worked for me, but using the microwave looks good. I'll give it a try next time I need a lot of garlic.

First cooks in my air fryer were Alexia House Cut Fries and Grown in Idaho Hand Cut Fries. Both turned out considerably better than when I cooked them in the oven. I still preferred the Grown in Idaho Hand Cut. I think those Alexia fries don't contain enough oil to cook as well in the oven or air fryer. After cooking, the tray was pretty dry with the Alexia fries, but there were a lot of oil splatters with the Grown in Idaho fries. The Grown in Idaho are saltier. They also have a starchy crisping ingredient on them which feels somewhat like salt and makes me think they're going to be even saltier than they are when I pick them up. I liked the Alexia Yukon Select fries better in the oven than I did the Alexia House Cut in the oven, so I'm interested to see how those do in the air fryer.

Just a small update. Two more that I've liked are Grown in Idaho Hand Cut Fries and Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Crinkles. For the oven, I'm finding that fries that have some starch crisping additives turn out better. Too much of that and it begins to affect the taste. One that I did not like is O Organics Crinkle Cut. They missed on texture and flavor. Maybe these would be better cooked a different way. I'm buying an air fryer later today. I've found enough fries that I like even cooked in the oven that I'm not motivated to keep trying new ones, and I still have partial packages in the freezer of about eight of the fries (and a couple of onion rings) I've already tried. I suspect that by the time I get through playing with the air fryer I will be burned out on fries. I'm not sure if I've ever bought any regular tater tots other than Ore-Ida. Maybe I'll try a few other brands of those. Maybe. And maybe not anytime soon.

I'm bakng them, more or less as the directions suggest for that method. No doubt frying would be better, but I started out baking them and have just stuck with that.

I'd probably like those. I like Smashburger's rosemary fries. I had Alexia Yukon fries for the first time last night and thought they were very good but a little light on salt for my tastes (easy enough to add some salt.) I'd probably even like the saltiness of the Alexia rosemary fries. i guess I might as well update with what I've had since the last time I posted to the thread. Direct comparison between Alexia onion rings and Nathan's onion rings was a close contest, but Nathan's edges out Alexia. The styles of these are different enough that I'm sure I'll buy both again from time to time. I didn't like Market Pantry (Target store brand) onion rings, and Red Robin onion rings of a similar style were even worse. Market Pantry Crispy Crinkle Cut fries didn't hit the mark either. They were just barely okay for me. Slightly thicker than other crinkle cut fries I've had. I tried varying the cooking times & temperature and couldn't get them cooked to suit me. Wouldn't buy them again. Market Pantry Crispy Shoestring fries were the best of the Market Pantry products I tried. They crisped well and tasted okay. Probably not something I'd buy again, but I didn't dislike them. I figured something would beat Grown in Idaho Super Crispy Crinkle Cut fries, and it didn't take long for that to happen. Kroger Extra Crispy Crinkle Cut fries are better than I expected them to be. They are slightly thinner than other crinkle cut fries I've had, and the crinkles are deeper. The ingredients list of those two are almost identical, but I think the shape of the Kroger fries allows a lighter hand to be used with the ingredients they add to promote crisping. There's not as much of a fluffy central core with the Kroger fries, so that might be a consideration for some people, but I liked these.

I had them and agree they're fairly good. I like the batter they used. The onion flavor is too mild for my tastes, but I still enjoyed them. It's been too long since I've had Alexia onion rings for me to say how they compare, but I think the onion flavor is pretty mild in those, too. It shouldn't take me too long to sample what onion rings are available to me locally. There aren't many of those in comparison to potato products (I'm definitely not tryng all the potato products.) I'll probably revisit Alexia onion rings since those are the ones I think I like best.

I think I'm going to get sick of this frozen onion rings and potatoes binge pretty quick. I've just been baking the things I'm trying. Arby's Curly Fries are okay. It's hard to cook them evenly because the sizes and shapes vary so much. The ones that end up just right aren't bad. Probably wouldn't buy them again. Alexia House Cut Fries are also okay. They're bit bland and don't really brown. Probably wouldn't buy these again either. I wanted to try the Yukon Select Fries, but the store I shopped at didn't carry those. I'll get to them sooner or later. I'm thinking later. Grown in Idaho Super Crispy Crinkle Cut Fries crisped pretty well but have a slightly odd flavor. Ketchup is enough to obscure that flavor, but I wouldn't buy these again unless I don't find a crinkle cut fry that's better. My guess is that I will find better. Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Fast Food Fries are the best Ore-Ida fries I've had. Not fantastic but good. Looks like they tried to copy McD's fries and succeeded more with appearance than taste, but still, they aren't bad. I bet these would be pretty good fried. I'd buy these again. In the freezer but untried are Nathan's Thick Sliced Battered Onion Rings.

I don't know if this has been done as a Topic. I don't have a huge amount of experience with these types of products, and thought I'd see what others' preferences are. (I'm also thinking this is a topic where Toliver might have had something to say. RIP, Tim.) The products I can recall having are Ore-Ida fries, crinkle fries, tater tots, and crowns, Alexia onion rings, sweet potato fries and sweet potato puffs, Kroger sweet potato crinkle fries, Safeway Signature Select onion rings, and Checkers/Rally's fries. I've probably had others that have slipped my mind. I like Checkers fries. Those are what I've been buying lately. The Ore-Ida items I've had are okay but are something I'm likely to buy only rarely. I also like Alexia onion rings. I do not like the Safeway onion rings (minced and formed onion.) i'm sure I've had other brands of onion rings, but they must not have made enough of an impression good or bad for me to remember them. As I recall, Alexia sweet potato fries and puffs are decent. Alexia seems to be a pretty good brand. I need to try more of their products. Kroger sweet potato crinkle fries are okay. I have some Arby's curly fries in the freezer at the moment, but since I'm not a big fan of Arby's curly fries I'm not expecting much from the frozen variety. Anyone have any favorites?

The surface texture that bronze dies produce isn't a slight difference for me. Maybe that matters less to some people. If that's the case, Collezione may not be better than regular Barilla for them.

Barilla Collezione is definitely better than standard Barilla. It only comes in 8 shapes some of which don't interest me, and one of the shapes that does interest me (casarecce), my supermarket doesn't have. I'll probably get around to trying the rigatoni, penne, and spaghetti, but it will probably be a while because I'm well stocked with other brands right now. Speaking of Walmart, Sam's Choice Italia pasta from there isn't bad. Not many choices for shapes, but it's bronze cut, imported from Italy, and very inexpensive. Huh, I just checked Walmart's website, and it looks like Sam's Choice Italia pasta may not be available. Hope it hasn't been discontinued. I have one package of spaghetti and one package of penne left. I've had their trompetti and fusilli, too. Not a great fan of the trompetti shape, but I think the Sam's Choice was all I had locally for that.

I bought both last night and prefer Ultimate Chocolate. Nabisco tried with the toffee but didn't really succeed to my tastes. You get a strong aroma of something toffee-ish as soon as the package is opened, but the toffee flavor isn't great, and these are too sweet for me. Might buy Ultimate Chocolate again but probably not Toffee Crunch.

I've had both of these bucatini now, Barilla Collezione a week or so ago and Signature Reserve earlier today. They seem decent quality to me, but maybe I'm not too hard to please with pastas. I don't buy a lot of bucatinis, so I don't know how much variation there is, but the Barilla Collezione bucatini is thinner than any I've had before which made it a bit easier to control on the fork but less bucatini-like to me.

Albertsons and Safeway are owned by the same company. You might try Albertsons if you have one nearby.

Fairly small ground beef recall from a few days ago. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/recalls-alerts/interstate-meat-dist.-inc.-recalls-ground-beef-products-due-possible-e.-coli-o157h7

I had watched that video several months ago for some reason. I'm certain that's the only Mythical Kitchen video I've ever seen. Thankfully, I didn't need to watch it in its entirety this time. I could skip through a lot of it. I'm sure their style of "entertainment" in that video was what caused me to not watch any of the others. It's agonizing.

They preferred chicken that wasn't soaked in buttermilk. They preferred chicken that was just dipped in buttermilk and dredged in flour then dipped and dredged again. They seasoned their flour with Tony Chachere's seasoning. They preferred chicken that was rested an hour after dredging before frying. And they preferred pan-fried. I think cast iron is traditional because it promotes browning when chicken is fried in oil that isn't too deep. My mom never had trouble with browning chicken even though she very often cooked in stainless steel (but also in cast iron.) I've never been able to match her chicken no matter what I've cooked it in.

I'll buy just about anything that says toffee on it. Haven't seen toffee Oreos yet, but I haven't looked for them.

FWIW Annoying presentation but you might find it useful. It tests buttermilk soaking, just buttermilk dredging, double dredging, resting after dredging, and frying method. I can't believe they all predicted deep-fried would be better than cast iron pan-fried. Pan-fried rules!

I've become very cynical about any type of reality TV. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all staged.

He will be missed. I was alway interested in what he had to say.

A couple of more fairly inexpensive bucatini possibilites are Safeway's Signature Reserve store brand and the Barilla Collezione line. I've never had either, but Signature Reserve is a bronze cut Italian import and Barilla Collezione is bronze cut(but U.S. made, I think.)