Potato Chip Review Face-Off – Herr’s Hot Sauce chips vs Ruffles Molten Hot Wings

As tribute to the Nick Cage/John Travolta movie…..we are going to have a Face (hand motion) Off.

Once again I picked up two crazy looking flavors, and surprisingly, I thought that these two chips would be very similar in taste, but they ended up being pretty different. Both in the intensity of the hot sauce hot, as well as the overall flavor.

First up are the Hot Sauce chips from Herr’s, and the description on the bag perfectly describes these chips, which is chips with a coating of dried hot sauce on them. You maybe get a little bit too much of the vinegar flavor, that you would have with a cayenne based hot sauce (such as Texas Pete or Franks.) But in actuality it’s the cayenne and vinegar that make these hot sauces who they are, so you really can’t fault Herr’s for trying to capture the full essence of a hot sauce on a wavy potato chip.

Lastly we have the Ruffles Molten Hot Wings, and these chips kind of surprised me, since I was expecting them to be close in flavor to the Herr’s chips, but they really weren’t. With the key difference being that the Ruffles have not only the hot sauce flavor, but they also have some chicken bullion added in, so that you actually kind of think that you’re eating a buffalo wing, even though you are eating a potato chip. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the flavor is “molten”, but they are mildly hot, and quite interesting for a chip flavor.

Unfortunately in the end I thought this challenge was going to be more like apples vs. apples, but it turned out to be more of apples vs. oranges. Both chips overall have a good flavor, it’s just that with the addition of the chicken flavor on the Ruffles, it puts them in the same category in my mind as the Baby Back Ribs chips from Herr’s, due to the addition of a “protein” flavor on the chips. But really, if you are looking for a chip with hot sauce flavoring, either one is more then adequate to satisfy your desire for hot sauce. I know it did for me.

Pickled Spicy Beans – v2 & v3 – September 2010

When I saw the Labor Day ad from my local grocery store, it had a sale item that I had to pick-up. And what food item got me so interested, that I had to get it? Why none other then Michigan grown green beans for $0.58 lb. Yes, you read that right $0.58 a pound. And having finally cracked open a jar of the wax beans, and enjoyed the results. I thought that I would give it another try, but with green beans, and also with a couple of recipe modifications. Here are the results: Continue reading

Chili Cook-off recipe – v4

At work the Friday before the Super Bowl, we ended up having a chili cook-off contest for our department. The entry fee was $5.00 and first prize was $70.00 plus a bunch of other misc stuff (small trophy, pizza party for your team, etc.) There ended up being over 30 entries for the contest, and the types of chili entered by competitors were all over the board (white chili, vegetarian chili, wild game chili, extra tomato chili, etc.) After a few weeks of back and forth conversations with JRR to hash out a recipe, here was the chili that I entered into the contest. This recipe didn’t make the top three (and they only listed the top three finishers.) But as the VP that sits next to me kidded, that maybe I got 4th place. So enjoy this recipe for 4th Place Chili: Continue reading

Guacamole Recipe – v4

For some strange reason avocados from Chile were on sale at Wal-Mart for $.50 each. So not being one to stare a gift fish in the mouth and take advantage of a food opportunity. I ended up buying about eight of them, which provided me an excellent opportunity to work on a guacamole recipe on the cheap. Since testing out guacamole recipes at $.99 an avocado really isn’t the best use of my grocery dollars. But at $.50 a piece I’m more then willing to throw a little bit of caution to the wind in trying to develop a usable guacamole recipe. Continue reading