Friday Find - House Foods Tofu Shirataki Noodles

House Foods Tofu Shirataki Noodles 4 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I've heard about these noodles for years but since no one carried them locally I never had the chance to try them. You may have heard of them from Hungry Girl. These noodles are supposedly a good replacement for pasta and at only 40 calories for the whole bag (which makes a big plateful of pasta) I figured it couldn't hurt to try them. I finally found these noodles at my local Meijer store for just around $2.00 a bag the other day and I was excited to try them. They are made of Tofu (soybeans) and Yam flour. Since they do not contain any added oils, sugar or white flour this makes them acceptable for my current diet right now. They come in three varieties (shapes): Fettuccine, Angel Hair, and Spaghetti. So far I have only tried the spaghetti and fettuccine. I did not try the angel hair because they looked a little too thin and squiggly for my taste. I may try them later.

At first glance these bags of noodles are a little scary and funky looking. They do not look appetizing because they are long, white, stringy noodles squirming inside a bag of murky looking water. When you read the nutrition label though it might inspire you to give them a try in spite of their appearance. They only have 20 calories per serving (40 for the whole bag) only 3 grams carbs, and 2 grams of fiber. A plateful of pasta of similar size could easily have over 400 calories and too many carbs and sugar to count!

When you open the bag you may notice a very strong odor (they call it an "authentic aroma" on the bag). This isn't all that bad unless you get very close - aka don't stick your nose down in them to smell them lol. It took me making these things twice to realize what the smell reminded me of - it is very similar to ammonia, but maybe not as strong. The trick to removing this odor is to rinse them several times, probably no less than 3 times. Once they are rinsed and drained lay them on a plate and then blot them with a paper towel 4 or 5 times. You will need to blot and toss the noodles several times to get them thoroughly dry. After you have rinsed and dried them, the instructions on the bag suggests microwaving them for a minute or two and the smell practically disappears.

I found the texture to be quite good - not rubbery as some people suggest. They were also not slimey like others have said. But I think this would be because I really blotted them well to remove as much water as possible. I think that step is very key in getting these noodles to work for your dish. The noodles themselves with just a little salt had a nice flavor and tasted a lot like regular pasta noodles to me and I did not find the taste strange or odd even with the strong odor. I made these with the peanut sauce and some veggies and they really soaked up the sauce well. They seem to absorb the flavor of whatever you are cooking with.

From the way that these look in the bag I expected them to be very fragile and mushy so I was quite surprised at how firm these were and how they held up well. I preferred the spaghetti over the fettuccine only because the fettucine was maybe a tad bit more squishy and seemed to have a lot more water on them. These were also very filling and my mind really seemed convinced I was eating real pasta lol.

I have heard that there is a clear line on who likes these noodles. Usually you either like them or you don't. If you can get past the smell - which I did - then I think that most people would actually really like these as a pasta replacement.
Overall I gave these 4 out of 5 because of the strong smell. I would give them a 5 but I feel like some people just would not be able to get past the smell in order to even try them. If you can ignore the smell, and be willing to do the little bit of extra work to make them right, then I think you would have a perfect pasta replacement in these noodles.

Friday Food Review - Morningstar Farms Breakfast Strips

Yes folks it's yet another blog meme. I apologize if this blog seems to be over-memed (is that even a word? lol) at times but I have found that the memes are a convenient way to keep all of the blog content organized, up to date, and as a way to let you - my wonderful and awesome readers - know what to expect. So here's how this new meme will work. I will review a food - preferably something healthy - and give you my opinion of that food. Should you trust my opinion, well no you don't have to, but I do know a lot about food - just look at me lol. Of course, the best way of all is for you to try the food yourself, but I can give you a heads up on what to try or what to avoid. I will first give the foods a rating using *** (asterisks or stars - whatever you want to call them) with one * being the worst and five * being best. Then I will give you a summary on my experience with the food. See, easy enough!
So here is the first review:

Morningstar Farms Breakfast Strips

Taste *
Appearance *
Texture *
Smell *
Cost *
Nutritional Value ***
Ease to prepare **

I purchased these mainly out of curiosity. Generally when I want bacon I eat turkey bacon but I do not like the thought of eating so much fat everyday so these (the veggie strips) seemed like a good idea. I am a fan of a lot of Morningstar Farms products so I thought that these would be pretty good as well. Wrong! These failed miserably. If ever there was a food that could be classified as a frankenfood then this would be it. From the very look and texture of these right down to the cooking process I did not find much to like about these! The first time I microwaved these according to the directions and they came out burnt. The second time I tried cooking them a few seconds shorter. They still were slightly burnt / overcooked. Despite what these looked like (they reminded me of a child's crayon drawing of what bacon would look like), I still decided to be brave and give them a taste. From the second I stuck those in my mouth I was regretting that decision. These really did have a taste that would remind you of burnt cardboard! The texture was odd, the smell was worse and the taste was unbelievably bad. The high price is another bad mark against them. I paid $3.49 for 8 little strips - definitely not my idea of a good value for something that will now just sit in my freezer until I decide to toss them. The only thing going for these is the nutritional value - 60 calories and 4.5 grams of fat for 2 strips. I think you would do just as well with turkey bacon at 70 calories and 11 grams of fat for 2 slices. My overall opinion is that if you are craving bacon stick to turkey bacon and pat it with a paper towel to remove some of the grease and fat, but whatever you do I suggest you avoid these at all cost!