Steven Helmer Publications

  I've had this brand in the past, but it's been at least five or six years since I last purchased it because I'm a guy who likes to shop for value and can usually find a better deal with other brands. However, I was at the store yesterday evening and discovered the No Name patties happened to be the most affordable choice and picked up a box. I made these on the grill and the first thing I noticed about them is they weren't as greasy as many of the other beef patty brands I've purchased. Yes, there was still some grease and a few flames as a result of that grease. However, the flame ups were much more sporadic, and I didn't end up with an out-of-control grease fire, as has happened multiple times before. Another thing I noticed about these burgers while grilling them is they didn't shrink nearly as much as other patties. They were still smaller than they were when I put them on the grill but were large enough to fit the bun perfectly. In comparison, I'v...

  I had been eying this product at Kwik Trip for a few weeks now and, needing something for dinner last night, decided to finally purchase it (though, admittedly, my first plan was to get their taco meat, which ended up being sold out). After trying it, my opinion wound up being mixed. There were a couple things I really liked about this product. One of the main ones was the price. A 1-pound package cost $3.49. A pound of hamburger currently costs about $5, and that's only if I happen to find it on sale. When you add in the cost of a can of sloppy Joe sauce , this product ends up costing half as much as the way we usually make sloppy Joes. I also found I liked the convenience. Since the meat is already cooked, all I had to do was warm it up in the microwave for a couple minutes rather than frying the burger, draining the grease, and adding the can of sauce. The pre-cooked meat also meant I was getting what I was purchasing, it didn't cook down into a smaller quantity. Taste-wis...

To tell you the truth, this is a product I didn't even know existed until I received a coupon for it from one of our local grocery stores. Since it was only $9.99 at a time when a rack of pork ribs has been running almost double that, I decided to pick them up and throw them in my freezer for a to-be-determined family dinner. That dinner ended up happening this past weekend. While I had hoped to wait until my grill wasn't buried in snow, I also wasn't in the mood to run to the store to find something at the last second and, after thawing these ribs, ended up making them in the oven. Overall, I have to say I was impressed. One of the things I found I liked about this product is the ribs were already pre-cooked. This meant I only needed to warm them in the oven and that took less than 20 minutes. Convenience always scores points with me, especially since we have a lot of evenings when none of us has a whole lot of time to cook. Had my gas grill been available, the overall tim...

This wasn't my original plan for dinner last night. However, the store happened to have this product on sale ($2.99) and, out of curiosity, I ended up buying it. I have had other turkey products before and my opinion has always been a bit mixed. Some are OK but plenty of others just don't taste quite the same, either because of the turkey meat itself or because of over compensating by adding too much salt and other seasonings. As a result, I did wind up covering my basis by also purchasing a kielbasa to make with this. After trying it, I will say I was much more impressed than expected. I had both some of this particular product and the regular kielbasa (both from Hillshire Farm) and have to admit, if I didn't know this was made from turkey, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between the two. This sausage had a good flavor to it that wasn't overseasoned and I found I enjoyed every bite. In fact, even my picky children probably would have enjoy...

We had some cheese pizzas in our freezer so my wife and I decided to make a couple of them for dinner. Since neither of us is a fan of just-cheese, we decided to doctor one of them up a bit and, since I had to run to the store anyway, I was put in charge of finding toppings. I was in the mood for something other than just vegetables and found this product in the store's meat section for $2.29. After some consideration, I ended up purchasing it. When I saw this product, I thought it would be a perfect compromise for my wife and I. I like Italian sausage on pizza. She isn't as big of a fan. I figured the Crumbles would give me what I wanted while being small enough where she wouldn't care. Plus, I wouldn't have to cook it first. As it turns out, I wasn't a big fan. My biggest problem with this product is I thought the sausage was a bit bland. While I'm not a big fan of spicy food, I expect Italian sausage to have a little bit of a kick to it. This had a ...

My wife had to do some shopping yesterday afternoon and, while at Wal-mart with the kids, decided to pick up something for dinner. She came across this item and picked it up with the intention of adding some vegetables and making stir fry. She did just that last night and I was very impressed with this meat. This is primarily because I enjoyed how it was seasoned. It had just enough to give it some flavor without the meat being too spicy or peppery. It complemented the vegetables well as a result. I also liked the fact the meat wasn't too tough. This has been the case with similar products we've purchased in the past and is a big reason why I usually don't buy products like this. But, in this case, the meat was just the way it should have been. As a result of all of this, I do think this is a product I would purchase again, either to make beef steak sandwiches or something else, like the stir fry we had last night. If you come across this while shopping, I would re...

Product Description: Frozen, breaded chicken patties from the Country Pride brand. I purchased a bag of 10 frozen patties at one of our local grocery stores yesterday evening for $5.49. My wife and I ended up making these in the oven and (after adding them to a bun) served them for dinner last night. You can read my review here: https://wizzley.com/review-of-country-pride-breaded-chicken-patties/

Product Description: Fully-cooked, frozen chicken wings from the Schweigert brand. I purchased a bag of the Buffalo-seasoned wings for $8.99 at one of our local grocery stores while doing some other shopping yesterday evening. I ended up making some of these wings last night and served them with the pizza dinner we were having. You can read my review here: https://wizzley.com/review-of-schweigert-buffalo-style-chicken-wings/

My youngest daughter's gymnastics class was cancelled yesterday evening and, since we were actually going to be home for a change, my wife suggested spaghetti for dinner. I had to run to the store anyway so, while I was there, I picked up this brand of meatballs to go with it. I couldn't remember if I had this brand before and only purchased it because the $2.49 price seemed somewhat reasonable compared to the other brands I had to choose from (it was about $4 less). I ended up heating them up and adding them to the sauce and, overall, I have to say I was happy with the purchase. There weren't a whole lot of meatballs in the packaging. But, other than that, I really couldn't find anything negative to say about them. While they weren't the best frozen meatballs I've ever purchased, I thought they were decent enough for the money. The Italian-style meatballs had a good blend of seasonings on them. They weren't too spicy. But, at the same time, they h...

I don't normally buy spare ribs. I like them, however they tend to be a bit pricey and, since there seems to never be enough for all of us if I get just one rack, I usually have to buy two. And, when I came across this particular product yesterday morning, I did have to give my purchase some consideration because, even though they were on sale, it was still about $10 per rack. I did, ultimately, end up making this purchase yesterday morning. And, after having them for dinner last night, I have to admit I was very impressed with them. I decided to make these in the slow cooker because it was too windy to grill them and I figured they would take too long in the oven (I'm usually pretty hungry by the time I get home from work). This worked out well. However, I did discover I was only able to make one of the two racks I purchased because there simply was not enough room in our crock pot. Fortunately, as it turns out, this was actually not a problem. Unlike many other spare...

My wife was in the mood for BLTs on Saturday and, since I wasn't really in the mood to make anything more complicated than that (we had been running errands all day), I agreed. When we made the sandwiches, we used this product for the bacon component. I had actually purchased this bacon a couple days earlier. It's not a brand I would normally buy. But, one of the local grocery stores had it on sale so I decided to pick up a package of it. After having it Saturday night, my overall opinion of it was a bit mixed. The bacon did have a decent flavor to it. In fact, not only could we taste the maple flavor when we were eating this bacon, we could smell it when I was frying it up on the stove. So, as far as that category is concerned, I was happy. However, when I started making this bacon, I also noticed it was very fatty, even more fatty than what you would expect bacon to be. And, predictably, by the time the bacon was fried up, it had shrunk down considerably. In fact, by...

My wife had to make a run out to Wal-mart earlier today so, while she was there, I asked her to pick up something simple for dinner. She saw this in Wal-mart's freezer section for $5.98 and, thinking it looked good, decided to pick it up. We ended up having it after I got home from work and our overall opinion of it is mixed. One of the biggest attractions with this product was the promise of convenience. And, for the most part at least, I think it lived up to that promise. There were a couple different ways of making this product. She chose to use the boiling method and the food was prepared in a reasonable amount of time without any significant effort. As far as taste goes, I was admittedly surprised by this product. I don't think I would ever mistake this for homemade. But, considering it was a frozen product, it definitely exceeded my expectations. The sweet ketchup glaze had a good flavor to it and the meat (unlike many other frozen meat products) wasn't to...

After days of cool temps and rain, we finally had a nice day today so I decided to take advantage of it by lighting the grill. Since I needed something to throw on it, I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and picked up a box of Johnsonville Mushroom & Swiss Grillers. This was not a planned purchased. I had planned on picking up either a couple steaks or some chicken. However, the grillers happened to be on sale for $3.99 and the mushroom & Swiss variety, which I had never had before, looked decent so I ended up making this purchase instead. Overall, I have to say my opinion of this product ended up being a bit mixed. One thing I found I did like about this product right off the bat was how easy it was to get the patties separated once I took them out of the box. I know this is something that probably isn't a huge deal for other people. But, one of my biggest pet peeves with most frozen patties (brat patties or otherwise) is having to spend several minutes...