I absolutely love a good mac and cheese moment. In fact, a while back I had the idea that I should go out and snatch as many boxes of store-bought mac and cheese as I could find. I decided on purchasing any brand that offered both a regular, and white cheddar version for comparisons sake. I absolutely love making a good baked mac from scratch, but I thought it would be fun to see if I could find a box of the store-bought stuff that hit the spot when cravings struck and laziness took over. 

For this round, I compared every classic version I could find. There's definitely many more boxes I didn't see or find yet, so I'll probably have to do a round 2 on the classic flavours. With that being said, let's dive into the boxes I've already tried to see which one was the absolute best! 

I decided to rank them based on the shape of the noodle, the sauciness, how cheesy they were, and the snackability. To keep things even, I went with 2% milk and butter for every box, but followed their measurements exactly. These boxes ranged from cheesy to clumpy to textural disasters lol I didn't think they'd be this varied. Let's look at these boxes starting with my least favourite, all the way down to my number one pick so far!

You guys, this was honestly a two taste and I was done situation. The noodles were completely devoid of any flavour whatsoever, in fact, it literally felt like eating solid water. The product claimed there was ricotta cheese, but I couldn't find a speck of it anywhere. The spinach was so wet and had this unfortunate funk that just made this entire thing a complete write off. I am not one for throwing out food, but this was quite literally inedible. I chose to starve for the rest of my shift rather than even attempt to eat this crap. My God, I honestly have half a mind to write them and tell them to pull this product because it was THAT OFFENSIVE. Literally, NEVER AGAIN!

BYPASS - You guys, don't ever buy this. In fact, scream as loud as you can and run in the opposite direction. This was easily one of the worst products I've ever tried and the easiest BYPASS I've ever given. They offer a Fungi version and a Bolognese...but honestly, I can't imagine either of them being good if this was supposed to be any indication. Absolutely horrid, wretched tasting garbage. Big fat NO from me. Yikes.

BYPASS - Look, it simply wasn't special in a world of Impossible & Beyond Burgers. The Impossible Whopped at BK is so good and hits the spot when the craving strikes. A&W also has a Beyond burger that's absolutely delicious, so when I compare them, the McVeggie falls flat. Would I eat it again? Yes, for sure, but I'd never go out of my way to do so again. I guess it's nice to know there's an option if I ever needed it, but if I ever get a hankering for a fast food burger, it won't be this one I rush to snatch up.

Have y'all tried it? What were your thoughts?

When Gravelbourg Mustard reached out to me about trying their products, I knew I was in for a treat! I'm always super eager to try out new products and see what I can do with them in the kitchen. I loved that Gravelbourg was a Canadian company, and I loved the unique flavours of mustard they offered. Once I received my package, I ripped it open excitedly and opened 4 jars right away for tasting.

​www.thehappyveg.ca/recipes/sweet-spicy-mustard-roasted-fingerlings

I think the ultimate way to test a mustard is on a Beyond Meat sausage. The sausages have such a punch of flavour that they can stand up to a wickedly flavourful mustard like the Beer Style.

​I'm still playing around with ideas on how to utilize it in a recipe, but if you're someone who likes a vivacious mustard flavour and intense potency, you're going to love the Beer Style mustard for sure!

Get your hands on their collection by visiting their website below. There's a few mustards I've yet to try and will update y'all once I do so. Let me know if you snatch yourself some and what you think. :)

Strong Roots is a proud, Irish company that focuses on fresh produce frozen for our enjoyment. The ingredients are of the freshest variety with a focus on sustainability. Their product line is entirely vegan with a range of products from frozen, take home dinners, to crispy, plant-based & vegetable nuggies. When I spotted their line, I snatched a box and after trying it, went back and grabbed every other frozen meal that they had. As someone who lived in Ireland for just about 2 years, I felt a special connection to a proud, Irish & vegan product line. 

Please disregard the poor lighting in the photos below. They were both taken at night and the lighting is pretty horrendous. On the left, we're looking at the White Ban & Tomato Lentil Stew. Loaded with protein packed beans & lentils, it was light but also super delicious. On the right, the Black Lentil Dahl. The colour of the dahl was striking and as you can see, it too was chalk full of protein packed ingredients that also provided a good amount of fiber. 

BUY BUY BUY! As I said, it's not often that the entire line hits it out of the park, but these dinners were fabulous! I do a lot of my own cooking, but knowing that there's a good quality, nutritious frozen option available to me is absolutely wonderful. I currently have two of them in my freezer and I expect I'll always have one or two in the freezer for those nights where I just want something quick, or an easy meal to bring a long with me to work.

Don't miss out on this line, trust me! I'm keeping my eyes out for the rest of their products which I hope to source sometime soon. Their vegan mac and plant-based nuggies are on my radar. I linked their page below! Take a peek at their website, learn about their history / story, and peep their products / availability. Honestly such a fabulous line you guys!

Right out of the package, I was concerned over the smell. Almost immediately, I was struck by the odour and was worried that not only would it not taste like Spam, but wouldn't taste good at all. Visually, it was kind of giving sliced Spam, so I got to work on getting it fried up like mom used to make. I cooked it according to the package, which suggested frying it from frozen on both sides for 5 to 6 minutes. As it cooked, the smell was persistent, but I think I kind of convinced myself I was smelling spam. I don't know lol. Anyways, one thing I did not love was that it was producing a red like liquid, almost mimicking blood. Spam never bled. Spam was about as processed as anything you could imagine, so the "bleeding" felt wholly unnecessary.

It certainly got very golden brown and crisp which was enticing. I slapped on some cheddar because I don't keep creepy American cheese in my household, and melted that on top. I quickly grilled some bread but didn't grill it long enough, that's my own problem. I slapped the cheesy fried Spam on my bread and gave it a healthy drizzle of yellow mustard. How'd it taste?

GIVE IT A TRY BUY - There were a few things I didn't love. First of all, the smell out of the package was unfortunately off-putting lol. I didn't appreciate the bleeding, which felt incredibly unnecessary to me. I also couldn't understand why there were only 5 pieces in the package. 5? I needed three for my sandwich, so you're kind of left with an uneven amount. That didn't make sense to me. 

Now, what I did love was the nostalgia, and once everything was put together, the flavour of the sandwich was actually pretty delicious. Would I buy it again? If I had a hankering for my mom's fried spamwhich, I'd definitely buy it again, but I don't think it would be something I always have on hand. If you were a SPAM lover back in the day, I'd urge you to give it a try for nostalgia's sake.

Omni Foods is a Hong Kong based company with a variety of plant-based products ranging from seafood to pork and beefless burgers. This was the only product I've seen from them thus far, so I'll keep an eye out for others. Peep the link below to their page and take a peek at what they offer and where to find it!

omnifoods.co/hk-en

B Y P A S S - Ugh, it pains me to give this one a no, but it just wasn't what I was hoping for. I wasn't getting any of those familiar Pho flavours, instead, it was mostly kelp and the spicy Togaroshi. Also, as stated, the noods were undercooked, but if I had cooked them longer, the broth would've been entirely soaked up leaving me with no broth and just a big old bowl of barely cooked noods.

I love their message and they have quite an extensive product line, so I'm not writing this company off entirely. I'll definitely be on the lookout for some of their other products and we'll see how those ones pan out.

Visit oceanshalo.com/ to learn more about the Ocean's Halo products and their commitment to sustainability.

As I twirled my noods on my chopsticks and excitedly brought them to my face, the smell had me ready to jump for joy. That's when I tasted my noodles and immediately knew that this was going downhill quickly. Where was the flavour? There was absolutely NO FLAVOUR WHATSOEVER. I think a good comparison would be like, a cup of steamy tea. You know how tea often times has this aromatic smell, but when you take a swig, it's basically hot water that smells like it wanted to have flavour? Same same here. This broth tasted like absolutely nothing. No flavour whatsoever despite the aromatics of the broth itself. I didn't really know how to help it as it already had 30% of your daily sodium in one cup, so I was incredibly hesitant to pummel it with salt. On top of this however, where was the flavour of the anise or the ginger? There was absolutely nothing.

What I was now looking at was a bowl of veggies and noodles in hot, flavourless water. I was so disgusted with the situation that I tried to eat the veggies for the sake of not wasting them, but every bite was like crisp veggies sitting in boiled water. I couldn't do it. I strained and discarded everything. Lesson learned here you guys; either I take the time to test real recipes until I perfect my own, or I leave it as something that I enjoy going out for and leave it at that. This broth SUCKED!

On first glance, they were kind of thin, but as an addition to my breakfast sandwich, they were just the right size. They were a pale green colour and looked a little frosty if I'm being honest, but I was still excited to try them. I heated up some oil in a non-stick skillet and got to frying them. I fried them until golden brown on both sides which also brought out more of that gorgeous green colour. Once they were fried up, I melted some cheddar on them and assembled my breakfast sammie.

What I'll say is I really appreciated the flavour of the patties themselves. Despite being up against melty cheese, salsa, egg, hashbrown, and pickled peppers, I could really taste the patty. It had a vegetal quality that I found quite delicious and it reinforced the use of vegetables in the patties.