Some Everyday Eat At Home Foods

Time for another write up about average everyday eat at home foods. This is the kind of stuff most of us buy at the grocery store and eat once in a while, or everyday depending on what it is. These are some of the foods that I have tried and either bought again because I liked them, or never bought again because I didn't like them. Not everything is here as there are some items no longer available (things are seasonal here, and that includes things you would think are not seasonal), or I didn't get any pix of them yet. Next time.

This is my favorite cereal so far. It's very close to the health food store cereals I used to buy back in Canada. In other words, it's tasty without being killer sweet and the flavor is a real grain taste as opposed to the highly processed tastes of your average grocery store mass market cereals. And, for a big name food conglomerate cereal, that's amazing in itself. But, that is to be expected here as Koreans are very health conscious and will not eat highly processed foods. That's a good thing.

It also stays relatively crunchy in soy milk, too. For those who have never used soy milk before, it has the consistency of water. So cereals, unless they are hearty, go soggy FAST. This one is not bad.

This cereal is also not too bad in taste except that it is a bit too bland for my liking. When I said before that the other cereal was not too sweet, this one would be almost no sweet at all. It also has a higher natural grain content (from what I can tell from the box) with less of the other processed filler grains. But, it also goes soggy almost INSTANTLY in soy milk. Sort of the like the consistency of sawdust at points! Not one of my favorite cereals.

When shopping for soy milk here, it's unlike any experience in North America. Where there are only a few shelves of the stuff back there, and usually only in health foods stores, although that is slowly changing, at least in the better neighborhoods of the cities, there is almost half an aisle of the stuff from bottom shelf to top shelf at the store I frequent. The variety and prices range from cheap to a bit more than reasonable. Soy milks for adults to special ones for babies in different age ranges abound. There are too many to try and trying to figure out all the ingredients is a bit difficult at best as my Korean SUCKS. Anyways, I tried a few, at least those that I can be sure are unsweetened.

I like this soy milk. It has a nutty flavor along with another flavor that I have no idea how to describe. As it is unsweetened, it does not overload the sweetness of the cereal either. It goes well with the first cereal above. Although, like all soy milk, it's an acquired taste. It also does not kill (make soggy) a cereal as fast either.

This second soy milk has a taste I am not too fond of as it seems to overpower the cereals I have tried it in. The taste is a bit too strange for my liking, although it does grow on you after a while. And, it kills (makes soggy) the cereals really badly, especially the second cereal. But, as the other one is quite good, I'll stick to it. And, as for trying the hundreds of others (it seems like there are hundreds, but maybe that's just the endless wall of them I see when I'm there), in time.

Oooh! Best potato chip I have ever eaten! They even have the potato skin on them. Cut like supper skinny fries and crunchy, crunchy, crunchy. Almost break your teeth crunchy. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration, but you get the idea. They are ideally salty, not too much and not too little, and have this very slight, almost imperceptible spiciness to them. I found them quite by accident while rounding a corner of an aisle. I better stock up soon as things never last too long around here. Here today, gone a few months from now.

Now, if you have ever eaten a potato chip by the name of "Mr. Vickies", and no I do not mean "Miss Vickies", you will have some idea what this chip is like. Mr. Vickies potato chip only appeared on the market for a few months and disappeared forever. Quite possibly the best chip ever made. But, it didn't sell well as North American tastes are not geared towards subtle flavor, but to knockout salty, sweet, or sour. Gross! Anyways, if you're a potato chip lover, it's one of those things you must experience before checking out of this life.

The best coffee candy I have ever eaten. And, I've tried a few different ones here. The taste harkens back to my youth as this coffee candy tastes almost identically (about 95% at least) to the one from my memories as a young child. And, memories with their expectations of "perfection" are the hardest things to live up to. It has a strong, yet gentle coffee taste that is smoothed out with just the right amount of creaminess and sweetness. I can eat these things all day. But, I'd better not!

My favorite cookie so far. It's a lemon flavored cream cookie sandwich type cookie with a medium light flakey cookie outer that just blends so well together. Ironically, I bought these cookies for my summer camp students and the kids didn't like this particular flavor (chocolate lovers as all kids are) and I ended up trying them myself and liking them. When I eat cookies, these are the ones!

Hoping to duplicate the success of the lemon flavored cookies, except this time in pineapple flavor, I found these to be disappointing. They are too hard, dry, and there is no pineapple flavor that I can taste. They are a bit too sour for my taste. Sour here is not like sour in North America. It's very subtle as opposed to kill your taste buds for the next few hours sour. I gave the rest to my kids at school.

The best mass produced orange juice I have ever tasted. Fresh squeezed being the absolute best I have ever had, though. It's tasty with just the right amount of sweetness and pulp. Not too watered down and close enough to the real thing that I won't complain about it. I have a glass every morning with breakfast.

Ironically, "Tropicana", which is the brand I used to drink in Canada, and considered amongst the best mass produced OJ's, was just absolutely horrible here; sour, watery, no pulp, and just plain awful. Never again!

A pretty decent digestive biscuit with a slight sweetness to it if a bit bland and dry. Although, the whole grain taste was nice. But, I prefer the chocolate covered on one side ones, though. Unfortunately, chocolate makes me break out and these were worth a try. I'll stick to my lemon cookies instead.

I was curious to try these dried persimmons (as I love fresh persimmons) after reading about them by other food bloggers. And, I was not disappointed. They seem to be a seasonal item as well like a lot of things here. Nice and sweet with a texture somewhat like dried figs except much, much, softer and squishier. The flat end persimmons are better than the original pointed end persimmons when it comes to this food, though. The pointed end persimmons were just not as sweet and the large seeds made eating them a bit of a chore at times. I'm no good when it comes to seeds. I have a really hard time with watermelon and seeded grapes, too. Anyways, for those who hate the slippery and "snotty" texture of fresh persimmons, you will find these a better way of eating them without the grossness quotient of the fresh ones. I highly recommend them if you can find them. Usually frozen in the freezer, but not always. Sometimes they are just refrigerated.

Yeah, I know the picture makes them look gross, but that is the way they look.

Ginger Ale is non-existent here. I have to make do with a Korean version of, basically, 7-Up. I use this stuff when I am either sick in bed with the flu, or have the runs big time. Plus, I have this with my "burger and fries combo" on the weekends at LotteRia. I like it because it is not as overloaded with sugar as 7-Up and Mountain Dew are, both of which are available here along with Coca Cola, and Pepsi.

Obviously by now, especially if you've been following this blog for any length of time, you can tell I like the more sensibly flavored and less chemical additive rich foods and drinks here a lot.

Just like health food store pistachios back in Canada; NO salt and NO carcinogenic red dye. You mean pistachios are NOT red? Better wake up and really research the foods that you are eating. You may find that you've been sold a bill of goods. Start with a movie entitled "Food Inc." And, that's just the tip of the iceberg; a really, really, GINORMOUS iceberg!

Again, just like the banana chips at the health food stores back in Canada; sweet, but not too sweet, and very crunchy. Of course, flavorful, too.

I'm not really a fan of the way they do dried figs here, though. They are too dry! If you are familiar with dried figs, they come in a variety of states; over dry and opaque (which makes them hard and sour), translucent (which makes them really sweet and "juicy" without that sour sting), and midway between too dry and translucent (which is still quite good except not as good as translucent).

Whenever I shopped for them in Canada, I would search out the packaging for the translucent dried figs. They were easy to spot as the packaging was plain transparent plastic wrap. And, the stores had stacks and stacks of them to choose from. All imported from Greece, too. The ones here are in these sterile plastic jars that make it hard to see what is inside and there are not too many to choose from either. Spotting translucent ones was not too hard, though. But, they were always mixed in with the hard opaque ones. Win some, lose some. Plus, they're highly over priced. Imports, obviously.

I've never tried dried pineapple before till now. Not my fave. I find them a bit too sour for my liking. I have no basis for comparison here otherwise. Sorry!

Plus, pineapple dries out my skin and gives me skin problems. Although, it's the fresh juice that does it to me more than the dried fruit would.

Well, there you have it. Another miscellaneous foods round up for your consumption. It's time for bed as I've stayed up past my bedtime to get this done (it's ok, though, as my fist class tomorrow is not until first lunch).

Good night!