Bird's Eye Voila Frozen Dinners Review

Through Foodbuzz' Tastemaker Program, I'm reviewing Bird's Eye Voila frozen dinner. I receive a coupon to purchase a bag for free, and also received buy one get one coupons to pass around.

You may find it odd that a food blogger who cooks from scratch would even consider reviewing a frozen dinner. Well, they aren't all bad. There are brands that use real ingredients instead of the overly processed, and are similar to meals you'd cook at home. This, however, was not one of those. I honestly wanted to find something I liked about it, and perhaps one of the other flavors would have been better.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to say for Garlic Shrimp. It says that it's a full mean, but there is only about 1 cup of cooked pasta to be split amongst 3.5 servings. The garlic butter sauce seemed a bit like the topping on frozen garlic bread. The addition corn was ridiculous since it's so cheap, and I felt as if that's the only reason it was added. For the price (about $6 a bag), it's not a value. It's not very filling and the ingredients aren't good enough to make the purchase worthwhile.

Since I needed to enhance it, I chopped up some additional garlic, bell peppers, and onions to saute. I added spices before I added the frozen mixture.

Besides not having much pasta, there was even less shrimp. Another disappointment.

After cooking the contents according to the direction, I fished out all the pasta and added a can of coconut milk. I then mixed a little of the milk with corn starch to thicken the sauce, serving alongside rice. This was much more filling than had I eaten the meal on its own.

I don't like writing negative reviews. I try and select products I feel will benefit you all to learn about, but sadly that wasn't the case today. I'm really lackluster about this, seeing as it was simply a bag of mixed frozen vegetables with a bit of pasta and shrimp tossed in (which you can replicate for less yourself), and I know I won't be buying it again in the future.

IZZEcake

Remember the cake I talked about? Here it is! Since the juices are so good, I wanted to incorporate them in a baked treat. I have always been curious about champagne cakes, so I decided to use a recipe for one, replacing the champagne with IZZE Sparkling Blackberry juice.

I ran into some trouble along the way. The cake baked up fine, though the tops stuck to the cooling rack, and I had trouble lifting them off without tearing. This wouldn't have mattered much, except I sliced each layer in half to create a four layer cake. In the end, you can't tell.

My other snafu was the icing. I settled on making a confectioners' sugar based buttercream (I wouldn't suggest it -- it's too sweet), but ran out of sugar. I had just enough to ice between the layers and give the cake a crumb coat.
Since I couldn't leave it unfinished, I figured I'd make a half a recipe of 7-minute icing. Halfway along the way, I remembered how unstable it is, as it begins to dissolve after a day. No problem. Beating in butter will turn it into a Swiss meringue buttercream of sorts, right? The problem I encountered here was that I only had half a stick of unsalted butter in the fridge, which wasn't enough. As I whipped the butter into the frosting at high speed, I frantically attempted to soften frozen butter in the microwave. I didn't quite succeed at this, though I got enough softened butter chunks to make it work. After an extra stick and a half of butter, the buttercream whipped up into something resembling icing. A bit grainy, but I didn't mind.

The taste of the finished cake is delicious, even though you can tell there are two icings. The flavor of the IZZE isn't strong, but it gives the cake a fruity essence so I'd call it a success.

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If you would like the recipe, click through to this page. Other than replacing the champagne with the juice, I decreased the sugar to 1 1/2 cups to account for the sweetness the juice contains. I didn't use the icing from the recipe.

IZZE Sparkling Fruit Juice Review

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by an IZZE representative about reviewing the IZZE juices. Being familiar with IZZE juices, I took her up on the offer. They sent me a generous package filled with 6 different varieties, from their regular line, their IZZE-esque line (a lower calorie juice), IZZE Fortified, sparkling juice enhanced with vitamins.

IZZE was started by two friends who wanted to create a natural version of the European sodas they tried, and since then IZZE has become a company whose goal is to create a product that is not only good for you, but good for the world. They've partnered with the Global Education Fund to improve the lives of children living in poverty through education. It's cool to learn of a company who uses what they have to help others. You can learn more about their work at IZZE, Giving Back.

Their commitment to excellence is evident by the ingredient label. Each juice is made up of a 70% pure fruit juice to 30% sparkling water ratio, with no added refined sugar. There are 29 grams of sugar per bottle, all from the fruit juices. The IZZE Esque, the light version, has just 11 grams of sugar, though the fruit juice is reduced to 25%. I liked how they didn't use any type of sugar substitute, natural or artificial. The flavor is lighter in comparison to the regular IZZE, but I liked it just the same. IZZE is available in a wide range of flavors. Besides berries and melons, you can find ginger and birch!

In tomorrow's post, I will feature a recipe made from the IZZE Sparkling Blackberry. Along with the juices, they sent me a booklet that had a view recipe cards, so I wanted to use the juices in that application instead of simply reviewing the products.

Thanks again to IZZE for your generosity in giving me the opportunity to review your products on my blog.