Private Selection Frozen Foods - Great for Entertaining or Anytime! (BzzAgent)

This month I was lucky enough to have been selected by bzzagent.com to taste test the Private Secetion (R) Frozen Food line which is available at the Kroger family of stores.  I was pretty excited to try these people I love to cook, but often don't have time to - especially during the holidays.  On first glance these really seemed like they would be great candatites for easy appetizers for holidays or cocktail parties this holiday season, and they were!

The first thing I tried were the spanakopita.  These are an indulgence in my house - we tend to buy them once or twice a year from Sam's Club or Costco for special occasions so I was excited to see how well they stacked up to the ones we usually buy.  When I first picked them up in the store I was actually pleased by the box size (the boxes are smaller then average) and the price which reflects the packaging.  Each box holds 12 size spanakopita (for 3.99 here in louisville at the present time,) which means I can easily pick these up more often to make a weeknight or date night extra special.  Taste wise we thought these were on par with the other frozen spanakopita we've bought in the past so we will certainly be buying them again. We also purchased the pepperoni and garlic pizza which we thought crisped up really nicely and had a great spiciness from the pepperoni and garlic.  (We do love our garlic though, so if you aren't fans of garlic this might not be a good thing for your family.)  We also happened to pick up the vanilla cream puffs, another rare indulgence for our family.  We thought they thawed out night and quick and while the box seemed a tad small for what we paid they were some of the creamiest cream puffs we've gotten out of the freezer section so we found we didn't miss the larger package.

We were quite happy with the selections and we thought all of the products we tasted were on par with the brand name pizzas and appetizers and deserts we usually buy at higher prices.  Since these of course are still "gourmet" frozen fare they are still a little more expensive then some of your other options out there (and more expensive then some of the other things I highlight here in my coupon blog) they are great products for those extra special nights or when you are looking for something easy to make for entertaining for the holidays or any other time throughout the year!

Science Diet's Ideal Balance Dog Food (BzzAgent)

As I may or may not have mentioned here earlier, I became a bzzagent a few months ago.  One of the recent things I was allowed to try was Science Diet's new Ideal Balance dog food.

When I received this bag of food and was able to look into it more I was really pleasantly surprised! This formulation does not have much of what I dislike about many commercial dog foods and it does in fact contain all of the things every dog owner should be making sure they are providing - no corn or cheap filler grains, and real meat (which is the first ingredient.)

My dogs were not overly fond of this food, while they did eat it they chose to eat their previous dog food first and leave the science diet in the bowl to eat last. While I didn't see any dramatic difference in them, their coats did seem a touch less shiny. This would not be my first choice as a dog food, but I think this is a decently formulated product and one I am glad to see science diet offering.  I run into a lot of people in the pet food isle asking me for help, a lot of them aren't comfortable buying some of the brands I recommend (often ones never heard of) but I will be happy to recommend this one and I won't have to feel guilty about watching them walk away with this something that makes me very very happy.

If you would like to learn a bit more about pet nutrition, Hill's Science Diet has partnered with this site, PetMD to teach consumers more about dog food.  While their site is not all inclusive it is a great place to start if you are looking to learn more!