Good & Gather Creamy Chipotle Sauce

There's a fine line between things that taste like they've been genuinely smoked and things that taste like they've had liquid chemical smoke added to them. This condiment falls very much into the latter category, unfortunately. There is, in fact, dried chipotle pepper in this product, although it's on down the ingredients list a ways. In my opinion, there's very little to suggest there's any significant amount of actual smoked, dried peppers in this sauce.

There's plenty that suggests it's made of water and canola oil, because it's mostly just oily and bland. You'd think it'd be a bit more tangy with sour cream, buttermilk powder, and greek yogurt powder in the ingredients. And yum, there's "bacterial cultures" in the mix. Twice! There's a hint of spice, but it's not enough to push this condiment into the category of "hot sauce." It's a very mild level of heat.

I shook the little squeeze bottle vigorously before pouring, as the oil had visibly separated from the rest of the mixture in the bottle. You can almost kind of see it in the picture at the top of the post—and that's already after a moderate amount of shaking the container. I absolutely manhandled the thing after snapping the pic to try to really get it blended well, but even after pouring, there was evidence the oil still hadn't reintegrated with the rest of the composite fully. Kinda gross.

I'm generally a fan of chipotle-flavored things. We even reviewed a chipotle salsa on this blog many moons ago. I think it's one of those flavors that has a lot of potential, but it's easy to screw up. I also think most Americans don't know what good chipotle flavor should taste like. In my humble opinion, this isn't it. Oddly, my Mexican-American wife wasn't quite as turned off by this sauce as I was, although she wasn't exactly wowed and agrees that the spice level is too low.

$2.79 for the 8.4 oz bottle. Not a repeat purchase for me. Maybe if it were cooked into some ground meat or poultry it would blend a bit better. We'll try it that way and report back.

I give this sauce 4 out of 10 stars.

Archer Farms Hawaiian Style Pizza

I really wanted to like this pizza. I really did.

I was very hungry when I ate it, which usually helps a product's score. You know, I'm less critical when famished. A slice of plain bread seems pretty tempting when my belly is growling.

But this pizza was still disappointing. Many of you know I'm not a pork, ham, and bacon kind of guy, for the most part. However, even I like a good Hawaiian pizza every now and again. But this was not a good Hawaiian pizza.

This thing gives our 50th state a bad name. I mean, I'd still like to travel there some day—it's not our southernmost state's fault this weak excuse for a pizza has its name on it.

Unlike many other Archer Farms pizzas, this offering actually looks pretty good. One might ask for a tad more cheese, but there's a surprising amount of Canadian bacon and pineapple on it. Unfortunately, none of the toppings are particularly flavorful.

And the crust was the worst part. It was cardboard-esque—both in texture and in flavor.

Don't believe me on this one? Check out Target's own website, complete with unanimous one star reviews. Even I didn't think it was that bad. But then again, I might have found this product edible because I was extremely hungry when I tried it.

For nutrition facts, just click here.

I'll go with a 4 out of 10 on this one.

Archer Farms Chai Tea Latte

I've always liked chai. I've had some good chai from cafes and coffee houses in my day. And of course, I've had some really good chai mixes from grocery stores. This product, unfortunately, is neither.

My biggest complaint is that it's chalky. I don't know what other word I could use to describe it. No matter how much shaking I did, I just didn't feel like the product was smooth. It felt and tasted like it had just come from a powdered mix. And there was...this, like, medicinal taste.

It wasn't all that sweet, and it wasn't all that spicy. It did taste vaguely like chai...but it was a second-rate chai at best.

A couple months back, we felt similarly disappointed with AF's Raspberry Dark Mocha Latte. Both Sonia and I thought it was "watery" or watered-down-tasting.

I felt the same about this chai. Rather than tasting a rich, spicy flavor—or even a milky flavor, I just tasted water and a goofy, lightly-sweetened powder. My wife thinks this product is significantly better than the raspberry mocha, but I would actually have to say that it's a little worse.

I was going to give this product the same score as the raspberry mocha, but after giving it a second chance and trying another bottle this morning, I am even more displeased than I was with the first bottle. These chai lattes are nasty.

I give this product 4 out of 10 stars.

Archer Farms Bacon Carbonara Lunch Bowl

So far, AF is batting straight zeros on these lunch bowls. No wonder I see them on clearance every time I'm at Target. I was hoping that an Italian-inspired dish like this would turn out to be tastier than the Kung Pao Noodles or the Southwest Couscous, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

It took a great deal of stirring to completely dissolve the powder into the water. That combined with the six and a half minute heating time is a little lengthy if you happen to be in a breakroom at work where you might be sharing a microwave with a bunch of hungry co-workers who need to use it, too.

Even after stirring profusely and heating for nearly seven minutes, the pasta was still too firm, although once I let the bowl sit for four or five minutes after it was out of the microwave, the little penne noodles did soften up a tad.

The resulting entree was soupy, though I had used the indicated amount of water. The sauce was both too thin and a bit chalky. But the worst part of the product were the bacon bits.

At first, certain bites seemed worse than others, and I couldn't figure out what was causing the inconsistency. Soon, I realized that the bites with the most bacon bits were the worst ones of all. The bacon felt and tasted like cardboard, and it was almost bitter. Bitter bacon. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Terrible.

The product would have been edible if not for the bacon bits. If you happen to try this product, leave out the bacon, but sprinkle it on later just to confirm how awful it is. Without the bacon, I would have given this lunch bowl about 6 stars.

As it is, I give this product 4 out of 10 stars.

Archer Farms Banana Cream Pie Yogurt

Unfortunately, this yogurt's a bit boring for my taste. Despite the delicious-looking dessert pictured on the cup, the product within tastes like a bland, plain yogurt with a touch of fake banana flavoring.

A few banana chunks would have helped a lot. Or maybe little bits of vanilla cookies or crumbs of shortbread or something. At least bits of banana wouldn't have made it any more fattening.

Low-fat yogurt always seemed like a good tide-me-over snack. It usually hits the spot pretty well. Fat free yogurt, however, usually tastes bland and leaves me wanting more. And if my snack doesn't hit the proverbial "spot," I'll usually just eat more, which kind of defeats the purpose of eating no-fat or low-fat foods in the first place.

I love banana cream pie, and I generally love flavored yogurt, but this version was a thumbs-down in my opinion. If you disagree, I welcome dissenting opinions in the comments below. Let me know what you think.

I'll be trying more Archer Farms yogurt flavors very soon, so let's see if they can do better than this one!

I give this product 4 out of 10 stars.